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Reporting on the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research earlier this year, the New York Times noted, The latest results about diet and cancer were relegated to a single poster session and a few scattered presentations. Previous high hopes that specific dietary changes might combat cancer risk have largely evaporated, the Times reported, in the wake of more thorough epidemiology. The report summed up: About all that can be said with any assurance is that controlling obesity is important, as it is for heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, stroke and other threats to life. Avoiding an excess of alcohol has clear benefits. But unless a person is seriously malnourished, the influence of specific foods is so weak that the signal is easily swamped by noise.

Sugar is in the spotlight as a key contributor not only to the obesity epidemic but also to chronic diseases, with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the first time proposing requiring food companies to list added sugars on the Nutrition Facts label. On average, US adults consume 14.6% of their calories from sugars not naturally occurring in food-in everything from sodas to snack foods, from cereals at breakfast to packaged entres at dinner.

Proponents of resveratrol, the antioxidant compound found in red wine and grapes whose near-miraculous health claims have created a $30 billion supplement industry, must have felt a bit of whiplash lately. First, a new study of dietary intake of resveratrol in the Chianti wine-making region of Italy made headlines by reporting no correlation with longevity or lower risks of cancer or cardiovascular disease. Resveratrol Health Benefits a Myth?, one news article asked. Then, just three weeks later, another new study reported that resveratrol supplements improved memory in overweight older people-raising hopes once again.

Fresh peach season provides a fuzzy-skinned, sweet and juicy invitation to enjoy the nutritional goodness of these favorite fruits. Peaches are low in calories and glycemic index, a good source of vitamins, phytonutrients and fiber, and may even help fight cancer.

If youre over 65 or approaching that age and still watching your weight, new findings suggest you may be worrying about the wrong thing. Its true that the obesity epidemic has exacted a serious toll on Americas health. But for older adults, maintaining muscle mass to ward off frailty-a condition called sarcopenia-is more important both to the length and quality of life than counting pounds. The popular Body Mass Index (BMI-see box), a calculation that combines weight and height, turns out not to be a very good predictor of health for older adults-for whom the rules about overweight may simply be different than for younger people.

Tomatoes are so ubiquitous in the American diet, from the fresh tomatoes just now coming into prime season to countless processed products, that its hard to believe they were once commonly avoided as poisonous. Its true that tomatoes, like potatoes and peppers, belong to the nightshade family, and their leaves contain alkaloids that can indeed be toxic to pets. Europeans who saw the plants from the New World thought tomatoes resembled belladonna-deadly nightshade-and gave the fruit the forbidding name wolf peach.

Celery, and several other common vegetables (for example, beets, arugula lettuce) naturally contain high levels of sodium nitrate. Processed meats usually have sodium nitrate added to them to help cure the meat, and there is a theory going back some decades that it is the sodium nitrate in processed meats that conveys an increased risk of cancer (this concept remains a theory, and has never been proven).

If youve been trying to follow the advice to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, two new studies might inspire you to try harder-and to aim for even more daily produce. Both studies found even greater benefits from consuming more than five daily servings of fruits and vegetables.

If these thirsty, sweaty summer days have you worrying whether youre getting eight glasses of water a day-as conventional wisdom says you should-you need to take a closer look at the facts versus the fictions about hydration.

Participants in a recently announced nationwide study wont get to eat chocolate candy in the name of science, but they will be testing the cocoa flavanols thought to give dark chocolate heart-healthy properties. The four-year study will give participants either a placebo or flavorless capsules containing doses of cocoa flavanols higher than could be easily obtained by eating chocolate. It will be by far the largest trial of the chocolate compounds, which previous findings have…