We’re kicking off with a review of last year. We covered fewer epidemiology papers in 2025 – as set out in the 700th note (Ref 1). There are only so many times you can say association not causation, ...

Happy New Year! We’re kicking off with a review of last year. We covered fewer epidemiology papers in 2025 – ...

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 ...

* PCSK9s are relatively recent additions to the array of cholesterol lowering drugs. They are delivered by injection – fortnightly or monthly. One PCSK9 is called evolocumab. * A 2023 paper reported ...

An excellent presentation was posted on Youtube on 12 February 2017 (try this if the first link doesn’t work). Just 22 minutes long, it is well worth a watch. The speaker, Professor Salim Yusuf, is a ...

(Jump to the Executive Summary at the end if you don’t want the full monty). This is a review of a book written by James & Hannah Yoseph entitled How statin drugs really lower cholesterol: and kill ...

* 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. The diet heart ...

* This note summarises what carbohydrates are, from fructose to fibre. * It briefly looks at the role carbohydrates have played historically – feeding and growing the population and freeing people up ...

* 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 ...

* 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 ...

Executive summary * The official positions from the World Health Organisation (WHO), the US Centres for Disease Control (CDC), the US Surgeon General and the UK Deputy Chief Medical officer are ...

* 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 ...