Chris Kesser is a licensed acupuncturist and practitioner of integrative medicine who promotes animal products as a way to optimal health. Kesser recently wrote an article where he expresses his concern for the health of those considering vegetarianism: Why You Should Think Twice About Vegetarian and Vegan Diets. I don’t think it is a terrible article...

Summary In the one study to date that has examined the intake of vitamin K2 and incidence of type 2 diabetes, a weak association was found for vitamin K2 being protective. In doing my final search for studies on vitamin K2 and cardiovascular disease (CVD), I came across one on type 2 diabetes (1). Since diabetes can be fairly related to CVD, I decided...

Summary In the one study to date that has examined the intake of vitamin K2 and incidence of stroke, no association was found. I was getting ready to publish my conclusions regarding vitamin K2 and cardiovascular disease and decided to check PubMed one last time to make sure nothing had come out recently. Sure enough, there was a paper on vitamin K2...

Summary Eco-Atkins is a vegan, low-carbohydrate diet. After 6 months on the diet, people lost 15 lbs and LDL cholesterol levels went from 174 to 157 mg/dl. Compliance was not high.In 2009, a 4-week clinical trial putting overweight people on a low-carbohydrate vegan diet, known as the Eco-Atkins, was released. I mentioned it in my article Of Oil and...

Summary Zinc citrate and zinc gluconate are absorbed well by apparently healthy people. Some apparently healthy people cannot absorb zinc oxide.A 2014 study from Switzerland compared the absorption from various forms of zinc supplements (1). Measuring zinc absorption in 15 healthy volunteers, they found the following absorption rates: zinc citrate...

In June of 2013, the Cochrane Collaboration updated their meta-analysis of double-blinded, placebo-controlled randomized controlled trials testing whether zinc is useful in treating or preventing the common cold (1). Their analysis included 16 trials for treating colds, with a total of 1,387 participants. Intake of zinc was associated with a significant...