Aspartame may be the reason that diet soda consumption during pregnancy has been linked to premature birth.

When we learned how bad butter was for us, the food industry responded by giving us margarine, which turned out to be even worse.

When the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) dietary guidelines directed us to lower our fat intake in hopes that we would pick up an apple, the food industry gave us fudge drizzled Snackwell cookies.

That is precisely reasoning like this that has led to the billion-dollar diet soda industry. …read more of Aspartame: Fibromyalgia and Preterm Birth here

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for menopause grew to prominence in the 1990’s when millions of women were sold hormones made from horse urine. The makers of Premarin (pregnant mare urine) promised HRT would prevent age-related diseases.

When the truth got out in 2002 that the opposite was true, that it actually increased risk of heart disease, stroke, pulmonary embolism, and invasive breast cancer, the number of prescriptions dropped and so did the rates of breast cancer.

Thanks to some high-profile celebrity endorsements, interest then switched to so-called “compounded bio-identical hormones,” from plant rather than equine sources, which were said to work the same without carrying the same risks. But what does the science say?

In the video Plant-Based Bioidentical Hormones, I note there have been several new reviews on the subject from the American College of OB/GYN’s, the Mayo Clinic and the editors-in-chief of the journal of the International Menopause Society. …read more of Are Bioidentical Hormones Safe? here

Why do centenarians, those who live to be over a hundred years old escape cancer?

In the video, IGF-1 as One-Stop Cancer Shop you can see that as we get older our risk of developing and dying from cancer grows year by year until we reach 85 or 90 years of age and then begins to drop.

It seems that centenarians are endowed with a particular resistance to cancer. So what’s their secret?

Every day, 50 billion cells in our body die and every day, 50 billion new cells are born. There is a balance. Otherwise your body would shrink or get too crowded.

Sometimes we need growth, as with babies or during growth spurts that occur around puberty. Our cells don’t get larger when we grow; they increase in number. A child’s hand may only be made up of about 50 billion cells and may have to add a half trillion or so as they grow.

Once we’re all grown, however we don’t want a lot of extra cells hanging around. We still need our cells to grow and divide, but at that point it is out with the old and in with the new. …read more of How the Plant-Based Diet Fights Cancer here

Lifestyle nutrition pioneer Nathan Pritikin was an unlikely candidate to spark a nutrition revolution. He wasn’t a doctor or dietitian but actually an engineer.

Featured in the video, Engineering a Cure, Pritikin reversed his own heart disease with a plant-based diet and went on to help millions of others. He even saved the life of my own grandmother, which is what inspired me to go into medicine.

Pritikin’s work has continued though his research foundation. Once Dean Ornish had proved that Our Number One Killer Can Be Stopped, the focus shifted from heart disease to cancer.

In the video Ex Vivo Cancer Proliferation Bioassay, I describe an elegant series of experiments in which people were placed on different diets and their blood was then dripped on cancer cells in a petri dish to see which diet was more effective at suppressing cancer growth. …read more of Cancer-Proof Your Body here

Iron is a double-edged sword.

If we don’t absorb enough we risk anemia, but if we absorb too much we may be increasing our risk of colorectal cancer, heart disease, infection, neurodegenerative disorders, and inflammatory conditions. Video: Risk Associated With Iron Supplements

Other conditions that have been associated with high iron intake include Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, arthritis, and diabetes.

Because the human body has no mechanism to rid itself of excess iron, we evolved to tightly regulate its absorption. If our iron stores are low our intestines boost the absorption of iron and if our iron stores are topped off our intestines block the absorption of iron to maintain the sweet spot. …read more of How to Enhance Mineral Absorption here