Alcohol Has No Health Benefits
A study from New Zealand showed that 30 per cent of alcohol–related deaths were from cancer, and 60 per cent of those deaths were from breast cancer. One third of these deaths were associated with an average of fewer than two drinks a day.
How Eating Less May Prolong Life
Restricting calories, even in non-obese people, reduces inflammation, helps to prevent cancers and increases autophagy. Autophagy or cellular recycling extends the lives of many different species. Autophagy means "self-eating." When a cell dies, the body has a quick way to break down the dead cell’s parts (protein-making, power-generating and transport systems) into small molecules that can be reassembled to be used for making new cell parts.
Two Clues to the Obesity Epidemic
Certain bacteria in your colon may turn dietary fat into body fat to make you fat, and antibiotics may alter gut bacteria to a larger proportion of the types that make you fat
Fructose is the Worst Sugar
Fructose causes more damage than glucose because it is far more likely to deposit fat in your belly, which causes higher blood sugar levels and increases risk for diabetes, heart attacks and death. Glucose is processed by every cell in your body, but almost all fructose is processed only by your liver where most is converted to fatty triglycerides.
Add Fiber to Fruit Juice?
A study sponsored by PepsiCo showed that adding extra fiber to regular orange juice markedly reduced the usual high rise in peak blood sugar and insulin concentrations in men who were at high risk for diabetes and heart attacks.
Gluten-Free Diets Can Harm
Two studies in prestigious medical journals show that gluten-free diets can cause nutritional deficiencies in all age groups (Clinical Nutrition, published online May 7, 2016) and interfere with growth and development in children.
Don’t Count Calories
Contestants on the television program The Biggest Loser dropped an average of 129 pounds, yet six years later, most have regained more than 70 percent of their lost weight, largely because dieting decreased their ability to burn calories. They now burn about 500 fewer calories each day than would be expected for a person of the same age and weight.
Why We Use Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting does not mean complete avoidance of foods and drinks. Instead, you markedly reduce your intake of food during certain periods. The benefits of intermittent fasting can be seen as long as you significantly reduce your total caloric intake during those periods.
Snack On Nuts Fruits and Vegetables
Eating lots of nuts and fruits is associated with reduced risk for diabetes and heart attacks. Nuts are low in absorbable calories and provide many essential nutrients. People who snack regularly on nuts have fewer blood markers for diabetes and arteriosclerosis than the general population, intermittent fasting
Eggs: New Review of Studies
Nobody really knows whether or not eating eggs is safe. We have studies showing that people who eat more than five eggs a week have increased risk for diabetes and breast and colon cancer, but the studies show only that eating eggs is associated with these conditions. We have no studies that show that eggs cause disease in humans.
Will Gluten-Free Make You Feel Better?
Gluten is a group of proteins found in wheat, rye and barley that causes about two percent of North Americans to become sick: those with celiac disease or gluten allergies. In spite of all its bad publicity from authors of popular diet books, gluten may actually offer health benefits to the remainder of the population.
Check Those Fish Oil Pills
Fish oil pills are among the most unstable supplements on the market because the oil oxidizes quickly when exposed to oxygen. Fish oils contain omega-3 fatty acids that are unusually susceptible to being oxidized to products that can be harmful.
New Dietary Guidelines
the Dietary Guidelines issued in January 2016 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services recommend * restricting sugar, salt, saturated fat, and trans fats, and eating more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean meat, and low-fat foods. The recommendation to eat lean meat has caused the most criticism by scientists.
Hidden Sugars
The average North American takes in 150 to 200 pounds of sugar a year. Most of your sugar intake comes from added sugars in drinks and packaged, frozen and canned foods that you buy in grocery stores or eat in restaurants. More than 75 percent of the packaged foods in your grocery store have added sugar in them. Many of these foods do not taste particularly sweet, so you don't even realize that you are eating sugars.
Good Fats in Nuts
Nuts are a rich source of fat, but the fat in nuts is absorbed very poorly (Am J Clin Nutr, Jan, 2015;101(1):25-33). For example, the fat in almonds is located inside the cells of the almond kernel. Even after prolonged chewing, most of the almond cells remained intact and the fat is still inside the cells. Humans lack the enzymes to break down these cell walls. You have to liberate fat from inside cells to absorb it into your body.
