Cancer and Obesity: A Raising Tide

A newly released report by the British cancer charity Cancer Research UK (CRUK) has finally put a number on what epidemiologists and cancer scientists have known for a long time: obesity is one of the biggest causes of cancer, and is set to become the most common cause of cancer in women by 2043. Obesity … Read more

The Science You Should Have Heard About This Week

I cannot do anything without having a cup of black coffee in the morning and I feel this sentiment is shared by a really large segment of the population. Coffee is delicious and like most other foods and beverages can both be bad or good for you. Some very interesting and trustworthy studies have been … Read more

The Science You Should have Heard About This Week

Popular newspapers have spent their time, money and energy promoting this exciting piece of news on their platform. Apparently, eating five (not four, not six) mushrooms a day will protect us not only from cancer, but also from heart disease and from dementia. Is it any wonder, I thought, that a lot of the general public finds it hard … Read more

The Science You Should Have Heard About This Week

Reading science news on national newspapers is a very different experience from reading science news as a scientist looking at scientific journals. Every week, we read about flashy headlines about science that is not (or at least not yet) up to scratch but that sounds interesting or familiar to the general reader. There are countless … Read more

Why Naturopathy Isn’t Always Harmless

As someone who spends a lot of time talking about the dangers of “alternative medicine”, I often get confronted with the following argument against banning such practices: “Worst case scenario, it doesn’t work. That’s harmless. Why take something away that people rely on and that makes them feel better about their health?“. The point I … Read more

The Dangers Of Red Hair (and what science is doing about it)

These days, redheads the world over are acutely aware of the dangers they run by exposing themselves to the sun. In exchange for their fiery locks, they are unfortunately subject to a 40% increase in the risk of being diagnosed with melanoma, the most aggressive type of skin cancer. So far, our understanding of why … Read more