Latest Posts
Good for you: delicious, leafy vegetables are grown in a polytunnel (Photo: Ben Russell)
Luckily for his wife, Elsie, Jim Campbell is a research scientist. So – when she began feverishly eating lettuce, he realised that Elsie’s body was trying to tell her something. Having discovered that lettuce contains various nutrients and minerals which the body loses when fighting cancer – and which Elsie was unwittingly trying to put back – breast cancer was diagnosed. After surgery and treatment, the lettuce craving disappeared and Elsie – now six years on – is enormously grateful to her husband for spotting the… Read More
False colour image of cancer cells attached to normal human cells before treatment (Photo: ALAMY)
Three emails dropped into my inbox last week, all of them describing a test – at various stages of research – which, if proved to work, will improve patients’ chances of early diagnosis or more effective, speedier and cheaper forms of treatment.
Barrett’s oesophagus puts patients at risk of developing oesophageal cancer. The condition affects patients with severe and persistent heartburn or indigestion where the oesophagus is exposed to acid and bile – known as gastro-oesphageal reflux or GORD. Abnormal… Read More
Is Alastair Campbell the new Lord Byron?
Is there no beginning to Alastair Campbell’s talents? Tabloid reporter, spin doctor, diarist, novelist and now, it would seem, poet.
This morning on his blog he published When the Mind Cracks, a poem inspired by his own breakdown in 1986. One hesitates, of course, to be mean about such a sensitive subject – and the cause is a good one, a book published by a school in aid of Help for Heroes – but the poem itself really is the most execrable fifth form drivel.
Are there any positives? Well, I’ve read it twice now and it… Read More
Obesity affects hormones more than smoking (Photo: Getty)
The believed causes of breast cancer are myriad and well-documented – family history; age; time and type of menopause (i.e. natural or induced by surgery where ovaries are removed); whether or not the woman has had children; over-indulgence of alcohol; smoking; HRT; a compromised immune system etc. To this long list has just been added the height of the person, the age at which a woman began menstruating and – perhaps most crucially – obesity.
Breast cancer is not just one cancer. Information on the CancerHelp website gives 16 different types – 17 if… Read More
Children are very lucky to have grandparents (Photo: Alamy)
‘Tell the children about chucking a stone at the Germans, Daddy,” I pleaded over lunch. My father didn’t need to be asked twice. Seventy years ago, as the son of a famous partisan leader (awarded a DSO by the British and hunted by the fascists), he was in hiding from the Germans, living with his aunt in north-west Italy. But when German tanks crunched down the village street, the temptation was irresistible. The convoy stopped. A Nazi officer jumped down from his tank.
Who’d cast the stone? The officer scoured the villagers who… Read More
For children in hospitals and hospices the pantomime season is about to begin.
“Aladdin” is written and produced by The Panto Company with a full cast of professional actors. The tour is sponsored by Starlight – a charity which works to fulfil the wishes of terminally ill children and provides distraction and entertainment to fill the weeks and months these children have to spend in hospitals or hospices. The pantomime opens its 7 week tour at Colchester General Hospital on 1st August and, later in the year, another tour of “Aladdin” will cover the more traditional Christmas period.
With my theatre hat on, I am delighted to hear that work is being created for actors, for whom there have never been enough… Read More
The perfect cheeseboard (Photo: Alamy)
Daily Telegraph Notebook
Whatever happened to cholesterol? Twenty years ago, everyone was terrified of animal fat. Public health campaigns warned us to avoid artery-clogging cheese and butter.
Now, red meat, rich in saturated fat, is back in fashion, as is offal, which is full of cholesterol. Restaurants that offer meaty delights such as bone marrow and pig’s trotters are booming. And look at Simon Hopkinson’s new cookery show, which has just started on BBC1 in the prime Friday night slot.
“Hoppy”, as he’s known, specialises in lip-smacking, artery-furring dishes that only work if you load them with butter and eggs. “I just love it,”… Read More
Marie Curie Cancer Care representatives pictured during their recent partnership with Tesco
As the summer progresses, thousands of people are giving their time, their money or their skills to raise funds for their particular choice of charity. Near my home in Yorkshire is a small airfield and, at this time of year, every weekend sees brave souls hurling themselves out of aeroplanes in their attempts to further their charitible cause. I am happy to walk, run, sew or cook but I am not sure I have the guts to parachute -even attached to handsome hunk – or… Read More
The way experiments and procedures were counted and defined changed in 1986
It’s just a month since I wrote about the new European Directive on animal experiments, currently being transposed into national law by individual European countries. The public consultation process into how the rules in the UK may be affected is still underway.
The subject is back in the news today, with the Home Office announcing that the number of scientific experiments and procedures involving laboratory animals rose last year. The most significant new trend is the increased breeding of genetically modified animals:… Read More
A beta blocker is being studied as a preventative
Propranolol is a drug used to treat high blood pressure. Researchers have been focusing their attention on its benefits in preventing breast cancer in women.
Two studies – one by scientists at Nottingham University and the latest, a joint collaboration between Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Trinity College, Dublin – have found that women taking propranolol in the year before breast cancer was diagnosed, were 76 per cent less likely to develop advanced cancer than those not using it. The Nottingham University study also showed that there were 71% fewer deaths among… Read More
