Browse evidence-based analysis of health-related claims and assertions
After gastric bypass surgery, the liver becomes more sensitive to bile acids while the intestine becomes less so—and this switch helps trigger a hormone (FGF19) that improves metabolism.
Descriptive
After weight-loss surgery, the body produces more of certain digestive fluids called bile acids, and they change type—this change is linked to better blood sugar and liver health.
Warmer water and fertilizer runoff from farms are making toxic algae blooms happen more often and in new places, increasing the chance people will get poisoned through their food or water.
Shellfish like mussels and oysters soak up toxins from algae in the water, and even when the algae aren’t visible, eating these shellfish can still make people sick.
Even though people take algae supplements for health, they can sometimes be polluted with dangerous toxins from other algae that grow with them, which can hurt the liver.
Some tiny ocean algae make a poison that tricks your brain cells into over-firing, which can scramble your memory and even cause seizures or death.
Mechanistic
Certain sea algae make a poison that gets into shellfish and can stop your muscles from working, including those you need to breathe — which can be deadly.
Toxins from certain blue-green algae in water can survive boiling and damage the liver over time, potentially causing cancer.
Human bile works better than mouse bile at dissolving fats, but it still picks the good fats over the bad ones—just like in mice—so this mechanism likely exists in people too.
Orlistat blocks all fat absorption equally, which tricks the liver into making more fat and makes mice eat more—so they don’t lose weight. Bile acid reduction only blocks bad fats and doesn’t make them eat more.
Cholic acid, a type of bile acid, is especially good at helping the body absorb healthy fats (like omega-3s) but not as good at absorbing unhealthy saturated fats—this is why reducing it makes you absorb less saturated fat.
When bile acids are low, more fat reaches the lower gut, which triggers hormones that tell the brain you're full—so the mice eat less, even though they're absorbing less food.
When mice can't make enough bile acids, their bodies absorb less of the bad fats (saturated) but still absorb the good fats (polyunsaturated), which helps them stay lean without eating more.
Plants make a wide variety of natural chemicals—like bitter toxins and sticky resins—that make them taste bad or even poison bugs that try to eat them.
Plants can 'remember' being eaten by changing how their genes are read—like leaving sticky notes on their DNA—so they fight off future bugs faster and stronger.
When bugs eat plants, the plants send out a smell that calls in the bugs' enemies—like a plant version of calling the police to arrest the intruders.
Plants use chemical messengers like jasmonic acid to fight bugs by making toxins and sticky proteins, but another chemical, salicylic acid, can sometimes turn off the bug-fighting response to balance energy use.
When insects bite plants, the plant's cells sense the damage and send an electrical signal that causes calcium to rush inside, which turns on the plant's defense system like an alarm.
PHA and TNP are foreign substances that the body’s first-line immune cells recognize as threats, causing them to start an inflammatory response — like raising an alarm bell.
When these two chemicals are added to human immune cells in a dish, the cells turn on genes and internal pathways that are usually used to signal inflammation — like sounding an alarm.
When lab-grown human immune cells are exposed to PHA or TNP, they start dying in different ways depending on how much and how long they’re exposed, and both chemicals harm the cells more the longer or stronger the exposure.
Even though tasting artificial sweetener makes some people’s bodies release insulin, it doesn’t make them feel hungrier or change their blood sugar right after—so the insulin spike doesn’t seem to do anything noticeable yet.
Correlational
Even after eating artificial sweeteners or sugar every day for two weeks, people’s bodies still react the same way to the taste—no more, no less insulin is released when they taste it.
Some people’s bodies react to sweet tastes by releasing insulin right away—even if it’s fake sugar—but others don’t, and we don’t yet know why.