Plastering front-of-package nutrient claims on cereal boxes is an attempt to distract us from the incongruity of feeding our children multicolored marshmallows for breakfast. The American Medical Association started warning people about excess sugar consumption more than 75 years ago, based in part on our understanding that “sugar supplies nothing in nutrition but calories, and…
How do healthier plant-based diets compare to unhealthy plant foods and animal foods when it comes to diabetes risk? In my video on flexitarians, I discuss how the benefits of eating a plant-based diet are not all-or-nothing. “Simple advice to increase the consumption of plant-derived foods with compensatory [parallel] reductions in the consumption of foods…
Public health authorities continue to lower the upper tolerable limit of daily added sugar intake. Dating back to the original “Dietary Goals for the United States” in 1977, also known as the so-called McGovern Report, leading nutrition scientists didn’t only call for a reduction in meat and other sources of saturated fat and cholesterol, such…
We had the pleasure of talking with Dr. Sheil Shukla about his work, food, traditional Indian culture, and Asian American and Pacific Islander Month. We hope you enjoy this interview. Please tell us a little bit about your work and career. My name is Sheil Shukla, DO, and I am a board-certified internal medicine physician…
Are the apparent adverse effects of heavy cannabis use on the bone just due to users being thinner? It’s been recognized for decades that cigarette smoking can have “a major effect” on bone health, “increasing the lifetime risk of hip fracture by about half.” It also appears to impair bone healing, so much so that…
SAD doesn’t just stand for the standard American diet. There’s a condition known as seasonal affective disorder that is characterized by increased appetite and cravings, as well as greater sleepiness and lethargy, that begins in autumn when light exposure starts to dwindle. This now appears to represent the far end of a normal spectrum of…
What did randomized controlled trials of phototherapy—bright morning light—for weight loss find? If weakening our circadian rhythm can cause weight gain, might strengthening it facilitate weight loss? You may remember the child’s swing analogy I shared previously. Regular morning meals can give our cycles a little daily push, but the biggest shove comes from our…
Coronary artery disease, the number one killer of men and women, involves blockages in the blood vessels that supply the heart muscle. As discussed in my video Do Angioplasty Heart Stent Procedures Work?, low blood flow can lead to a type of chest pain called angina or, if severe enough, a heart attack. Plant-based diets…
What can shift workers do to moderate the adverse effects of circadian rhythm disruption? Shift workers may have higher rates of death from heart disease, stroke, diabetes, dementia, and cardiovascular disease, as well as higher rates of death from cancer. Graveyard shift, indeed! But, is it just because they’re eating out of vending machines or…
Ancient types of wheat, like kamut, are put to the test for inflammation, blood sugar, and cholesterol control. The number one killer in the United States and around the world is what we eat. As you can see in the graph below and at 0:15 in my video Friday Favorites: Are Ancient Grains Healthier?, our…