A friend of mine recently had a particularly nasty gastro bug that landed her in hospital. She sent me a link she’d found after googling her ongoing post-hospital symptoms. The online article was written by a blogger who had experienced a very similar illness to my friend’s and whole-heartedly prescribed a recovery path for others, which involved a restricted diet plan and special probiotics. I totally understand why my friend had turned to Dr Google. She’d been pronounced “better” and booted out of hospital after consulting with a specialist doctor for a grand total of eight minutes. Two weeks later,... Read full article »

Around this time last year I found myself in the midst of a professional crisis of conscience. The credibility of my work as a health journalist was being put to the test after I read an academic paper in which a group of 15 well-respected neuroscientists, mindfulness researchers, and meditation teachers warned that mindfulness is being over-sold and over-hyped and that some people are being misled, cheated, disappointed and even harmed. The paper inspired a series of alarming headlines such as Mindfulness Is a Meaningless Word With Shoddy Science Behind It and Is Mindfulness Meditation BS? I say alarming, because... Read full article »

On Saturday I’ll be joining thousands of others in a march through the streets of Sydney. Around the world, we’ll be joined by millions more. We won’t be marching to celebrate a sporting achievement or in protest of a war. We won’t be advocating a change in marriage laws or in support of refugees. We’ll be marching to bolster the case for science. The fact that I, of all people, am marching for science will come as some surprise to people who knew me in my youth. I was a teenager who’s room was adorned in candles, lava lamps and... Read full article »