Browse evidence-based analysis of health-related claims and assertions
Your body might use lipoproteins like delivery trucks to move cholesterol around when you eat different types of fats, helping keep your cells balanced and healthy.
Eating saturated fats might raise your 'bad' cholesterol not because it's harmful, but because your body is just adjusting to keep your cells working smoothly — like how a car adjusts to different weather conditions.
If you have diabetes and a worn-out shoulder tendon, your tendon cells might not repair themselves as well because they grow much more slowly.
If you have diabetes and a shoulder tendon tear not caused by injury, your tendon cells are more likely to be dying off — 20% in diabetics versus just 3% in non-diabetics.
People with diabetes who have shoulder tendon problems show more signs of cell stress in their tendon tissue compared to those without diabetes — their cells have higher levels of harmful molecules linked to aging and damage.
People with diabetes or high blood sugar levels tend to have more harmful sugar-related proteins in their shoulder tendon tissue, which could make tendon damage worse.
Eating vegetarian or vegan might not really change levels of a substance in your body that shows cell damage from fats, at least in healthy people.
Even though the Mediterranean diet is good for your heart, it might not actually lower key markers of inflammation in healthy people, based on a look at several studies.
Even though the Mediterranean diet is often praised, it might not actually lower key markers of cell damage from oxidation in healthy people, according to a review of several studies.
Going vegan might lower inflammation a little bit, but the evidence isn’t strong enough to say for sure.
Eating a vegetarian diet might help lower body-wide inflammation — a kind of internal swelling linked to long-term diseases — by about 18% compared to eating meat, based on a big review of studies.
Some endurance athletes can have blood sugar levels that look like they're prediabetic or diabetic, even though they're actually healthy, because their bodies use up glucose so fast during training.
With type 2 diabetes, your body's cells don't respond well to insulin, so sugar stays in your blood instead of getting into cells where it's needed, leading to high blood sugar over time.
HbA1c might show high blood sugar even in people who actually have normal levels, because some people's red blood cells live longer than usual.
When your blood sugar is too high, sugar can stick to your body's proteins and cells, which can damage them and cause inflammation.
The cholesterol and saturated fats you get from eating animal foods like meat and eggs help keep your cell walls strong and stable, especially in your red blood cells.
Eating foods that don't cause much inflammation might help your red blood cells live longer by reducing damage from oxidative stress.
If your red blood cells live longer than usual, your A1C test might show high blood sugar even if your actual sugar levels are normal.
Your HbA1c number isn't just about your average blood sugar — it also depends on how long your red blood cells live. The longer they stick around, the more sugar builds up on them, which can raise your HbA1c even if your blood sugar is stable.
HbA1c tells you how much sugar has been sticking to your blood cells over the past few months — it's like a long-term blood sugar report card.
Type 2 diabetes means your blood sugar stays too high for a long time.
We don’t have good enough studies to know if diabetes drugs like Ozempic are safe or effective for pregnant women and their babies.
Women with gestational diabetes who take certain diabetes medications like liraglutide, semaglutide, or exenatide often get mild stomach issues like nausea or diarrhea, but these usually get better over time.
Some diabetes drugs like liraglutide and exenatide can get from a pregnant person’s bloodstream into the baby’s, which might be risky — even though sometimes very little shows up right after the dose.