For how we live.
A final FDA guidance sets out the safety information companies should provide when notifying the agency of a new dietary ingredient, replacing the old 'comprehensive safety profile' with a single 'safety narrative.'
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 final rule amends 80 FDA standards of identity so makers can replace some or all added salt with substitutes, part of a push to cut sodium tied to high blood pressure. It takes effect 14 December 2026.
An order effective 25 September lets manufacturers use inactive baker's yeast to add vitamin D2 to cereals, grain products, milk and milk products, at the same limits already set for vitamin D2 mushroom powder.
In the publicly funded SWOG S1600 trial, specialised immunonutrition before and after radical cystectomy left 30-day complication rates essentially unchanged: 62% versus 58% on a standard drink.
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.
In GASTRIC-PICU, 4,700 ventilated children were randomised to routine gastric residual checks or none. Dropping the checks was non-inferior for survival and ventilator-free days, and improved nutrition.
VICTORY randomised 238 adults with severe burns to intravenous vitamin C or placebo. It was stopped early: 28-day mortality was 15.0% versus 7.6%, and the trial crossed a prespecified harm threshold.
Guidelines set weight-gain ranges by starting BMI, not a doubled appetite. A large meta-analysis links gaining outside those ranges to worse outcomes at both ends — smaller and larger babies alike.
The viral drink pairs tart cherry juice with a magnesium supplement. Both have some human trial data for sleep, but it is thin, small and low-quality — far short of what the trend implies.
Ginger's strongest evidence is unglamorous: it eases nausea in pregnancy and during chemotherapy, and modestly relieves osteoarthritis pain. The trials are small and the quality is moderate at best.
Garlic supplements modestly lower blood pressure in hypertensive people, and may nudge cholesterol down a little. The cold-prevention evidence rests on a single trial, and no study shows garlic prevents heart attacks.
Beetroot juice really does lower blood pressure — the effect is one of the better-documented in food science, driven by dietary nitrate. But most trials are short and small, and no study shows it prevents heart attacks.
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.
"Superfood" is a marketing word, not a scientific one. Blueberries carry real evidence for the heart and, tentatively, the ageing brain — but most of it is observational or short-term markers, not hard outcomes.
Sea moss is sold as a 92-mineral cure-all, but no human trial shows it delivers those benefits — and because seaweed's iodine content is wildly variable, the documented risk falls on the thyroid.
US regulators class MSG as generally recognised as safe, and when the symptoms are tested under blinded conditions they largely disappear. The clearest signal is a nocebo effect, not the additive.
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.
TikTok says a castor oil pack on the abdomen detoxes the liver, balances hormones and melts bloating. The oil's only proven action is as a laxative when swallowed — not soaked in through skin.
The large trials built to confirm vitamin E's promise came back null, and a meta-analysis tied 400 IU a day or more to a small rise in all-cause mortality.
In deficient populations, vitamin A supplements cut child deaths by 12% — among the best-evidenced global-health interventions. In the well-nourished, added vitamin A does no good and can do harm.
Oat drinks carry less saturated fat and no lactose, but far less protein than milk, and even unsweetened versions list free sugars. How they compare depends heavily on fortification.
A 21,442-person trial of cocoa flavanol extract missed its main heart target. The blood-pressure effect is real but small — and nearly half of dark chocolate products exceeded a strict lead limit.
Cohort data link green tea drinking to lower cardiovascular death, but trials show only surrogate changes and concentrated extracts have caused liver injury at everyday catechin doses.
Trials can show cinnamon nudging fasting glucose down, but the effect is inconsistent, leaves long-term control (HbA1c) untouched, and cheap cassia cinnamon carries a coumarin safety flag.
A banana is mostly sugar and starch, but it comes with fibre and potassium, and large cohort studies link whole fruit — bananas included — to slightly lower type 2 diabetes risk, not higher.
The reheating is not the hazard. Cooked rice left to cool slowly at room temperature is, because a spore-forming bacterium can build a heat-stable toxin that a second heating will not undo.
In people who are iron-deficient without anaemia, supplements ease self-reported fatigue in trials — but do nothing for objective exercise capacity, and the benefit hinges on being iron-deficient, not just tired.
