According to a study newly published in the online Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, many of the popular weight-loss diets fail to provide enough vitamins and minerals to sustain optimal health. Holistic nutritionist Jayson Calton analyzed daily menus suggested by four diets: Atkins for Life, South Beach, DASH, and Best Life–for their vitamin and mineral composition. He found that all four diets failed to provide the minimum RDI of all 27 nutrients analyzed. Calton calculated that, on average, the diets would have to have provided roughly twice the 1,745 calories they did provide to supply adequate amounts of most of the essential vitamins and minerals. According to Calton, this means that persons who follow any one of these diets could see their health compromised even as they lose weight. Ironically, the nutrient deficiency of these popular diets could also make them less effective for weight loss, as there is some evidence that vitamin and mineral malnutrition encourages overeating.

Strict vegetarians do not eat fish. Fish is the primary dietary source of essential fatty acids, which are important for brain functions including positive moods states. These facts caused researchers from Arizona State University to wonder whether vegetarians might suffer from compromised mood states compared to omnivores. They sought to answer this question in a recent study in which they had 138 Seventh Day Adventists fill out standardized scientific questionnaires to assess mood state. They also had 78 omnivores fill out the same questionnaire. To their surprise, they found that vegetarians reported significantly lower negative mood states than omnivores despite consuming substantially less essential fatty acids. Interesting. One wonders what else it is about the vegetarian diet or about the choice to be a vegetarian that elevates mood.

A new Heart Foundation review of more than 100 past studies argues that solid evidence of a significant effect of coffee, wine, and chocolate consumption on heart disease risk and risk factors is lacking. Just how beneficial these products really are is certainly an unanswered question, but as this review points out, there’s no doubt that, however beneficial they are, the level of benefit is currently overhyped. It’s obvious why. First, the media see a great story in any study that identifies health benefits in products we love, so the media have overhyped the science. Secondly, the wine, coffee, and chocolate industries have much to gain from giving consumers another reason to consume their products with a guiltless conscience. And finally, we the consumers are all too ready to receive what we want to hear. Be this as it may, no one in his right mind really thinks that gobbling chocolate, being sedentary, and avoiding vegetables is a recipe for a long life. And no matter how the evidence shakes out, I think we will find that a little coffee, chocolate and wine better than none.

Nutrition science is constantly changing our perceptions of which foods and nutrients are good and which are bad. Fruits and vegetables have floated above the fray as nutrition science has consistently shown them to be good without qualification. That is unlikely to ever change. However, a study newly published in the Journal of the American Cancer Institute suggests that fruits and vegetables may not be quite as good as previously thought in one specific way. Researchers from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine analyzed information on the diets of more than 400,000 European men and women collected between 1992 and 2000. The participants were also tracked for cancer diagnoses over a period of almost nine years. The researchers found that the overall cancer rate was only slightly lower among those who had the highest levels of fruit and vegetable intake. It’s an interesting finding, but of course it has no practical implications, as high levels of fruit and vegetable consumption have other health benefits and no one has ever suggested that eating a lot of fruits and vegetables increases the risk for cancer or any other disease.

Medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) are a type of fat that get their name from their chemical structure. They contain fatty acid chains with six to 10 carbon atoms, which is fewer than are contained in long chain triglycerides. Because of the difference in their chemical structure, the two types of fats are metabolized very differently. MCT are more water soluble and are less prone to storage in adipose tissue. They are also more readily used by the muscles during exercise and they are even more satiating than long chain fats. In fact, MCT’s are among the most satiating of all fats. Researchers have studied the effect of MCT on both exercise performance and body weight/body composition. In a new review, researchers from Oxford University analyzed past studies on these uses of MCT and concluded, “From a health perspective, MCT increase fat oxidation and energy expenditure as well as reduce food intake and beneficially alter body composition. Results indicate that MCT feeding is ineffective in improving exercise performance and future work should focus on the health benefits and applications of MCT.”

