Nutrition
Some dark chocolates may have health benefits
Research shows there might be health benefits to eating certain types of dark chocolate. Findings from two studies being presented at the Experimental Biology 2018 annual meeting in San Diego show that consuming dark chocolate that has a high...
Sugar consumption in pregnancy linked to poorer childhood cognition
April 25th, 2018 A study has determined that poorer childhood cognition occurred, particularly in memory and learning, when pregnant women or their offspring consumed greater quantities of sugar. Substituting diet soda for sugar-sweetened versions during pregnancy...DASH diet associated with reduced depression risk
Eating a diet that emphasises vegetables, fruit and whole grains may lead to a reduced risk of depression, according to a study by researchers at Rush University Medical Centre. Study author Dr Laurel Cherian will present a preliminary study...Fish oil and probiotic supplements in pregnancy may reduce allergy risk
In one of the largest ever research reports of how a pregnant woman's diet affects her baby's allergy and eczema risk, scientists from Imperial College London assessed over 400 studies involving 1.5m people. As part of the study, they found that...
Healthy diet not offsetting negative effects of high salt intake
March 14th, 2018 A healthy diet may not offset the effects of a high salt intake on blood pressure, suggests a study. The research, from scientists at a number of institutions, including Imperial College London and Northwestern University, analysed the diets of over...Researchers challenge claims that sugar industry paid scientists to shift blame
In recent years, high-profile claims in the academic literature and popular press have alleged that the sugar industry paid scientists in the 1960s to play down the link between sugar and heart disease and emphasise instead the dangers of dietary...
Yoghurt intake associated with lowered risk of cardiovascular disease
February 21st, 2018 A large study from Boston University, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Harvard University, suggests that higher yoghurt intake is associated with lower cardiovascular disease risk among hypertensive men and women. High blood pressure is a...Sub-optimal vitamin D levels in the elderly
One in two persons aged 65 and above has sub-optimal levels of vitamin D in the blood. This is the conclusion of an investigation conducted by researchers at the Helmholtz Zentrum München, as part of the population-based KORA-Age study in the...Neonatal vitamin D status associated with ASD risk
Low vitamin D levels at birth were associated with an increased risk of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) at the age of 3 years a Chinese study has found. In the study of 27,940 new-borns in China, 310 were diagnosed with ASDs at 3 years of age, with...Coffee more likely to benefit health than harm it
Drinking coffee is "more likely to benefit health than to harm it" for a range of health outcomes, say researchers. They bring together evidence from over 200 studies and find that drinking three to four cups of coffee a day is associated with a...Low-salt diet combined with DASH helps lower systolic BP
A study of more than 400 adults with pre-hypertension, or stage 1 high blood pressure, found that combining a low-salt diet with the heart-healthy DASH diet substantially lowers systolic blood pressure, especially in people with higher baseline...Mushrooms producing high amounts of antioxidants
Mushrooms may contain unusually high amounts of two antioxidants that some scientists suggest could help fight ageing and bolster health, according to a team of Penn State researchers. In a study, researchers found that mushrooms have high...Another Noakes controversy: Dietary guidelines are a 'genocide'
Low-carb‚ high-fat guru Tim Noakes has tweeted that common dietary guidelines will be 'remembered in history as a genocide', reports The Times. Low-carbohydrate advocates‚ including Noakes and his colleagues‚ have long blamed dietary...
Sugar tax is not the only solution to SA's obesity crisis
October 18th, 2017 Obesity threatens us with an alarming and bizarre statistic: within the next four years the number of obese people on the planet could outnumber those suffering from malnutrition, writes The Times. A recently published study showed that globally...
Different meats have different diabetes risk
September 20th, 2017 While a plant-based diet is generally considered healthier than a meat-based diet in preventing the risk of diabetes, not all meats affect the risk equally. As Professor Koh Woon Puay, professor of clinical sciences at Duke-NUS Medical School...