Industry Figure Tom Chappell

I’ve written before about the cardinal rule of being instructed by a physical therapist or personal trainer, and it’s this: people are naturally efficient, and they are particularly good at exercising the muscles that they normally use, and at not exercising the muscles that they don’t normally use. So, when a trainer tells you [...]

Discovery Health is doing something called the National Body Challenge, which includes a variety of features, such as exercise plans and what look like some tasty recipes.
It’s free, and if you sign up (really) soon, you can download an 8-week free pass to your local Bally Total Fitness, as well as a free personal trainer [...]

I habitually trawl the news and science journals, and often find studies that illuminate, confirm, or refute some salient point. I’ve decided to start noting these when I stumble across them, almost more for my own benefit than for yours.
But first, more about me:
When I was in high school, probably starting around [...]

I’ve often idly wondered whether or not drug or insurance companies could tell how many and what kind of prescriptions my doctor orders (not just for me, but for everyone), since that would be an obvious conflict-of-interest, allowing the drug companies to kickback some sort of carrot (e.g. solid gold bars), or the insurance companies [...]

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One piece of advice that you wouldn’t imagine to be controversial, at least, is to minimize your intake of sugar. But even here, the mainstream voice can surprise: the American Diabetes Association still to this day says that for diabetics, “Sucrose-containing foods can [...]

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By the 1990’s, researchers started reporting that heart disease and Alzheimer’s seemed to share risk factors: hypertension, atherosclerosis, and smoking were all associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
The connection with insulin and high blood sugar is concrete: “Type 2 diabetics have roughly twice [...]

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Will a low-carb diet lead to diseases of deficiency? It shouldn’t, because we don’t actually restrict the bulk of fruits and vegetables. Only refined sugar, flour, bread, potatoes, rice, beer, and those foods composed chiefly of these need be restricted.
This leaves a [...]

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Is a low-carb diet safe? A diet that is lower in carbohydrates is by necessity higher in protein and fat. And everybody knows that’s supposed to be trouble, right? After all, researchers have been focusing on dietary fat and cholesterol for a long, long time [...]

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Well, it’s pretty obvious what this has been leading up to, isn’t it?
The only thing that can cause fat loss is a low insulin level, and to do that, you have to restrict carbohydrates. You can either do that by restricting total calories, or by restricting carbohydrates [...]

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Suppose you have some lab rats. If offered rat chow, they’ll eat until they’re satisfied, and then stop. But what, exactly, triggers that satisfied feeling? What makes a rat happy? What makes a rat hungry?
Proponents of high-fiber diets claim that adding fiber to meals helps [...]