Browse evidence-based analysis of health-related claims and assertions
When researchers used ultrasound to look at the neck arteries of former NFL players, they found that about 4 out of 10 had early plaque buildup - this is a hidden form of heart disease that doesn't cause any symptoms yet.
Descriptive
Eating sardines while fasting helps you keep important nutrients, but still lets your body burn fat and lower insulin like water-only fasting does - without the risk of missing out on vitamins and minerals.
Causal
Scientists have registered about 450-500 studies testing ketogenic diets in people with conditions like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, mental health disorders, and cancer - that's a whole lot of research happening right now!
Quantitative
Eating a very low-carb, high-fat ketogenic diet might change your gut bacteria in good ways - especially boosting a bacteria called Akkermansia that helps keep your gut lining healthy.
Mechanistic
A blood test that measures inflammation (called HS-CRP) might tell doctors more about a patient's heart health risk than the standard cholesterol tests they normally use.
Correlational
Not eating sardines for 3 to 5 days can give your body health benefits that stick around for a whole month after you're done.
When your body makes less insulin (like during fasting or on a low-carb diet), it starts producing more ketones - these are alternative fuel molecules your body can use instead of sugar.
If you keep your blood sugar and ketone levels in a specific balance for about 3 days, your body switches from burning sugar to burning stored fat and producing ketones for energy instead.
Eating sardines gives you lots of healthy fats called omega-3s (like DHA and EPA) that calm down inflammation in your body and help protect your muscles from breaking down.
When we don't eat for a while, our insulin levels drop, and this low insulin triggers our cells to clean themselves up through a process called autophagy.
When people fast while eating sardines, their insulin levels drop dramatically, and the fat stored around their internal organs (visceral fat) is the first type of fat their body burns for energy.
Scientists thought your body mostly burns fat at rest and during easy exercise, but new measurements show your body actually burns a lot of carbohydrate too - around 40-60% of the energy you use.
Going on a low-carb, high-fat diet doesn't make runners slower, even though their muscles store less sugar for energy.
Switching to a low-carb, high-fat diet makes your body burn fat for energy much faster—going from burning 0.50 grams per minute to 1.40 grams per minute in just 5 days—and this effect goes away when you switch back to a high-carb diet.
About 30% of middle-aged competitive athletes eating a typical high-carb, low-fat diet have blood sugar levels that are higher than normal but not quite diabetic. When these athletes switch to a low-carb, high-fat diet, their blood sugar returns to normal levels.
When endurance athletes do high-intensity interval training at very hard effort (over 85% of their maximum oxygen capacity), they burn fat at extremely high rates - about 1.58 grams per minute on average, with some burning over 1.85 grams per minute. These are the highest fat-burning rates ever measured in people.
Athletes who follow low-carb high-fat diets can burn fat much faster during exercise—over 1.5 grams per minute—compared to athletes on regular high-carb diets who only burn 0.3 to 0.6 grams per minute.
When people switch to a low-carb, high-fat diet, their bodies can burn fat for energy during harder workouts that would normally require carbs, whereas on a normal diet this switch happens at easier exercise intensities.
When you exercise for a long time (over 2-3 hours), it's actually having low blood sugar that makes you feel tired and stop exercising—not your muscles running out of stored energy.
Glioblastoma is the deadliest type of brain cancer in adults - even with the best treatments available like surgery, radiation, and chemo, most patients only live about 1-2 years, and almost no one survives for 10 years.
Using a screen that shows muscle activity in real-time while doing a shoulder rotation exercise might help people with rounded shoulders move better and recover faster from injuries.
When someone has rounded shoulders, the back part of their shoulder muscle might work too hard when rotating the shoulder outward. This could throw off the normal muscle balance around the shoulder joint and lead to shoulder problems.
Using a machine that shows muscle activity in real-time while doing shoulder exercises helps people with rounded shoulders activate their back shoulder muscle more than the back part of their shoulder muscle, which is a good thing for shoulder health.
When adults with rounded shoulders use a device that shows them their muscle activity in real-time while doing a shoulder rotation exercise, it helps them reduce overactive muscles in the back of the shoulder that cause problems.