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Imagine that I’m a mad scientist (or perhaps just a geneticist who doesn’t blink an eye while fiddling with nature’s design) and I want to see what happens when I introduce substantial genetic changes into a chimpanzee.In my experimentation, I double the chimp’s height, change it’s hair color to yellow, induce mutations to change eye color, give it the ability to see better at night, increase muscle strength in its lower body so that it can jump long distances, and several dozen other changes. The end result looks different, acts different, has changes in physiology, its capacity to tolerate heat,...

A new study is further burnishing copper’s reputation as an essential nutrient for human physiology. A research team led by a scientist at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and at UC Berkeley has found that copper plays a key role in metabolizing fat. Long prized as a malleable, conductive metal used in cookware, electronics, jewelry and plumbing, copper has been gaining increasing attention over the past decade for its role in certain biological functions. It has been known that copper is needed to form red blood cells, absorb iron, develop connective tissue and support the...

“For the past 10 years, bread has been under attack.” Professor Zhou Weibiao, a food scientist at the National University of Singapore, isn’t wrong. According to current nutritional thinking, white bread is digested too fast, spikes blood sugar levels and is linked to obesity. In short, it’s the enemy of healthy eaters. Weibiao’s answer to this problem? He’s invented a purple bread. Rich in cancer-fighting antioxidants, digested 20 percent slower than regular white bread and made entirely of natural compounds, it could be the first superfood of the baked goods world. The great bake off A long-time staple food, bread’s...

This will make you stop spreading the cream cheese and toss that bagel away. A study says the carbs in bagels can raise your risk for lung cancer. The University of Texas study says high glycemic diets raise the risk of lung cancer by 49 percent, even for people who never smoked. …

Few things are as painless to prepare as cereal. Making it requires little more than pouring something (a cereal of your choice) into a bowl and then pouring something else (a milk of your choice) into the same bowl. Eating it requires little more than a spoon and your mouth. The food, which Americans still buy $10 billion of annually, has thrived over the decades, at least in part, because of this very quality: Its convenience. And yet, for today's youth, cereal isn't easy enough. On Monday, the New York Times published a story about the breakfast favorite, and the...

New research suggests that half of all U.S. adults have diabetes or pre-diabetes. Almost 40 percent have pre-diabetes, meaning elevated blood sugar levels that could lead to full-fledged disease. Studies have shown lifestyle changes can delay or prevent diabetes in these people. Let's cut the crap and define "lifestyle changes" because it's simple: Stop eating fast carbohydrates. You've been systematically lied to about what should be on your plate. The old "food pyramid" was not only wrong it was basically inverted from reality with one exception -- "sweets." Breads and cereals, as with starchy vegetables like potatoes, are virtually indistinguishable...

You are what you eat, and so were your ancient ancestors. But figuring out what they actually dined on has been no easy task. There are no Pleistocene cookbooks to consult. Instead, scientists must sift through an assortment of clues, from the chemical traces in fossilized bones to the scratch marks on prehistoric digging sticks. Scientists have long recognized that the diets of our ancestors went through a profound shift with the addition of meat. But in the September issue of The Quarterly Review of Biology, researchers argue that another item added to the menu was just as important: carbohydrates,...

If you feel like it is impossible to put certain foods down, there could be a reason. A new report is naming some of the most addictive foods and explaining why they are so hard to resist. According to the Huffington Post, the following foods are among the most addictive: pizza, chocolate, chips, cookies, and ice cream. The report shows foods that cause the most mental distress and physical discomfort are highly processed, as well as high in added fats and sugars. Food is not currently classified as an addiction, but experts say it can impact how you feel.

Once reputed to be effective for killing werewolves, modern day silver bullets are seemingly magical solutions to complex problems. However, most of the time you see “silver bullet” in print it is in the negative as “XYZ is not a silver bullet against [fill in the blank].” And, in a double irony, according to tests run by ballistics experts, silver bullets aren’t even silver bullets. They tend to travel slower, with inferior target penetration, and are less accurate than conventional lead projectiles. That’s why I had to smile at the recent headline from MedPageToday—”OmniCarb Study: Cutting Carbs No Silver Bullet.”...

People who avoid carbohydrates and eat more fat, even saturated fat, lose more body fat and have fewer cardiovascular risks than people who follow the low-fat diet that health authorities have favored for decades, a major new study shows. The findings are unlikely to be the final salvo in what has been a long and often contentious debate about what foods are best to eat for weight loss and overall health. The notion that dietary fat is harmful, particularly saturated fat, arose decades ago from comparisons of disease rates among large national populations. But more recent clinical studies in which...