Whole Milk or Skim? Cheese and Yogurt are Better
All types of milk and milk products are high in sugar, unless the milk is fermented to make yogurt or cheese. Skim milk may be more harmful to your health than whole milk because skim milk may have higher levels of a sugar called galactose that causes inflammation.
Calcium Pills Do Not Prevent Fractures
In light of the overwhelming evidence that extra dietary calcium does not prevent fractures, it is very puzzling that many medical and public health organizations still recommend extra calcium
Coca Cola Pays to Convince You that Sugared Drinks are Safe
Sugared drinks are associated with increased risk for obesity, diabetes, heart attacks, certain cancers and premature death (J Am Coll Cardiol, 2015;66(14):1615-1624). Yet Coca...
Auto-Immune Diseases and Gut Bacteria
Lifestyle changes that affect gut bacteria may help to prevent and treat auto-immune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis. More than 50 million Americans suffer from autoimmune diseases that look just like a person has an infection because laboratory tests show that a person has an over-active immunity that is trying to kill some germ.
Should You Avoid Gluten?
Twenty-one percent of North Americans are trying to avoid gluten, a component of wheat, when fewer than one percent actually need to do so. If following a gluten-free diet causes people to consume fewer foods made with flour -- such as bread, muffins, cookies and pasta -- they may lose weight and lower their risk for diabetes, even though these benefits have nothing to do with avoiding gluten. However, many people hop on the "gluten-free" bandwagon and consume huge amounts of gluten-free flour products which are just as unhealtful as those made with wheat flour.
Why I STILL Restrict Meat, Eggs and Milk
TMAO May Explain the Risk in Eating Red Meat, Eggs or Milk. Red meat, eggs and milk contain lecithin, and lecithin is broken down into another chemical called choline. Your intestinal bacteria use choline as a source for their energy and then release a breakdown product called TMAO (trimethylamine oxide).
Diet Shown to Reduce Risk for Dementia
A study from Rush Medical School in Chicago shows that a special diet can reduce the risk for Alzheimer's disease by 53 percent in those who follow the diet rigorously, and by 35 percent in those who follow it and cheat some of the time.
Big Sugar Uses Big Tobacco Tactics
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration proposes that, to reduce heart disease, all foods with added sugar have labels listing the amounts of added sugar and recommended restriction levels. The proposed rule sets the intake of added sugar for packaged food and beverages at no more than 200 calories a day, or 10 percent of the 2,000-calorie diet generally used for nutrition guidance.
Restricting Calories for Just Five Days a Month May Prolong Life
A new study from the University of Southern California shows that restricting calories just five days a month for three months:
• helped people lose...
Coffee Guidelines
The European Food Safety Authority has just released a 120-page report reviewing the health benefits and risks of coffee and advises against drinking more than four cups of coffee per day. The U.S 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee recommends close to the same limit.
Dietary Recommendations Opposed by Industry
Corporate interests from the meat and sugar industries are actively disputing dietary recommendations that could help prolong the duration and enhance the quality of the lives of many North Americans.
Fruits are Healthful Despite Sugar Content
Sugar added to foods increases risk for diabetes and heart attacks, while sugar in whole fruits does not. People who eat lots of fruits and vegetables are at reduced risk for heart attacks and are least likely to die prematurely
Metformin (Glucophage) for Weight Loss
Metformin, sold under the trade name Glucophage, is used to treat diabetes, but several studies show that it also helps non-diabetics to lose weight by reducing hunger.
Stevia May Affect Gut Bacteria
Amid growing concerns about artificial sweeteners, many of my readers asked whether stevia can also change gut bacteria. Stevia is a sugar substitute extracted from the leaves of a plant, Stevia rebaudiana, and is almost 200 times sweeter than regular table sugar. In 2008, the FDA declared that stevia was safe in foods and beverages.
Best Time to Eat: Just Before or After Exercise
The most healthful time to eat is just before or after you exercise. When you eat any source of sugar, it is used for energy and a small amount is stored in your muscles and liver. All the rest is turned into a fat called triglycerides that is stored as fat, forms plaques in your arteries and blocks insulin receptors which can cause diabetes.
