Entries by Chet Zelasko

Can Fasting Reduce Inflammation?

In this Memo, I’ll review the third paper from the recent journal Cell on fasting and summarize what this all may mean for the use of intermittent fasting. Researchers used both mice and humans as subjects in a series of studies. The objective was to examine how the immune system responded to a fasting protocol. […]

Fasting and Memory T Cells

The second paper from the journal Cell on fasting examined the longer term effects of fasting on memory T cells. Several species of mice were used in a variety of studies; these were complex experiments to say the least. Before I go further, a little about memory T cells. Memory T cells are a class […]

Fasting and Immune Function

Intermittent fasting is the latest health fad. When I say fad, I mean there are as many definitions of what it means as there are experts. In a recent edition of the journal Cell, three papers were published that provided some insight into the effects of three different types of intermittent fasting on three different […]

All Research Matters

As we enter the final holiday of summer, I want to challenge you to listen to a podcast over this long weekend. Before I get to the details about the podcast, I want to tell you why research matters. I spend a considerable amount of time examining nutrition research. If you read what I write, […]

What’s Next?

Riley, our four-year-old grandson, recognizes patterns in daily life. Right now one of his favorite questions is, “What’s next?” Usually, it’s in relation to eating, because he knows after supper, for instance, there’s a gummy vitamin. So during a phone call, an Insider asked me what I’m working on and I immediately pictured Riley and […]

How Methionine Affects Cancer Treatment

If you’ve ever been diagnosed with cancer and you start searching the Internet, one of the things that you’ll come across is using a vegetarian diet to help treat the cancer. I’ve recommended it myself combined with conventional treatment. The question is why? Yes, the phytonutrients from plants are healthier, but is there something in […]

Fearsome Twosome: C. Diff and Clade A

Clostridioides difficile, C. diff for short, is a serious bacterial infection typically acquired after antibiotic treatment in a hospital. Antibiotics disturb the microbiome balance, and as a result, a bacterium that typically may not be a threat becomes one. But C. diff is not just a single bacterium. In a recent paper, researchers from London […]

Should Your DNA Guide Your Diet?

In an opinion piece, a college professor in the U.K. who had written about personalized nutrition wanted to find out whether she should change her diet based on her genetic profile. She decided to send her DNA to Norway for analysis. Her genetic profile indicated that she was at risk for having high cholesterol and […]

Does Exercise Intensity Affect Obesity?

As I wrote on Thursday, exercise intensity did not seem to impact mortality, or death rate, in a large group of older women. Of course, living longer is important to many people. Could exercise intensity provide benefits as it relates to reducing the staggering 40% rate of obesity in the U.S.? Maybe. Let’s look at […]

Is the 10,000-Steps Goal a Myth?

One of the things many people do for fitness is try to get 10,000 steps per day. Researchers recently wanted to know whether that many steps really gives a person any health advantage, because the concept of 10,000 steps per day wasn’t based on any real science—it came from a Japanese company who invented a […]