Executive summary * A paper was published on 5th February 2026 which generated headlines such as “Statins don’t cause most ...

Cholesterol is utterly life vital. We would die instantly without it. If you’re already wondering why we would want to lower cholesterol, you’re in the right place. My original research showed that ...

Introduction We’re on the second of a four part note documenting “How to read a paper.” Last week we looked ...

Executive summary * This week's note is about Dr Malcolm Kendrick's new book called The Clot Thickens. * Malcolm has been trying for 30 years to understand and explain what really causes heart disease ...

* This week's note was inspired by a newsletter about a presentation (by Denise Minger) about a diet used decades ago for the treatment of obesity and other health conditions. * The diet was called ...

Many thanks to Mike for suggesting this note. Mike wanted to understand more about the types of studies that are used in the Monday notes. He specifically mentioned ...

* Last week's note reviewed a Korean population study, which led to headlines such as "Taking statins could slash dementia risk." The claims were not robust. * This week's note reports findings from a ...

* Most papers presenting the benefits of statins have been done by the Oxford Cholesterol Treatment Trialists (CTT) team. They tend to present benefits of statins in relative risk terms – with claims ...

* This week's note is about something I don't like the taste of – alcohol. * A large systematic review identified 107 population studies, which had examined alcohol intake and deaths from any cause.

During the recent update of our zoeharcombe.com web site we reviewed the hundreds of articles to assign them the best category and tag matches for optimal searching. I also chose my favourite articles ...

The UK Sun newspaper seems to have been the first to pick up this story: “‘CARBFUSION’ Low-carb diets are ‘damaging the nation’s health’ say Slimming World experts” (Ref 1). It was soon covered by ...

* Continuing our mini-series on seed oils, this note summarises the randomised controlled trial (RCT) evidence for studies that reduced and/or modified fat intake. Fat intake modification aimed to ...