American Heart Month

February is American Heart Month. Most of us know someone who has had a heart attack or stroke. In Maine, more than 1 of every 4 deaths is f...

Stroke Awareness Month (2012)

May is National Stroke Awareness Month.  Nearly 75% of strokes occur in people who are 65 years and older.  It is important for you to know ...

What do you know about cardiovascular disease?

It’s American Heart Month and this month’s edition of US CDC’s Vital Signs focuses on cardiovascular disease and what we can do to incre...

Does Dietary Saturated Fat Increase Blood Cholesterol? An Informal Review of Observational Studies

The diet-heart hypothesis states three things: Dietary saturated fat increases blood cholesterol Elevated blood cholesterol increases the ri...

Interview with Chris Voigt of 20 Potatoes a Day

Introduction Chris Voigt is the executive director of the Washington State Potato Commission, which supports and promotes the Washington sta...

Diet-Heart Controlled Trials: a New Literature Review

Many controlled studies have measured the cardiovascular effects of replacing animal ("saturated") fats with seed oils (predominan...

Tropical Plant Fats: Coconut Oil, Part II

Heart Disease: Animal Studies Although humans aren't rats, animal studies are useful because they can be tightly controlled and experime...

Tropical Plant Fats: Coconut Oil, Part I

Traditional Uses for Coconut Coconut palms are used for a variety of purposes throughout the tropics. Here are a few quotes from the book P...

Can a Statin Neutralize the Cardiovascular Risk of Unhealthy Dietary Choices?

The title of this post is the exact title of a recent editorial in the American Journal of Cardiology ( 1 ). Investigators calculated the &...

Antioxidants aid arterial health

Who needs Liptor when antioxidant vitamins and minerals, good nutrition, and other health promoting activities like exercise keep your innar...

Tropical Plant Fats: Palm Oil

A Fatal Case of Nutritionism The concept of 'nutritionism' was developed by Dr. Gyorgy Scrinis and popularized by the food writer Mi...

Aloe Vera, Not Dangerous Drugs

Shawn M. Talbot, PhD, author of A Guide to Understanding Dietary Supplements, the aloe plant also “has been shown to exert beneficial effect...

Rabbits on a High-Saturated Fat Diet Without Added Cholesterol

I just saw another study that supports my previous post Animal Models of Atherosclerosis: LDL . The hypothesis is that in the absence of ex...

The Dirty Little Secret of the Diet-Heart Hypothesis

The diet-heart hypothesis is the idea that saturated fat, and in some versions cholesterol, raises blood cholesterol and contributes to the ...