From XKCD I’m sure many of you feel that it is disappointingly easy to become embarrassed for humanity whenever reading a discussion of correlations. In academia’s greatest charade, every Stats 101 class or Epidemiology 101 class or heck even a Psych 101 class will emphatically declare that correlation does not imply causation. Then most people …
No donut will ever be a health food, but the following doughnut recipe rocks. I invented it a number of years ago, and it’s a great idea for a once-in-a-blue-moon treat. These are fermented whole grain donuts, but in my experience you can give them to the uninitiated without telling them and they’ll have no …
Among the cells of our immune system, the B cells make our antibodies. Each B cell makes a different antibody. We make an estimated one trillion different antibodies, giving us the capacity to respond to virtually any pathogen. Even more remarkably, each of these antibodies reacts with a variety of different antigens (an antigen is …
The rapid advance of the sequencing of the genome of humans and other species has revealed how little we actually understand about how our cells operate. Consider this passage from the fifth edition of Molecular Biology of the Cell (2008, p. 207): Accurate gene identification requires approaches that extract information from the inherently low signal-to-noise …
A reader named “blob” asked me to respond to a recent post by the Fanatic Cook Bix Weber, “Two Studies That Link Dietary Fat to Cancer.” Both of these studies were conducted by the same group led by Philippe G. Frank, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the Department of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at …
Melissa McEwen recently brought to my attention a blog post by Bix Weber, the Fanatic Cook, “Diabetes is a Disorder of Fat Metabolism.” Weber cites a 2009 study published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation entitled “Mitochondrial H2O2 emission and cellular redox state link excess fat intake to insulin resistance in both rodents and humans” …
I spent a large portion of the day today trying to figure out why a couple papers I have showed that EGCG, a component of green tea, increases glucose uptake into isolated skeletal muscle cells, but another shows the opposite. The methods of these papers were a little different, and it’s possible to speculate that …
Well it’s that time again, so Happy New Year! January is a great time for trying new things to improve our lives and make them a bit better than they were the year before. A number of people in the blogosphere have offered some great dietary ideas for January. Stephan Guyenet recently passed on Matt …
“The dose makes the poison.” — Paracelsus (1493-1541) “What is food to one is bitter poison to others.” — Lucretius (ca. 99 BC — ca. 55 BC) This post will be the first in a series of posts on food toxins and food intolerances. As an introduction, I’d like to review some of the recent …
Paul and Shou-Ching Jaminet’s The Perfect Health Diet is a great book. I have discussed some caveats, but ultimately I think it is excellent and many people would benefit from reading it. You can read my review here: Paul and Shou-Ching Jaminet’s The Perfect Health Diet If you’d like, come back and post your comments here!