When we think about blood sugar control, we tend to focus on the pancreas and the hormone insulin. But there's another organ that plays an absolutely enormous role in how our bodies handle glucose, and it's one we don't always think of as being involved in metabolic health.
Our muscles.
Skeletal m...
When we talk about nutrition during pregnancy, certain nutrients immediately spring to mind. Folic acid is essential for early neural development, iron supports the expanding blood supply, and iodine plays a critical role in thyroid function and brain development.
But there's another nutrient that ...
For decades, nutrition researchers have relied heavily on food questionnaires to understand the relationship between what we eat and our long-term health. Participants are asked how often they eat particular foods, how large their portions are and how closely their eating habits resemble a particula...
We tend to think about brain health in terms of things we can actually notice. Forgetfulness, difficulty concentrating, problems finding the right words or feeling that our thinking isn't quite as sharp as it used to be.
But what if some of the changes associated with poorer brain health begin long...
Protein has become one of the biggest selling points in modern nutrition. Supermarket shelves are packed with high-protein yoghurts, cereals, snack bars and even chocolate bars. Social media is full of advice about hitting daily protein targets, while everything from weight loss to healthy ageing se...
What if some of the microorganisms that lived inside our ancestors for thousands of years are gradually disappearing from the human gut?
It's a fascinating possibility, and one that is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. As our diets, lifestyles and environments have changed, so too have the...
Why do some people develop a fever after a vaccination while others barely notice they've had one? Why do our immune systems sometimes react very differently to what appears to be the same challenge?
We usually think of these differences in terms of genetics, age or general health. But an intriguin...
We spend an enormous amount of time discussing what we should eat, how much we should eat and which foods are best for our metabolism. But there's another question that is becoming increasingly interesting to nutrition researchers: does it matter when we eat?
It turns out that our bodies don't proc...
When we think about biological inheritance, we usually think about DNA. We inherit a particular sequence of genetic letters from our parents, containing variants that influence everything from eye colour to height, cholesterol metabolism and susceptibility to certain diseases. Apart from the occasio...
Anyone who has repeatedly lost weight and watched it gradually return will recognise the frustration. The first diet appears to work, normal life eventually resumes, some or all of the weight comes back and another attempt begins. After enough repetitions, it is understandable that people start wond...
Gut-health advice has developed a rather neat little story over the last decade. Eat plenty of fibre, feed your good bacteria, avoid doing things that encourage the bad ones and, with a little luck and perhaps a suitably expensive probiotic, your microbiome will flourish.
It is an appealing idea be...
Pharmaceutical treatment of obesity has changed the landscape of healthcare drastically. Within a remarkably short period, drugs such as semaglutide have moved from specialist diabetes clinics into everyday conversation, while the extraordinary commercial and cultural success of these medicines has ...
