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TweetWorld Cancer Research Fund, 22 May 2013
Our response to social media story on processed meat
We are aware of a story circulating social media and blog sites claiming to represent World Cancer Research Fund International’s position on processed meat. We had no involvement in the production of this article. The statement below is a true reflection of our stance on processed meat:
World Cancer Research Fund International recommends avoiding processed meat. This is the conclusion of an independent panel of leading scientists who, following the biggest review of international research ever undertaken, …

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TweetApril 5, 2013, Kris Gunnars, Authority Nutrition

There is a lot of controversy in nutrition and it often seems like people can’t agree on anything.
But there are a few exceptions to this.
Here are the top 10 nutrition facts that everyone actually agrees on (well, almost everyone…).
1. Added Sugar is a Disaster
We all know that added sugar is bad.
Some think sugar is a simple matter of “empty” calories, while others believe it to cause diseases that kill millions of people each year.
It is definitely true that added sugar (sucrose and high fructose corn syrup) contains empty calories.
There are no nutrients …

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TweetNew York Times, February 25, 2013
About 30 percent of heart attacks, strokes and deaths from heart disease can be prevented in people at high risk if they switch to a Mediterranean diet rich in olive oil, nuts, beans, fish, fruits and vegetables, and even drink wine with meals, a large and rigorous new study has found.
The findings, published on The New England Journal of Medicine’s Web site on Monday, were based on the first major clinical trial to measure the diet’s effect on heart risks. The magnitude of the diet’s …

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TweetFebruary 20, 2013, The New York Times, Michael Moss
“What I found, over four years of research and reporting, was a conscious effort — taking place in labs and marketing meetings and grocery-store aisles — to get people hooked on foods that are convenient and inexpensive. I talked to more than 300 people in or formerly employed by the processed-food industry, from scientists to marketers to C.E.O.’s. Some were willing whistle-blowers, while others spoke reluctantly when presented with some of the thousands of pages of secret memos that I obtained from …

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TweetJanuary 10, 2013, Liz Szabo, USA Today
Americans live sicker and die younger than people in other wealthy countries — and the gap is getting worse over time, a new report shows.
Men in the USA have shorter lives than men in 16 developed nations. American women also fall near the bottom of the list, living 5.2 fewer years than Japanese women, who live the longest.
Americans “have a long-standing pattern of poorer health that is strikingly consistent and pervasive” over a person’s lifetime, says the report, from the Institute of Medicine and …

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TweetDecember 15th, 2012, The Economist
IT IS LUNCHTIME at Eastside Elementary School in Clinton, Mississippi, the fattest state in the fattest country in the Western world. Uniformed lunch ladies stand at the ready. Nine-year-olds line up dutifully, trays in hand. Yes to chocolate milk, yes to breaded chicken sandwiches, yes to baked beans, yes to orange jelly, no to salad. Bowls of iceberg lettuce and tomatoes sit rim to rim, rejected. Regina Ducksworth, in charge of Clinton’s lunch menu, sighs. “Broccoli is very popular,” she says, reassuringly.
Persuading children to eat vegetables …

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December 13, The Washington Post by David Brown
The health of most of the planet’s population is rapidly coming to resemble that of the United States, where death in childhood is rare, too much food is a bigger problem than too little, and life is long and often darkened by disability.
High blood pressure is now the leading “risk factor” for disease around the world. Alcohol use is third. Low-back pain now causes more disability than childbirth complications or anemia.
“We are in transition to a world where disability is the dominant concern as …

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TweetA federal judge on Tuesday ordered tobacco companies to publish corrective statements that say they lied about the dangers of smoking and that disclose smokings health effects, including the death on average of 1,200 people a day.U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler previously had said she wanted the industry to pay for corrective statements in various types of advertisements. But Tuesdays ruling is the first time shes laid out what the statements will say.
Each corrective ad is to be prefaced by a statement that a federal court has concluded that the …

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TweetOctober 24, 2012, The Independent, Martin Hickman
Health campaigners today welcomed a new Government-backed food labelling system which will standardise the baffling array of front-of-pack designs which have confused shoppers for years.

All the major supermarket chains bar Iceland have indicated that they will use the scheme – announced by the Department of Health this morning – on everything from breakfast cereals to pizzas from next year.
Under the scheme, colours will show ‘high’, ‘medium’ and ‘low’ levels of  fat, saturated fat, salt and sugar as well as the percentages of daily recommended …

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October 15, 2012, New York Times, Pam Belluck
For years, virtually every new mother has been sent home from the hospital with a gift bag full of free product samples, including infant formula.
Now health authorities and breast-feeding advocates are leading a nationwide effort to ban formula samples, which often come in stylish bags with formula company logos. Health experts say they can sway women away from breast-feeding.
As of 2011, nearly half of about 2,600 hospitals in a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had stopped giving formula samples …