Health

A culturally adapted health and lifestyle program, ¡Coma, Muévase y Viva! (“Eat, Move, and Live!”), showed promising results in helping low-income Latina and Indigenous Mexican women in rural Inland Southern California make healthier changes in their daily lives, according to a new pilot study conducted in 2022 by researchers at the University of California, Riverside.

By their nature, cancer cells have different nutritional needs than healthy cells. “Cancer cells have a distinct metabolism,” said Gary Patti, the Michael and Tana Powell Professor of Chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis and a professor of genetics and medicine at WashU Medicine. Cancer cells are also ravenous eaters. Patti is trying to turn their hunger against them.

Changes are on the horizon for the food that students can choose in English schools. The government is proposing updates to the school food standards, which set out what schools can serve. The changes are aimed at increasing fiber and reducing fat, sugar and salt in school food. These will, for example, remove deep fried foods and fruit juice from school menus, while also limiting how often options such as pizza can be offered.

Fiber is an essential part of a healthy diet. By eating a variety of plant-based foods, increasing fiber intake gradually and staying well hydrated, you can support gut health and overall well-being while making fiber goals more achievable and sustainable. Purna Kashyap, M.B.B.S., a gastroenterologist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, offers tips to add fiber to your diet.

“From burden to solutions—safe food everywhere.” This is the message of World Food Safety Day 2026, where the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) are focusing on how new knowledge about illness, lost lives and societal consequences can be translated into practical solutions.

One of the challenges public health officials face in reducing diet-related disease is the relatively easy and inexpensive access to sugar-sweetened beverages globally. To help address this burden, public health organizations like the World Health Organization and American Heart Association have recommended that governments tax sugar-sweetened beverages.

A new study from the University of Kansas details how U.S. tobacco corporations expanded into global food markets from the mid-1980s to the mid-2000s, using strategies honed through cigarette sales to market ultra-processed foods, which are industrially processed and contain ingredients and additives that maximize their appeal.

Including blueberries, plums, blackberries, broad beans or cherries (washed down with green tea) in your recommended five-a-day (five 80g portions of fruit and vegetables, recommended by the UK’s NHS) may be the best way to a healthier heart, new research suggests. The work, involving scientists from the University of Reading, Harvard Medical School, the University of California Davis, and Mars, Inc., found that fewer than one in five people reached the flavanol intake that has been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease, even including those who regularly ate five portions of fruit and vegetables a day.

It’s no accident that we spend a third of our lives asleep. It is essential to our health, and even animals for whom resting is complicated—such as aquatic mammals that need to surface to breathe, or birds that go up to 10 days without touching dry land—manage to sleep with surprising adaptations.

Selenium (Se) is an essential trace mineral found in everyday dietary items, such as seafood, meat, and whole grains. Our bodies depend on it for many biological functions, from the synthesis of antioxidant enzymes to immune system regulation. However, Se is unusual among nutrients in that the quantity window between too little and too much is quite narrow. Se deficiency has been linked to weakened immunity, while excess intake can increase the risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disorders. This makes understanding how the body absorbs, processes, and eliminates Se especially important.