Category: alcohol
What dietary change can simultaneously help detoxify mercury, lead, and cadmium from the body? I’ve previously explored the issue of lead contamination in calcium supplements, such as bonemeal, but bone meal isn’t all that can be contaminated. “Substantial quantities of lead have been reported in some over-the-counter calcium supplement preparations,” and testing has revealed continued […]
What happened in states after medical marijuana laws were passed? Did opioid overdoses go up, stay the same, or go down? Millions of people in the United States have been diagnosed with an opioid use disorder, and more than 80 Americans die each day from opioid overdose. Where is this coming from? Most “new heroin […]
There are some serious public health concerns about the legalization of marijuana, but they’re probably not what you might expect. Regarding marijuana legalization, “opinions range from regarding this as a landmark human rights advance granting access to a miracle medication, to one of a disastrous, anarchic profiteering sham.” Most may agree, though, that the trillion-dollar […]
When it comes to uterine fibroids, is soy harmful, harmless, or helpful? About one in four women will eventually suffer from fibroids, most commonly manifesting as excessively heavy periods, pain, or pressure. Why might you feel pressure? Because, as you can see at 0:17 in my video Should Women with Fibroids Avoid Soy?, you may […]
What would happen if you effectively randomized people at birth to drink more or less alcohol their whole lives? Would they get more or less heart disease? Once you remove the “systematic error” of misclassifying former drinkers as if they were lifelong abstainers from studies on alcohol and mortality, moderate alcohol consumption, like a glass […]
Even if alcohol causes cancer and there is no “French paradox,” what about the famous J-shaped curve, where excessive drinking is bad, but light drinkers appear to actually have lower mortality than abstainers? “Why do we not see the corporate interests of the alcohol industry as clearly as we see those of the tobacco industry?” […]
Is there any benefit to resveratrol? If so, should we get it from wine, grapes, peanuts, or supplements? “Alcohol is a neurotoxin which can cause brain damage…[and] can cause cancer,” so perhaps the “consumption of alcohol…cannot be considered a healthy lifestyle choice” since it’s an addictive carcinogen. Cancer is only killer number two, though. Killer […]
If even light drinking can cause cancer, why don’t doctors warn their patients about it? As I discuss in my video Can Alcohol Cause Cancer?, we’ve known about “the possible association of the consumption of alcohol with excessive mortality from cancer” for more than a hundred years. Though there is “accumulating evidence that alcohol drinking […]
Impaired driving due to prescription medication is often given less attention than driving under the influence of illegal drugs. Yet, prescription drugs are just as dangerous, if not more dangerous, because many people are either not aware of the drug’s influence on their driving or assume prescribed medication is “safe.” Some medication, however, significantly increases […]
Should laptops not be on laps? What is the effect of WiFi exposure on sperm motility and DNA damage? “It is impossible to imagine a modern socially-active man who does not use mobile devices and/or computers with Wi-Fi function.” Might cell phones or wireless internet be harmful for male fertility? You may recall that I’ve […]
Every year, cannabis is estimated to result in two million years of healthy life lost due to disability. How much is that compared with alcohol and tobacco? “The popular notion seems to be that marijuana is a harmless pleasure,” but what are the potential adverse effects of marijuana use? That’s not an easy question to […]
Alcohol abuse is closely correlated with depression. This doesn’t necessarily mean one causes the other, but many people who suffer from depressive disorders turn to alcohol to escape. On the other side of that coin, those who abuse or overuse alcohol can develop symptoms of depression or exacerbate symptoms that are already present. So, how […]
If you’re a fan of fitness and of drinking, we’ve got some bad news for you.
What is the role of dairy- and yeast-exclusion diets on arresting and reversing an inflammatory autoimmune disease? A landmark study suggested that exposure to dietary yeast, like baker’s yeast, brewer’s yeast, and nutritional yeast, may worsen the course of Crohn’s disease, an autoimmune inflammatory bowel disease. The reason the researchers even thought to do the […]
What happens when our crops are grown in soil contaminated with arsenic-based pesticides and arsenic drug-laced chicken manure? When arsenic-containing drugs are fed to chickens, not only does the arsenic grow out into their feathers, which are then fed back to them as a slaughterhouse byproduct, but the arsenic can also get into their tissues […]
At the start of my video What Does a Low White Blood Cell Count Mean?, you can see what it looks like when you take a drop of blood, smear it between two pieces of glass, and view at it under a microscope: a whole bunch of little, round, red blood cells and a few […]
In 2011, Denmark introduced the world’s first tax on saturated fat. “After only 15 months, however, the fat tax was abolished,” due to massive pressure from farming and food company interests. “Public health advocates are weak in tackling the issues of corporate power…A well-used approach for alcohol, tobacco, and, more recently, food-related corporate interests is […]
It may be more expedient politically to promote an increase in consumption of healthy items rather than a decrease in consumption of unhealthy items, but it may be far less effective. The World Health Organization has estimated that more than a million deaths “worldwide are linked to low fruit and vegetable consumption.” What can be […]
Whole plant sources of sugar and fat can ameliorate some of the postprandial (after meal) inflammation caused by the consumption of refined carbohydrates and meat. Studies have shown how adding even steamed skinless chicken breast can exacerbate the insulin spike from white rice, but fish may be worse. At 0:18 in my video The Effects […]
“Sex is important to health,” according to the Harvard Health Letter. “Frequent sexual intercourse is associated with reduced heart attack risk.” But, as I discuss in my video Do Men Who Have More Sex Live Longer?, that seems to be the perfect case of reverse causation. They’re implying that more sex leads to healthier arteries, […]
The approval of aspartame has a controversial history. The Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concluded that “there is a reasonable certainty that human consumption of aspartame: (1) …will not pose a risk of brain damage resulting in mental retardation, endocrine [hormonal] dysfunction, or both; and (2) will not cause brain tumors.” […]
According to the second World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research expert report, “[s]alt is a probable cause of stomach cancer,” one of the world’s leading cancer killers. If the report’s estimate of an 8 percent increase in risk for every extra gram of salt a day is correct, then in a country like […]