We've known that being overweight and obese are important risk factors for type 2 diabetes, but, until recently, not much attention has been paid to the role of specific foods. I discuss this issue in my video, Why Is......

During World War I, it was discovered that many of the chemicals for new explosives had toxic or even lethal effects on the workers in the munitions factories. Chemicals such as di-nitro-phenol (DNP) can boost metabolism so much that......

Previously, I've explored the beneficial effects of flaxseeds on prostate cancer (Flaxseeds vs. Prostate Cancer), as well as breast cancer prevention and survival (Flaxseeds & Breast Cancer Prevention and Breast Cancer Survival & Lignan Intake). The cancer-fighting effect of flaxseeds......

The results of the CHAMACOS (Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas) study were published recently. This study of a California birth cohort investigated the relationship between exposure to flame retardant chemical pollutants in pregnancy......

Weight loss surgery for children and adolescents is becoming widespread and is being performed in children as young as five years old. Roux-en-Y gastric bypass is the most common type of procedure, in which surgeons cut out nearly the......

We've been playing music since the Paleolithic Era, 40,000 years ago. Music as therapy has been documented since at least biblical times. The first music therapy experiment was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1914.......

A number of studies suggest that exposure to industrial pollutants may affect sexual function, for example, loss of libido, sexual dysfunction, and impotence. This may be due to effects on testosterone levels. In a study of men who ate......

The medical literature has been historically hostile to organic foods, blaming in part erroneous information supplied by the health food movement for our ignorance of nutrition. But until just a few generations ago, all food was organic. It's kind......

The stated principles of organic agriculture are "health, ecology, fairness, and care," but if you ask people why they buy organic, the strongest predictor is concern for their own health. People appear to spend more for organic foods for......

Generally, adherence to healthy lifestyle patterns has decreased during the last 18 years. Obesity is up, exercise is down, and the number of people eating just five servings of fruits and veggies a day dropped like a rock. And......

We've known that breastfed infants may be protected against obesity later in life for more than 30 years, but why? It may be the formula. Giving infants formula based on cow's milk presents an unusual situation. Cow's milk is......

High dietary fiber intake may help prevent strokes. The belief that dietary fiber intake is protectively associated with certain diseases was postulated 40 years ago and then enormously fueled and kept alive by a great body of science since.......

Milk is touted to build strong bones, but a compilation of all the best studies found no association between milk consumption and hip fracture risk, so drinking milk as an adult might not help bones, but what about in......

Foods of animal origin in general naturally contain hormones, but cow's milk may be of particular concern. The hormones naturally found even in organic cow's milk may have played a role in studies that found a relationship between dairy......

Estrogen hormones can be thousands of times more estrogenic than typical endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Dietary exposure to natural sex steroids (in meat, dairy, and eggs) is "therefore highly relevant in the discussion of the impact of estrogens on human development......

Low back pain became one of the biggest problems for public health systems in the Western world during the second half of the 20th century. The lifetime prevalence of low back pain is reported to be as high as......

Hundreds of thousands of deaths in the United States every year are attributed to obesity, now overtaking smoking as perhaps the main preventable cause of illness and premature death. In particular, excess body fatness is an important cause of......

In response to concerns raised about the toxicity of Monsanto's roundup pesticide, which ends up in GMO foods (See Is Monsanto's Roundup Pesticide Glyphosate Safe?), Monsanto's scientists countered that these in vitro experiments used physiological irrelevant concentrations, meaning dripping......

Recently, there has been research examining the connection between poultry consumption and weight gain. One study out of the Netherlands examining about 4,000 people, correlated chicken consumption with weight gain. Another study followed 89,000 people in four other countries......

A number of case-control studies have found that giving kids cod liver oil supplements may increase their risk of asthma later in life. Case-control studies are done by asking about past behavior in cases (those with asthma) versus controls......

Over the counter antacids are probably the most important source for human aluminum exposure in terms of dose. For example, Maalox, taken as directed, can exceed the daily safety limit more than 100-fold, and nowhere on the label does......

Thirty years ago, virtually all diabetes in young individuals was thought to be autoimmune Type 1 diabetes, but since the mid-90s, we started to see an increase in Type 2 diabetes among youth, particularly in the United States. Indeed,......

Back in the 1950s, it was suggested that some cases of constipation among children might be due to the consumption of cow's milk. But it wasn't until 40 years later that it was finally put to the test. We......

In a previous video Alpha Gal and the Lone Star Tick, I started talking about a tick bite-induced meat allergy, called Alpha-Gal, that is unlike any other food allergy we know. The most interesting feature of the reactions may......

In the latest study on dietary patterns and breast cancer risk among women, healthier eating was associated with eliminating three-quarters of the odds of breast cancer, whereas less healthy eating was associated with up to nearly eight times the......