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Do artificial sweeteners cause cancer and are there other concerns?

14 July 2023

Fresh concerns have been raised over the potential for the sweetener aspartame to cause liver cancer

Fasting diets are not better than calorie counting for weight loss

26 June 2023

Diets that involve intermittent fasting or time-restricted eating have become popular in recent years, but it seems they help people lose weight simply by eating less

white young man with hat eating a pizza with vegetables on a wooden table

Junk food diet may disrupt sleep by altering brain activity

31 May 2023

Men who tried a high-fat, high-sugar diet developed disrupted electrical brain activity during the deepest stage of their sleep, suggesting that the food reduced their sleep quality

Calorie boost may explain why adults evolved ability to digest milk

6 May 2023

Why some people evolved the ability to digest milk in adulthood hasn't been clear, but the extra calories that young children got may have been key

Keto diet may treat epilepsy by changing the gut microbiome

12 April 2023

Mice that received gut microbes from children with epilepsy on the ketogenic diet were protected from seizures. The finding suggests the microbiome is behind the diet's seizure-reducing effect

Ingesting microplastics may increase fat absorption by 145 per cent

31 March 2023

Using a model of a human small intestine, researchers found that microplastics in high-fat foods significantly increase the absorption of fat

We are trapped in a junk food cycle that is making us sick

29 March 2023

Poor diet is the biggest cause of avoidable illness and premature death in high-income countries. Our food system is broken, say Henry Dimbleby and Jemima Lewis

We may finally know why people tend to regain weight after losing it

24 March 2023

When mice lose weight, brain signals that trigger hunger are dialed up, making the animals eat more until they return to their starting weight

The key to deeper sleep might be a high-protein diet

22 March 2023

Flies and mice fed a high-protein diet were less likely to be awoken by movement during sleep than animals on a regular diet

Caffeine linked to lower BMI and reduced risk of type 2 diabetes

15 March 2023

Genetic differences in how people metabolise caffeine may influence how overweight they are, but this doesn't mean drinking more coffee will make you slimmer