Dr. Chet’s Health Memos
If it’s in the health news today, I’ll be writing about it as soon as I read the research, both old and new. With my email Health Memos, you’ll know more about making lifestyle choices that will help you get and keep good health. These free, concise updates on health are emailed to subscribers twice a week. Subscribe today and get a free MP3, in English or Spanish, of Dr. Chet’s Top Ten Tips—Small Changes for a Healthier Life.
Is Cold Pasta Healthier?
/in Memos/by Chet ZelaskoOur grandson Riley has loved pasta since he started eating solid food (that’s him digging into his pasta at two; if his ear looks orange, it’s because his imaginary cell phone rang during dinner), and he often eats it cold. I mean refrigerator cold; he’ll eat it warm if we go out to a restaurant, […]
Lithium: It’s The Amount That Matters
/in Memos/by Chet ZelaskoI received a question from a long-time reader the other day. They asked, “What is the difference between lithium orotate and the lithium in batteries?” The short answer is simply that they are the same metal. Given the history of lithium batteries and their tendency to overheat and sometimes explode, I’ll go into a little […]
Lithium: A Hopeful Discovery
/in Memos/by Chet ZelaskoYou may recognize lithium as a treatment for some mental health issues such as bipolar disorder. That would require a pharmacological dose of 600–1,800 mg of lithium per day; levels that high can create severe side effects. But prior research showed that people who were treated with lithium had lower rates or delayed onset of […]
Lithium and Brain Health
/in Memos/by Chet ZelaskoThe health field has been buzzing about a study that was recently published related to Alzheimer’s disease markers and the mineral lithium, a soft, silvery-white alkali metal. Got lithium? You can use it in batteries, nuclear reactions, and many other industries; it’s also used in medications to stabilize mood. Researchers decided to find out the […]
When It Comes to Carbs, Quality Matters
/in Memos/by Chet ZelaskoYou probably guessed right after reading Tuesday’s Memo that there are benefits from the quality of carbohydrates a person eats on a low-carb diet. In fact, one might say that because the carb intake is very low, every decision matters. Before getting into the results, let’s use the definition to identify the carbohydrate quality used […]
Lower Carb Diet: Does Quality Count?
/in Memos/by Chet ZelaskoThe Framingham Study began in 1948 and focused on monitoring nutrition and cardiovascular disease among other conditions. The purpose was to monitor the dietary and health habits as well as the health outcomes of a large group of people over time. Much of what we know about diet and cardiovascular disease comes from the longitudinal […]
Walking for Fitness
/in Memos/by Chet ZelaskoThe message from Tuesday’s Memo was that walking over 4,000 steps per day can bring health benefits from several diseases and conditions, and the benefits increase the more steps you take—up to about 12,000 steps, the highest that were recorded in the studies. What I didn’t say was that those were not all workout steps. […]
Research Update on Walking
/in Memos/by Chet ZelaskoQuestioning prevailing thought and dogma are always a good idea in my opinion. Last week’s look at eggs put the issue of dietary cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol in perspective. This week we’re going to look at the concept of 10,000 steps per day as the number required to get health benefits. This first came up in […]
Eggs: A Practical Solution
/in Memos/by Chet ZelaskoBased on Tuesday’s Memo, do we have a “hard-boiled” answer to the question of whether the dietary cholesterol in egg yolks positively impacts LDL-cholesterol levels? Or total cholesterol levels? We can’t “eggsactly” get a complete answer from this study, and here’s why. (Okay, no more puns or “yolking” around.) Study Issues These two issues alone […]
To Egg or Not to Egg?
/in Memos/by Chet ZelaskoThat’s today’s question. This Memo was driven by another provocative headline from a university press release: “Groundbreaking study finds eggs don’t harm heart health” published in SciTech Daily. I think most informed healthcare professionals have known for a while that there’s little to no relationship between cardiovascular disease and dietary cholesterol from eggs and other […]