February 23, 2021 — SF Eater tells us that 13 bakeries in San Francisco have “killer croissants.” The Atlanta Journal Constitution tells us that croissants, along with white bread, tie us to an early death. Their source for this epidemiological wisdom is the BMJ. That treasure trove of epidemiology – the PURE study – has yielded another publication. This […]
February 1, 2021 — A long, long time ago, the FDA proposed voluntary goals for reducing salt in processed, packaged, and prepared foods. But that was 2016 and a new administration came the following year with less interest in this subject. So naturally, this went nowhere. It took little more than this idea coming from the Obama team to […]
January 24, 2021 — Ultra-processed foods seem to be a problem for human health. For one thing, the link between consuming them and bad health outcomes seems strong. We have a steady stream of new studies to confirm this. For another, we have some pretty compelling experimental evidence from well-controlled studies to tell us that there may be a […]
January 21, 2021 — In Australia and around the world, research is showing changes in body weight, cooking, eating and drinking patterns associated with COVID pandemic lockdowns. Some changes have been positive, such as people cooking at home more, and eating more vegetables. But many people have also reported snacking more, and eating and drinking in response to stress. […]
January 4, 2021 — Maybe you’ve noticed. Resolution season has a different tone this year. The assault from popular media has made a shift. In fact, many of the headlines are not about diets and weight loss this year. Instead, they’re about healthy habits and lasting changes. After all we’ve been through, people simply don’t have much appetite for […]
December 23, 2020 — China is going to eliminate food waste and fight obesity in a single stroke of regulation. How, you ask? Operation Empty Plate will expand into law. China will make it a crime to promote food waste, including overeating. The hilarity of naive efforts to regulate food marketing never disappoints. Stiff Fines for Bad Marketing Right […]
November 30, 2020 — Free vitamin D supplements will be sent to over two million clinically vulnerable people in the UK this winter. Over 80% of patients hospitalised with COVID-19 are vitamin D deficient compared with the general population. In a small study, a high dose of vitamin D appeared to reduce the severity of COVID-19. While some scientists […]
November 12, 2020 — The American College of Cardiology is serving up anti-inflammatory food. Dig in! In a press release earlier this month, the College told us that an anti-inflammatory diet can lower heart disease and stroke risk. It sounds great, but if you read the press release, you’ll find that these studies are all about modest correlations. Not […]
October 7, 2020 — In 1826, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin wrote: Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are. Those words appeared in The Physiology of Taste, a work of seven volumes. Now we’ve boiled it down to you are what you eat. A new study in PLOS Medicine suggests there’s real wisdom in that […]
September 29, 2020 — The headlines paint a stark picture. Time-Restricted Eating Doesn’t Work for Weight Loss says the UCSF news story. Based solely on the the conclusions of this one study, we should get over it. Time-restricted eating offers no advantages for weight loss. This new, well-controlled study in JAMA Internal Medicine says so. Suddenly the benefits of […]
