Posts Tagged ‘diet’

Serving a Hot Dish of Anti-Inflammatory Food

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 […]

We Are What We Eat? Or What We Weigh?

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 […]

Suddenly We’re Done with Time-Restricted Eating?

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 […]

When Dietary Dogma Meets Inconvenient Facts

September 13, 2020 — In nutrition, we encounter a fair amount of dietary dogma. But dogma is not confined to nutrition. Obesity prevention, obesity treatment, and health promotion are all teeming with it. Asking questions and paying attention to inconvenient facts can be most unwelcome. However, if the goal is better health, it’s essential. Both public and individual health […]

Is Objective Dialogue About Sugar Even Possible?

August 18, 2020 — For the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, this was a relatively easy question. Americans typically consume too much added sugar. So the committee recommends a lower limit. In the 2015, the limit was ten percent of total calories from added sugars. But now the committee says that limit should come down to six. Not so fast, […]

Guidelines: Sugar, Alcohol, and Red Meat – Oh My!

August 13, 2020 — Do you want to take a whack at expert opinions on the 2020 Dietary Guidelines? Then today is your last chance. USDA is accepting comments until midnight tonight. So far, it has a mere received 22,434 comments. Believe it or not, this reflects relatively little controversy. The main headlines from this round are all about […]

Hair Clippings to Measure Dietary Health

August 12, 2020 — Remember when haircuts were routine? Today, it seems, they’re a bit more special. The close contact they require makes it so. But new research also tells us that hair clippings from these close encounters can be valuable for dietary research. A team of researchers gathered up hair from barbershops and salons in diverse U.S. locations […]

Sugar in Your Food, Your Blood, and Your Exercise

July 31, 2020 — Nature Metabolism scored big this week with PR for a study on blood sugar and exercise. The study looked at hyperglycemia and exercise training. With lots of attention on Twitter and in the news media, it scored in the 98th percentile for commanding public attention. But the attention it got didn’t line up very well […]

Dietary Dark Matter: What Are We Eating?

July 23, 2020 — Do you know what you’re having for lunch? You might think so. But in fact, the food that we are consuming is so complex, that we only have a vague idea of what’s in it. Through a project called FooDB, scientists have cataloged more than 70,000 biologically active chemicals that may be present in our […]

Calories, Carbs, Quality, and Obesity

July 6, 2020 — For decades now, we’ve been debating the role of macronutrients in weight gain. But that fierce debate has yielded precious little consensus. Low-fat dietary guidance ruled the land for decades. Right now, low-carb diets seem to have the upper hand. However, in a new webinar, Kevin Hall suggests that neither calories, carbs, nor fat tell […]