by James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

I was scanning the medical news headlines today and I could not stop thinking how misleading some can be, and why you need information like James Hubbard’s My Family Doctor website and magazine, along with like sources, to sort out the confusion.

In just a few minutes, I found:

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by James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

The better you stick to a Mediterranean diet the less likely you are to die of heart disease, have or die of cancer, and interestingly enough, develop Parkinson’s disease or Alzheimer’s.  This, according to a meta-analysis study published in the BMJ this month.

We already knew the diet could lower glucose, but the BMJ study looked at the bottom line of bottom lines–death–and found good news, as well as pleasant surprises.

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by James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

I must admit that I have a bias against the low-carb Atkins diet. It just doesn’t make sense to me and I don’t want to try it. I have written off past studies that conclude these diets do, in fact, lower cholesterol and weight by reasoning that the study is too short, or some other flaw. However, I am being worn down with facts.

Still, the devil is in the details.

The latest is a two-year study in the July 17 New England Journal of Medicine pitting the low-carbohydrate, non-restricted-calorie diet against the Mediterranean-style and low-fat diets, both restricted-calorie. Who won? It depends on how you look at it–and there are lots of numbers.

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