June 17, 2019 — Everything is effective. Give somebody a potent drug and it will surely do something to them. Enact a health policy and it will surely have an effect. In fact, the effects will surely be many – both desired and undesired. But for both drugs and health policies, the target is health. So we’d best be […]
June 5, 2019 — For nearly five decades now, beef consumption has been dropping. Poultry has risen. Why? Because of a steady stream of warnings that red meat raises the risk of heart disease. But a new study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition raises questions about this conventional wisdom. In a randomized, controlled study, researchers found no […]
June 4, 2019 — Canada’s latest dietary guidelines make it clear. Cut the sugar. Avoid any other sweeteners. Water should be what you’re drinking. And also, enjoy your food. Dietary guideline writers don’t have much of a taste for sweetness these days. But humans do. How shall we cope? The Rising Bias Against Sweeteners The prevailing bias holds that […]
June 3, 2019 — Disclosing how much added sugar is in a food product is a good idea. Claiming it “will save millions of lives and billions of dollars” is not. Wandering away from the truth never is. But in Circulation last month, Yue Huang et al are bold to say they only have one worry about the precision […]
May 26, 2019 — Does less toast and more avocado make for a more satisfying breakfast? Does that mean that we’d all lose a little weight if we made this swap? Thanks to the Hass Avocado Board, we have some actual data to tell us that the answers are yes and maybe not. So feel free to go easy […]
May 23, 2019 — Objectivity is tough. For a case in point, let’s look at how people are processing new data from Kevin Hall and colleagues on ultra-processed foods. It’s important. For the first time, we have good data to say that these foods can cause weight gain. Before we had speculation. Now we have good, experimental evidence. Some […]
May 19, 2019 — Low-fat diets are back in the news this week. An impressive and important randomized, controlled clinical trial started way back in 1993 to test the possibility that a low-fat diet might reduce the risk of breast cancer in women after menopause. Needless to say, a lot has changed in 26 years since then. Back then, […]
May 17, 2019 — Kevin Hall is a bit of a myth buster. In a number of studies, he has put popular ideas about obesity and nutrition under the microscope of objective data. And by doing so, he proved them wrong. But in a new study published yesterday, he proved himself wrong about ultra-processed food. In a carefully controlled […]
May 16, 2019 — Yep. We’re just about done here. Soda taxes are highly effective, and Philly has proved it. Classic economic price-demand curves work, especially in a city with a lot of poverty. If you tax soda and raise the price, sales go down. Philly obesity and diabetes rates will follow. A hot new publication in JAMA proves […]
May 11, 2019 — It’s vegan, plant-based protein. But it’s food in a familiar, comforting form. What’s not to like about the Beyond Burger? Now starring at Carl’s Jr. You’ll feel great about the health, sustainability, and animal welfare benefits of plant-based protein, say the folks at Beyond Meat. On the other hand, though, it is highly processed fake […]
