/oss/taxonomy/term/221/all en /oss/article/critical-thinking-health-and-nutrition/your-local-nutrition-shake-shop-may-not-be-what-you-think-it <p>The woman swears to me that she is not part of Herbalife, and I believe her. But given the looks of her juice shop, you could easily mistake it for an Herbalife nutrition club when you know what to look for. In fact, the resemblance is so striking, Herbalife representatives have repeatedly visited her establishment. She tells me they wondered if she was selling their products and not reporting her sales to the company. After all, she offers teas, protein shakes, and vitamin juices. It could very well have discreet ties to Herbalife, but it does not.</p> Fri, 08 Dec 2023 11:00:00 +0000 Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. 9754 at /oss /oss/article/critical-thinking-health-and-nutrition/false-reassurance-dietary-supplement-regulation <p>If you are Canadian, you may have seen the letters “NPN” followed by a series of numbers on the packaging of a health product you picked up at the pharmacy, things like vitamin supplements, echinacea, and probiotics. You may even know that this number is given by our regulatory agency, Health Canada, and you may feel relief that these products are being licensed only after their safety and effectiveness have been evaluated.</p> <p>If you are American, you may prefer the borderline unrestricted market you have, where dietary supplements are barely regulated at all.</p> Fri, 06 Oct 2023 16:37:06 +0000 Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. 9681 at /oss /oss/article/medical-health-and-nutrition/who-needs-guts <p>Imagine not being able to eat a meal with family or friends. That is the case for people who have a condition known as short bowel syndrome (SBS). When large segments of the intestines are missing, often due to surgery for disease or trauma, patients can be left with insufficient bowel to absorb dietary nutrients and fluids, also called intestinal failure. These processes normally take place in the small intestine (i.e., absorption of ingested carbohydrate, fat, protein and vitamins) and large intestine (i.e., water absorption).</p> Fri, 08 Sep 2023 10:00:00 +0000 Patricia Brubaker, Ph.D., F.R.S.C. 9623 at /oss /oss/article/critical-thinking-health-and-nutrition/should-we-be-eating-more-mushrooms-maybe <p>Scientific studies are often speckled with words like “can,” “could,” “may,” “appear,” “linked” or “correlated.” This is bothersome. These terms are just too “iffy” to allow for any solid conclusions to be drawn. I wish sometimes scientists could cast doubt aside and say “will” or “does.”</p> Wed, 07 Jun 2023 14:48:03 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 9535 at /oss /oss/article/critical-thinking-health-and-nutrition/are-lactation-cookies-just-cookies <p>Wishful thinking can sometimes trump science. With “breast is best” echoing in their heads, and too few hours of sleep, new mothers may latch onto some seductive propositions about boosting their breast milk supply.</p> Fri, 28 Apr 2023 13:46:06 +0000 Cat Wang, B.Sc. 9495 at /oss /oss/article/critical-thinking-health-and-nutrition/can-you-eat-beat-disease <p>Just about any publication that explores the role of diet in disease invokes Hippocrates’ famous dictum, “Let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food.” Actually, there is no record of the famous ancient Greek physician ever having said this, although it is clear from the writings of the Hippocratic authors that Greeks did believe that disease and food were linked. “Hippocratic authors” is the correct terminology because historians concur that the works attributed to Hippocrates are compilations of his own writings and those of a number of his followers.</p> Wed, 19 Apr 2023 15:11:44 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 9482 at /oss /oss/article/medical-health-and-nutrition/i-thought-good-title-thisbut-now-i-cant-remember-what-it-was <p>I don’t know how many times I’ve used the expression, “I would rather stick rusty needles in my eyeballs.” Like in answer to the question, “would you like to donate to Joe Mercola’s defense fund against FDA lawsuits?” Now here is the interesting thing. I could have sworn up and down, inside and out, that I got that line from Jack Nicholson in “Terms of Endearment.” But alas, bad memory. That was revealed when I checked the scene in the film.</p> Wed, 01 Feb 2023 20:50:20 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 9375 at /oss /oss/article/health-and-nutrition/time-restricted-eatingor-not <p>Nutritional research publications can be maddening.</p> Wed, 25 Jan 2023 16:33:23 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 9371 at /oss /oss/article/health-and-nutrition/pulp-isnt-fiction <p>I've often watched people do battle with the albedo, trying meticulously to remove every last vestige before popping a segment of "naked" orange into their mouth. Probably the same people who choose filtered orange juice over the pulpy variety. Too bad, because both the albedo and the pulp are good sources of pectin, a type of fiber that shows great nutritional promise.</p> Wed, 04 Jan 2023 11:00:00 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 9348 at /oss /oss/article/health-and-nutrition/allure-allulose <p>My first meeting with (3R,4R,5R)-1,3,4,5,6-pentahydroxyhexan-2-one, less formally known as “psicose” or “allulose,” was way back in my graduate school days. I was studying the molecular structure of simple sugars, a category of carbohydrates to which allulose belongs. I wasn’t interested in its biochemistry or its sweetness, my focus was on distinguishing it from fructose by the then relatively novel technique of carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (C-13NMR).</p> Fri, 11 Mar 2022 22:54:04 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 9051 at /oss /oss/article/health-and-nutrition/food-glorious-food <hr /> <p style="text-align:center"><em>Food, glorious food<br /> We're anxious to try it<br /> Three banquets a day<br /> Our favourite diet</em></p> <p style="text-align:center"><em>Just picture a great big steak<br /> Fried, roasted or stewed<br /> But food<br /> Wonderful food<br /> Marvellous food<br /> Glorious food!</em></p> Fri, 18 Feb 2022 22:29:58 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 9031 at /oss /oss/article/health-nutrition/broccoli-conundrum <p>Life is full of difficult decisions, isn’t it? Should you put broccoli on a pizza before or after sliding it into the oven? Fret not. This decision can be made a little easier by examining the properties of sulphoraphane, touted by a plethora of books, magazines, websites and nutritional gurus as being responsible for broccoli’s anti-cancer effect. But I’ll let you in on a secret. While sulphoraphane may have anti-cancer properties, it is not found in broccoli!</p> Fri, 01 Oct 2021 21:20:15 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 8886 at /oss /oss/article/health-and-nutrition/food-thought-about-healthier-eating <hr /> <p>This article was originally published in the <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/christopher-labos-food-for-thought-about-healthier-eating">Montreal Gazette</a></p> Fri, 17 Sep 2021 21:03:05 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 8854 at /oss /oss/article/covid-19-health/does-vitamin-d-protect-against-covid-seems-not <hr /> <p>This article was originally published in <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/christopher-labos-does-vitamin-d-protect-against-covid-seems-not">the Montreal Gazette</a></p> <hr /> <p>One of the major arguments used by people who want to downplay the seriousness of this pandemic or the importance of vaccines is to raise the issue of Vitamin D.</p> Fri, 25 Jun 2021 23:38:18 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 8771 at /oss /oss/article/health-nutrition/health-supplements-good-bad-and-ugly <p>It is always a challenge to find a catchy headline for an article. For this one, a connection to the classic 1966 “spaghetti western” that propelled Clint Eastwood to fame seems fitting. The film is about three gunslingers who battle each other as they look for a stash of gold. “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly,” is a great title that I hereby propose to swipe because I think it also captures the essence of the “health supplement” industry. Some supplements are potentially useful, some are useless, and some are outright ugly.</p> Fri, 07 May 2021 21:34:03 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 8723 at /oss