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Nutrition

Ask the Brain: Why Do We Crave Sugar When We're Stressed?

Ice cream cravings while you are anxiously preparing for a presentation or exam may be triggered by your brain’s desire for relief from stress. (Credits: Austin Kirk, flickr.com) In America, uncontrolled sugar consumption is a concern because of its…

Absorbathon

The finger-like mound of cells in the central portion of this micrograph is an intestinal villus. The single layer of cells on its surface is the only barrier between the contents of the gut lumen and the inside of the body. The major job of these…

Fat vs. Sugar: The culture of American dieting

Presented by Katherine Richeson, Mary Gearing, and Abbe Clark Nutrition is currently one of the most popular science topics in mainstream media, as it is intimately tied to lifestyle, health and personal appearance. However, this popularity has led to a…

Fat vs. sugar: Who will break your heart?

Nutrition plays an important role in the prevention of chronic illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease. The Seven Countries Study, one of the earliest and most influential epidemiological studies, spanned the second half of the last century and…

Enough Diet Soda? Respect the Microbiota...

Intestinal microbes impact weight gain, dictate food allergies, and activate neural pathways that regulate stress and depression. They eat what we eat, whether it is a cheeseburger, a kale salad, or in today’s world, an extra large diet soda. A recent…

Starchy Dangers in Human Evolution

Mashed potatoes are Uncle Mike’s favorite food; at family dinners he would spoon mound after mound of them onto his plate long after everyone else was done eating. Many people seem to feel the same way about these creamy mountains of starch, but is it…

More Than Food: Exploring human milk as medicine

Presented by Laura Klein Many of us are familiar with milk as a food in our supermarket aisles, whether as a beverage that pairs well with cookies, or as the starting ingredient for cheese and yogurt. But milk is also part of what makes us mammals, a…

Fatty acid-rich fish stocks: a sixth extinction crisis

-- We’ve all heard news reports about the benefits of eating fish, and replacing some red meat meals with fish as an alternative source of protein. Fish contains a lot of minerals, including iodine and selenium, which are beneficial for the human body.…