Carbohydrates – Page 2 – Tom Hollis Health

Alcohol, Brain, Carbohydrates, Clinical dietetics, Events, Hydration, Micronutrients, Nutrition in the media

Blue Monday

January 20, 2015 No Comments

Once upon a time, ‘Blue Monday’ was just a legendary 80s dance track (the highest selling 12 inch single of all time, no less). These days, however, it has come to mean the point in January that apparently marks the most depressing day of the year. Originally coined by Sky Travel as part of a PR campaign, the ‘formula’ for Blue Monday factors in debt, weather, time since Christmas, motivation levels (or lack of) and failing new year’s resolutions, with the perfect storm deemed to be the Monday of the last full week in January. However, clearly it is just […]

Brain, Carbohydrates, Clinical dietetics, Diets, Fats, Ketogenic, Micronutrients, Nutrition in the media, Weight loss

Ketogenic diet

January 13, 2015 No Comments

A few weeks back, I advised a healthy dose of scepticism when faced with the fad diets of the new year. In fact, many of my blogs from last year carried a barely-hidden negativity towards ‘dieting’, so you could be forgiven for wondering whether dietitians have anything to do with ‘diets’ at all. So, just to clarify a few points… The ‘anti-dieting’ thing is really just my response to the standard media message that ‘diets’ are a short-term, quick-fix towards health goals, as implied by the phrase ‘going on a diet’. Of course the true meaning of the word ‘diet’, […]

Carbohydrates, Hydration, Micronutrients, Nutrition in the media, Public Health, Sugar

Should we ban fruit juice from our five a day?

November 25, 2014 No Comments

My older brother sent me this article recently – it’s a revisiting of the old fruit juice / sugar debate. As I say, this is hardly a new area of disagreement, but is interesting nonetheless, and fits in nicely with some of my recent posts on sugar and the five a day message. I couldn’t help but notice one of the comments underneath the article, stating: ‘This disjointed approach to healthy eating is counterproductive. We are hit by isolated messages that say eat this, don’t eat that – and then every organisation wants to get their opportunity to gain some media attention […]

Carbohydrates, Diabetes, Fibre, Public Health, Sugar, Weight loss

World Diabetes Day

November 11, 2014 No Comments

This Friday is World Diabetes Day, a timely reminder of this most devastating of diseases. As the world’s waistlines grow, the burden of diabetes does too. We’ve all heard the stats, but if you’re anything like me, these numbers are quoted so often that they start to go in one ear and out of the other (the same goes for obesity stats actually). Take a look at the diabetes UK website or the NHS choices diabetes section for some of the latest figures (and a great deal besides that), but for now, let’s just concentrate on the basics. Halloween may have been and gone, but […]

Brain, Carbohydrates, Micronutrients, Sugar

Stress, cortisol and nutrition

November 4, 2014 No Comments

Stress. Such a little word, but such a big issue. We all have our own underlying causes of stress, and our own ways of attempting to deal with it. But what seems to be pretty much universally agreed is that it is on the rise. Take a look at this NHS piece, for example, on the topic of increased stress-related hospital admissions (in this case, thought to be partly attributable to the recession). Many of us have heard of cortisol, and may be familiar with its common moniker, ‘the stress hormone’ – a nickname owing to its increased secretion in times of […]