Emdoc Health

24/01/2026

Navigating health information right now is like playing Traitors: who to trust?

Many traditionally trust white coats -- so now supplements are marketed by people wearing white coats.

"all natural" sounds nice and safe - we trust popular influencers making up nonsense about parasites to sell you their "all natural" parasite cleanse

Fear builds trust when we see alarmist clickbait that we are harmed by toxins and we need to detoxes. (you don't need a detox)

We trust people promising access to healthcare procedures we cannot afford here - "deposit today and get a luxury VIP limo transport."

We trust popular influencers: "it's not medical advice but definitely take the cream your doctor prescribed for definitely not-your-face and stick it on your face - doctors just don't want you to know." (don't do this, please)

Look, it's not easy. Navigating health information - especially targeted at women -is daily game of Traitors. It has never been more important to fact-check the science, check trusted resources, and talk to your own in-person doctor.

22/01/2026

When you are struggling h to get household eating habits better, its a minefield of "what" to eat and restrict. An easy place to start is fix the "how" to eat: meal plan, prep and BATCH COOK. Saves time and € and we all make better choices when we arent under pressure. .net has great free resources I recommend to real life patients and families regularly.

21/01/2026

Ive popped in to store quickly this evening to pick up yogurt. Because it seems my children eat ridiculous amounts of it. In and out, right? But the person in front of me has an entire trolley of whole chickens. Just raw chickens. At least 30. I've stopped counting.

Many people may think: "weird!" Or more charitably: "serious commitment to keto"

Me, I rarely think weird. I just know there is a fascinating story: unique party menu? New diet trend? Science experiment? Prop for an political protest? Insane batch cooking session?

I'm a doctor not just because I love people -- I love people's stories.

It's the best part of medicine. I invite every new patient I meet to "tell me the story:
Not " What's wrong?" Because the patients story is quite often as helpful (more helpful!) as the lab result and the blood pressure reading -- and very often make sense.

Sadly, this is the good stuff, the best stuff of a doctor-patient relationship that can get lost in rushed appointments and overcrowded, pressure clinics.

But if any of my colleagues see a very severely constipated person next week, I hope they have time to mention the chickens.

20/01/2026

We are all - very reasonably! - talking about Grok and nudify. However, the issues with screens in the family home go so much beyond that. Thanks so much to LMFM for inviting me back as guest today on the Late Lunch with Gerry Kelly. If you missed it, here are 10 tips for families to look after their health when it comes to screens.

1. No phones/screens in the bedrooms. For safety (kids) and sleep health (everyone.)

2. 20/20/20 rule for Eye health. Take a 20 sec break every 20 minutes to look at 20 feet away.

3. Limit screen time. What we NOT doing when we are on screens? Let's allow more time to play, move, talk to other real humans...

4. Food and Screens: Screens impact our relationship with food, from distracted eating to microinfluencing choices (did you know your child/teen sees food promotion every 3 minutes online?!) to weird diet trends.

5. Talk to your child and teen about cyberbullying.

6. The digital world is not real- the fake perfect content can lower mood for all ages.

7. Make sure your family has a better place to learn about their bodies than TikTok. From skin care to substance misuse, from body size to diet trends, from exercise routines to s*x education, from supplement sales to fear-mongering about "toxins" in your home ...health disinformation is everywhere and everyone - including adults - deserves correct information about their bodies

8. Have difficult conversations: Children from age 10 are accessing p**n, which often normalises unsafe s*x and gender based violence. p**n addiction can start in adolescence.

9. Parental controls. Get up to speed at

10. Monkey see, monkey do. If you are on your phone all the time, your child is learning that this is something more important than what they are doing. Involve your whole family in making the decision on healthy changes to screen use.

Got questions? For a much deeper dive into all of this, check out today's Blog. Link In Bio.

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19/01/2026

10 practical ways to look after your family's health when it comes to screens?

I'm delighted to be back as a guest on the Late Lunch with Gerry Kelly

Listen live tomorrow 20/1/2026 at 2.30pm on LMFM

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18/01/2026

Are you living in Louth and looking for a class tailored to those living with arthritis? Our six-week adapted exercise classes are held in partnership with Siel Bleu Ireland, and they are designed to help improve mobility, strength and overall wellbeing.

