Health

A newly published narrative review in the journal Nutrients brings together findings from three large European research consortia—SWEET, SWITCH and Sweet Tooth—to address longstanding questions about whether non-nutritive sweeteners (NNSs) and sweet-tasting foods in general affect body weight, metabolic health and people’s taste preferences over time.

New research finds that probiotic supplement use has surged in the United States, while the consumption of microbiome-supportive foods has remained virtually unchanged.

More than 1.4 billion people worldwide live with high blood pressure (hypertension). It’s the single biggest metabolic risk factor for early death—driving diseases such as heart attacks, strokes and kidney failure and dementia.

Healthy eating content on social media may be promoting more than well-being, with new Flinders University research finding popular wellness posts often reflect attitudes and behaviors linked to orthorexia nervosa, an unhealthy obsession with eating foods considered healthy or pure.

How did students’ diets and behavior change after the expiration of a pandemic-era universal free school meal program in 2022? Researchers asked teachers for their observations of the impact on students and found that teachers perceived more student hunger and stress, increased consumption of junk food and reduced focus in the classroom among the negative outcomes.

As aging populations drive rising global health care demands, finding scalable ways to prevent cognitive decline has become a public health priority. While intensive clinical trials have shown that multidomain lifestyle interventions can protect brain health, translating these resource-heavy protocols into everyday municipal practice remains challenging.

People have been making health claims about yogurt for hundreds of years.

Finishing a tough workout always feels good. That is, until a few hours later, when those uncomfortable muscle aches start setting in. This discomfort can linger for days—making easy, everyday tasks a challenge.

Snacking, it turns out, is not all about chips, cookies and chocolate. Dutch millennials often consume nutritious foods, such as fruit, bread and yogurt, between their main meals. This is one of the findings from the doctoral research of Mariëlle de Vaal. Moreover, snacking behavior revolves not only around the food or drink consumed, but also around people’s motives and the situation in which they eat or drink.

A team of researchers from INRAE, Inserm, Sorbonne Paris Nord University, Université Paris Cité and the CNAM has published the first study exploring the association between eating jetlag and the risk of cardiovascular disease. Eating jetlag refers to the difference in the timing of meals between weekdays—when mealtimes are often shaped by work schedules—and weekends or days off. This shift in eating patterns may disrupt the body’s biological rhythms and could have implications for cardiovascular health.