Browse evidence-based analysis of health-related claims and assertions
The types of fat you eat can either help protect your DNA or harm it, depending on which fats they are — at least in lab-grown human cells.
Some healthy fats and vitamins might protect cells from damage caused by a common unhealthy fat — at least in lab dishes.
Palmitic acid, a type of fat, might damage DNA in human cells, according to lab studies.
Migratory birds burn fat to fly long distances, and when their fat has more omega-6, they use less energy to fly—but it comes at a cost: more cell damage over time. It's like getting better gas mileage in a car that wears out faster.
Starlings burn the same amount of energy at rest no matter what kind of fat they eat or whether they’ve been trained to fly — the energy savings from certain fats only kick in when they’re actually flying.
What birds eat directly changes the type of fat they store in their bodies—more omega-6 in food means more omega-6 in their fat.
Starlings that have more omega-6 fats in their bodies don’t seem worse off right after long flights, but over time, those fats lead to more cell damage — like a hidden cost that shows up later.
Birds that have more omega-6 fats in their bodies use about 11% less energy when flying long distances compared to birds with different kinds of fats — at least in starlings tested in labs.
Scientists can measure DNA damage caused by stress in dog cancer cells, and this method could help study how fatty acids affect cell stress in the future.
Not all fish oils are the same—some types of healthy fats can cause more cell stress in dog cancer cells than others, depending on their chemical structure.
Giving certain fats to dog cancer cells in a lab makes them produce more harmful molecules that can damage cells, which suggests these fats change how the cells handle energy and stress.
Eating saturated, trans, or monounsaturated fats doesn’t seem to affect your chances of dying from cancer, based on a long-term study of over 100,000 American adults.
Eating more trans fats might slowly increase your risk of dying from any cause — the more you eat, the higher the risk — but just comparing high vs low eaters doesn’t show a clear link.
Eating healthy fats from plants like olive oil and nuts is linked to living longer and having a healthier heart, but getting these fats from animal sources like meat doesn’t show the same benefit.
Eating more healthy fats like those in fish, nuts, and seeds might help people live longer and lower their chances of dying from heart disease.
Eating more saturated fat might shorten your life — studies show people aged 55 to 74 who eat more of it have a higher chance of dying earlier, so cutting back could help you live longer.
If most adults in the U.S. ate 30% less red and processed meat, models predict we could avoid over a million diabetes cases, hundreds of thousands of heart problems, and tens of thousands of cancers and deaths in 10 years.
If adults in the U.S. ate 30% less red meat like beef or pork, computer models predict we could avoid hundreds of thousands of diabetes, heart disease, and cancer cases—and save tens of thousands of lives—over 10 years.
If adults in the U.S. ate 30% less processed meat like bacon and hot dogs, we could prevent hundreds of thousands of health problems — including diabetes, heart issues, cancer, and deaths — over the next 10 years.
Eating a lot of processed meats like bacon or hot dogs might be worse for your heart than eating regular red meat, especially for women.
Swapping out red or processed meats for plant-based proteins like nuts, seeds, or soy could help lower the chance of dying from heart disease — especially in women.
Eating a lot of red meat — especially processed kinds like bacon or sausages — might increase your chances of dying from heart disease, and this seems to affect women more than men.
Eating unprocessed red meat every day might slightly increase the chance of getting a type of colon cancer, but the data isn’t strong enough to say for sure — it could just be chance.
Eating processed red meat in the last few years doesn’t seem to raise the risk of a certain type of colon cancer in US health pros — it might be how much you've eaten over a lifetime that matters more.