When you eat may shape how you sleep, but the science is young. The clearest signal is that a heavy meal close to bedtime disrupts sleep, while simply shrinking your eating window neither reliably helps nor harms it.
Supplement makers sell K2 (menaquinone) for stronger bones and cleaner arteries. The observational signal is real; the randomised trials, so far, mostly are not.
Daily vitamin C does not stop you catching colds and does nothing once one starts. It trims a cold's length by about 8% in adults; for the heart, trials show no benefit.
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.
Pooled trials show a genuine but small fall in blood pressure, around 2 mmHg. The bigger pitches — sleep, cramps, energy, anxiety — run ahead of the evidence.
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 meta-analyses of dozens of randomised trials agree that about 3 grams a day of oat beta-glucan lowers LDL cholesterol by a small, real amount. The effect is genuine, modest, and dose-dependent.
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.
Plain fizzy water hydrates about as well as still water and is far less corrosive to teeth than juice or soft drinks. The cautions are narrow: flavoured versions and cola, not carbonation itself.
Air-popped popcorn is a whole grain, high in fibre and low in fat — a legitimately good snack. What turns it unhealthy is butter, oil, salt and portion size, not the corn itself.
A six-month randomised trial found liver-fat improvement tracked weight loss and lower ultra-processed food intake, not whether people were assigned a Mediterranean or low-carbohydrate pattern.
In people with healthy kidneys, trials find high-protein diets do not worsen kidney function. The picture changes for those who already have reduced function, where animal protein may speed decline.
A systematic review of human trials found the evidence weak and inconsistent. Where MSG seemed to trigger headaches, it was given in large doses dissolved in water without food, in studies that were not properly blinded.
A varied diet covers most of the 13 essential vitamins. The evidence-based exceptions are specific: vitamin D is hard to get from food, older adults and vegans need B12, and folic acid is advised before pregnancy.
Federal statistics put 18.3 million households short of food last year. A 57,404-person cohort links lower food security to higher premature mortality and years of lost life expectancy.
A small 1990s trial hinted selenium supplements cut cancer, launching a supplement boom. The much larger SELECT trial found no benefit — and signals of harm, including more type 2 diabetes.
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.
Diets rich in colourful fruit and vegetables track with less cancer, so supplement makers bottled beta-carotene. Two large trials in smokers found the pills raised lung cancer and death — the opposite of the hope.
A 2024 trial randomised heart-risk patients to a dozen eggs a week or almost none. Over four months, blood cholesterol barely moved — echoing an earlier year-long trial in people with diabetes.
True dietary magnesium shortage in healthy people is rare, and reference guidance does not currently advise supplements. The clear deficiencies come from illness, alcohol and certain drugs, not a missed daily pill.
The warning that olive oil's low smoke point makes it unsafe to fry with is largely wrong. Oxidative stability, not smoke point, is what matters, and olive oil is among the more heat-resistant common oils.
A 2025 meta-analysis of 10 trials found small, short-term reductions in weight and BMI — but the studies were heterogeneous, and the viral single trial that fuelled the hype is one small study, not a settled result.
Stones form when urine gets too concentrated. The best-tested defence is dull: drink enough that urine stays dilute. In one trial, that alone roughly halved recurrences.
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.
The line is marketing, not trial data. A meta-analysis of 13 randomised trials found adding breakfast raised daily calories and, if anything, nudged weight up, not down. A controlled feeding trial explains why.
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.
Meta-analyses found calcium pills raised heart-attack risk by around a quarter. A later review — funded by an osteoporosis foundation — found no such link. The disagreement is the story.
One cohort tied high animal protein in midlife to higher mortality, yet found the opposite after 65. Guidelines urge older adults to eat more, and plant protein looks best. No trial proves a lifespan effect.
Classic B12 deficiency is relatively uncommon, but it clusters: in people over 50 whose absorption fails, in vegans whose intake does, and around metformin, acid-lowering drugs and stomach surgery.
