Insulin Resistance Predicts a Variety of Age-related Diseases

In the last post, I reviewed a study by Gerald Reaven's group showing that insulin resistance strongly predicts the risk of cardiovascul...

New Study Strengthens the Case that LDL Causes Heart Disease

There is little remaining doubt in the scientific/medical community that high levels of LDL, so-called "bad cholesterol", cause he...

Is Meat Unhealthy? Part III

When we consider the health impacts of eating meat, cardiovascular disease is the first thing that comes to mind.  Popular diet advocates of...

Corrections to the New Review Paper on Dietary Fat and Cardiovascular Risk

The meta-analysis by Chowdhury et al. raised quite a furor from certain segments of researchers and the popular media.  I find this reaction...

New Review Paper on Dietary Fat and Heart Disease Risk

A new review paper on dietary fatty acids and heart disease risk was just published by Dr. Rajiv Chowdhury and colleagues in the Annals of I...

American Heart Month

Heart disease is the second leading cause of death in Maine and describes a variety of conditions that affect your heart and/or blood vess...

Does "Metabolically Healthy Obesity" Exist?

Obesity is strongly associated with metabolic alterations and negative health outcomes including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and some ...

Neuronal Control of Appetite, Metabolism and Weight

Last week, I attended a Keystone conference, "Neuronal Control of Appetite, Metabolism and Weight", in Banff.  Keystone conference...

Atherosclerosis in Ancient Mummies Revisited

Many of you are already aware of the recent study that examined atherosclerosis in 137 ancient mummies from four different cultures ( 1 ).  ...

Does the Mediterranean Diet Reduce Cardiovascular Risk?

By now, most of you have probably heard about the recent study on the "Mediterranean diet" ( 1 ), a diet that was designed by diet...

Body Fatness and Cardiovascular Risk Factors

I recently revisited a really cool paper published in the Lancet in 2009 on body fatness, biomarkers, health, and mortality ( 1 ). It's ...

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...

New Review Paper by Yours Truly: High-Fat Dairy, Obesity, Metabolic Health and Cardiovascular Disease

My colleagues Drs. Mario Kratz, Ton Baars, and I just published a paper in the European Journal of Nutrition titled " The Relationship ...

Do you know the signs of stroke?

Tyra Tarbox is a 45 year old mother of four from Cumberland who suffered a significant seizure resulting in a stroke late one evening afte...

May Awareness Campaigns

May is a busy month for awareness campaigns. It’s National Arthritis Awareness Month , Asthma Awareness Month , Healthy Vision Month , and...

Polyphenols, Hormesis and Disease: Part I

What are Polyphenols? Polyphenols are a diverse class of molecules containing multiple phenol rings. They are synthesized in large amounts ...

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...

Potato Diet Interpretation

If you read my post on December 16th, you know that Chris Voigt saw remarkable fat loss and improvements in health markers as a result of tw...

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...