It's time for another installment of the "Health Ranger Chronicles," where we critically examine the strange ideas promoted by Mike Adams' wildly popular website Natural News. This time we investigate a story about Monster Energy's "Satanic" plot to poison our children with sugar and caffeine.
obesity
Are "ultra-processed" foods addictive? Some scientists say yes, pointing to experiments with sugar-craving rats and the difficulty many people have losing weight and keeping it off. Taken in isolation, these observations lend themselves to a food addiction model, but there's actually little evidence to support the theory.
A lot has been written about the strengths and weaknesses of using DNA testing to customize individual diets. It's a promising idea, but our knowledge of genetics isn't yet good enough to pinpoint what each of us should eat.
Pregnancy and pediatric "advice" comes from all directions when you're a soon-to-be parent, and most of it is scientifically dubious. In part one, I examined the potentially harmful suggestions my wife and I received from friends and family. This time, I'll cover the less deadly but still ridiculous recommendations.
There’s no doubt that obesity is a growing global problem. It lies at one end of the spectrum from its less-discussed – but equally malnourished – polar opposite: hunger. Given that some argue that defining obesity as a disease will change the trajectory of the problem for the better, it’s time for a closer examination.
Obesity is a health risk that can lead to changes in your metabolism. The condition can result in diabetes or elevated cholesterol, both of which, in turn, can cause cardiovascular disease. Excess weight can also put additional stress on joints, leading to trouble getting around. Of course, all of this is predicated on excess weight being “bad.” Instead, could it be that you’re really “big-boned”?
Most individuals simply have a very unrealistic expectation as to how many calories they burn during exercise and what they can achieve in weight loss through exercise alone, even though they may have expended a great deal of effort to do so.
Obesity has been a health problem long before it became a COVID-19 risk factor. The most significant advances in its medical, rather than behavioral treatment, has been bariatric surgery, until now. Could Big Pharma triumph over Big Knife?
Obesity remains a health problem for individuals, and collectively as a public health issue. The war against obesity, like that against drugs, has been waged for many years without significant change. A new study looks at why policy has so little effect.
One of the issues in medical data, brought into sharp relief by the pandemic, is what is written on death certificates. For a while, the presumption of a COVID-19 infection without a positive culture was enough to get it listed as a cause of death –- possibly creating a bit of an over-count. But it is not just COVID-19 that is problematic.
Obesity remains a significant health problem, especially when it increases one's susceptibility to COVID-19. While better eating habits and exercise have long been the mainstays of weight reduction, in the last 10-to-15 years surgical rearrangements of the gastrointestinal tract have come to the fore. Not only do they reduce weight, but they've improved hypertension and diabetes mellitus. A new study compares surgical and medical management for diabetes.
Consuming a huge meal to start the day, in order to lose weight, is an old adage. Does this belief stand up to science? Angela Dowden, our expert nutritionist, takes a closer look.