The Evolving Health blog is moving to evolvinghealth.wordpress.com

Although I've enjoyed posting from Blogger for five years now, I've found that Wordpress offers me a lot more of the functionality that I need.So, I hope you'll join me for more posts about evidence-based food, nutrition and medicine updates over at http://www.evolvinghealth.wordpress.com.Also, don't miss my coverage of Experimental Biology 2013 from...

Apr 2013

Why we should adopt a "zoobiquitous" approach to health

We are all animals. It's a fact that may be unsettling for some, but for others it is a fountain of understanding and of inspiration. Since 1859, thanks to Charles Darwin, our place in the animal world has been firmly established. Yet, to this day, it is all too common within medicine (and nutrition) to have the tendency to develop a narrow-mindedness...

Apr 2013

Calories aren't right on labels and maybe that’s OK

Has it ever crossed your mind that the number of listed Calories (Kcals) of, say, a large, raw, whole apple at 116 Kcals and that of a glazed doughnut at 125 Kcals might not be an accurate comparison*? Surely, you might think, isn’t the doughnut more likely to add inches to your waistline?You'd be right. The difference that you might have understood...

Feb 2013

Experts on the evolution of human nutrition

Want to eat a diet that mimics that of our Paleolithic ancestors? It might be a little more complicated than what the popular books say.The fact is, there was never one Paleo Diet; it's more likely there were hundreds of them and that they were continually changing and broadening over evolutionary time.That was the overarching message of an impressive...

Feb 2013

The nutritional biology of human skin color

The amount of melanin found within our skin has long been a source of division for humans culturally, but anthropologist Nina Jablonski of Penn State tells the story of how human skin color unites us all biologically.It's become one of my favorite stories to share as it relates to nutritional biology: More pigment was naturally selected because it acted...

Jan 2013

What a Komodo dragon can teach us about energy balance

Credit: San Diego ZooTry telling a Komodo dragon that physical activity doesn't matter and that all one needs to do to lose weight is eat a diet lower in carbohydrates.Meet Sunny, the obese Komodo dragon. Her San Diego Zoo keepers have put her on a strict diet based on her animal energy and metabolic requirements. She eats only mice, rats, and ground...

Jan 2013

What journalists should know before writing about fructophobia

"Pick your poison" Sugars by vavroom, on FlickrIn his new book, Fat Chance, Dr. Robert Lustig argues that "sugar is more toxin than it ever was nutrient." He writes that sugar is as addictive as cocaine, that it should be regulated like tobacco, and that children should be carded before having a soda. He compares the fructose component of sugar to ethanol....

Jan 2013

Why you can all stop saying meat eating fueled evolution of larger brains right now

Hadza returning from hunt in Tanzania. Credit Andy Lederer.In William Shakespeare's comedy Twelfth Night, Sir Andrew, who was worried that a joke may have been made at his expense, reasons out loud that maybe his diet had something to do with his lack of intelligence, saying, "But I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit" (Act...

Dec 2012

Human vs. chimps: What the "regulome" tells us about meat eating & bigger brains

Source: Greg WrayThe story about how humans evolved bigger brains begins some seven million years ago in central Africa. There, in a dense rainforest, there lived the last ancestor that we share with our closest living relatives. Our evolutionary paths diverged when the global climate changed and a new habitat took shape. While ancestors of chimpanzees...

Nov 2012

Food is "star stuff"

Champagne supernova. Credit: Space Daily"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." When you eat a slice of apple pie, or any pie, or any food at all today, on Carl Sagan Day, it may be worthwhile to reflect on this quote, one of the beloved television series host's most famous from Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.A...

Nov 2012