Nutrition & Food
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Of 28 Links Between Everyday Drinks and Mouth Bacteria, Alcohol Claimed 25
A federal study of 5,598 Americans tied alcohol, mostly beer and liquor, to 25 of 28 links between drinks and mouth bacteria. It landed months after the Dietary Guidelines dropped their daily drink limits.
Nutrition & FoodThe Mediterranean Diet's Mitochondrial 'Boost' Comes From One Blood Draw in 49 Heart Patients
Older heart-rhythm patients who ate closest to the Mediterranean pattern carried more humanin and SHMOOSE, but nobody's diet was changed and both gaps landed at p = 0.046.
Nutrition & FoodNon-Dairy Creamer Overtook Sugar as the Biggest Source of Added Calories in American Coffee
Average coffee intake barely moved between 2003 and 2018, yet its calories climbed from 43 to 60 a day, and non-dairy creamer, not sugar, drove most of the rise.
Nutrition & FoodCold Cuts and Breakfast Cereal Pulled Opposite Ways in a Giant Colon Cancer Study
In 461,682 Americans, total ultra-processed food showed no link to colorectal cancer. Inside the label, reconstituted meat products tracked with higher risk and packaged bread and cereal with lower, while a federal definition sits under White House review.
Nutrition & FoodMicroplastics Make Tissue-Damaging Radicals in Water, No Sunlight Required
With no light, heat or catalyst, water turned the surfaces of six common microplastics into a source of hydroxyl radicals in lab tests, and the plastics that made the most radicals ruptured the most red blood cells.
Nutrition & FoodAn Oil Mill's Soy Emulsifier Protected Salt-Fed Mice's Memory
Salt-fed mice got worse at remembering objects and lost interest in each other. A soy lipid blunted both, in a study a food-ingredient maker helped start and fund.
Nutrition & FoodVitamin D2 Supplements Lower the Vitamin D3 Already in Your Blood
Pooling randomized trials, Surrey researchers found people taking vitamin D2 ended up with less circulating vitamin D3, the form sunlight makes, than people who took none, by as much as 18 nmol/L.
Nutrition & FoodIn a 20-Patient UCSF Pilot, Cutting Ultra-Processed Food Dropped Depression Scores About 60 Percent
Twenty adults with major depression cut their ultra-processed food by more than 85 percent, and their scores on three depression scales fell about 60 percent in four weeks. The pilot is tiny and unblinded, and the result is still hard to wave off.
Nutrition & FoodMen Who Iced After Lifting Gained a Third of the Thigh Muscle Their Peers Did
Twelve weeks of cold water after leg day left men with 103 grams of new quadriceps muscle against 309 for those who cycled, and most of the recovery aisle is sold on soreness, not gains.
Nutrition & FoodSame Calories on Paper, 116 Fewer Absorbed: What Your Gut Microbes Do With a Whole-Food Diet
On calorie-matched menus, 17 adults absorbed about 116 fewer calories a day eating whole foods than eating processed ones, with no measurable rise in hunger, and the century-old Atwater arithmetic undercounted the processed plate.
Nutrition & FoodForget You Ate Lunch and You'll Eat Another One: Your Memory Center Helps Run Your Appetite
Two amnesic patients ate a second full lunch minutes after the first. Rats with silenced meal-memory neurons came back to eat sooner. In healthy young adults, one week of waffles and fast food dulled both word recall and the normal drop in food craving after a full breakfast.
Nutrition & FoodSugar on the Hospital Tray Tracked With Deeper Antibiotic Damage to the Gut
Among 173 transplant patients on antibiotics, each extra 100 grams of sugar went with 24 percent lower gut diversity, and the nutrition shakes hospitals often recommend appeared to do the most harm.
Nutrition & FoodKeto Raised Tumor Counts in One Stretch of Mouse Gut and Cut Them in the Next, While the Ketones Sat It Out
In cancer-prone mice, a ketogenic diet meant more small-intestine tumors and fewer colon tumors, and the ketones long credited for keto's anticancer promise turned out to be bystanders.
Nutrition & FoodFive Coffee Companies Paid for the Study Behind the "Coffee Fixes Your Gut and Brain" Headlines
The headlines credit your morning cup with less stress, sharper memory, and a healthier gut. The study behind them was paid for by ISIC, the trade body funded by five coffee companies including illycaffè, Lavazza, and Tchibo.
Nutrition & FoodTwo Labs on Two Continents Watched a Pomegranate Compound Relax Stiff Mouse Hearts
Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction has few disease-modifying options. A gut metabolite from pomegranates and walnuts, already sold as a supplement, improved measures of heart function up to 80 percent in mice.
Nutrition & Food87 Trials Found the Whole-Grain Sweet Spot: Sixteen Markers Nudged Healthier, None of Them by Much
Sixty to a hundred grams of whole grain a day nudged weight, cholesterol, blood pressure and inflammation the right way across 87 randomized trials. The median trial ran eight weeks, every effect was tiny, and not one counted an actual heart attack.
Nutrition & FoodCaffeine Can Flatten Your Deep Sleep While You Sleep Right Through the Night
On caffeine, the slow brain waves that make sleep restorative can thin out even when you fall asleep fast and wake up sure you rested.
Nutrition & FoodThe Older Adults Whose 'Biological Age' Dropped Ate More Carbs and Kept the Meat
The omnivorous, low-fat, high-carbohydrate group showed the strongest drop. The keto-style omnivore group was the only one of four that didn't budge at all.
Nutrition & FoodCalcium and Vitamin D Cut Hip Fractures 16 Percent. The Authors Called That 'Little to No Meaningful Benefit.'
The combined calcium and vitamin D arm cut hip fractures with a confidence interval that cleared significance. Then a bar the researchers set for themselves, one that would take more than halving hip fractures to meet, turned the result into a headline telling people to stop.
Nutrition & FoodEven the Vitamin C Made the List: 112,000 People and Eight Everyday Preservatives Tied to High Blood Pressure
Ascorbic acid, citric acid, sodium nitrite: three of eight common food preservatives that a 112,000-person French cohort has now linked to higher blood pressure, with the researchers asking the FDA and EFSA to re-check them.
Nutrition & FoodThe Fat Hiding in Black and Green Rice Is a Cousin of the Body's Own Blood-Sugar Molecules
Hokkaido chemists screened 56 rice varieties and found the pigmented ones carry a lipid cousin of the body's own insulin-sensitizing fats. This study did not test it in people.
Nutrition & FoodMRI Found Fat Marbled Inside the Thigh Muscles of Heavy Ultra-Processed Eaters, and Calories Didn't Explain It
MRI scans of 615 adults found more fat marbled inside the thigh muscle the more ultra-processed food people ate, and the link held after adjustment for calorie intake, exercise, and fat intake.
Nutrition & FoodThe Whole-Grain Sweet Spot Is 4 to 6 Servings, and It Nudged Five Heart-Risk Numbers at Once
60 to 100 grams a day moved body weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar and an inflammation marker together, the same cluster clinicians usually treat one number, and one prescription, at a time.
Nutrition & FoodThe Study Clearing Sucralose Was Co-Written by the Company That Makes It
An independent lab found sucralose's byproduct breaks chromosomes and loosens the gut wall in cell experiments. The rebuttal telling you it's fine was co-written by the company that manufactures sucralose.