Health News & Info

As evidence of a link grows, people with depression, anxiety and more may want to get tested and eat iron-rich foods or take supplements. Most people these days understand that mental health issues have their roots in physical differences in our brains, genes and bodies, and differences in our life experiences. But what you eat, and how your body uses the nutrients in your food, also matters to mental health. A growing amount of research suggests that one key nutrient – iron – plays an important role, and that having too little of it can affect mental health symptoms. Yet...

Taking a daily multivitamin supplement can slow age-related memory decline, finds a large study led by researchers at Columbia University and Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard. “Cognitive aging is a top health concern for older adults, and this study suggests that there may be a simple, inexpensive way to help older adults slow down memory decline,” says study leader Adam M. Brickman, PhD, professor of neuropsychology at Columbia University. Many older people take vitamins or dietary supplements under the assumption that they will help maintain general health. But studies that have tested whether they improve memory and brain function have been...

The cancer research agency of the World Health Organization, or WHO, recently released a report categorizing the artificial sweetener aspartame used in diet sodas and other food products as “possibly carcinogenic to humans.” But is it essential to give up your diet drink habit?  Not necessarily, according to many experts, including two Florida State University nutritional experts.  The news about aspartame is not something most people need to worry about, say Lisa Trone, director of the Dietetics Internship Program and Michael J. Ormsbee, a professor director of the institute of Sports Sciences and Medicine at the University. Being on the WHO’s list...

New research has found irregular sleep patterns are associated with harmful bacteria in your gut. The study, published recently in the The European Journal of Nutrition, by researchers from King’s College London and ZOE, the personalised nutrition company, is the first to find multiple associations between social jet lag – the shift in your internal body clock when your sleeping patterns change between workdays and free days - and diet quality, diet habits, inflammation and gut microbiome composition in a single cohort. Irregular sleep patterns plague the elderly and shift workers. Previous research has shown that working shifts disrupts the body...