General Nutrition

Eating more legumes, vegetables and fruits and less meat is associated with lower mortality risk, accord-ing to a new study. But that doesnt mean becoming a vegetarian necessarily means youll live longer, cautions Alice H. Lichtenstein, DSc, director of Tufts HNRCA Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory.

Weighing the trade-offs between dairy, soy, almond and other choices.

Corn occupies a unique position in the American dietary landscape. Its a grain, a vegetable, a snack and ce-real ingredient, an ethnic-food mainstay, a source of cooking oil, a cherished treat of summer and early fall, and even a sweetener (not to mention a fuel source).

If you think you can avoid unhealthy restaurant fare by skipping nation-wide chain restaurants for smaller local eateries, a new Tufts study has a wake-up call for you.

How much of a food product has to be whole grains to qualify to use the term

Unless you have celiac disease, avoiding gluten might actually make you less healthy by missing out on important nutrients.

Is it true that apples are the healthiest fruit, as that old keeps the doctor away saying suggests? Diane L. McKay, PhD, an assistant professor at Tufts Friedman School, says, This is actually one of the questions I like to pose to our PhD candidates during their qualifying exam.

The US Food and Drug Administra - tion (FDA) is going after misleading nutrition claims on the front of food packages-an effort that may ultimately lead to a single official symbol giving consumers an at-a-glance guide to healthy choices. As the agency sent a warning letter to food companies, Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said the FDA will investigate whether any packaging claims violate its labeling rules and will take enforcement action against any egregious examples.

For the first time since 1994, the rate of cigarette smoking among US adults actually rose a little. Health officials hope the increase-from 19.8% to almost 21%-is just a blip, but expressed disappointment that weve hit a wall in reducing adult smoking, as one anti-smoking activist put it. The news was released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which conducted in-person interviews of nearly 22,000 US adults in 2008. In a separate state-by-state survey, the CDC said West Virginia and Indiana have the highest smoking rates, about 26%, while Utah is home to by far the fewest smokers, only 9%.

Alarge new Spanish study has found that men who drink alcohol in almost any quantity are nearly one-third less likely to develop coronary heart disease (CHD). The results are also among the first to separate former drinkers from nondrinkers, thereby avoiding what skeptics of previous research dubbed the sick quitters error.