Category: Uncategorized

WEBCAST: Scientific Report of the 2015 DGAC

The on-demand webcast can be viewed here. On Wednesday February 25, The Harvard/T.H. Chan School of Public Health hosted a symposium on the Scientific Report of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC):  Evidence Basis and Key Recommendations. The event was moderated by Dr. Howard Koh, with Dr. J. Michael McGinnis as the Keynote Speaker. Presenters included Dr. […] Continue reading

Dietary fat and heart disease study is seriously misleading

The journal Annals of Internal Medicine recently published a paper suggesting there is no evidence supporting the longstanding recommendation to limit saturated fat consumption. Media reporting on the paper included headlines such as “No link found between saturated fat and heart disease” and articles saying “Saturated fat shouldn’t be demonized” springing up on social media. Continue reading

Protein, carbs, and weight loss

How might a high-protein, low-carb diet lead to weight loss more quickly than a low-fat, high-carb diet, at least in the short run? First, chicken, beef, fish, beans, and other high-protein foods move more slowly from the stomach to the intestine. Slower stomach emptying means you feel full for longer and get hungrier later. Continue reading

Straight talk about soy

Updated Page on Soy: https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/soy We’ve been told that regularly eating soy-based foods lowers cholesterol, calms hot flashes, prevents breast and prostate cancer, aids weight loss, and wards off osteoporosis. Some of these benefits have been attributed to a unique characteristic of soybeans—their high concentration of isoflavones, a type of plant-made estrogen (phytoestrogen). However, some of […] Continue reading

The problem with potatoes

In the U.S., people eat an average of 126 pounds of potatoes per person each year. [1] However, potatoes don’t count as a vegetable on Harvard’s Healthy Eating Plate because they are high in the type of carbohydrate that the body digests rapidly, causing blood sugar and insulin to surge and then dip (in scientific […] Continue reading