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Five-a-day of fruit and veg is good, but '10 is better'
Conclusion This research supports the idea that the more fruit and veg you eat the better – at least, up to 10 portions (800g) a day. It also suggests the number of people who die early might be reduced if they were to eat more than the current recommended guideline daily amount. However, before we take this at face value, there are some important considerations: There are likely to be many confounding factors that may have affected the results. It might be that people who eat a lot of fruit and veg are also more likely to be physically active, consume less alcohol, not smoke and be a healthy weight, or other facto...
Source: NHS News Feed - February 23, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Heart/lungs Cancer Medical practice Source Type: news

Exercise 'most proven method' to prevent return of breast cancer
Conclusion This was a helpful summary of recent research into how lifestyle changes impact on the risk of breast cancer returning, but it does have some limitations. Researching lifestyle factors separately is always difficult as they tend to clump together, making it difficult to pick apart individual factors. For example, people who are more physically active tend to have a healthier diet and are less likely to drink excessive amounts of alcohol or smoke. While the researchers say many studies attempt to make adjustments for these confounding factors, it is difficult to know which studies did this and how successful they...
Source: NHS News Feed - February 22, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Cancer QA articles Lifestyle/exercise Source Type: news

Handful of nuts 'cuts heart disease and cancer' risk
Conclusions This systematic review finds evidence that nut intake may be linked with reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer and death. The systematic review has several strengths. It identified a large number of studies with a large total sample size. It also included only prospective cohorts assessing nut consumption and then followed up later disease outcomes. It excluded cross sectional studies, which assess diet and disease at the same time, and so can't show the direction of effect. It also excluded cohorts that have retrospectively questioned diet when the person already has the disease, which could be subjec...
Source: NHS News Feed - December 5, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Cancer Heart/lungs Source Type: news

Eating one egg a day may lower risk of stroke
Conclusion This research broadly supports previous studies in this area, which suggest eating eggs does not increase the chances of getting heart disease or stroke. It raises the possibility that eggs may decrease the risk of having a stroke, but there are limitations to the study, meaning this result may not be reliable. It's interesting that researchers did not find a "dose response" between stroke risk and the number of eggs eaten. Usually, if something is having an effect on the chances of getting a condition, you can see a linear pattern – having more of that food or treatment increases or decreases chanc...
Source: NHS News Feed - November 2, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Neurology Heart/lungs Source Type: news

Half a handful of nuts a day 'reduces early death risk'
Conclusion This Dutch cohort of middle-aged to elderly adults generally found people were less likely to die in the following 10 years if they ate a small number of nuts a day compared with none. The study has strengths in its large sample size and that cause of death was followed up for the full cohort using valid medical codes. However, there are various points to bear in mind before we jump to the conclusion that nuts are the magic ingredient that will slash our risk of death. No clear trends It is difficult to draw any clear interpretations about how nut consumption may be associated with risk of death overall or fr...
Source: NHS News Feed - June 12, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Cancer Heart/lungs Diabetes Source Type: news

Lack of vitamin D may 'raise dementia risk'
Conclusion This cohort study of more than 1,650 elderly people has found that over 5.6 years, severe vitamin D deficiency is associated with approximately twice the risk of developing dementia or Alzheimer's disease. It also found moderate deficiency is associated with a 50% increase in risk compared with healthy levels of vitamin D. With this being a cohort study, it was not able to show that low levels of vitamin D caused dementia or Alzheimer's disease – it was simply able to show an association. Other factors that can increase the risk of developing dementia, such as a poor diet, lack of activity and general poor h...
Source: NHS News Feed - August 7, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Lifestyle/exercise Older people Neurology Mental health Source Type: news

Saturated fat link with heart disease questioned
This article is one doctor's opinion based on his own knowledge, research and experience. However, it is fair to say there is an ongoing debate about how far cholesterol is a risk factor for heart disease, especially in people who are otherwise healthy. There is also a similar debate about the use of statins in people who have no evidence of cardiovascular disease. This is alongside ongoing research into the components of LDL and the different types of lipoproteins known to increase risk the most. None of this relevant new evidence is covered by the news reporting.   What should you eat? There is no need to change curren...
Source: NHS News Feed - October 23, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Food/diet QA articles Source Type: news

Eating your 5 A DAY 'could make you more optimistic'
Conclusion This is well-conducted research which has used a validated measure to assess the optimism of a sample of middle-aged American citizens and measure their blood antioxidant levels. The researchers found a link between higher carotenoid levels and higher optimism, but as the researchers rightly conclude, their findings do not prove cause and effect and it isn’t possible to say in which direction the relationship is going. It is possible that having higher levels of antioxidants in the body leads to better physical health and this in turn enhances optimism, but then it is equally possible that people who are in be...
Source: NHS News Feed - January 18, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Mental health Source Type: news