You’re not imagining it: There really are differences between the way men and women diet, lose weight and respond to exercise. Some of the differences stem from biology; other differences are behavioral. But though many of these seem to give men a head start, they shouldn’t be taken to imply that guys have it easy. No matter who you are or where you’re starting, the road to your ideal weight is difficult at best, and confusing for most. But the information that researchers are unearthing about the differences in the way that men and women lose weight inspires hope that...

Obesity-related diseases such as Type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome are triggered by a lack of oxygen in adipose cells, according to a study led by UC San Diego researchers. An excess of fatty acids causes an increase in oxygen consumption, which outstrips the supply, triggering hypoxia, the study found. This leads to inflammation in the adipose cells, which in turn leads to insulin resistance, obesity and related diseases. And that's the short version. The full chain of events is even more complicated. The study, performed in mice, points to possible therapies in people, said researchers led by Dr. Jerrold...

It's not saturated fats or cholesterol that increases the amount of small, dense ldl we have in our blood. It's carbohydrates.

The daily allowance for a person's sugar intake should be halved to six teaspoons, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said. Draft guidance published by the international body advises a dramatic reduction in sugar consumption to help avoid mounting health problems including obesity and tooth decay. The WHO is proposing to retain its current formal recommendation that no more than 10 per cent of an individual's calories should come from sugar – the equivalent of 12 "level" teaspoons a day for the average adult. However, its draft guidelines state that a further reduction to 5 per cent "would have additional...

Sugar vs fat: Chris and Xand Van Tulleken, both 35, spent a month following restrictive fad diets to see if one food group is behind the obesity epidemic.Is a high-fat, low-carb diet better for you than a high-carb, low-fat one? A pair of British brothers set out to end the fat versus sugar debate. Alexander (Xand) Van Tulleken, a senior fellow at the Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs at Fordham University in New York, and Chris Van Tulleken, a physician at University College Hospital, London, each agreed to stick to a specific diet for one month. Chris followed a super-low-fat...

The first time Margaret Dron organized the Gluten Free Expo early last year, it was inside the gymnasium of a small community centre in east Vancouver. She had recruited one volunteer, two speakers, 38 vendors and expected 500 attendees. There was no entrance fee—instead, people were to bring gluten-free goods for the local food bank; three boxes were set aside for the collection. Six hours later, more than 3,000 people had turned out, and the volunteer had to call a one-tonne truck to pick up the donations. In one Sunday afternoon, Dron realized, “there is some serious potential here. So...

Play CBS News Video People may joke they're addicted to desserts, but new brain imaging research shows there may be some truth to the statement.Researchers have found eating highly-processed carbohydrates like cakes, cookies and chips could affect pleasure centers in the brain, leading to serious cravings that might cause people to overeat.13 PhotosAre you a food addict? Take our online test "Beyond reward and craving, this part of the brain is also linked to substance abuse and dependence, which raises the question as to whether certain foods might be addictive," study author Dr. David Ludwig, director of the New...

A CALORIE is a calorie. This truism has been the foundation of nutritional wisdom and our beliefs about obesity since the 1960s. What it means is that a calorie of protein will generate the same energy when metabolized in a living organism as a calorie of fat or carbohydrate. When talking about obesity or why we get fat, evoking the phrase “a calorie is a calorie” is almost invariably used to imply that what we eat is relatively unimportant. We get fat because we take in more calories than we expend; we get lean if we do the opposite. Anyone...

She has tried the macrobiotic diet, the kale and lemon cleanse and only eating salad for days on end. But now Gwyneth Paltrow has admitted that she has begun inflicting her obsessions with food on her own children - by starving them of carbohydrates. Miss Paltrow, 40, said that that she avoids feeding pasta, bread or rice to Apple, eight, and Moses, six, because it is bad for them, even though they are left ‘craving’ the food. Her decision was based on the fact that everyone in her house - including husband Chris Martin - is supposedly intolerant of gluten,...

Hostess Brands Inc. is permanently closing three bakeries following a nationwide strike by its bakers union. The maker of Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Wonder Bread said Monday that the strike has prevented it from producing and delivering products, and it is closing bakeries in Seattle, St. Louis and Cincinnati. The facilities employ 627 workers. Thousands of members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union went on strike Nov. 9 to protest cuts to wages and benefits under a new contract offer, which the union rejected in September. Union officials say the company stopped contributing to workers'...