The sugar alcohol in many 'keto' and sugar-free foods is generally recognised as safe. But newer studies tie high blood levels to cardiovascular events and show it makes platelets more prone to clotting.
Honey and table sugar are both free sugars with almost identical calories. Trials hint at small metabolic differences in honey's favour, but the certainty is low and honey is still added sugar to be limited.
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.
The US banned Red No. 3 in 2025 on a rat-specific cancer finding, not human data. The separate question — whether dyes affect children's behaviour — has better, and more unsettling, evidence.
Sugars bond to proteins to form advanced glycation end products that accumulate with age and stiffen tissue. Low-AGE diets nudge metabolic markers, but no trial shows they slow ageing.
Adults need about 2.4 micrograms a day, and most meat-eaters get it easily. Real deficiency clusters in older people, whose absorption fails, and in vegans, whose intake does.
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.
Iron does leach from a cast-iron pan into food, and randomised trials in iron-deficient populations found it raised haemoglobin. The effect depends on what you cook, and means little for people who are iron-replete.
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.
Iron shortfall is the leading cause of anaemia in young children and is linked to poorer development. Yet the evidence that screening symptom-free toddlers or routinely supplementing them helps their brains is thin.
Guidelines settle on a limit near 200 mg a day — roughly two mugs of coffee. But the underlying studies are observational, and a vocal minority argues there is no clearly safe level.
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.
Two randomised trials found a 500 ml glass of water before meals adds a modest extra loss — about 1.3 kg over 12 weeks in one. The effect is real but small, short-term, and no substitute for the diet itself.
Higher whole-grain intake is consistently linked to lower rates of heart disease, cancer and early death, with benefit rising up to about seven servings a day. Refined grains show no such signal.
The fear that soy fuels breast cancer is not supported by the human data; if anything, soy food intake tracks with lower recurrence and death after diagnosis. Its other health claims are weaker.
Cohorts link both to modestly higher rates of heart disease and early death, on low-certainty evidence. A 2019 guideline then told people to keep eating them — and split the field over how to weigh nutrition science.
Large randomised trials mostly find no cardiovascular benefit from ordinary fish-oil capsules. One high-dose prescription drug is the striking exception, and the case for brain protection is weak.
People who eat nuts have lower rates of heart disease and early death in large cohorts, and a Mediterranean diet with nuts cut cardiovascular events in one trial. Most of the evidence is observational.
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.
Whole fruit is linked to lower type 2 diabetes risk, sugary drinks to clearly higher risk, and fruit juice sits closer to the drinks than to the fruit it comes from.
For heart disease and death, dairy looks roughly neutral to modestly favourable in large cohorts, and the long-standing warning against whole-fat dairy is not well supported by outcome data.
Across nearly 1.1 million people, each extra daily cup tracks with lower diabetes risk in a clear dose-response. It is consistent and large — and still only observational.
Health authorities converge on a ceiling — under 10% of daily calories, and lower is better still. Large cohorts single out sugary drinks as the form most clearly tied to dying earlier.
A large Cochrane review found fish-oil supplements cut early preterm birth substantially. The biggest single trial since found no effect at all — a genuine split the marketing skips over.
The main randomised trial found babies who fed themselves were no slimmer, no more iron-deficient and no more likely to choke than spoon-fed babies — provided parents were coached to offer safe, iron-rich foods.
Additives such as carboxymethylcellulose stabilise processed food. A large cohort links some to slightly higher heart-disease risk, and a small trial shows one disturbs the gut — but proof of harm is not settled.
Started early and at high enough doses, zinc lozenges may cut a cold short by a day or two. But the evidence leans on a handful of small trials, formulation matters, and prevention claims are weaker.
A randomised trial found the Portfolio diet cut LDL cholesterol by about 13%, and a large cohort study links closer adherence to lower cardiovascular risk. Its authors' industry funding belongs in the record.
Small trials suggest curcumin can modestly reduce arthritis pain, sometimes on par with painkillers — but the evidence is thin, and turmeric supplements are linked to a rising number of serious liver injuries.
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.
A twins trial found a vegan diet lowered LDL cholesterol, insulin and weight in eight weeks. The same pattern comes with real gaps — vitamin B12 must be supplemented, and iron stores tend to run lower.
