International Life Sciences Institute, a nonprofit, is accused of being a front group for Coca-Cola and other junk food giants. In 2019, a series of reviews was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine that concluded the same thing that past reviews have concluded: Adhering to dietary patterns that are lower in red or processed […]

Please note: This blog and its accompanying video discuss the important and troubling issue of weight bias and discrimination, which may be a sensitive topic for some readers. How might weight stigma be a vicious cycle? Although total fasting can dramatically increase blood levels of the stress hormone cortisol, as much as doubling within five

Please note: This blog and its accompanying video discuss the important and troubling issue of weight bias and discrimination, which may be a sensitive topic for some readers. How common is weight stigmatization in health care? Described as the last “acceptable” form of bias, weight stigma is the rampant discrimination and stereotyping of overweight individuals.

Do people who eat nuts live longer simply because they replace protein from animals with protein from plants? The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition “is the highest-ranked peer-reviewed scientific journal in nutrition and dietetics.” That should tell you a lot about the field, since it’s published by the American Society of Nutrition, whose sustaining partners

A micromort, a unit for comparing and communicating risk to patients, is equivalent to a one-in-a-million chance of dying. Hundreds of millions of operations are performed every year, and the risk of death is typically around half a percent, to which patients might say things like, “I could die just as easily crossing the road,”

Hot peppers, soy foods, and pumpkin seeds may help with hair loss. Androgenic or androgenetic alopecia is one of the most common chronic problems seen by dermatologists. In men, it’s called male pattern hair loss, and in women, it’s called female pattern hair loss. It’s characterized by progressive hair loss, mostly of the central scalp.

What are the pros and cons of Propecia and Rogaine for hair loss? “Any consumer looking on the Internet for a treatment for hair loss is exposed to a multitude of remedies.” However, we only have good evidence for efficacy for drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration: finasteride (sold as Propecia) and

Might biotin or zinc supplements prevent hair loss in men and women? By the time we’re 50, about half of us, men and women, will experience hair loss. No, it’s not caused by washing your hair too much or, for that matter, brushing it too much either—two of the many myths out there. Researchers found

I discuss a public health case for modernizing the definition of protein quality. In 2019, Dr. David Katz and colleagues, including one of my favorite researchers, David Jenkins, published a “public health case for modernizing the definition of protein quality.” The prevailing definition seems to have more to do with biochemistry than the overall effects

Healthy kidneys are required for potassium excretion. If you aren’t sure if you’re at risk, ask your doctor about getting your kidney function tested. Based on how we evolved, the optimum dietary potassium intake likely greatly exceeds current and even recommended intakes. The problem is we replaced many of the potassium-rich plant foods that used