NEXT TALK: Next talk 31st of October, 7pm - Sesonal mood disorders
Cittie Of Yorke, 22 High Holborn, WC1V 6BN
Averting comfortable lifestyle crisis - should everyone take statins?
2014/10/28
Ancient Egyptian and Hindu cultures identified heart disease and diabetes as diseases associated with affluent lifestyles. Today, obesity, diabetes type 2 and heart disease have reached epidemic proportions in the Developed World and threaten to overwhelm the already over-stretched health services. Current scientific knowledge indicates that these problems can be overcome with simple lifestyle changes, but we lack the personal and political will to resolve them. Could statins come to the rescue? Many senior physicians and specialists in the British Heart Foundation believe that statins should be prescribed to all healthy UK males over 50 as a preventative measure against heart disease. Some of the many biochemical properties of statins will be described together with alternative strategies involving diet and lifestyle modification.
Prof. Rodney F. Bilton
Rodney F. Bilton is Professor Emeritus in Applied Biochemistry in the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences at Liverpool John Moores University. Following a Cancer Research Fellowship in the then infant science of genetic engineering at the Institute of Molecular Biology, Syntex Corpn. Palo Alto, California, he returned to a lectureship in the UK. After a sabbatical year as a Royal Society/SERC Fellow at ICI Corporate Bioscience, he set up a laboratory in genetics and free radical toxicology at Liverpool Polytechnic. A study of the effects of dietary components on mutagenesis and the cancer process led to a wider interest in diet and disease prevention.
He has co-authored a book with Dr Laurence A. Booth, entitled ‘Know what to eat’, which discusses the problems of modern diets and lifestyles and offers potential solutions.
