12th October 2026 Newsletter Monday Ouch, just ouch. Hello Reader, Something rather interesting is happening out there. According to yesterday’s Guardian, demand for private shingles vaccinations is soaring. And it’s got very little to do with shingles itself. Instead, it’s the result of emerging research suggesting the vaccine might also reduce the risk of dementia. People (who aren’t eligible for NHS vaccination) are prepared to pay around £450 for the privilege. Firstly, I’m delighted to...
13 days ago • 5 min read
5th October 2026 Newsletter Monday Not my best lunch this year Hello Reader, Food gets so much more attention than exercise these days. We all have to eat. Exercise remains, unfortunately, optional. Declare a food group dangerous and you’ve given everyone something to worry about at their next supermarket shop. The algorithms love it. Journalists get an article. The rest of us stand in the bread aisle wondering whether lunch is trying to kill us. I’m interested in nutrition too. I’ve spent...
20 days ago • 3 min read
28th September 2026 Newsletter Monday What can I really help with? Hello Reader, Recently, a reader asked me about having a steroid injection for what I think was a frozen shoulder. She’d heard the pros and cons and was still unsure whether to go ahead. It’s a good question, because depending on who you talk to, you might think it’s a waste of time or the answer to your prayers. When tablets haven’t helped, an injection can feel like a step up. There’s a needle, a skilled person wielding it,...
27 days ago • 3 min read
21st September 2026 Newsletter Monday Show some love for the egg Hello Reader, For as long as I have been a GP, pregnant women have asked me about peanuts. “Should I avoid eating nuts while I’m pregnant?” Usually because they’ve heard that eating peanuts during pregnancy might make their baby more likely to develop a peanut allergy. And, actually, this didn’t originate with TikTok, Instagram or somebody selling a pregnancy nutrition course. We did say it. Until 2009, UK government advice...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
14th September 2026 Newsletter Monday Now, now, now Hello Reader, It’s tricky not to take some headlines a bit personally when you’re a GP. Here’s one that prickled at me this weekend: “Doctors prescribe drugs without mentioning dementia risk.” It’s from The Times, which means it’s behind a paywall. As I’m not currently a subscriber, I was initially left with just a headline to irritate me. So I went digging. The article concerns a group of medicines called anticholinergics, many in that...
about 1 month ago • 5 min read
7th September 2026 Newsletter Monday You know when something is fashionable Hello Reader, I was reading a new study last week that caught my attention for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it was about nutrition and exercise as we get older, which are subjects I spend rather a lot of time talking about. Secondly, it was carried out at Queen’s University Belfast. I am married to a Northern Irishman and have spent enough time there to know that any nutritional intervention taking place in Northern...
about 2 months ago • 5 min read
31st August 2026 Newsletter Monday Statins are back in the headlines. Hello Reader, I can think of very few drugs that provoke opinions quite as strong as statins. GLP-1 medications are probably giving them a run for their money at the moment, but plenty of people will never need to consider taking a GLP-1. Statins, on the other hand, are something almost all of us will encounter eventually — either because we’re offered one ourselves, or because someone we know is. So when the results of a...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
24th August 2026 Newsletter Monday Peggy Hello Reader, I was going to make a social media post about NAD+ and NMN last week. Then I got a puppy. So absolutely nothing happened. But perhaps Peggy did me a favour, because the more I thought about this subject, the more I realised it was bigger than a post. If you’ve spent any time in the longevity corners of the internet, you will probably have come across NAD+. In fact, if your algorithm senses you're looking at health supplements, you'll...
2 months ago • 4 min read
17th August 2026 Newsletter Monday You are more than data Hello Reader, I was reading a new research paper this weekend and, to be honest, it wasn’t especially surprising. It echoed what we’ve seen many times before. Losing excess weight is generally associated with improvements in health. But as always, there are caveats. Lose too much muscle along the way and some of those benefits begin to disappear. Exercise is one of the best ways of protecting against that. Good. Useful. Expected. It...
2 months ago • 3 min read