Health Noise

medium.com Fed-up with dieting that produces no weight loss? Or even results in weight gain? New evidence affirms that diets don't work and asserts that the best way to lose weight is to listen to your body. To help you decide what works best for you, top experts share surprising facts about food and mood and Sunette shares her story about the pain of being locked in a fat body. Eliana Dawood, chief   dietician of Tara The H.Moross Hospital, looks at why some diets fail. IS BODY MASS INDEX A GOOD INDICATOR OF HEALTH? Body Mass Index (BMI) is flawed yet it is a common parameter against which we measure our state of health. It does not differentiate between gender, body composition, muscle mass or wasting and loss of bone density. “Overweight” and “obesity” are commonly understood medical terms which are denoted by specific BMI ranges. These categories may pathologise having a certain body size and may be of little significance when determining someone...

Experts’ advice on what to eat to live a long and healthy life remains contradictory and confusing. An Oxford University study, the largest ever undertaken in this field in the UK, claims that just one slice of bacon a day raises one's risk of colon cancers by 20%. The same applies to moderate intake of red meat. Not so, say meat   lobbyists. They believe the study is riddled with flaws and that there is no direct link between   the consumption   of red meat and   early   death. According to   them   the study relies on association and not causation.  So what is real and what is rumour? The answer may ultimately lie in results of a recent study which found no difference in the lifespan between vegetarians and omnivores. Yet despite this conclusion, data from Google Trends shows an impressive increase in interest in veganism between 2004 and 2018. In the US veganism has grown by 600% in the last three years and in the UK it...

This month's blog interviews three triathletes who cover both sides of the debate. The first two are CCJ’s training partners, Orrie Basson and Paul Siebert. Orrie is a project manager and married with children. Paul Siebert runs his own marketing business and is also married with children. The third interviewee is professional triathlete Annah Wilkinson a chartered accountant and head of Absa’s Global Finance for the Coastal Regions Orrie Basson and Paul Siebert are two of the Johannesburg Country Club’s triathlon athletes who competed in this year’s Standard Bank Ironman African Championship race on Sunday 7 April 2019. The race which took place in Nelson Mandela Bay consists of a full marathon, 180km cycle and a 3.8 km swim in open water. It was a first for both athletes who ended in 10:45 and 10:50 respectively. Earlier this month I chatted to Orrie, a project manager at S I P and Paul, owner of iPoint Business Development. What inspired you to e...