Browse evidence-based analysis of health-related claims and assertions
Eating normal amounts of sugar doesn’t make your blood pressure go up, raise uric acid (which can cause gout), or cause fat to build up in your liver — unlike what some people claim.
Causal
Giving people way more sugar than anyone normally eats in a day can make them sick — but that doesn’t mean normal sugar intake is harmful.
Descriptive
Lab studies that give people pure fructose or pure glucose don’t reflect what people actually eat — we usually consume sugar as table sugar or corn syrup, which are mixtures, so those lab results don’t apply to real life.
Eating normal amounts of table sugar or corn syrup in your food and drinks doesn’t make you more likely to get overweight, diabetes, or heart disease than eating the same number of calories from other carbs like bread or pasta.
Lean beef can be part of a healthy plant-based diet without hurting your heart or blood sugar markers — at least in the short term for overweight women.
For overweight women, eating two servings of lean beef a day for a week doesn’t change key blood markers related to heart disease or diabetes risk, compared to eating the same diet without meat.
Some saturated fats like those in meat and dairy don’t change the good-to-bad cholesterol ratio much, but stearic acid (found in cocoa and beef fat) may slightly improve it.
When you swap fats (like butter or oil) for carbs (like bread or sugar), your blood fat levels (triglycerides) tend to go up.
Coconut oil (which has lauric acid) raises both good and bad cholesterol, but because it raises good cholesterol more, the overall ratio gets better.
Getting rid of artificial trans fats (like in fried foods) and replacing them with healthy oils or whole grains lowers bad cholesterol ratios more than just cutting butter or cheese.
Swapping bad fats like butter for healthier fats like olive oil lowers the ratio of bad cholesterol to good cholesterol, which is good for your heart.
Eating these foods in small amounts every day is okay and fits with worldwide advice for healthy eating in South Africa.
Putting a little bit of meat, fish, or eggs into a mostly plant-based meal can make a big difference in getting the vitamins and minerals your body needs.
No studies have shown that eating small amounts of these foods is harmful, so it’s okay to include them in healthy eating advice.
If you pick lean pieces of meat and eat only a small amount, these foods won’t raise your bad fats much and can still be part of a healthy diet.
Eating small amounts of fish, chicken, lean meat, or eggs every day can help people get important vitamins and minerals they might be missing, especially if their diet is mostly plants.
Algorithmically driven social media platforms prioritize emotionally charged, polarizing content over evidence-based information, resulting in the disproportionate dissemination of misinformation regarding nutritional science.
Assertion
A predominantly plant-based dietary pattern incorporating lean animal proteins provides adequate protein, essential fatty acids, micronutrients, and dietary fiber, while conferring metabolic benefits comparable to low-carbohydrate diets without elevating LDL cholesterol or increasing cardiovascular risk.
Chronic consumption of ultra-processed foods, refined carbohydrates, and added sugars drives systemic inflammation, insulin resistance, and dyslipidemia, prompting maladaptive dietary counter-reactions.
The metabolic improvements observed during initiation of very-low-carbohydrate or carnivore diets are primarily attributable to caloric restriction and elimination of ultra-processed foods, not to the physiological effects of animal product consumption alone.
Exclusion of plant-based foods from the diet results in chronic deficiency of dietary fiber, phytonutrients, and antioxidant compounds essential for gut microbiome diversity and systemic anti-inflammatory regulation.
The nutritional quality of dietary components, including processing level and micronutrient density, exerts a greater influence on metabolic health outcomes than the relative proportions of macronutrients.
Reduction in dietary carbohydrate intake improves postprandial glycemic control and reduces fasting and postprandial serum triglyceride concentrations in humans.
The metabolic harm caused by excessive dietary sugar does not negate or justify the atherogenic effects of high saturated fat intake; both independently contribute to cardiometabolic disease through distinct pathways.