The debate around being a vegetarian usually revolves around the morality of killing animals and often degenerates to a point where one exclaims- ‘ How do you know carrots don’t have feelings’ ?. This misses an important fact : that a vegetarian diet offers many health advantages. Large scale studies have shown that incidence of heart disease was lower and mortality was 30% lower in vegetarian men and 20% lower in vegetarian women.

The incidence of certain cancers is also lower, particularly those of the colon. Vegetarians also have a lower body mass index, lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol levels , less chance of getting diabetes and less obesity. Vegetarians need to have a balanced diet to get all the nutrients needed. One of the problems people face is not knowing what to cook or eat , even if they wanted to increase the amount of vegetarian food in their diet.

The varied culinary influences in Britain make it easy to become vegetarian- Besides a renaissance in British Vegetarian cooking, food from India, South East-Asia and Italy offers many tasty and nutritious vegetarian choices.

Its also well established that in becoming vegetarian , we consume less of the earths resources- and its good for the planet. The German Federal Environmental Agency recommended that Germans reduce their meat consumption to once a week, to reduce global warming . In 2006, the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that meat production accounts for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. In comparison, it estimated that the world’s planes, cars, trains, and boats accounted for 13 percent of emissions.

Having read the evidence I have become vegetarian myself- but please do your own research and make up your own mind.

It’s the time of the year, when after the excesses of Christmas most of us resolve to go on a diet. A quarter of us in Britain are Obese. While dieting is not a bad idea, we must keep in mind research that shows that at the end of 2 years most people weigh more than when they first started their diet!

Professor Mann from the University of California analysed 31 long term studies into long term weight loss after a diet and found that at the end of 2 years, 83% of people weighed more than when they started.- though all lost weight in the short term. The best way to lose weight in the long term is to change your life style- become more active, take up a new sport, eat less food and different types of food, rather than deny yourself .

But exercise could be more important than dieting for good health.

In an important study published in The Lancet in August, researchers found that 15 minutes of moderate intensity exercise daily reduced mortality by 14% from all causes. Each additional 15 minutes a day reduced mortality by a further 4%, and mortality from all cancers by 1% . The current recommendations are that we should all exercise 150 minutes per week.

If you only make one resolution this year for your health- let it be this one- exercise 15 minutes per day!

The next coffee morning for patients with back and neck pain, is to be held at the York Nuffield hospital on 19th January at 10am. Here patients can meet other patients who have completed treatment, in a relaxed atmosphere. The event is free and open to all. To reserve a place please contact the hospital or Ruth Harvey at ruth.harvey@nuffieldhealth.com

Malaria kills 1 million people worldwide every year- mostly children. Researchers at the Sanger Institute in Cambridge have discovered the entry route used by malarial parasites to enter blood cells. They found a protein called PfRh5 on the parasite which is needed to gain entry into the blood cells.

By creating a vaccine which will train the immune system to attack this protein, they hope to make deaths from malaria a thing of the past. Another vaccine called RTS,S is already effective in preventing malaria in half the people vaccinated. As a surgeon I help one patient at a time, but these researchers, often poorly paid and unrecognized, can help millions with their discoveries.

There has been a 400% increase in alcohol related liver failure among young people in the last few years- so we all need to drink in moderation, and certainly not drink and drive. Our reflexes slow down and accidents become more common. In fact several European countries impose a total ban on drinking and driving (Britain is an outlier allowing alcohol levels up to 80mg/100ml in the blood).

I hope you have a great Christmas- and despite the economic gloom- remember we have so much to be grateful for. Lets count our blessings!

See you in 2012.

I always find attending the York Spinal Support Group meetings a moving experience. At the 3rd December meeting a patient had come all the way from Chichester and left quite encouraged having met so many patients who had done well after treatment. A 77 year old sports journalist from York said surgery had allowed him to continue working and a 72 year old car enthusiast said it had allowed him to continue his hobby and not sell his large home.