Marketed as a natural weight-loss drug, berberine rests on small, mostly low-quality trials showing modest effects on blood sugar and cholesterol — with no weight-loss evidence to match the hype.
Head-to-head randomised trials find low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets produce similar weight loss over a year or two. The differences that survive are in blood lipids and glycemic control, not the scale.
Two controlled-feeding trials found a diet rich in fruit, vegetables and low-fat dairy lowered blood pressure, most in people who already had hypertension, and more still when sodium was cut.
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 systematic review of the randomised trials found no compelling evidence for any remedy. Newer work suggests the hangover is driven by inflammation and metabolites, not just dehydration.
A transcriptomic sub-study of the CALERIE calorie-restriction trial links 151 genes to preserved leg strength during weight loss, independent of how much body mass was lost.
In 69 people across normal weight, overweight and type 2 diabetes, a stevia drink behaved like water — no shift in glucose, insulin, gut hormones, appetite or how much they ate next.
No- and low-alcohol drinks are the fastest-growing category in the drinks trade, and one in six Americans now reaches for them. Whether they cut real drinking, or simply add to it, is barely studied.
A Shanghai study of 3,032 couples measured nutrients before conception. Predicted birth-defect prevalence fell across maternal B12 levels — and, more weakly, across paternal ones.
A cohort of 4,018 children found nearly half were picky at some point, but two-thirds remitted within three years and prevalence fell to 13.2% by age 6. About 4% stayed persistently picky.
A tightly controlled crossover trial found late eating increased hunger, cut waking energy expenditure and shifted fat-tissue gene expression. The population data show a 17% higher odds of obesity.
A Lancet series covering 135 million person-years found the largest risk reductions in that range. Trials of isolated fibre supplements produce much smaller effects on much narrower outcomes.
Two meta-analyses tie an extra two cups a day to roughly a third lower risk of both liver cancer and cirrhosis, with decaf showing a smaller effect. It is all observational, and the evidence quality is graded very low.
Appetite fades with age and malnutrition is common and under-screened. Supplement drinks produce small, real weight gains — and cut deaths mainly in those already undernourished, not everyone.
Global mean intake was 4,278 mg a day in 2021 against a recommended limit under 2,000. A week of low-sodium eating moved blood pressure in most people; a five-year trial of salt substitute cut strokes.
Pooling 32 trials, researchers found milk, whey, casein, and soy protein lowered LDL and total cholesterol slightly — but the effect shrank once weaker studies were excluded.
A large US analysis attributed 42 percent of cancer cases to modifiable risk factors. One factor dwarfs all the others, and it is not diet.
The FDA's threshold traces to a Health Canada assessment and a 2017 systematic review of 381 studies. It describes a population, not a person, and the variation between people is large.
Low fluid intake is a genuine, well-evidenced stone risk factor. Increasing fluid to produce plenty of urine is the single best-supported way to prevent another stone — better established than any diet tweak.
Heavy drinking tracks with weight gain fairly consistently. For light-to-moderate drinking, the evidence is genuinely mixed — and confounded by who drinks that way.
In one study of 62,685 women, iron deficiency prevalence ranged from 3% to 15% depending on the ferritin threshold. On treatment, a recent trial found alternate-day iron caused fewer side effects than daily dosing.
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.
Across 107 cohort studies and 4.8 million people, the protective effect of moderate drinking disappeared once the comparison group stopped including people who had quit because they were ill.
Adding milk, yoghurt and cheese cut hip fractures 46% in Australian aged-care residents. In the general over-50 population, dietary calcium intake shows no association with fracture risk at all.
A meta-analysis of 23 blinded studies found no effect on any of 14 behavioural and cognitive measures. A separate trial fed children extreme doses and found nothing. The belief survives anyway.
It found rising microbiome diversity and falling inflammatory markers in the fermented-food arm — and no change in its own primary outcome in the high-fibre arm it was compared against.
Two WHO bodies reported on the same day in July 2023 and reached findings that sound contradictory. Both were right, because they were answering different questions.