Book your spot or learn more information here: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/adapted-exercise-class-for-people-with-arthritis-dundalk-co-louth-tickets-1977280197297?aff=oddtdtcreator

📍 Redeemer Family Resource Centre, Dundalk
Starts: Friday 23rd January 2026 | Time: 10 - 11am

17/01/2026

Excellent programme!

Are you living in Dublin and looking for a class tailored to those living with arthritis? Our six-week adapted exercise classes are held in partnership with Siel Bleu Ireland, and they are designed to help improve mobility, strength and overall wellbeing.

Book your spot or learn more information here: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/adapted-exercise-class-for-people-with-arthritis-firhouse-sth-dub-january-tickets-1977383416027?aff=oddtdtcreator

📍 The Park Community Centre, Parklands, Firhouse
Starts: Wednesday 21st January 2026 | Time: 12:30 - 1pm

16/01/2026

Let's Save you some €€€. with help from my real life patients who sent me ads this week. Mid-January: perfect storm of budget crunch and peak wellness marketing.

Top 3 things NOT to buy

1. Do not send your DNA to a company for a personalised wellness plan. It is bad science. The testing they do is far different than what we do in clinical practice. More concerning than the waste of money is that most people don't ask/read the very small print about where their data is being sold or stored....

2. TMS in a MediSpa. TMS is a treatment that is FDA approved for certain mental health conditions, including depression and OCD. For these patients, you should definitely talk about this treatment with your mental health team and have proper assessment first. For everyone else, it is FDA cleared. What's the difference? Clearance just means low risk of harm, not necessariily that it works - and why are all the ads talking FDA anyway? They have no jurisdiction in EU or Ireland! Treatment in studies for approved condition was around 30 sessions, which could seriously cost you €€.

3. Supplements to balance your hormones. If you follow, you know we did a deep dive into debunking hormone myths during the summer. * Even if they are marketed by a pharmacist or a doctor. It is incredibly misleading that those supplements are somehow better or approved. (And, yes, I am seriously judging healthcare professionals who misuse their white coat to sling supplements!)

Bonus Item: Hyperbaric Oxygen Treament for long covid. This - and multiple other unproven but expensive!! - treatments are still being marketed to patients.

Influencers going to try to influence. Journalists, beauty influencers, and sadly even doctors. They get paid to do it.

But is it time that we start asking whether there should be some better patient or consumer protections in Ireland?

*Need to get savvy on hormones - from cortisol to thyroid to testosterone -- and missed the deep dive series? Check on the archived discussion in the practice Blog. Link in Bio and searchable by keyword.

14/01/2026

The best things in life should be free - but are they, really?

This from a post that popped up in my feed. Now, it's well meaning and I agree - they very likely didn't need the supplements* Most of those things I regularly prescribe to patients, actually. It's not that the list is bad...

But are things like these really "free"? It is a place of priviledge for many:

to not have to work the night shift
to leave work early to make a meditation class
To have childcare to spend time with family or friends
To be able to let go of things not within your control - difficult with insecure housing or addiction

This is an exercise I sometimes do with my patients. Try it:

"Close your eyes. You won the Euromillions last month. Now, what would you eat - fresh produce prepared by a cook? Have meal plan & prep help? What does your exercise look like now? A personal trainer or home gym or new kayak or new bike or a home dance studio? Would you have childcare every afternoon so you could go to tennis or golf? You are stressed - do you book a long vacation on a beach? Do you bring your family and friends? Would you have a dark, comfortable bedroom where you could sleep on time every night - never doing a night shift or answering an out-of-hours phone call again? How about a night where you don't wake up wondering about the rent or the mortgage or the overdue ill or the redundancies at work or family caring duties without home help? Now open your eyes."

How you would look after your health -- with the luxury of all the time and money -- is how all us deserve to be able to look after our health.

Not be able to do it the way we could or would isn't a failing. But it's a barrier, a challenge -- that can make this "free stuff" a whole lot harder to do.

Euromillions or no, though - your health is still worth the effort.

