Disclaimer. You won't.

I’m Mark Dayer. I’m a cardiologist. Patients seem to be more interested in whether or not they should drink coffee and take vitamins than whether or not they should have a procedure done. Hence this blog.

Please note that you will die one day. And following the advice of this blog will not make you live forever (probably). But you might live a little longer. This is also my take on the evidence that is out there. I have little doubt that other people will disagree and recommend different things.

It does frustrates me when people say things and recommend treatments on the basis of no or impossibly flimsy evidence. I’m looking at you, Daily Mail. I am certainly a fan of Ben Goldacre (who I think was my house officer at the Whittington, but I may be wrong).

It is not the case that I am against many of the people who practice alternative medicine though (for those of you who know Ben’s work). Indeed, I am not surprised that they are so popular in this age in which doctors “process” patients and have stopped “caring” for patients to an extent. I am guilty of this at times. I also firmly believe that the mind has far more control over the body and its functions than we are aware of. I suspect that, even though many alternative medicine practitioners have minimal evidence that their interventions make a difference, the care they give genuinely does make a difference to patients’ quality and possibly quantity of life. And I still think there must be something in acupuncture, I just want to see the data.

Finally, this blog will also focus on a couple of areas that interest me, including mind-body interactions, the impact of fasting on ageing, and the microbiome. I’m also following the stories on Soylent and chelation therapy. This latter therapy is something I have been highly sceptical of in the past, but there may just be something in it. I will try to keep an open mind.

If there is one thing I have learnt over the last 20+ years of studying and practicing medicine, what we think and recommend one year is not necessarily what we recommend the following year. I will be interested to look back at this in a decade (if I can keep it going) to see what has changed.

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