Archive for the ‘Food & Nutrition’ Category
March 14, 2024 — Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common endocrine disorder affecting young women, with effects that can span from adolescence to life after menopause. It is a complex condition and despite being so common, it’s still poorly understood. Quite often, obesity occurs coincidentally with PCOS. This coincidence has led to the kind of mistakes that […]
March 3, 2024 — Five years ago, Danone asked FDA if it would be OK to say eating yogurt might prevent type 2 diabetes. Or to be precise, “eating yogurt regularly may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes.” Friday, FDA told Danone, yep, we’re cool with that. Or, in the language of the agency: “FDA concludes that the […]
March 2, 2024 — Nutrition research in medical journals follows trends that define what the cognoscenti can regard healthy – or not. For decades, the bad stuff was fat. Then we switched to the sugar is toxic meme and that was the preoccupation through the 2010s. Now there can be no doubt. Research on ultra-processed foods is providing a steady […]
February 25, 2024 — Are we cynical? We can surely find excuses to be. Examples of cynicism pop up at every glance. Certainly we see it in politics and public policy. Closer to home at ConscienHealth, people routinely find reasons for cynicism about all kinds of medical research and advice – especially nutrition and obesity. This is a real […]
February 22, 2024 — “Is the Atlantic diet the new Mediterranean miracle?” This headline (and a host of others like it) says a lot about the ultra-processing of nutrition research by consumer media. It takes a fascinating study about the health effects of a traditional pattern for eating called the Atlantic diet and removes all the nuance. The product […]
February 19, 2024 — Global food systems are a slow-rolling disaster, gaining momentum, and costing the global economy $15 trillion per year. That’s the bad news from a new policy report of the Food System Economics Commission (FSEC). The good news is that we have options, they report, which could produce economic and health benefits adding up to as […]
February 14, 2024 — It seems obvious. If food is medicine, shouldn’t we be confident that chocolate is medicine? Certainly, Uma Naidoo is happy to sell you on this idea. She is a nutritional psychiatrist and author of “This Is Your Brain on Food: An Indispensable Guide to the Surprising Foods That Fight Depression, Anxiety, PTSD, OCD, ADHD and […]
February 13, 2024 — Artificial intelligence is hard at work, reshaping healthcare delivery, as well as the delivery of profits from healthcare. So what does this mean for the delivery of dietary services? Can Chat GPT and other artificial intelligence technologies help with the complex task of delivering nutrition guidance for health? Maybe. Or maybe not yet. People have […]
February 12, 2024 — Forget the Kansas City Chiefs and Taylor Swift. Well before the game ever started, it was very clear who would win the Super Bowl – the snack industry. The snacking industrial complex has been locked into hyperdrive for weeks, if not months, in preparation for last night’s event. The enticements were everywhere. The clickbait was […]
February 10, 2024 — The setup has been great. Kimchi lands near the top of the list of “must-eat fermented foods for a healthy gut.” On top of that, nutrition gurus advise us “food is medicine” and a fermented food diet “increases microbiome diversity and decreases inflammatory proteins.” So we should be ready to believe when a study tells […]