These meetings are useful for patients because they get very different messages in primary care: that they just have to put up with their back pain; that its age related and they just have to take pain killers; that there is no surgery available to help them or that it is dangerous and can leave them paralysed. We have had no death or paralysis from surgery in 15 years , but patients keep getting told this- and it scares them unnecessarily. Major advances in spinal surgery have made the impossible , possible- but it will take time for this message to get down to the grassroots.

Researchers in Cambridge, writing in the journal Science, have identified a gene HCN2 that is responsible for chronic pain. By removing it from nerve endings in a mice study, they were able to stop the chronic pain response.

This may lead to the development of drugs that block the HCN2 gene, thus providing hope to the 1 in 7 Britons who suffer from chronic pain. Currently, drugs are poor at controlling chronic neuropathic pain, and this discovery is a major step forwards in developing new drugs for this debilitating condition.

An increasing number of elderly patients are coming forward for treatment and they have the same questions: Am I too old to have surgery? Are the risks of having a problem higher because of my age?

Age on its own does not increase the risk of having a problem with surgery. Associated illnesses like heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure can however increase the risk slightly. We routinely do hip replacement on patients over 80. My oldest patient was 90, and he wanted surgery to able to continue riding his bicycle! In fact I operated on a 76-year-old lady recently, and she bounced out of bed the next day- faster than patients much younger than her on the same ward. She has done very well. Recovery in older patients can however take longer, but patients get there in the end. Anaesthesia has become much safer over the years. We are now able to operate on elderly patients with no significant additional risk.

We are also able to help many patients with spinal injections and not all the patients need to have surgery.

I think that pain in the elderly is often neglected and many hold the view that it is normal to have pain, as one gets older and patients should manage with painkillers. While this is true in many cases long term painkillers have their own side effects including drowsiness, constipation and can cause abdominal pain, heart disease and high blood pressure.

It is especially important to look carefully at this group of patients, as many more options for treatment now exist. They must enjoy their last years in good health and without distress.

At the spinal support group meeting today a 5-year-old girl along with her brothers aged 3 and 2, came up to me and gave me the most beautiful hugs, and said thank you for making their mummy better.

After spinal surgery 6 weeks ago, their mum had managed to join the family at breakfast, for the first time in 3 years. The pain had affected the whole family, and all 5 of them had turned out at the meeting. It was a pleasure to see them beaming with smiles all round.

We had about 60 patients attend the York Spinal Support Group meeting, held at the York Nuffield hospital. The hospital very generously hosts the meeting, which is free to everyone to attend, and their staff are at hand to provide refreshments and support. One couple had travelled from Dumfries in Scotland, and stayed overnight to attend.

They said they were very pleased they came, because they were able to get the support of several other patients who had recovered and done well from spinal surgery. A chef who was unable to work due to his back pain was going back to work after surgery, and said the pain he had had for 24 years had gone.

A new £435 test from a Spanish company called Life Length may predict how long a person may live. It measures the length of a telomere, a gene sequence at the end of a human chromosome which protects it from deterioration. Shorter telomeres predict premature ageing and increased risk of cardio-vascular disease and cancer.

The test will predict whether the ‘biological age’ as measured by the telomere is less or more than the chronological age. The Nobel prize for medicine in 2009 was won by Elizabeth Blackburn and her 2 colleagues, for discovering the protective effect of the telomere and the enzyme telomerase.

This could have a huge impact on society. Do we really want to know how long we will live? What will insurance companies do with that information? Will scientists develop drugs or gene therapy to increase telomere length and the human lifespan ?

This is no longer the stuff of science fiction, but could become a reality in the next 20 years.

We already know that meditation results in a lengthening of the telomere and an increase in the telomerase enzyme level. A study by Dr Clifford Saron published in October 2010, compared 30 patients who mediated
6 hours daily with a another group who did not. The meditation group had a 1/3 increase in telomerase levels in the
white blood cells. Other studies have shown that chronic stress can lead to a shortening of the telomere lengths. This provides tantalizing evidence of the link between the mind and the body, and will fundamentally change our perception of what ‘health’ is – a healthy mind being as important as a healthy body. The motto of my old school ‘
Mens Sana in Corpore Sanum’- a healthy mind in a healthy body, may be closer to the truth than was once thought.