Research Reviews

Drinking two cups of water before a meal will keep you hydrated, fuller, and may even boost your metabolism for an hour. And all you need to do is turn on your tap. Talk about convenience.

What if you just ate the foods you saw advertised on TV? What would your nutrition intake look like?

Think food for babies is nutritionally safe? Think again. Your kid could be eating a lot more sugar and salt than you expect.

Antioxidants such as vitamin E may protect us from Alzheimer’s by combating free radicals in the body.

Research suggests that a so-called “Mediterranean diet” may help keep us healthy. What makes this diet so special? One proposed factor is the olive oil. What exactly is in that oil… and is it truly the secret to a healthy life?

Do you want tight, sexy abs? How about a back that doesn’t hurt? For starters, lay off the crunches and low back stretching. Spinal biomechanicist Stu McGill gets us off the couch (or desk) and on our hands and knees.

Can a multivitamin/multimineral supplement alone help you lose fat and improve cardiovascular risk… regardless of diet and exercise? According to one study, yes.

Whether you’re eating to maintain or to lose weight, make sure you’re getting the micronutrients you need from whole food.

For over 100 million asthma sufferers worldwide, breathing is a struggle. Can your diet affect your risk of having asthma?

Most women worry about getting too many calories or getting too muscular, so they often avoid dairy and/or heavy weight training. But a new study suggests that adding both of these things may actually help them lose fat.

It seems that back in the 80s we had bigger hair and bigger shoulder pads but smaller bodies. Are sugar-sweetened drinks to blame?

Jan 2, you’re hitting the gym. 6 weeks later, you’re hitting the Ho-Hos. How do you keep from repeating this yearly cycle? By boosting your motivation just when you need it the most. You’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and doggone it, people like you!

You know the “ate a hot pepper” feeling, right? Your eyes tear up. Your nose runs. You break out into a sweat. You grab for ice water. Capsaicin, the chemical that’s kicking your ass, is actually increasing your metabolic rate. But can it, along with green tea, help you lose fat?

What motivates people to eat better? It might not be what you think. Can you trick people into eating healthier by focusing on something else? Welcome to the world of stealth interventions.

Women who don’t have enough vitamin D are heavier and have more body fat than women who do. If you’re looking to get lean, maybe it’s time to pause before you slather on the 75 SPF sunscreen…

Body fat makes us nice and squishy. It pads our organs and bones. But can excess body fat really help us in a serious impact, such as a car crash… or make it worse? Here’s a hint: Force equals mass times acceleration.

We hear a lot about fat intake and heart disease. But what about carb intake? Devout low-carbers might insist that all carbs are bad. But this study shows that carb quality might be as important as quantity when it comes to heart disease risk.

What you believe can become real. Don’t believe us? Just check out this study. It shows that your perception of yourself and your environment has a definite, measurable impact on your health. Believing and living a healthy lifestyle is more beneficial than either one alone.

A lot of access to junk food, both high fat and high sugar, alters brain function that leads to addiction. This study provides compelling evidence that food addiction is real.

At this point, we know HFCS is probably bad for us. Next question: Just HOW bad is it? A recent study suggests that HFCS causes more weight gain than sugar alone, but is that accurate?

Whoops! You lost some weight, but then you got a little sloppy with your nutrition, and gained some of those pounds back. However, you were hitting the gym. Was all your hard work a waste of time?

We all know that jocks are dumb and brainiacs are 98-lb weaklings… right? Well, not necessarily. In fact, dodgeball may help you get an A+ on that math test.

Do your intestines need redecorating? A little paint, a little wallpaper, maybe a new lining and some happy dancing bacteria? We tackle the “14-day probiotic challenge” and find out how probiotics can really spruce up the place.

What’s the secret to getting lean? Well, it might be as simple as… keeping it simple.

Thermogenesis literally means the making (genesis) of heat (therm). In our body, muscle thermogenesis helps keep us warm. Thermogenesis also helps burn calories. How does this work… and could we eventually harness its power to stay lean?

You’re a calorie-conscious eater. You read nutrition labels. So you should be safe, right? Wrong. A new study shows that nutrition labels on processed foods seriously underestimate the food’s calorie counts. Just one more reason to avoid that Denny’s Grand Slam breakfast.

In general everybody is gung ho for any type of efficiency. You never hear, “I’m trying to be as inefficient as possible this year.” Nope. It’s all about efficiency… until you start talking about losing weight.

You may have heard the old-timers at your gym say, “If you want big arms, squat.” They mean that the hormonal release generated by large exercises improves overall muscle gain results. But is that true?

Oh, the agony of the post-squat waddle, or the post-bench-press tooth brushing. Wouldn’t it be nice to find a way to alleviate delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS)? Well, one new supplement shows promise. (That is, if you can make your post-superset-row arms work well enough to open the jar.)

Fast food is cheap. But metabolic syndrome — a consequence of poor diet and inactivity — is expensive. Luckily, the solution to metabolic syndrome is also pretty cheap… at least, if it doesn’t involve drugs.

Does adding something potentially good to a junky food make the junky food better? Does it turn French fries into broccoli? Well, ask yourself: are “light” cigarettes a health supplement?

Increasingly, evidence shows that our children and even grandchildren can inherit non-genetic elements — stuff that’s not our DNA, but rather changes in the way our DNA can be expressed. And as it turns out, feast or famine can affect the fatness of future generations. If you’re struggling with your weight, perhaps it means your grandma survived a tough winter.

It’s a truism that exercise helps with stress. But have you ever wondered… why? Could it be your DNA? A gang of swimming rats takes the plunge to find out.

The “turkey coma” is a common occupational hazard of holiday dinners. The tryptophan in turkey converts to 5-HTP and serotonin, which helps relax us and make us feel fuller. Could 5-HTP also help us lose fat? Possibly, although not if we consume it in the form of a buffet…

Years ago, exercise physiologists thought that anyone who could run a marathon would never have heart disease. They were wrong. Really wrong. In fact, if you’re a middle-aged man concerned about heart health, this week’s study suggests that you may want to run away from marathons.

We know that having carbohydrates during prolonged exercise helps performance. But what if you didn’t actually have to eat the carbohydrate? What if the taste of carbohydrate were enough to boost performance? A new study suggests that this might be the case.

We’re starting to hear more about how vitamin D is an important nutrient. But are our vitamin D levels affected by our genes?

Ever sit down with a big bowl of ice cream after a bad day? Well, that might not be the best thing to do. Poor eating habits may damage more than your waistline — they might affect your mental health too.

Two recent studies have shaken up the weight lifting and athletic world with respect to protein intake. But is all the hoopla doing healthy eaters a service? Click here to find out if we should all just limit our intake of protein to 20-30g. Or if there’s a smarter approach.

When AC/DC sang, “We’ve got the biggest bars of them all!” (what? those aren’t the right lyrics?) were they referring to the improved grip strength and muscular activation from thick barbell training? This week’s study finds out!