NB New Year’s Blog 2025

That’s 2025 wrapped up. Another year in general practice done and dusted.

Not one to pass up an opportunity to piggy back off current social trends, let’s unwrap general practice’s biggest moments were this year… 

• NHS England got cancelled. In full Traitors mode, Wes Streeting murdered NHSE, leaving the Department of Health and Social Care to be the only one at breakfast. Thankfully you, I and indeed the rest of the NHS in England seems to have continued perfectly well [sic] regardless. The process is due to take 2 years, which may be longer than Keir Starmer’s premiership.
• Access went from battlefield to minefield. GP contract negotiations went full Strictly Come Dancing with scandal when it became apparent we had agreed to accept and review routine requests throughout working hours to avoid the 8am phone rush. Now patients do exactly the same on their smart phones, frantically tapping their screens at 8:01 like a diseased Candy Crush victim, but at least now they don’t have the misery of hold music.
• Paracetamol became public enemy number one. At least in the eyes of an unusually orange soon-to-be octogenarian in a surprising position of power having magically discovered it was the cause for autism. This was news to the entire medical community owing to the extensive research proving the opposite. 
• Mounjaro became the weight loss big dog. In a mirror of Gladiator’s Duel, tirzepatide knocked semaglutide off the podium to become the NHS defacto obesity solution. Except almost no-one was allowed it. Regardless two and half million Brits went and bought it at the pharmacy, which is just as well given the government has successfully negotiated to pay more to the USA (or the orange one) for all its drugs for almost nothing in return. Don’t expect to be prescribing this any time soon…

But we’re not a news conglomerate, we’re an evidence-based medicine outfit, so what was the most important piece of festive-related research in 2025? 

It’s about potatoes. 

Last year, a paper showed chocolate could prevent diabetes (good news!), but in a bid to ruin Christmas for everyone this was only true if you ate dark chocolate (bad news). All those patient presents of choccy boxes have had to be returned. The admin team hate me but their HbA1c’s are improving.

This year, researchers are trying to kill Christmas with the humble potato. Must roasties be replaced by rough ruffage recipes? 

After decades of data collection and more than 5 million person years follow up, new research confirms what everyone else already knows – chips are bad for you. 

Eat them three times a week and your risk of type 2 diabetes increases by 20%. Boiled potatoes, which no-one would rather eat, don’t do this, although they can’t compete with wholegrains which actually lower your risk. Still, nobody (apart from perhaps my 8 year old son) wants Shreddies with turkey and gravy.

Decent research but one glaring omission remains. What about roast potatoes?

For once, the phrase “more research is required” is truly welcomed – this time it’s the saviour of the holidays. Roasties weren’t included in the cohort questionnaires, so we simply don’t have the data to destroy your next roast dinner. While this could be suggested as a future area for research, I hope it could be put firmly in the category of ‘things I’d rather not know’. 

Happy New Year everyone! NB Medical will be back next year with lots of things you rather would know. See you in 2026.