Nutrition

Researchers followed 3700 adults, ages 40 to 64, for up to 20 years and found that those who ate the most fiber were 25 percent less likely to suffer dementia in later life than those who ate the least . The more fiber a person ate, the less likely they were to develop dementia. Dietary fiber is found in fruits, vegetables, beans, grains, nuts and other seeds.

Some popular books tell you that because some prehistoric humans lived on large amounts of meat, you should do the same. I think that is lousy advice.

Staying hydrated may slow the aging process. NIH researchers followed 11,255 adults for 30 years and found that compared to those who didn't drink enough fluids, those who stayed well-hydrated aged more slowly, lived longer, and were far less likely to develop chronic diseases such as those of the heart, lungs and kidneys.

Many research papers have associated artificial sweeteners with increased risk for cancer, weight gain and diabetes, but nobody yet has proven that artificial sweeteners cause these conditions.

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.

When grains are processed into flour or cereals, the primary concern is loss of nutrients. This is explained in report #N178, Why Flour is Like Sugar. However, if you grind your own grains or use products that are made from the whole grain without discarding anything, you get all or most of the nutrients of the original grain. But grains that have been broken apart in any way will be digested more quickly. That's a big disadvantage for diabetics and dieters.

More than 70 percent of North American adults are overweight, which increases risk for high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes and premature death. A review of 45 trials of 11 weight loss programs (Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, HMR [Health Management Resources], Medifast, OPTIFAST, Atkins, The Biggest Loser Club, eDiets, Lose It! and SlimFast) showed that most had no good long-

A new study found that skipping breakfast could damage your immune system. Missing the first meal of the day can suppress the immune cells of the brain to make it more difficult for your body to fight off infection. Mice that received no breakfast had an incredible 90 percent fewer monocytes in their blood four hours after skipping breakfast and even lower levels eight hours later.

Several years ago a major drug company claimed that its vitamin pills helped to relieve stress from the "complications of everyday life" and gave their products names such as "StressTabs." The New York Attorney General forced them to stop their deceptive advertising, but many people still remember and believe this claim.

Turmeric is anti-inflammatory, as are many other spices such as cinnamon or ginger.  Turmeric roots are available in some produce sections, and ground (dry) turmeric is in virtually every spice section.  It’s a widely used spice, especially in Indian dishes, and we recommend using it that way. 

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.

Should you avoid white potatoes and eat sweet potatoes instead? Both white potatoes and sweet potatoes contain a variety of nutrients. Here’s the comparison:

A study from Italy found that eating a lot of processed foods is associated with increased risk for suffering a heart attack in people who have heart disease, and dying from heart disease, even if that person followed the plant-based Mediterranean diet and all the other rules for preventing and treating heart disease.

Ketogenic diets are controversial popular diets that can temporarily help you to lose weight by restricting carbohydrates. A keto diet usually restricts carbohydrates that are absorbed only as sugars, and lets you eat lots of fat and moderate amounts of protein.

Intermittent fasting works because it causes repeated "flipping of the metabolic switch." After you have fasted for about 12 hours, you start to lose body fat because your body is forced to change temporarily from its main energy source, glucose (sugar) to fat from the fat stored in your body, and using these fatty acids that are converted to energy to produce ketones that are also used for energy.

A study from Israel found that two artificial sweeteners, saccharin and sucralose, significantly raised blood sugar levels in healthy adults. Transferring their colon bacteria to mice caused the mice to suffer the same elevations in blood sugar. Artificial sweeteners can harm you by altering the bacteria in your colon (Nutrition Today, May 6, 2021;56(3):105-113). Some artificial sweeteners may cause inflammation, a condition in which your own immune system, which is supposed to kill invading germs, stays active all the time to attack you

Since the 1940s, the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, 137.165 (a), has recommended that each pound of food made from flour should contain 24 milligrams of niacin to help prevent vitamin B3 deficiency. For years, some doctors have prescribed niacin to treat people with low blood levels of the good HDL cholesterol. (Low levels of HDL are associated with increased risk for heart attacks). However, a new study from a highly-respected group of researchers at the Cleveland Clinic found that high doses of niacin may increase risk for arteriosclerosis, heart attacks and strokes.

