Dr. Chet’s Health Memos
If it’s in the health news today, I’ll be writing about it as soon as I read the research, both old and new. With my email Health Memos, you’ll know more about making lifestyle choices that will help you get and keep good health. These free, concise updates on health are emailed to subscribers twice a week. Subscribe today and get a free MP3, in English or Spanish, of Dr. Chet’s Top Ten Tips—Small Changes for a Healthier Life.
Do Artificial Sweeteners Increase Cancer Risk?
Last week, my health news feed filled up with headlines that almost all sounded like this: “Artificial Sweeteners Linked to Higher Cancer Risk!” This isn’t the first study to suggest that relationship and it won’t be the last. This French epidemiological study of over 100,000 subjects collected data for more than seven years. One of […]
Do You Need a Fruit-and-Vegetable Concentrate?
Vegetable-concentrate and fruit-concentrate products are popular now, judging by the number of ads on TV and the web; the implication is that they can replace real fruits and vegetables in the diet. For the fruit concentrate, manufacturers remove all the fiber and water, yielding concentrates from various fruits and phytonutrient blends plus aloe vera. The […]
Vitamins and Minerals in Supplements
I got an interesting question last week about a supplement that contained a blend of fruit and vegetable concentrates: vitamins and minerals aren’t included on the label, so are they in there? The answer is probably. It all comes down to the purpose of the supplement. A concentrate is typically the entire vegetable or fruit […]
Wait a Minute!
It was a beautiful day in Grand Rapids on Thursday: 65 degrees, hazy sunshine, no wind, and a perfect day to take a kid to the park. Riley likes basketball (as is required of all children in the Midwest); he can’t hit the rim with the net at 10 feet, but that didn’t stop him […]
The Default Is Always Exercise
Ever have one of those days? For no particular reason at all, you don’t really want to bother watching what you eat or doing any exercise. What do you do? Get on the floor and do five or ten push-ups or sit-ups, or get on your exercise bike and get your legs going for one […]
Lessons from the Starvation Study
The analysis of data in the Minnesota Starvation Study was immense—1,385 pages in two volumes—but I found two fascinating quotes from interviews with the subjects and lead author Dr. Ancel Keys. Let’s begin with a quote from one of the subjects in an interview 40 years later. Lesson 1: How You Know You’re Restricting Food […]
The Right Meal Plan for You
“On Day 1 of semistarvation, February 12, 1945, the men sat down to a meal that included a small bowl of farina, two slices of toast, a dish of fried potatoes, a dish of jello, a small portion of jam, and a small glass of milk.” This was a quote from the Minnesota Starvation Experiment […]
Semifinal Thoughts on the CALERIE Study
In case you’re thinking, “Wow, I can’t believe he’s still talking about this one study”—I know! I don’t typically spend this much time reviewing a single study, but this one answered a lot of questions about the benefits of cutting calories. Even with 60 publications so far from the Comprehensive Assessment of Long-term Effects of […]
How Calorie Restriction Affects Your Metabolism
Resting metabolic rate (RMR) is the number of calories you use while at rest—just lying around doing nothing. It’s the calories your body uses to operate your internal organs and your brain, etc. From the second you open your eyes, the calories you burn are considered activity-related calories. The concern in trying to restrict calories […]
Can Cutting Calories Improve Your Mood?
In research like the CALERIE study, there’s a tendency to focus on physical changes but what about mood, depression, and quality of life (QOL)? Did researchers find changes in those variables as well? Let’s take a look. While the two-year span of the data analyzed varied slightly from other phases of the study, physiological results […]
