This man saved my life….

July 1996, it’s a hot day and I’m entering the golf club at Hadden Hill.  Two older men are there. One of them, seeing me, says to his friend, while pointing at me: ‘This man saved my life’! I then realise that it’s Norman, who I had seen the previous year in the clinic. I […]

Is your BP monitor any good?

This article was stimulated by me seeing an article by Dean Piccone and colleagues [1] in the JAMA. I thought that all blood pressure (BP) monitors that are sold in the UK would be equally valid, but apparently not! Why is measuring BP important? We know that elevated systolic BP is a risk factor for […]

Does too much exercise cause back pain?

Sometimes you wonder about scientists. Do they want their research to be understood? Or do they want to cloak it in mystery? One study, published quite a number of years ago (2009), sounds like the title of the latest instructions from a piece of drainage kit from Plumbers World: ‘Physical activity and low back pain: […]