Supplements/Ergogenic Aids
Moderate Alcohol Intake Is Fine for the Heart, but It Boosts Breast Cancer Risk
Drinking light-to-moderate quantities of wine, beer or some other alcoholic beverage (one drink per day max for women and two for men) may help stave off cardiovascular disease, the leading killer in the U.S., but there’s a downside: increased breast cancer risk for women.
Industry Wins, Consumers Lose, With Weakening of Nutrition Labeling Rules
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have put the brakes on multiple Obama administration regulations intended to help consumers make better nutrition choices.
Fueled to Perform
In the much-hyped Breaking2 event last spring, Nike®-sponsored elite marathoners tried to run the fastest-ever marathon, breaking the 2-hour threshold. Achieving such a feat—a 4:34-per-mile pace for 26.2 miles—would require extraordinary speed and stamina and exquisite attention to fueling and nutrition. Ultimately, Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge finished the Nike event in 2:00:25, a sliver short of his goal but still in record time—at a 4:36 pace!
Recipe for Health: Grilled Salmon Spelt Salad With Blueberry Vinaigrette
Buttery salmon, sweet-tart berry dressing, crunchy nuts, chewy spelt and sun-kissed vegetables mingle to create an Instagram-ready summer salad that can be enjoyed for lunch or as a light dinner on a sultry night. And each bite packs plenty of health benefits.
Hemp, Hemp Hooray
Hemp foods are flying high. According to Vote Hemp, a grass-roots hemp-advocacy organization, total retail sales of hemp foods in the United States reached about $129 million in 2016. (Costco, Whole Foods and some other retailers didn’t release sales data, so this is likely a lowball number.)
Menu Follies
In an effort to tackle the mounting problem of childhood obesity, the restaurant industry pledged to trim the fat, so to speak, from its children’s menus. It’s a worthy sentiment, given that about 1 in 5 school-aged children (aged 6–19) have obesity, according to the CDC.
New Science on Training and Fasting
It turns out there may be something to the gym floor “bro science” of exercising on an empty stomach to fire up that coveted fat-burning metabolism. Research published in the March 2017 edition of the American Journal of Physiology–Endocrinology and Metabolism shows that eating versus fasting before a workout can affect gene expression in adipose tissue (your fat stores) in response to exercise.
Nutrition Labels Can Be Misleading
In the supermarket these days, packaged foods brandishing health, nutrition or environmental claims are easier to find than foods with less-cluttered packaging. And if you’re among the growing number of shoppers who seek out healthier items on store shelves, these labels can end up guiding your purchasing decisions. But a study posted in March 2017 in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Diabetes found that certain nutrition claims are no guarantee you’re dropping the most nutritious option into your grocery cart.
How Does Diet Affect the Human Microbiome?
Question: I keep hearing about the “human microbiome” and its importance for health. Could you explain how diet affects bacteria in the intestines?
Answer: You have probably heard that you have more microbes (bacteria, fungi, etc.) in and on your body than you have actual human cells. It is shocking to most people, but when you consider the sheer number of microbes, collectively called the microbiota, you realize they must have an impact on your health.
Where’s the Better Beef?
The old saw that “you are what you eat” also applies to cattle, it seems. An investigation posted in April 2017 in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture found that if you throw a steak on the grill hailing from an animal raised on forage (that is, “grass-fed”), it’s likely to have a lower omega-6-to-omega-3 ratio than meat from a cow fattened up on concentrates (usually a mixture of grains and soy).
Question of the Month
We all know it: that dire moment when we return home exhausted from a harried day and realize we have no idea what to make for dinner and no bandwidth to even consider cooking from scratch. In the past, options for fast, convenient nourishment were to nuke a TV dinner or call for fat-soaked pizza or the sodium tsunami of Chinese take-out. How times have changed. Home-delivered meal kits have become one of the biggest, um, home-cooking trends.
Look Ma, I Can Eat More Meatloaf
In the film The Great Outdoors, John Candy attempts to choke down an “Old 96er”—a massive 96-ounce steak—as gawkers look on with a mixture of excitement and revulsion. This type of gluttony is not as rare as you may think, especially in men. According to a 2016 Cornell Food and Brand Lab analysis in Frontiers in Nutrition, men are prone to stuffing themselves silly in competitive eating situations, whether they’re structured competitions or simply social gatherings that lend themselves to competitive behavior.
Fend Off Diabetes at the Supermarket
Once a rarity, type 2 diabetes is becoming commonplace in America. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says more than 29 million people have diabetes and another 86 million have prediabetes (blood sugar levels high enough to indicate a risk of developing the disease in the near future). Chilling numbers, yes, but these statistics can be tackled with a fork and knife. Modern research shows that a shopping cart full of these foods can help in the battle against diabetes:
Don’t Give Frozen Foods the Cold Shoulder
People tend to frown on frozen vegetables and fruits, but fresh isn’t always best.
Lab-Grown Meat? It May Be a More Compassionate Choice
If you love meat but hate the idea of killing farm animals or damaging the environment to raise them, then take heed: Scientists are developing potential alternatives. Several companies are working on creating meat in labs using stem cells (unspecified cells that can be induced to become cells with a particular function) from animals.
DASH of This and That: Best Diet Ever?
Fad diets come and go, but one healthy-eating diet that has endured is the DASH diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension).
For the seventh year in a row, DASH was named “best overall diet” by a panel of experts. DASH also topped the list as “best plan for healthy eating” and “best diabetes plan,” and it tied with the Ornish Diet for “best diet for heart health.”
“Plant-Powered” Runs for Vegetarian Athletes
Farm Sanctuary, which has been rescuing neglected and abused farm animals for more than 30 years, has organized three “plant-powered” events—timed 10Ks, fun runs and noncompetitive walks. The first will be in New York City on June 10, the second in Los Angeles on September 23, and the third in San Francisco on November 11.
Cookbooks Scrimp on Safe Cooking Temps, Study Finds
Whether you cook food safely or not can mean the difference between enjoying a meal and becoming sick from it. How do you cook a particular food so it’s safe to eat?
Salt Reduction May Help to Improve Sleep
Getting up during the night to use the bathroom becomes more common as people get older. But researchers in Japan have found a way to dry up the nightly urge to pee (and so deliver a better night’s sleep): Cut your salt intake.
Nut Allergies: They’re Not One-Size-Fits-All
Being allergic to one kind of nut may not oblige you to avoid all nut varieties, a new study suggests.
Published in the March issue of Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, the study looked at 109 patients at an allergy referral center and found that more than half who were allergic to one kind of tree nut passed the allergy tests for other nuts. (Common tree nuts include almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, pecans, pistachios and Brazil nuts. Peanuts are technically a legume, not a nut.)