Since the late 1800s non-nutritive sweeteners have promised to deliver all the sweetness of sugar with none of the calories. They have long been believed to have no effect on the human body, but researchers publishing in the journal Cell on August 19 challenge this notion by finding that these sugar substitutes are not inert, and, in […]
How a deadly fungus evades the immune system
New research from the University of Toronto has scientists re-thinking how a lethal fungus grows and kills immune cells. The study hints at a new approach to therapy for Candida albicans, one of the most common causes of bloodstream infections. Previously, scientists thought that Candida albicans spread by changing from a single, round cell to a long string […]
Sugar overload may be a recipe for long-term problems
Children who consume too much sugar could be at greater risk of becoming obese, hyperactive, and cognitively impaired, as adults, according to the results of a new study of mice led by QUT and published by Frontiers in Neuroscience. The study resulted in a reduced risk of sugar-induced weight gain and other health problems when the […]
Sugar not so nice for your child’s brain development, study suggests
Sugar practically screams from the shelves of your grocery store, especially those products marketed to kids. Children are the highest consumers of added sugar, even as high-sugar diets have been linked to health effects like obesity and heart disease and even impaired memory function. However, less is known about how high sugar consumption during childhood […]
That Sugar Film
‘That Sugar Film’ is a highly informative, quirkily presented Australian documentary, which makes a case that the health fad of the past 30 years, which has demonized fats and has tended to minimize the perils of sugar may have contributed to the obesity epidemic now occurring worldwide, in a direct challenge to the hotly-contested ideas […]
Regular soda, please: Hormone that differentiates sugar, diet sweeteners could exist in humans
We’ve all been there: We eat an entire sleeve of fat-free, low-calorie cookies and we’re stuffing ourselves with more food 15 minutes later. One theory to explain this phenomenon is that artificial sweeteners don’t contain the calories or energy that evolution has trained the brain to expect from sweet-tasting foods, so they don’t fool the […]
Drinks with added sugars linked to lipid imbalance, which increases CVD risk
Drinking 12 ounces of sugary drinks more than once per day is linked to lower levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), (“good” cholesterol), and higher levels of triglycerides, in middle aged and older adults, both of which have been shown to increase risk of cardiovascular disease. These results are from a new observational study published […]
Childhood diet has lifelong impact
Eating too much fat and sugar as a child can alter your microbiome for life, even if you later learn to eat healthier, a new study in mice suggests. The study by UC Riverside researchers is one of the first to show a significant decrease in the total number and diversity of gut bacteria in […]
Why zero-calorie sweeteners can still lead to diabetes, obesity
Increased awareness of the health consequences of eating too much sugar has fueled a dramatic uptick in the consumption of zero-calorie artificial sweeteners in recent decades. However, new research finds sugar replacements can also cause health changes that are linked with diabetes and obesity, suggesting that switching from regular to diet soda may be a […]
Starving cancer, feeding knowledge
Cancer, it could be said, grows like a weed: rapidly, invasively, and with devastating impact on the place it infests. Also like a weed, cancer can’t grow on its own — it needs nourishment, which it drains from the human body, just as weeds take nutrients in the soil away from other plants. “Think of […]