MRC Epidemiology Unit
In this article for The Conversation, Unit and CEDAR PhD student Dolly Theis discusses new insights into why successive government’s obesity policies in England over the past three decades have largely failed. In England, 63% of men and women live with obesity or are overweight. Although the government has recognised obesity to be a significant […]
Type 2 diabetes weight loss recommendations could be harmful for some, depending on BMI
In this article for The Conversation, Dr Jean Strelitz discuss research showing how advising weight loss to all people with type 2 diabetes may not be the best approach. People with type 2 diabetes are often encouraged to lose weight, as this can help return their blood sugar to normal levels. But few studies have […]
Type 2 diabetes: eating a diet rich in fruit and vegetables daily lowers risk, study shows
In this article for The Conversation, Professor Nita Forouhi, Dr Ju-Sheng Zheng and Professor Nick Wareham discuss research showing how indicators of dietary intake, metabolism or nutritional status that are present in our blood can help inform advice on healthy eating. Eating about five servings of fruit and vegetables a day is widely promoted as […]
Cycling and walking to work lowers risk of cancer, heart disease and death – The Conversation
In this article for The Conversation, Dr Richard Patterson from the MRC Epidemiology Unit and Dr Anthony Laverty from Imperial College London discuss research highlighting the health benefits of active commuting. As many countries ease their lockdowns and more people return to work, there’s an effort to limit the use of public transport to avoid […]
Food insecurity in the UK – why we need a new normal
Amy Yau, Jean Adams & Martin White Headlines on ‘Food Bank Britain’ have featured increasingly in our newspapers since the global financial crash in 2008, documenting the struggle of many people who rely on emergency food aid to feed themselves and their families. The use of food banks is a last resort for people facing […]
The Healthy Food Act – Bennett Prospect Prize 2019/20
Dr Oliver Mytton was selected as a finalist for the 2019/2020 The Bennett Prospect Prize for Public Policy for this essay on how a Healthy Food Act could improve the health of the UK. The Bennett Prospect Prize for Public Policy is awarded by the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge and […]
Sedentary behaviour interventions in real-world conditions: what are the health benefits?
Today’s post comes from Dr Paddy Dempsey and colleagues, describing their new paper “Effects of sedentary behaviour interventions on biomarkers of cardiometabolic risk in adults: systematic review with meta-analyses”, which is available open access. You can find more about the authors at the bottom of this post. In recent years, interventions to reduce sedentary behaviour in […]
Road Safety: switch to cycling to keep others safe
Rachel Aldred and James Woodcock write about new research examining the risk posed to other road users by particular types of transport. This post was originally published in The Conversation. Analysis from the UK Department for Transport compares the risk of being injured when you are cycling, driving or walking. Motorcyclists have an especially high […]
Some countries have introduced mandatory nutritional labelling on menus – here’s why the UK should follow suit
CEDAR Ph.D. student Dolly Theis writes about how labelling menus may help us to eat more healthily. This post was originally published in The Conversation. Would you eat a burger if you knew it contained almost 6,000 calories? Some would gladly tuck in while others would recoil in horror. But if you have calories on […]
The Confidence Interval podcast – new edition out now – Dr Jean Adams
The Confidence Interval is an occasional podcast from the MRC Epidemiology Unit – talking science, people and public health. In the latest edition, Oliver Francis talks to Dr Jean Adams from the dietary public health team at the Unit and Centre for Diet and Activity Research about how we might improve the nation’s diet, the […]