What happened when ultra-processed foods were matched for calories, sugar, fat, and fiber content in the first randomized controlled trial? In the United States, “junk food” is often used to describe less-healthy foods, like candy, ice cream, and chips, but there isn’t...

What was the secret to the public health community’s triumph when past attempts to regulate the food industry failed? There are three broad approaches to mediating the ruin of risky choices: inform people (like using labeling), nudge people (for example, by offering...

Adding a healthy option can actually drive people to make even worse choices, thanks to a mind-blowing glitch of human psychology. In 2017, and to much fanfare, menu labeling for calorie counts began to be mandated in national chain restaurants. Consumers should have...

Which legumes are best at inhibiting the matrix metalloproteinase enzymes that allow cancer to become invasive? Although we’re spending billions of dollars on fancy new types of chemotherapy, the overflowing sink that is cancer treatment is expected to rise by about...

How can we avoid the breakdown products of pesticides that may increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease as much as if you carried APOE e4, the so-called Alzheimer’s gene? Although there is a growing list of Alzheimer’s disease susceptibility genes, those genes account...

I quantify the risks of colon and rectal cancers from eating bacon, ham, hot dogs, sausage, and lunch meat. In 2018, arguably the most prestigious cancer research institution in the world, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World...

How did the meat industry, government, and cancer organizations respond to the confirmation that processed meat, like bacon, ham, hot dogs, and lunch meat, causes cancer? “It is rare, in the history of nations, that one finds good reasons to render homage to the...

Overrated “precision medicine” may just be serving vested interests, and consumer DNA testing can be useless—or even worse. Today, you can get your DNA sequenced—the letters of your entire genetic code spelled out—for about a thousand dollars, a bargain compared to...

Why are nuts associated with decreased mortality, but not peanut butter? According to the largest study of risk factors for death in human history, a poor diet causes more deaths than anything. Cigarettes only kill about 8 million people a year, whereas humanity’s...