Special Reports

In 1953, the same year Watson and Crick reported the discovery of DNA, Jean Mayer, former president of Tufts University and then a professor...

Our bones support us, literally, in everything we do. They protect our vital organs, store important minerals the body relies upon, and keep us...

Cancer is the second leading cause of mortality in the United States, accounting for one in four deaths. Lifestyle choices such as use of...

FODMAPs (fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols) are a group of sugars and fibers that serve as beneficial prebiotics, feeding the gut microbes that...

Sales of meat alternatives grew 30 percent in 2018, and this rapid growth is expected to continue. In 2019, plant-based meat alternatives hit the mainstream, with the nationwide introduction of meatless meat at multiple fast-food outlets (including Burger King, White Castle, DelTaco, and some McDonalds locations.)

We all know that diet and physical activity are essential to good health, but many are unaware that getting adequate sleep is equally important, if not more so. Sleep affects everything from energy and appetite to performance, mood, attention, memory, and decision making. It is the time when the brain forms and maintains the pathways that let us learn and create new memories. Recent research suggests that the body uses sleep time to remove toxins and metabolic trash from the brain (possibly including the plaques that contribute to Alzheimers disease). Habitual short sleep duration is associated with greater risk of obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, and cardiovascular disease. Unfortunately, about one third of U.S. adults get less than the recommended seven hours of sleep a night.

There is lot of advice floating around these days about how to avoid gluten, but very little about how to tell if a gluten-free diet is the right choice for you.

A collection of controversial research reviews on consumption of red meat and processed meat published recently in the Annals of Internal Medicine seemingly overturns years of public health guidelines and recommendations from a range of experts and organizations. It was met with resounding criticism from many nutrition experts. A close look at the findings can help you make informed choices for your own health.

Practically all foods undergo some form of processing before they are ready to eat-from simple processes like cutting and cooking to more complex processes like homogenizing, pasteurizing, fermenting, fortifying, refining, hydrolyzing, and extruding.

There is a lot of confusing, and often conflicting, information in the media about which oil is the best for health. The information is confusing partly because plant oils are fats, and fats are complicated. Dietary fats are actually composed of a mixture of molecules called fatty acids.