Health Benefits of Jogging

Since the 1970’s jogging has become an increasingly popular form of exercise. Jogging means running at a gentle pace. Going at a pace of less than 6 miles per hour (10 km per hour) is usually defined as jogging, while running is defined as anything faster than 6 miles per hour. There are many reasons why … Read more

Statins and Diabetes – Time to Let the Cat out of the Bag

Recently, concerns have been raised about the increased risk of diabetes associated with statin therapy. However, it has been pointed out that the risk of diabetes is low in absolute terms and when compared with the reduction in cardiovascular events achieved by treatment. In other words, the potential benefits to health are believed to outweigh potential … Read more

Metabolic Syndrome and Insulin Resistance

The metabolic syndrome is a constellation of risk factors, most usually associated with increased body weight, fat accumulation around the abdominal organs often termed central, or visceral obesity (1), and increased resistance to the effects of insulin. Other names that have been used to describe the metabolic syndrome are syndrome X, the insulin resistance syndrome, the deadly quartet (2) and … Read more

Cholesterol and Heart Disease – A Quick Look Beyond

The word cholesterol is inherent to heart disease. Just like Paris is the capital of France and the Moon orbits the Earth, so cholesterol is associated with heart disease. And common knowledge extends further. Most people know that cholesterol is measured in blood and that there’s is supposed to be both good and bad cholesterol. Bad cholesterol may … Read more

The Lipid Hypothesis – Closing in on the Truth

Today was a big day at the annual conference of the American Heart Association in Chicago. The results of the long and eagerly awaited IMPROVE-IT trial were presented. You may think IMPROVE-IT is just another ordinary study of the efficacy of a particular cholesterol lowering drug. But it’s more than that because it tests the important and heavily debated lipid … Read more