Brawn Builds Brain

The over-emphasis on shedding body fat has obscured a critical component of good health: having enough muscle. The role of our muscles goes far beyond running for the bus, carrying the shopping [...]

Protein Power

The word protein comes from the Greek ‘proteios’ meaning ‘primary’ or ‘first rank’ because proteins are an indispensable nutrient in the human diet. They are a vital component of every cell in [...]

Too much of a good thing

Even though eating the recommended amount of fibre helps prevent diabetes, if you have long-standing diabetes (usually over 10 years), your stomach can become less effective at emptying due to a [...]

Fibre Fix

How much fibre do you need? That depends … Paleo-biologists estimate that in some parts of the world, paleo man consumed about 100 grams of fibre (combined soluble + insoluble) per day. Today’s [...]

Ready, aim, fibre!

Why is something destined for the toilet so important to our health? Dietary fibre (also known as ‘roughage’ or ‘bulk’) is the indigestible portion of plant foods. It passes relatively unchanged [...]

D stands for Diverse

What do mushrooms, eggs, milk, cheese, butter, oily fish (salmon, mackerel, tuna), caviar and liver have in common? They are all dietary sources of vitamin D. Vitamin D actually refers to a group [...]

Goldilocks got it right

One minute we hear from the Cancer Council that Australia is the skin cancer capital of the world because we spend too much time in the sun. The next minute I read in the Medical Journal of [...]