Lowering your LDL (“bad”) cholesterol cuts your risk of a heart attack. How to do it? Replace saturated fats (red meat, cheese, butter, coconut oil, fatty sweets, etc.) with unsaturated fats (oil, salad dressing, mayo, nuts, fish, avocado, etc.).
All fats are a mix of saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fatty acids, though people usually categorize them by the fatty acid that predominates.
The good fats include monounsaturated fats (like avocado, canola oil, olive oil, safflower, and sunflower oil) and polyunsaturated fats (like fish, nuts, seeds, soy foods, sesame oil, and soybean oil).
“What work of genius has ever been composed on chamomile?” asks Michael Pollan in his audiobook Caffeine, as he tries to quit his habit. America runs on caffeine. Roughly 85 percent of us drink at least one caffeinated beverage every day. Here’s the latest on how caffeine affects our health.
Plant-based meats are processed foods, but they may still protect your heart. Researchers had 36 adults eat at least two servings a day of ordinary meats (like ground beef and sausage) for eight weeks and similar plant-based versions (supplied by Beyond Meat, which funded the study) for eight weeks.
Nuts get lots of attention...and they deserve it. Healthy fats. Vitamins & minerals. A little plant protein. And talk about taste! The hard part: stopping after one serving.
If you’re trying to eat more nuts and seeds—or just trying to find the healthiest ones—here are 9 tips to consider.
Think your risk of type 2 diabetes is near zero because your weight is in the normal range? Not quite.
“The most important thing you can do to lower your risk of type 2 diabetes is to avoid weight gain and lose excess weight,” says JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
That’s because roughly nine out of ten people with diabetes are overweight or have obesity.
But weight isn’t the whole ballgame.
Cancer. Cataracts. Confusion. Forgetfulness. Erectile dysfunction. Nerve damage. Tendonitis. Those are just some of the harms that people attribute to statins, which one in four Americans older than 40 now take to lower their LDL (“bad”) cholesterol.
"Butter is back.” “Eating cheese and red meat is actually good for you.” “Skim milk isn’t any better for you than whole milk, so go nuts.” An endless stream of headlines about new research—much of it industry funded—has fueled confusion about meat and dairy. Here are five myths that may trip you up.