A well-planned study shows that taking calcium pills, both with and without vitamin D, is associated with increased risk for pre-malignant serrated colon polyps.

All of the popular diet books, regardless of the "scientific" explanations they give, recommend menus that give you 1500-1800 calories or less per day, and for most people this means you will be taking in fewer calories. You can lose weight on any low-calorie diet, but ask yourself: Is this a way of eating I can follow for the rest of my life?

The American Heart Association reports that dementia is strongly associated with a pro-inflammatory diet. Dementia means loss of brain function, and your chance of having dementia increases as you age. A new study from Greece found that people who eat a pro-inflammatory diet are far more likely to suffer from dementia, compared to those eating an anti-inflammatory diet.

A study of more than 20,000 U.S. adults, average age 48 years, found that those who limited their eating to a period of less than eight hours a day had almost double the risk of dying from heart disease, compared to those who ate meals over 12-16 hours per day.

Researchers followed 3,000 middle-aged people, average age 53, for 18 years and found out that the more ultra-processed foods they ate, the more likely they were to suffer a heart attack. Each daily serving of ultra-processed food increased heart attack risk by seven percent, and increased risk of death from a heart attack by nine percent.

It is well-known that taking large doses of the fat-soluble vitamins -- A, D, E and K -- can harm you. You may also be harmed by large doses of the water-soluble B vitamins or vitamin C.

Sellers of cow's meat either let their cows eat grass, or they can make the cows fatter and produce more meat by feeding them corn. The latest argument for eating meat from grass-fed cows is that grass is full of vitamin K1. Animals that graze on grass can convert the vitamin K1 in grass into vitamin K2 and it accumulates in their muscles, so when you eat meat from grass-fed cows, you gain the health benefits of vitamin K2 (listed below). Vitamin K2 is soluble in fat so it can also be found in other fatty foods such as eggs and fatty dairy products. Fermented foods are also good sources of vitamin K2.

A vegan diet with no added fats caused 117 obese people, average age 54, to lose 13 pounds over 16 weeks (JAMA Netw Open, Nov 30, 2020;3(11):e2025454). They decreased their risk of becoming diabetic by increasing the rate that they burned calories by more than 14 percent, and reducing insulin resistance.

Nobody has presented good evidence that eating meat from grass-fed animals is more healthful than the meat from corn-fed animals. The main health arguments for eating grass-fed meat are its lower fat content and higher content of omega-3 fatty acids.

Fiber is the indigestible structural material of plants that is found in all fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, nuts and other seeds. Before food can be absorbed from your intestines into your bloodstream, it must be broken down into basic building blocks. Since you lack the intestinal enzymes to break down fiber into its building blocks of basic sugars, you do not absorb fiber in your upper intestines. Fiber passes through your intestines into your colon where soluble and insoluble fiber are treated differently by the bacteria in your colon.

North Americans eat far more fat than they need, primarily from the vegetable oils that are added to just about every packaged food or fast food meal you can buy, and from our tendency to cook most of our foods in fat. It is harmful to take in a lot of fats from vegetable oils because excessive fat intake can cause high insulin levels and insulin resistance, which can cause diabetes.

WHO (World Health Organization), the United Nations' health agency, advises that most people should not use non-sugar sweeteners to replace sugar in foods. They report that artificial sweeteners have not been shown to help people lose body fat long-term.

Our food industry works to bring you more and more ultra-processed foods that have little or no fiber, but there is no debate in the scientific community: you should eat lots of plants that have not had their fiber removed. A review commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO) of 185 prospective studies and 58 clinical trials, covering 4600 adults, shows that for every 8-gram/day increase in dietary fiber, there was up to a 31 percent decrease in deaths from all causes, a 30 percent decrease in deaths from heart attacks, 22 percent reduced risk of stroke, and a 16 percent reduced risk of diabetes, colorectal cancer and breast cancer.