Going on holiday is a stressful business – I usually find that by the time we all arrive at our given destination I really need a holiday, whether or not I needed one a couple of weeks beforehand. From the bikini diet through the bikini shopping (ouch!) to tickets, passports, packing everything necessary for three…
The UK, and in fact Western nations in general, are in the grip of an epidemic in the form of type 2 diabetes; this is not surprisingly generally caused by living a Western lifestyle and is strongly linked with obesity. Obesity rates in the UK have increased 10 fold in the last 40 years and…
Most of us know that losing weight by conventional diet and exercise plans is difficult, and just as many of us know that keeping that weight off in the long term through diet and exercise alone is almost impossible. This is not a new concept – about fifty years ago a Dr Stunkard who was…
My job can be very unpredictable, simply because it is not possible to know with any great certainty what the next person to walk through my door is going to say. I might think that because I saw them two weeks ago, checked their blood pressure and advised them that it needed to be rechecked…
One lesson I have learned since starting work as a GP is that women worry about their periods. A lot. They worry about them being too heavy, long, light, short (trust me, some women actually see those two as a problem!) frequent, infrequent, irregular, painful and a whole host of other issues besides, and I…
Pills and potions can be wonderful things. They ease pain, eliminate infection, lift mood, reduce indigestion, reduce blood pressure, or with the right dose and combination, can have just about any other effect on the human body that it is possible to have. They make my job considerably easier and it is often tempting to…
Every single day that I sit at my surgery desk, at least one patient – and usually a lot more than one – will sit with a resigned expression, sigh and say ‘I know I need to lose weight, you don’t need to tell me’. They say it in a number of predictable situations; sometimes…
Ah, the menopause, such a mixed blessing for most of us. There exists the wonderful realisation that those pesky monthly bleeds are now the stuff of nostalgia and contraception never needs to be an issue ever again, but there can be a heavy price to pay in terms of the hot flushes, mood swings, short…
One of the themes that runs through my life as a GP is that I never cease to be amazed at the rollercoaster lives that so many people seem to have – I have witnessed rags to riches – and riches to rags – stories that would sit very comfortably in any women’s weekly magazine,…
We are constantly being bombarded by the media and health professionals (and health websites!) about the perils of being overweight or obese – the statistics are that at least two thirds of the UK adult population is now in one of these categories, and I now find myself having to use the term ‘healthy weight’…