We know that the body adapts to exercise in a myriad of ways that enhance health. We also know that none of these adaptations is permanent. If a person ceases to exercise, all of those hard-earned adapations reverse themselves. But exercise scientists are now learning that many of the body’s healthful adaptations to exercise are truly transient, lasting less than a day. A daily exercise habit merely gives the appearance of a lasting adaptation. One such adaptation, it appears, is increased insulin sensitivity. While regular exercise does yield a general increase in insulin sensitivity, it also produces a much stronger transient increases that lasts mere hours.

This was shown in a recent study by researchers at McMaster University. The study also found that the strength of the increase depended to a significant degree on what subjects ate after exercise. Low-carbohydrate post-exercise meals boosted insulin sensitivity the most. This makes sense, as increased insulin sensitivity is the body’s protective response to carbohydrate depletion. Exercise depletes carbohydrate, increasing the receptivity of tissues to any carbs taken in after exercise. If only a few carbs are eaten, the body becomes truly alarmed by the situation and insulin sensitivity increases more.

We are all familiar with some of the risk factors for cardiovascular disease, which include family history, inactivity, high-fat diet, and smoking. Now you can add being stupid to the list. In fact, you can put it close to the top of the list of heart disease predictors. This is the astonishing finding of a new study published in the European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation. British researchers collected data on a population of 1,145 middle-aged men and women and tracked the incidence of heart disease and mortality within it for 20 years. At the end of that period the researchers correlated each of nine different risk factors with heart disease risk in the population and found that low intelligence was the second most influential factor, behind smoking.

The authors of the study offered a variety of possible explanations for the link between IQ and cardiovascular disease risk, including the idea that some of the skills associated with high intelligence are useful in health management.

Most of today’s common major diseases are metabolic in nature, meaning they have to do with how the body processes energy. Diabetes and heart disease top the list of metabolic diseases. In a new study published in Nutrition & Metabolism, researchers from Boston College have proposed that cancer is also fundamentally a metabolic disease. They argue that “essentially all hallmarks of cancer… can be linked to impaired mitochondrial function and energy metabolism.”

If this new hypothesis gains general acceptance, it could lead to major changes in how cancer is prevented and managed. Specifically, they suggest the cancer can be “starved”. They write, “Two major conclusions emerge from the hypothesis; first that many cancers can regress if energy intake is restricted and, second, that many cancers can be prevented if energy intake is restricted. Consequently, energy restricted diets combined with drugs targeting glucose and glutamine can provide a rational strategy for the longer-term management and prevention of most cancers.

Doctors typically advice patients with high blood pressure to adopt the DASH diet, a low-fat-, low-sodium diet endorsed by the American Heart Association. Research has shown that it works, but exercise has also been shown to reduce hypertension. So how do diet and exercise together compare to the DASH diet alone? Researchers from Duke University Medical center recently studied this question. One hundred-forty four overweight patients with high blood pressure were separated into three groups. One group was given a set of standard dietary guidelines for control of hypertension. A second group was instructed to follow a strict DASH diet. And the third group was instructed to follow the DASH diet and exercise regularly. On average, standard dietary controls lowered blood pressure by 3.4 mm Hg. The DASH diet lowered blood pressure by 11.2 mm Hg. And the DASH diet plus exercise lowered blood pressure by 16.1 mm Hg. So there’s your answer. The study was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

According to the results of a new scientific review published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, JAMA, regularly drinking coffee, regular or decaffeinated, is associated with significantly reduced risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Researchers from the University of Sydney, Australia, analyzed data from 31 previous studies that looked at associations between coffee or tea drinking and type 2 diabetes incidence. Individuals who drank three to four cups of coffee, decaf or tea per day had an approximately 25 percent lower risk than those who drank between zero and two cups per day. Since decaf was as effective as regular coffee, researchers believe that it is the antioxidants in coffee and tea that are responsible for this beneficial effect.