Butter, Margarine and Heart Disease

Shortly after World War II, margarine replaced butter in the U.S. food supply. Margarine consumption exceeded butter in the 1950s. By 1975...

Leptin Resistance and Sugar

Leptin is a major hormone regulator of fat mass in vertebrates. It's a frequent topic on this blog because I believe it's central t...

The Fundamentals

I heard an interview of Michael Pollan yesterday on Talk of the Nation . He made some important points about nutrition that bear repeating....

U.S. Weight, Lifestyle and Diet Trends, 1970- 2007

For this post, I compiled statistics on U.S. weight, health and lifestyle trends, and graphed them as consistently as possible. They span t...

The Myth of the High-Protein Diet

The phrase "low-carbohydrate diet" is a no-no in some circles, because it implies that a diet is high in fat. Often, the euphemis...

Gluten Sensitivity: Celiac Disease is the Tip of the Iceberg

Celiac disease is a degeneration of the lining of the small intestine caused by a sensitivity to gluten. Gluten is the protein portion of w...

Peripheral vs. Ectopic Fat

I went to an interesting presentation the other day by Dr. George Ioannou of the University of Washington, on obesity and liver disease. He...

Polyunsaturated Fat Intake: Effects on the Heart and Brain

I'm revisiting the topic of the omega-6/omega-3 balance and total polyunsaturated fat (PUFA) intake because of some interesting studies ...

Health is Multi-Factorial

Thanks to commenter Brock for pointing me to this very interesting paper , "Effects of fish oil on hypertension, plasma lipids, and tu...

Real Food X: Roasted Marrow Bones

Bone marrow is a food that has been prized throughout history-- from hunter-gatherer tribes to haute cuisine chefs. It's not hard to un...

Vitamin K2 in Marrow

I'm always on the lookout for foods rich in vitamin K2 MK-4 , because it's so important and so rare in the modern food system. I hea...

The Fructose Index is the New Glycemic Index

I stumbled upon an interesting editorial recently in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition from Dr. Richard Johnson's group, entit...

Is Vitamin A Toxicity a Concern?

Several commenters have asked for my opinion on recent statements by prominent health researchers that many Americans are suffering from unr...

Google Flu Trends

I just discovered a wonderful new tool from Google.org, Google Flu Trends . Google.org is the philanthropic branch of Google. Flu Trends ...

Can Vitamin K2 Reverse Arterial Calcification?

It certainly can in rats . In April 2007, Dr. Cees Vermeer and his group published a paper on the effect of vitamin K on arterial calcifica...

Real Food IX: Idlis

Traditional cultures throughout the world went to great lengths to maximize the nutritional value of the ingredients they had. Fermentation...