What does a healthy diet look like? Despite (or maybe because of) all the diet books, food pyramids, and expert advice, most people are still confused.
Yet we know which diets can lower the risk of heart disease, the major cause of death in the United States. Odds are, those same foods can also promote weight loss and help prevent diabetes and cancer. The Omniheart diet shows a lot of promise as a healthful diet.
The OmniHeart Trial tested three variations of a vegetable-and-fruit-rich diet in people who had pre-hypertension or hypertension—that is, anyone with blood pressure above 120 over 80.
Tag: blood pressure
High blood pressure is the leading cause of preventable deaths around the world. But did the Institute of Medicine (IOM) really say that lowering salt consumption is not the answer?
“Lowering daily sodium intake below 2,300 milligrams may do more harm than good,” reported CBS News in May 2013. “No benefit in sharply restricting salt, panel finds,” said The New York Times. “Is eating too little salt risky?” asked National Public Radio. “New report raises questions.”
Too much salt. Too much sugar. Too much saturated fat. We often hear about what we get too much of. But we also get too little of some nutrients. Potassium…
Most people know that calcium is good for bones, fiber is good for constipation, and iron is good for blood, to name a few. But once you go beyond the basics, the picture gets murky.
Here’s a healthy food quiz (questions and answers included) to see how well you know which foods or nutrients can prevent or promote which diseases.
Feel free to cheat. The questions aren’t really a test of how well you read (and remember) every issue of Nutrition Action. They’re just a sneaky way to get you to look at the answers, which contain a wealth of information on how your diet affects your health.
“Poisonous.” “Toxic.” “Avoid like the plague.”
Is canola oil healthy? For some reason, people love to hate it. Really hate it.
That’s partly because the canola plant is derived from rapeseed, which contains a toxic compound called erucic acid and bitter-tasting compounds called glucosinolates.
“If it wasn’t on a caveman’s menu, it shouldn’t be on yours.” That’s the basic premise of a Paleo diet. The question remains, as it should for any diet—is Paleo healthy?
Maybe you’ve heard of the Nordic diet, the Mediterranean diet, and more recently, the gluten-free diet, but these are all very different from the primal diet known as Paleo.
But is the Paleo diet healthy?
“We’ve known for a long time that if you reduce the calorie intake of rats or mice, they live much longer,” says Mark Mattson, chief of the laboratory of neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging (NIA) in Baltimore. Do these intermittent fasting benefits carry over to humans?
What happens in species closer to humans is more complicated. Rhesus monkeys fed 30 percent fewer calories lived longer in a study at the University of Wisconsin, but not in a study at the NIA.
Romano’s Macaroni Grill seems to be targeting an overlooked minority: the underweight. Why else would it call its new pizzas Fatbreads? “The anti-flatbread, for crust lovers,” says the menu. “Fat on…
“Mediterranean diet fights heart disease,” announced ABC News. “Mediterranean diet cuts risk of stroke,” said USA Today. “Mediterranean diet over low fat? Well, at least it’s more fun,” quipped the Los Angeles Times. A study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine set off a media frenzy in February. Its findings were striking, but the press reports may have misled many. Here’s what the study actually found…and how it should (or shouldn’t) alter what you eat.
The diets used in the DASH and OmniHeart studies trim blood pressure and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol. Here’s a hybrid of the two OmniHeart diets—one higher in protein and one higher…