- By Cynthia Curl
“Organic” is more than just a passing fad. Organic food sales totaled a record US$45.2 billion in 2017, making it one of the fastest-growing segments of American agriculture.
There’s been a rise in recent years of biomedical engineering techniques that can restore lost tissue and bone.
For many of us, eating a meal containing meat is a normal part of daily life. But if we dig deeper, some sobering issues emerge.
- By Pat Harriman
Taking nonprescribed psychostimulants may slightly improve a person’s short-term focus but impede sleep and mental functions that rely on it—such as working memory.
Food additives do a lot of good: they prolong shelf life, improve taste and texture, and add colour to otherwise unappealing products.
Personalised nutrition, where your DNA tells you what to eat and what not to eat, is gaining momentum.
Pregnant women exposed to higher levels of air pollutants had children with lower IQs, compared to the children of women exposed to lower levels, a new study reports.
- By Kelly Rose
There are more than 91m school children worldwide now defined as living with obesity – and the UK is in the top 20 countries for obesity levels. In the UK, the obesity rate for children doubles during primary school years – and then increases again in secondary school.
- By Paul Wood AO
Meatless burger maker Beyond Meat has just reported quarterly earnings of US$67.3 million – much better than market expectations of US$52.7 million. It is now forecasting sales of US$240 million for the 2019 year, nearly three times that of 2018.
- By Anne Warde
New research uncovers the molecular action that enables cilantro to effectively delay certain seizures common in epilepsy and other diseases.
In Australia’s most recent nutrition survey, 29% of people reported having taken at least one dietary supplement. This proportion was even higher in the United States at 52%.
- By Bert Gambini
Eating bitter foods more often can change how they taste, according to a new study.
Microdosing psychedelics is a growing trend that involves ingesting very small sub-hallucinogenic amounts of substances like LSD or dried psilocybin-containing mushrooms.
- By Neil Watkins
People take vitamin supplements for all kinds of reasons, from maintaining general health to preventing cancer. But there’s no convincing evidence that vitamin supplementation benefits people who don’t actually have a vitamin deficiency.
- By Emily Burch
Want to boost your immune system, reduce your physical signs of ageing, or cleanse your blood to get rid of toxins?
Researchers have mapped the crystal structure of a key protein that makes the metabolites responsible for the bitter taste in Brassica vegetables like mustards, broccolis, and cabbages.
Rates of obesity are rising across the globe; a third of the world’s population is now overweight and nearly a fifth is obese.
Eating ultra-processed food is definitely bad for you, a recent study has confirmed. In the experiment, people were fed either ultra-processed or unprocessed food, with meals matched precisely for calories, salt, sugar, fat and fibre.
Hyperbole can be rampant in health news, particularly with respect to cannabis. One recent headline declared: “CBD is effective in treating heroin addiction.” Another proclaimed: “New study finds CBD could curb heroin addiction.” These stories were referring to a recent study in the American Journal of Psychiatry that found a short-term course of cannabidiol (CBD) reduced cue-induced cravings and anxiety..
- By Andrew Carey
Researchers from the University of Nottingham in the UK recently published a study in the journal Scientific Reports suggesting caffeine increases brown fat. This caught people’s attention because brown fat activity burns energy, which may help with weight loss. Headlines claimed drinking coffee can help you lose weight, and that coffee is possibly even the “secret to fighting obesity”.