For how we live.
Among 287 people with REM sleep behaviour disorder followed about four years, 15.7% developed a synucleinopathy. Higher coffee intake was linked to a lower risk of progression.
A meta-analysis of 10 randomised trials found ultra-processed diets raised weight and eating rate, yet the effect on how much people ate mostly disappeared when diets were not more energy-dense.
For people without coeliac disease, a large cohort found gluten intake was not linked to heart disease — and cutting it often means fewer whole grains, the foods tied to lower cardiovascular and mortality risk.
Greens powders are sold as insurance against a poor diet. There are almost no independent trials of the products themselves — and the strong evidence is for eating vegetables, not drinking them.
Loading up on dietary fibre is the rare viral trend with strong data behind it: high-fibre eaters have markedly lower mortality. But the evidence is for whole foods, not powders, and tracks a habit, not a one-day stunt.
Pooling 58 randomised trials, about 3.5g a day of oat beta-glucan lowered LDL cholesterol by 0.19 mmol/L. A separate meta-analysis of 28 trials found 0.25 mmol/L. Small per person, but consistent.
Eating more potassium lowers blood pressure in people who already have hypertension, and a large trial of potassium-enriched salt cut strokes and deaths — but the benefit is not for everyone.
No long-term trial has tested an all-meat diet. The best direct data is a self-reported survey where people felt better but ran markedly high LDL cholesterol — the signal that should give pause.
Two controlled studies compared vitamins in fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables. Frozen matched fresh in most cases and sometimes beat it, especially against fresh produce that had spent a few days in the fridge.
Told to cut fat or cut carbs, dieters in a 609-person Stanford trial lost 5.3 versus 6.0 kg over a year — a 0.7 kg gap. An 811-person trial agreed: the calorie deficit, not the macronutrient ratio, drives weight loss.
In a study of 633 people with gout, eating cherries over two days was linked to a 35% lower risk of a flare. It is suggestive, observational evidence — no randomised trial has yet confirmed it.
Randomised trials show a Palaeolithic diet trims weight and risk markers in the short term. A two-year trial found the early edge over an ordinary healthy diet had mostly faded — and that people struggled to stick to it.
A critical review went looking for clinical proof that commercial detox diets remove toxins or keep weight off. It found almost none, and no randomised trial of a commercial detox diet in humans at all.
Triglycerides are the lipid panel's fourth number, and most of what raises them is modifiable. Here is where the thresholds sit — and the point at which a very high level becomes a medical emergency.
For most of the world the ability to digest milk sugar declines after weaning, set by a single gene variant. About 68 percent of people have lactose malabsorption.
Six months of dietitian sessions aimed at a high-fibre diet nudged diet quality but left estimated 10-year cardiovascular risk, HbA1c, cholesterol and blood pressure essentially unchanged versus standard care.
A 140-woman randomised trial found diet-and-exercise coaching, added to hormonal treatment, cut some pain scores more than usual care — but the differences were small and menstrual pain did not budge.
Observational studies robustly link the diet to lower mortality. The best randomised trial measured fewer heart attacks and strokes, and the strongest review finds the evidence for a survival benefit weak.
Whole fruit and fruit juice behave oppositely for type 2 diabetes risk, and a trial that told newly diagnosed patients to eat less fruit found no benefit at all.
High-heat cooking makes compounds that damage DNA in the lab — heterocyclic amines, PAHs and acrylamide. The catch is that human diet studies have mostly failed to find a consistent cancer link.
A Mediterranean diet rich in extra-virgin olive oil cut cardiovascular events in a Spanish trial, and US cohorts link over half a tablespoon a day to less heart disease — the biggest signal in what it replaces.
Organic produce carries far fewer pesticide residues and modestly more of some antioxidants. But there is no strong evidence that eating organic makes you healthier, and the cancer signal is observational.
Too little iodine, especially in pregnancy, is the world's leading preventable cause of impaired brain development. Salt iodisation fixed most of it — but mild deficiency has crept back in some rich countries.
In a tightly controlled feeding trial, swapping high-GI for low-GI carbohydrate inside a healthy diet did not improve insulin sensitivity, cholesterol or blood pressure. The wider evidence rates the GI case as weak.
The official figure is 0.8 grams per kilogram of bodyweight a day — but that number is a floor to prevent deficiency, not a target for optimal health, and that distinction drives most of the argument.
The only long randomised trial of calorie restriction in non-obese adults improved cardiometabolic risk and modestly slowed one measure of biological ageing. Participants never hit the 25% target.
Saving starch for the end of a meal reliably blunts the glucose rise afterwards in small trials — but the evidence is short-term, low-certainty, and silent on whether it changes long-term control.
Five-day fasting cycles improve risk markers and one 'biological age' estimate in small trials. No human study has yet shown the diet prevents disease or extends life.
Spain's PREDIMED trial is the strongest randomised evidence that a dietary pattern lowers cardiovascular events. In 2018 its authors withdrew it over flawed randomisation and reissued corrected results.
A pooled analysis puts patient-reported rates at 13.9%, 8.0% and 12.0%. All of it is self-report, the heterogeneity is enormous, and the reviewers stop short of recommending avoidance.
A Copenhagen team has just published the protocol for the first study designed to test whether reducing PFAS exposure changes anything. That it is still a protocol tells you where the evidence stands.
The fear that a high-protein diet damages normal kidneys is not supported by the trial evidence. Protein restriction is a therapy studied in people who already have kidney disease — a different question entirely.
Two double-blind crossover studies in people who had put themselves on gluten-free diets failed to reproduce a gluten effect. One found a different wheat carbohydrate did it instead.
Feeding studies find that when fructose replaces other carbohydrate at equal calories, liver fat barely moves. The liver damage tracks the extra energy, not the sugar's molecular identity.
A parental history of acne carries a pooled odds ratio of 2.91. Dairy carries 1.25, from observational studies with demonstrated publication bias — and diet appears nowhere in the treatment guideline.
A network meta-analysis of 13 randomised trials put the diet ahead of every alternative for IBS symptoms. Its authors note the trials skipped reintroduction and personalisation entirely.
In 38,283 nurses tracked through the transition, low-insulinemic and planetary-health eating patterns had the strongest associations with less weight gain. The average woman still gained 0.8 kg a year.
On the unprocessed diet, participants built plates 57% heavier and 110 calories lighter. The authors argue that fruit and vegetables were crowding out calories on purpose.
Fifty-five English adults ate two eight-week diets that both followed the UK Eatwell Guide. Both produced weight loss. The minimally processed version produced about one percentage point more.
The proposed Nutrition Info box would rate saturated fat, sodium and added sugars on the front of most packaged foods. The strongest real-world evidence is for blunter warning labels.