[ad_1] If you drink two cups of water, the adrenal hormone noradrenaline can surge in your bloodstream, similar to the response of smoking a few cigarettes or having a few cups of coffee. Given the 60 percent surge in noradrenaline within minutes of drinking just two cups of water, as shown in the graph below […]
[ad_1] The Buchinger-modified fasting program is put to the test. A century ago, fasting—“starvation, as a therapeutic measure”—was described as “the ideal measure for the human hog…” (Fat shaming is not a new invention in the medical literature.) I’ve covered fasting for weight loss extensively in a nine-video series, but what about all the other […]
[ad_1] Where did the idea of therapeutic fasting come from? The story of life on Earth is a story of starvation. Ash from massive volcanoes and asteroids blocked out the sun, which killed the plants, which then killed almost everything else. As Darwin pointed out: “Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, […]
[ad_1] Lean meats for dogs and cats are good for their health, encourage picky eaters, support healthy digestion, and have many other benefits. Pet parents are always on the lookout for the best food and treats for their dogs and cats, and no matter what you choose, lean meats should be on the menu. With […]
[ad_1] The first study in history on the incidence of stroke in vegetarians and vegans suggests they may be at higher risk. “When ranked in order of importance, among the interventions available to prevent stroke, the three most important are probably diet, smoking cessation, and blood pressure control.” Most of us these days are doing […]
[ad_1] How do the nutrition and health effects of quinoa compare to other whole grains? “Approximately 90% of the world’s calories are provided by less than one percent of the known 250,000 edible plant species.” The big three are wheat, corn, and rice, and our reliance on them may be unsustainable, given the ongoing climate […]
[ad_1] Implausible explanations for the obesity epidemic serve the needs of food manufacturers and marketers more than public health and an interest in truth. When it comes to uncovering the root causes of the obesity epidemic, there appears to be manufactured confusion, “with major studies reasserting that the causes of obesity are ‘extremely complex’ and […]
[ad_1] Like the tobacco industry adding extra nicotine to cigarettes, the food industry employs taste engineers to accomplish a similar goal of maximizing the irresistibility of its products. The plague of tobacco deaths wasn’t due just to the mass manufacturing and marketing of cheap cigarettes. Tobacco companies actively sought to make their products even more […]
[ad_1] The power of the “eat more” food environment can overcome our conscious controls. Food and beverage companies frame body weight as “a matter of personal choice.” Even when we aren’t distracted, the power of the “eat more” food environment may sometimes overcome our conscious controls of overeating. One look around the room at a […]
[ad_1] We all like to think we make important life decisions, like what to eat, consciously and rationally, but if that were the case, we wouldn’t be in the midst of an obesity epidemic. The opening words of the Institute of Medicine’s report on the potential threat posed by food ads were: “Marketing works.” Certainly, […]
[ad_1] The unprecedented rise in the power, scope, and sophistication of food marketing starting around 1980 aligns well with the blastoff slope of the obesity epidemic. In the 1970s, the U.S. government went from just subsidizing some of the worst foods to paying companies to make more of them: “Congress passed laws reversing long-standing farm […]
[ad_1] Why are U.S. taxpayers giving billions of dollars to support the likes of the sugar and meat industries? The rise in calorie surplus sufficient to explain the obesity epidemic was less a change in food quantity than in food quality. Access to cheap, high-calorie, low-quality convenience foods exploded, and the federal government very much […]
[ad_1] The rise in the U.S. calorie supply responsible for the obesity epidemic wasn’t just about more food, but a different kind of food. The rise in the number of calories provided by the food supply since the 1970s “is more than sufficient to explain the US epidemic of obesity.” Similar spikes in calorie surplus […]
[ad_1] We have an uncanny ability to pick out the subtle distinctions in calorie density of foods, but only within the natural range. The traditional medical view on obesity, as summed up nearly a century ago: “All obese persons are, alike in one fundamental respect,—they literally overeat.” While this may be true in a technical […]
[ad_1] Rather than being some kind of disorder or a failure of willpower, weight gain is largely a normal response by normal people to an abnormal situation. It’s been said that “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” The known genetic contribution to obesity may be small, but, in a certain […]
[ad_1] The “fat gene” accounts for less than 1 percent of the differences in size between people. To date, about a hundred genetic markers have been linked to obesity, but when you put them all together, overall, they account for less than 3 percent of the difference in body mass index (BMI) between people. You […]
[ad_1] The common explanations for the cause of the obesity epidemic put forward by the food industry and policymakers, such as inactivity or a lack of willpower, are not only wrong, but actively harmful fallacies. Obesity isn’t new, but the obesity epidemic is. We went from a few corpulent kings and queens, like Henry VIII […]
[ad_1] 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, […]
[ad_1] 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, […]
[ad_1] 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 […]
