/oss/taxonomy/term/278/all en /oss/article/medical-health-and-nutrition-history/story-linking-nutrition-and-health-has-unexpected-twists <hr /> <p><em>This article was first published in <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/the-right-chemistry-nutrition-heart-health-history-tips">The Montreal Gazette.</a></em></p> Fri, 28 Jun 2024 17:28:05 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 9991 at /oss /oss/article/medical-critical-thinking-health-and-nutrition/quandary-about-fats-diet <p>The human body is the most complex machine on the face of the Earth. Like any machine, it requires an input of fuel to function along with a variety of chemicals for proper maintenance. In this case, those requirements are met by food. But food is incredibly complex, even a simple meal is composed of hundreds of compounds.</p> Wed, 01 May 2024 22:19:17 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 9933 at /oss /oss/article/medical/we-can-mostly-stop-worrying-about-triglycerides <hr /> <p><em>This article was originally posted in the <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/christopher-labos-we-can-mostly-stop-worrying-about-triglycerides">Montreal Gazette.</a></em></p> Fri, 13 Jan 2023 11:00:00 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 9357 at /oss /oss/article/health-and-nutrition/do-holidays-cause-heart-attacks <hr /> <p>This article was first published in <a href="https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/artificial-trees-secular-greetings-and-holiday-heart-attacks-some-answers-to-your-christmas-queries/">The Skeptical Inquirer</a></p> Fri, 24 Dec 2021 00:00:07 +0000 Ada McVean B.Sc. 8966 at /oss /oss/article/health-history/kiss-death-almost <p>An Italian lady showed up at a clinic complaining of generalized itching and swelling of her lips about 30 minutes after making love with her husband. The reaction disappeared after treatment with cetirizine (Reactine). Tests showed that she had no food allergies. Doctors finally traced the symptoms to kissing her husband during lovemaking! Actually, the problem wasn't the kissing, one would assume that this activity occurred on numerous occasions without triggering the symptoms. This time though the husband had taken an antibiotic, bacampicillin, about two hours earlier.</p> Wed, 04 Aug 2021 20:11:04 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 8797 at /oss /oss/article/covid-19-health/truth-about-vitamin-d-and-covid-19 <p> </p> <hr /> <p><em>This article was first published in</em><span> </span><a href="https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/christopher-labos-the-truth-about-vitamin-d-and-covid-19">The Montreal Gazette<span>.</span></a></p> Fri, 19 Mar 2021 10:00:00 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 8655 at /oss /oss/article/health/statins-have-proven-track-record <p> </p> <hr /> <p><em>This article was first published in</em><span> </span><a href="https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/christopher-labos-statins-have-a-proven-track-record">The Montreal Gazette<span>.</span></a></p> Wed, 25 Nov 2020 18:41:09 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 8493 at /oss /oss/article/health-nutrition/can-avocados-lower-my-cholesterol <p>There aren’t many well-done nutrition studies. Many studies are observational and rely on questionnaires to figure out what people eat. There are very few randomized trials because these are hard to carry out. They take time, cost a lot of money, and the logistical demands are enormous. Even major studies can have problems, as we discovered in the 2013 PREDIMED study, which (apparently) demonstrated a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease in people who followed a Mediterranean diet.</p> Wed, 12 Feb 2020 18:09:04 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 8105 at /oss /oss/article/health/what-polypill <p>The idea of a <a href="https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/42567/WHO_MPN_CVD_2002.01.pdf">polypill</a> was first proposed nearly 20 years ago and the idea was a simple one. Make one pill that contained a baby aspirin, a cholesterol medication, and blood pressure pills. Rather than take four different medications, people could take a single pill once a day. The advantages in terms of convenience are obvious and patients are less likely to forget to take a single pill.</p> Wed, 25 Sep 2019 23:33:19 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 7939 at /oss /oss/article/health/aspirin-take-or-not-take-question <p class="note"><strong>Take-home message:</strong><br /> - One in four adults over 40 take a daily aspirin to prevent heart disease, despite guidelines suggesting not to.<br /> - Contrary to popular belief, in patients with no history of heart attack of stroke the benefit from aspirin is quite small and largely offset by bleeding risk.<br /> - The most recent 2019 guidelines from the American College of Cardiology recommend against routine aspirin use in patients over the age of 70 without heart disease or those at increased risk of bleeding.</p> Fri, 06 Sep 2019 10:00:00 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 7845 at /oss /oss/article/health/users-guide-understanding-your-cardiologist <p>When talking about heart disease, you often hear several different terms being bandied about and very often no one actually explains what they mean. So here is a quick cheat sheet to help you understand.</p> <p><u>What exactly is the difference between arteriosclerosis and atherosclerosis?</u></p> Thu, 02 May 2019 19:52:45 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 7744 at /oss /oss/article/health/studies-about-safety-exercise-are-reassuring <p> </p> <hr /> <p><em>​</em><em>This article was first published in</em><span> </span><a href="https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/christopher-labos-studies-about-safety-of-exercise-are-reassuring">The Montreal Gazette<span>.</span></a></p> <hr /> <p><span>Is it safe to exercise?</span></p> <p>There can be very little doubt that exercise is good for you. In the constant back and forth of which foods are good for you and which foods are bad for you (if you’ve been keeping track, eggs are bad for you again), exercise is the one thing that seems to survive unscathed.</p> Wed, 20 Mar 2019 20:03:47 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 7658 at /oss /oss/article/health-you-asked/can-you-be-obese-still-be-healthy <p>In medical speak we talk, not about being fat, but about overweight or obese. We define being overweight as having a Body Mass Index (BMI) over 25, and obesity as having a BMI over 30. Obesity is usually subdivided into Class 1 obesity (BMI 30-35), Class 2 obesity (BMI 35-40), and Class 3 obesity (BMI greater than 40). Class 3 obesity is usually labeled as severe obesity, and is sometimes unfortunately referred to by the public as “morbid obesity.”</p> Fri, 08 Feb 2019 17:00:00 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 7568 at /oss /oss/article/health/dissecting-american-heart-associattions-go-red-women-campaign <p>You are probably familiar with the American Heart Association’s "Go Red for Women" campaign. Its goal is to raise awareness about heart disease among women. They have a series of add campaigns that use infographics, like the one below, to inform the public. Recently, someone asked me whether those numbers and statements are true (we live in skeptical times) so I thought it would be useful to examine some of the claims in that infographic (seen below).</p> Thu, 04 Oct 2018 17:28:49 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 7382 at /oss /oss/article/health-nutrition/great-cholesterol-debate <p>Before we can talk about cholesterol and how to measure it we need to get some things straight. Cholesterol is absolutely tied to heart disease even though convincing people of that fact has been surprisingly difficult. The cholesterol hypothesis for heart disease dates back to the early 1900’s when Russian physician <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolay_Anichkov#cite_note-1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Nikolay Anichkov</a><span> demonstrated that feeding rabbits a high cholesterol diet led to the fatty deposits in coronary arteries that cause heart disease.</span></p> Thu, 05 Jul 2018 19:00:00 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 7157 at /oss