(*Did you know? Stopping supplements is among the first things I do with patients lately. Up to €300/mo is not uncommon at the moment! Most supplements cannot do ANY of what they claim - from treating menopause to "working like a GLP1" to balancing hormones to fixing stress.)

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13/01/2026

TL;DR: Are you a baby cow? If the answer is no - you don't need raw milk.

Let's do some science 101: What is pasteurisation and why is it really, really important (especially if we are talking about pregnant women, young children, immunosuppressed or the elderly)?

Raw cow milk can have bacterial and viral contamination that can cause some seriously unpleasant infections!

There are no evidence-based health benefits to humans consuming raw cow milk.

When we talk about the health benefits of unprocessed or whole foods, we need to acknowledge that some food processing is beneficial to our health: fortifying, grinding grain, and fermenting are good examples!

Choosing milk:

Whole cow milk or skim cow milk have the same nutrients; whole milk is slightly higher in saturated fat and calories which might not be the best choice for people who have to limit those in their diet.

Choosing Not Milk: If you are choosing to go plant-based - whether for health, religious, climate, or animal welfare reasons - make sure you are getting your calcium and protein for good sources, like soya and nuts.

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09/01/2026

"I agree with the cow" was not on my 2026 bingo card but here we are. The "upside down" food pyramid from the US is circulating in the media so in the latest "what happens over there can affect us here" -- let's fact check this.

1. Did this new pyramind fix the old US food pyramid? The US actually used a round plate (known as MyPlate.gov) approach showing half the plate filled with fruits and veggies, similar to what we use here in Ireland!

2. Are these recommendations based on new evidence or science? No, no new science or studies impacted these recommendations. They were, however, highly impacted by industry lobbyists, including the food, alcohol, agriculture, and wellness (supplements, influencers) industry.

3. What's good? The best 2 things are the emphasis on fruits and veggies on the top of the pyramid and the emphasising reducing sugary and salty processed foods. It's not all bad -- but beef tallow isn't the same as olive oil when it comes to heart health.

4. What's bad? Putting red meat and saturated fats next to the fruits and veggies. These 2 foods should be limited as they are associated with increased risk of heart disease and colorectal cancer. These recommendations also were released with the removal of recommendations limiting consumption of alcohol.

If you need dietetic advice, the trusted resource in Ireland is a CORU-registered dietitian. Did you know? You can get great, trusted information and find a qualified dietitian on the INDI.ie website.

The health disinformation and misinformation from the US government currently has potential to do serious global harm, even here in Ireland. Being a savvy patient or consumer has never been more important: critically think and check facts from reputable source.

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08/01/2026

"Reversing" diabetes is on Channel 4 tonight. Fact check: Can you do that?

Yes - Much of Chronic Disease can be prevented.
Yes - Much of Chronic Disease can be put into remission.

But we have to be really clear on how we talk about it: There is a fine -- but important! - line between patient empowering and patient blaming.

Making lifestyle changes to put chronic disease fully into remission requires:

1) A really knowledgeable GP with lots of time. Alternatve is specialty care (like me) that may be hard to access if you are not on a TV programme (some of my own real-life patients travel from Limerick, Galway, Cork, Sligo, Donegal!)

2) It can be expensive. Despite the landmark move to assign "diabetes in remission" its own ICD10 code this year, your diabetes meds are 100% covered - but expert care to put it into remission may not be.

3) Lifelong care. It's in remission but it needs ongoing monitoring. It's hard work that can be difficult for many due to so, so many life factors (these long term commitments or social barriers are often not covered in a TV programme)

4) How we prevent chronic disease is NOT how we treat chronic disease. This is where it goes horribly wrong for patients with wellness practitioners (especially in the chronic disease of obesity).

5) Expert care means working smarter - not working harder - based on science.

6) Remission is never as good as prevention. Preventative care starts early. I prefer to see patients with strong family history of chronic disease as teens or young adults!

7) These journeys ideally involve the whole family!

I'm a physican. I practice evidence-based medicine and prescribe medications. There are times when patients need medications. And that's okay But I'd love to see the day where this approach was seen as standard of care: Seeing patients before they are discharged home from hospital with new diagnoses -- pre-diabetes or early heart disease or mild depression to -- start making a plan to put it all back in a box -- rather than just the pills from the box.

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