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.
Pooling 13 randomised trials, people assigned to eat breakfast ended up 0.44 kg heavier and ate 260 more calories a day than people assigned to skip it. The trials were small, short and mostly low quality.
Children in low-vegetation districts exposed to heat stress had sharply higher odds of severe wasting and underweight; in greener areas the link vanished. The pathway runs through food systems, not heat alone.
A NHANES analysis of 5,736 US adults over 60 found the benefit of higher protein directionally present and statistically imprecise. A meta-analysis of protein at breakfast found nothing at all.
A diet built to protect the brain looked powerful when researchers watched who chose to eat it. When they assigned it in a three-year trial, both groups improved by almost exactly the same amount.
IARC put bacon in the same category as tobacco in 2015, which says how sure scientists are, not how dangerous it is. The attributable-death figures are three orders of magnitude apart.
MASLD is excess fat in the liver unrelated to alcohol, and about 30% of adults have it. The best-evidenced way to reverse the inflamed form is weight loss — and how much you lose tracks how much the liver recovers.
The dye is being pulled under a 1958 law that bans any additive found to cause cancer in animals, at any dose. FDA's own review calls the rat finding of limited relevance to people.
Pooled biomarker data from 30 studies in 13 countries link higher linoleic acid to lower cardiovascular risk. The randomised evidence, 19 trials and 6,461 people, is null and rated low quality.
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.
The two dominant causes of chronic liver disease are alcohol and metabolic fat. For alcohol, cirrhosis risk climbs exponentially with intake — and in women it was already raised at about one drink a day.
A pooled analysis of 1.72 million people found no link between an egg a day and cardiovascular disease. A pooled analysis of six US cohorts found one. A randomised trial in 140 high-risk adults found neither.
A 2002 review went hunting for the origin of "8 x 8" and found nothing. Two decades later, isotope measurements in 5,604 people put daily water use anywhere from about 1 litre to about 6.
A scoping review mapped 204 consumer nutrigenetic panels at a mean price of $234. Across them, 3,309 different genes were linked to dietary recommendations.
Pooled across 23 trials, weight-loss apps beat a waitlist by about 2 kg at six months. Which features the app had made no measurable difference; adherence, which falls over time, is the real variable.
The first large-scale policy evaluation of medically tailored meals covers 1,866 recipients across 11 health systems. It is quasi-experimental, not randomised — and that is the finding's main limit.
Pooled data across 38 studies found higher coffee intake linked to a higher risk of heart attack — but a lower risk of stroke and irregular heartbeat, with a separate benefit for people with high blood pressure.
In 2,077 children, higher processed-food intake at age 3 tracked with worse behavioral and emotional scores at age 5. It's an association from a birth cohort, not a trial, and can't establish that the food caused it.
In 105,260 people followed for 7.6 years, higher intakes of sorbates, sulfites, nitrates and acetates tracked with modestly higher cancer incidence. This is an observational study of self-reported diets.
The 2025–2030 edition was released January 7. It is the first to name highly processed foods, and the first whose saturated-fat arithmetic does not obviously close.
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.
The ADA's 2026 Standards of Care add guidance on individualising obesity-drug dosing, name two eating patterns for type 2 diabetes prevention, and recommend continuous glucose monitoring from diagnosis.
Three papers published on 18 November argue the harm is not one ingredient but the replacement of whole-food diets. The evidence they assemble is strongest for diet quality and weakest where causation is hardest.
The trial was designed to test non-inferiority against traditional dietary advice. It found superiority instead, with 62% versus 42% achieving a clinical response over six weeks.
Fourteen studies covering 265 elite athletes used six different methods to identify relative energy deficiency. The spread in the answers is mostly a spread in the definitions.
Over 17.4 years, high ultra-processed food intake was linked to a 24% higher colorectal cancer risk overall — and a 58% higher risk for right-sided colon cancer specifically.
A pooled analysis of 72,776 Korean adults found an 11% higher type 2 diabetes risk in the top intake quartile. An updated meta-analysis of 17 cohorts put the dose-response at 10% per 10% of intake.
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.