Entries by Chet Zelasko

SFCA, Sodium Intake, and High Blood Pressure

Researchers in the United Kingdom recruited people with elevated systolic and diastolic blood pressure for a randomized, placebo-controlled, crossover study on diet and blood pressure. The scientists put all 145 subjects on a low-sodium diet for six weeks. Half the subjects was given a placebo while the other half was given a slow-release sodium supplement. […]

Health Benefits of SCFA

Let’s continue our look at short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) and what they do besides produce energy. Most of these are observational in nature; by that I mean when SCFA go up or down, effects are observed. What we don’t know at this point is why. For example, when diabetic animals are given the SCFAs acetate […]

Short-Chain Fatty Acids: DIY Nutrition

Short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) are critical to your health and well-being, yet you may not really know where they come from or what they do. In my opinion, the most interesting thing about SCFA is that they’re not generally found in our diet; we make them ourselves! We do that when bacteria in the microbiome […]

Supplementing Your Diet: Supplement Info Now on MP3

More than ever, we live in a digital age. Those of you who are in the supplement business have had to adapt your business to use more electronic tools to survive and thrive. I did Supplementing Your Diet as a CD with the idea that anyone could use it to help people understand why they […]

Cost vs. Benefit for Saturated Fat

In Tuesday’s Memo, I suggested that I don’t like speaking in absolutes when it comes to health recommendations; I’ve seen too many exceptions. What about our Michigan cardiologist? Was he correct? Yes and no, but mostly no. He implied in the interview that the source of saturated fat is animal products. That isn’t true. In […]

“Give Up Meat or Else!”

“Animal Foods Conclusively Cause Heart Disease!” was the title in my news feed that attracted my attention. I had to check it out, because I’m not a fan of absolute statements in the health field; too often, some facts have to be ignored to make definitive statements such as that true. Was this any different? […]

Can Wearable Health Monitors Predict COVID-19?

As of this writing, there are a minimum of five studies in the U.S. to determine whether wearable health-and-fitness monitors can predict the COVID-19 infection before noticeable symptoms actually occur. They’re looking at masses of data, rather than individual data points. Some are trying to predict how severe the infection will become using the data, […]

Heart Rate and Viral Infections

What might we gain by collecting and analyzing data from fitness and health devices? In a recently published study, researchers collected data from over 200,000 different Fitbit users. They selected users from the top five states of Fitbit users and collected data on height, weight, and age as well as heart rate and sleep data. […]

Health Monitors and COVID-19

Do you have a Fitbit that you use regularly? Does it track your heart rate? How about an Apple Watch? Can it track your temperature? Blood pressure? Millions of people use those types of devices. Think of the potential for collecting data. It could be millions of data points per second. I recently wrote about […]

Researching GOLO’s Claims

Before I get into the rest of the research on the claims made by GOLO, I want to be clear that I have nothing against any products or programs in the market. I’m not assessing the entire program for any company. But having worked for a couple of decades with companies that follow the FDA […]