Topic description and stories

Check-up at MRC Unit The Gambia

'The Iron Lady' and the paradox of treating anaemia

03 Feb 2017

Iron deficiency can be fatal. But in countries where patients are also likely to have other serious diseases, so too can the iron supplements used to...

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Vegetable and fruits

Mediterranean diet may protect your brain in old age, new finding suggests

06 Jan 2017

Could a Mediterranean diet keep your brain young? That is the tantalising finding from a study out this week. Writing on The Conversation website...

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Cambridge to play major role in €400m EU food innovation project

13 Dec 2016

The University of Cambridge is one of a number of British universities and companies that have won access to a £340 million EU Innovation programme...

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Zebu cattle pulling a wagon beside a pond at the Indus  Civilisation site of Rakhigarhi in northwest India

Rice farming in India much older than thought, used as 'summer crop' by Indus civilisation

21 Nov 2016

Thought to have arrived from China in 2000 BC, latest research shows domesticated rice agriculture in India and Pakistan existed centuries earlier...

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Vegetable and fruits

Mediterranean diet could lower the risk of cardiovascular disease in the UK

29 Sep 2016

Britons eating a Mediterranean diet could lower their risk of developing heart disease and stroke, according to research published in the open access...

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Opinion: Accurate science or accessible science in the media – why not both?

02 Jun 2016

Michael Gaultois (Department of Chemistry), Joshua Conrad Jackson (University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill), Ian Mahar (Boston University), and...

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Opinion: GM crops already feed much of the world today – why not tomorrow’s generations too?

24 May 2016

Professor Sir Venki Ramakrishnan (MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology) discusses how genetically modified crops could help solve the problem of food...

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Neighbourhoods with more takeaways amplify social inequalities in unhealthy eating and obesity

11 May 2016

People who live or work near to a greater number of takeaway outlets are more likely to eat more takeaway food and to be overweight, but new research...

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Fish and chips

Opinion: Local takeaways create a double burden for obesity

11 May 2016

Thomas Burgoine and Pablo Monsivais (Centre for Diet and Activity Research) discuss how takeaways can make social inequality worse.

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DSC02863 (cropped)

Overweight individuals more likely to make unhealthier choices when faced with real food

14 Apr 2016

Overweight people make unhealthier food choices than lean people when presented with real food, even though both make similar selections when...

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Max burger (cropped)

It’s time to change the way we think about changing what people eat

11 Apr 2016

The Chancellor's recent announcement about a tax on sugary drinks is a step in the right direction towards fighting obesity, but we will need to use...

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Opinion: Why some humans developed a taste for milk and some didn’t

11 Mar 2016

Giles Yeo (MRC Metabolic Diseases Unit) discusses the origins of lactose intolerance.

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