Browse evidence-based analysis of health-related claims and assertions
Even if you remove most air from olive oil, some healthy compounds still break down—but if air gets in occasionally, they break down even more.
Descriptive
When olive oil is stored for a long time with air or light, its natural healthy compounds break down into different chemicals, some of which are less beneficial.
Just chewing gum after colon surgery helps your bowels start working again, whether the gum has nicotine or not.
The amount of nicotine in the gum might have been too low to have any real effect on bowel recovery or inflammation after surgery.
Mechanistic
People who chewed nicotine gum after colon surgery said their pain was a bit less on day 3, but they also got more pain medicine through their spine, so it’s unclear if the gum itself helped with pain.
Quantitative
Even though nicotine is thought to calm inflammation, chewing nicotine gum after colon surgery didn't lower any of the blood markers of inflammation compared to regular gum.
After colon surgery, using nicotine gum doesn't seem to cause more heart problems, infections, or deaths than regular gum.
Chewing nicotine gum after colon surgery doesn't help your bowels start working again any faster than chewing regular gum.
The more methylene blue you add, the more hydrogen peroxide the mitochondria make—up to 25 times more at the highest dose tested.
In mice, methylene blue fixes energy problems only if they’re caused by a specific broken part (Complex I)—not if another part (Complex III) is broken. This is different from what was seen in guinea pigs.
When the first step of energy production is blocked, methylene blue can help mitochondria make energy again—but when the second step is blocked, it can't help at all.
Methylene blue makes mitochondria produce more hydrogen peroxide, but if you block a specific part of the energy chain (Complex III), that extra production stops—meaning methylene blue needs that part to work.
Methylene blue can help mitochondria keep working when the first part of their energy system is broken, but it doesn't work at all when the second part is broken.
Each type of cooking oil makes a unique set of chemicals when heated, and scientists can tell them apart just by looking at what chemicals are made — because their fats are different.
Two harmful chemicals — HHE and ethyl furan — show up together when you heat oils like perilla oil, and they both come from the same type of fat: linolenic acid.
When you heat olive oil, it makes more of two harmful chemicals — HNE and ONE — than the other oils tested, likely because it’s high in oleic acid.
Perilla oil makes a specific harmful chemical called HHE and ethyl furan when heated, and peanut oil makes more of another chemical called pentyl furan — because each oil has different fats.
When you heat different cooking oils really hot for a long time, they break down and make harmful chemicals, and the type of oil you use determines which chemicals are made.
When pork is heated up and simmered in a microwave-style oven, its fats break down quickly and create strong, oily smells.
Adding seasonings while cooking pork helps create more savory, meaty smells because they supply ingredients that react with heat to make those flavors.
Adding spices or seasonings while cooking pork in a microwave-style oven helps reduce some smelly, oily flavors that come from fats breaking down.
Heating turmeric in oil between 50°C and 70°C for 4 to 6 hours pulls out useful plant chemicals.
Turmeric in olive oil released the most β-carotene when heated at 70°C for 6 hours.
Turmeric in coconut oil released the most carotenoids when heated at 50°C for 5 hours.