It appears that we’re well into “outrageous media frenzy over terrible or misleading claims by nutrition scientists” season…. Last week I covered the “low-carb” and mortality study, and for this week’s edition of Dear Mark I’m covering the (latest) coconut oil controversy. A Harvard professor recently launched a dramatic harangue against coconut oil, calling it “pure...
For today’s edition of Dear Mark, I’m answering a single, significant question. It concerns the latest “anti-low-carb” study claiming that we’re all killing ourselves by not eating bread. A reader wonders if the study is legit and if we should be worried about eating fewer carbs than “normal” people. I don’t think we should be concerned,...
Interest in the ketogenic diet is at an all-time high, and for good reason. It’s a great way to lose body fat, gain steady energy throughout the day, increase fat-burning capacity at rest and during exercise, reduce inflammation, and improve cognitive function. Keto also has a number of promising medical applications, including seizure control, enhanced...
For today’s Dear Mark, I’m answering just one question from a reader. What are we to make of the new study purporting to show that saturated fat is the most harmful substance a liver can encounter? Should we remove all traces of it from our diets? Should we eat pure sugar? Quaff soybean oil? How...
The tricky thing about fiber is that it’s not a monolith. There are dozens of varieties. Some of them perform similar functions in the body, but others have extremely unique effects. Some rend your colonic lining to stimulate lubrication. Some turn into gelatinous slurries. But we can’t talk about fiber without understanding that the word...
All-meat diets are growing in popularity. There are the cryptocurrency carnivores. There’s the daughter of the ascendant Jordan B. Peterson, Mikhaila Peterson, who’s using a carnivorous diet to stave off a severe autoimmune disease that almost killed her as a child. The most prominent carnivore these days, Dr. Shawn Baker (who appears to eat only grilled ribeyes (at...
For today’s edition of Dear Mark, I’m answering four questions from readers. First, should someone homozygous for the FADS variant that increases PUFA conversion eat less or more PUFA? Next, what’s the deal with all the mushroom coffees out on the market? Are they actually beneficial? Third, when looking for a healthy decaf coffee, what...