Dr Joe Unplugged

Dr Joe Unplugged is your home for open commentary on health, wellbeing and life in the broadest sense. We will explore diet, exercise, sleep and stress amongst other health matters as well as issues that may impact you and your wellbeing in direct or indirect ways....

It’s Christmas!

If Christmas did not exist it would need to be invented. Perfectly timed at the end of the year, it allows for many people worldwide to celebrate in some way, shape or form. This may be the formal religious celebration or simply a catch up with friends and family....

We Need Our Sleep

Human beings spend more time being asleep than anything else. It is estimated that at the turn of the twentieth century the average American slept nine hours each night. By the turn of the twenty first century this figure has dropped to under eight hours. Lack of...
Four Simple Tips To Help Lower Your Blood Pressure and Weight

Four Simple Tips To Help Lower Your Blood Pressure and Weight

Not a day goes by without another story about the obesity crisis, usually accompanied by a call for governments to act or for money to be spent or for more research. The problem with this is that people tend to, understandably, switch off and tend to think that the...

Ways to Avoid Adult – Onset Diabetes

Ways to Avoid Adult – Onset Diabetes

Hardly a day goes by without some new warning about the surging numbers of people with diabetes and the effect this will have on the health budget. Predictions of over 2 million Australians by 2020 and 44 million Americans by 2034 have been made. The Journal of...

Five Ways To Improve Heart Health Without Drugs

Five Ways To Improve Heart Health Without Drugs

In what could almost be a man bites dog story, Australian researchers have criticised Australian doctors for not prescribing enough pills. The study released this week surveyed 322 General Practitioners (family physicians) looking at their management of patients over...

Diet Made Simple

Diet Made Simple

Something that confuses a lot of people is what to eat and what constitutes a healthy diet. This in turn leads many, particularly those wanting to reduce weight into a pattern of trial and tribulation of diets that do not work, frustration and confusion as to what...

Childhood Obesity – Small Changes Make a Big Difference

Childhood Obesity – Small Changes Make a Big Difference

Childhood obesity has been put front and centre by Michelle Obama. An ambitious goal to eliminate childhood obesity in a generation has been made. Whilst this is ambitious,there is an old quote attributed to Michelangelo that it is better to aim too high and miss than...

Six Tips To Living Longer

Six Tips To Living Longer

OK it is now “official” - being sedentary does actually kill you. The negative impact of a sedentary lifestyle on our health has been observed for many years but it has now been clearly shown and quantified. An Australian study of 8800 people over six years found...

Four Tips to Help You Stay Hydrated

Four Tips to Help You Stay Hydrated

Last year an Australian town made headlines by being the first to ban the sale of bottled water. This was done on the basis that water comes in plastic containers that “pollute” the environment. Now the health of the planet is important. So is the health of the people...

Dr Joes DIY Health Guide To Christmas

Dr Joes DIY Health Guide To Christmas

At live presentations this month I have been asking the audience “Who is looking forward to Christmas”? A number of hands go up. The next question is Who is looking forward to Christmas being…over? A second set of hands goes up. If I asked a group of year one school...

Cholesterol – A Different View

Cholesterol – A Different View

Here is something that you may not know. Cholesterol is found in every cell in the human body, all 60 trillion of them, as it is part of the cell membrane. It is also the base component for a number of hormones. Some of these hormones are involved in regulation of...

A Weight Issue – Time To Think Differently

A Weight Issue – Time To Think Differently

Here we go, another piece on weight-hasn’t it all been done to death? Well maybe its time to look at it a different way. I have written previously about the importance of putting the right fuels into your body and how this means you will feel better and probably eat...

Medical Screening – More Not Always Better

Medical Screening – More Not Always Better

There is a great line in the movie Men in Black when Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) is telling  soon to be agent J (Will Smith)  about aliens on the planet which until then  J had no knowledge of. It goes like this - “ 1500 year ago people knew that the earth was the...

Chicken Little Rides Again

Chicken Little Rides Again

In the story of Chicken Little, it was Chicken Little’s view that the sky was falling. She, of course became very fearful of this and was able to convince others that this was the case. All those who believed it became fearful too. There are two endings to this story,...