Browse the evidence

Post-resistance exercise ingestion of high-quality milk proteins (whey/casein) promotes greater muscle protein synthesis and lean mass accretion compared to soy protein or carbohydrate alone, primarily due to faster digestion rates and higher leucine content.

After resistance training, choose whey or casein (milk proteins) over soy or carbohydrates. Milk proteins digest faster and contain more leucine, triggering muscle growth more effectively than soy, even if the total protein amount is the same.

Replacing saturated fatty acids (SFA) and trans fatty acids (TFA) with monounsaturated (MUFA) and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) improves insulin sensitivity and reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes.

Focus on the quality of fats in your diet. Replace saturated fats (found in red meat, butter, full-fat dairy) and trans fats with unsaturated fats, specifically monounsaturated (olive oil, nuts, avocados) and polyunsaturated fats (fatty fish, walnuts). This substitution improves insulin sensitivity and reduces diabetes risk more effectively than simply reducing total fat intake.

Adherence to a Mediterranean Diet (MD) pattern reduces the incidence of chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease (CVD), type-2 diabetes, and certain cancers, primarily through the synergistic effects of its macronutrient composition (high MUFA/PUFA, low SFA) and bioactive phenolic compounds.

Adopt a Mediterranean-style eating pattern as your baseline. Prioritize extra virgin olive oil as your main fat source, consume fish regularly for omega-3s, and limit red meat and saturated fats. If you drink alcohol, limit it to moderate levels (1 drink/day for women, 2 for men) with meals. Combine this diet with at least 30 minutes of brisk walking daily to maximize metabolic and cardiovascular benefits.

Daily supplementation with whey protein (approx. 22g/day) during a 9-month resistance training program significantly augments lean body mass gains compared to isocaloric carbohydrate or soy protein supplements.

If you are doing resistance training, adding about 22 grams of whey protein daily (roughly one scoop) can help you build more muscle than if you took the same amount of soy protein or just carbohydrates. This benefit is seen over a long period (9 months), so don't expect quick miracles from switching protein sources, but prioritize whey for its higher leucine content which supports muscle growth better than soy or carbs when total protein is already adequate.

Consuming high doses (48g) of rice protein isolate post-resistance exercise yields equivalent improvements in lean body mass, strength, and power compared to whey protein isolate.

If you prefer plant-based nutrition or have dairy sensitivities, you can build muscle just as effectively as with whey protein. The key is volume: consume 48 grams of rice protein isolate immediately after your resistance training sessions. This higher dose ensures you get enough leucine to trigger muscle growth, matching the results of whey protein.

VLCKD preserves lean body mass better than starvation or standard very low-calorie diets due to high biological-value protein intake and ketone-mediated protein sparing.

Ensure you are consuming the prescribed protein supplements (approx 1.2g/kg ideal body weight) during the diet. This helps protect your muscle mass while you lose fat, which is crucial for maintaining your metabolism.

The recommended protein increment during lactation should be approximately 20 g/day (rather than 15 g/day) when accounting for non-protein nitrogen in human milk, a value consistent with nitrogen balance studies.

Increase your daily protein intake by about 20 grams while breastfeeding. This accounts for the protein lost in milk, including non-protein nitrogen components.

Carbohydrate-Restricted Diets (LC), particularly very low-carbohydrate/ketogenic diets (<20-50g carbs/day), can reverse Type 2 Diabetes without intentional calorie restriction, with sustained remission rates up to 54% at two years in supported interventions.

Very Low-Carbohydrate Diets (<20-50g carbs/day) can reverse Type 2 Diabetes without needing to count calories, often leading to spontaneous weight loss. With adequate support (like continuous care), remission rates can reach 54% at two years, even in patients with longer-standing diabetes. This approach allows for significant medication reduction.

Higher protein intake (1.0–1.2 g/kg/day) is associated with greater appendicular lean mass in older adults compared to lower intake, and protein supplementation combined with resistance training improves fat-free mass.

Older adults should aim for 1.0–1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight daily to support muscle mass. This is higher than the standard 0.8 g/kg recommendation. Combining this intake with resistance exercise yields the best results for increasing fat-free mass.

Adherence to a Mediterranean dietary pattern significantly reduces the odds of having the metabolic syndrome.

Focus on your fat sources and carb quality. Use olive oil as your primary fat, eat plenty of vegetables and legumes, and choose complex carbohydrates over simple sugars. You do not need to eliminate fat entirely; the type of fat matters more than the total amount.

Increasing total daily protein intake to 1.5 g/kg/day (2x RDA) significantly improves whole-body net protein balance and muscle protein synthesis in older adults, whereas the distribution pattern of protein across meals (even vs. uneven) has no significant effect on these outcomes.

Older adults aiming to maintain muscle mass should prioritize consuming approximately 1.5 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight daily. You do not need to stress about splitting this amount perfectly evenly across breakfast, lunch, and dinner; consuming the majority of your protein at dinner or having an uneven distribution is just as effective for net protein balance as an even distribution, provided the total daily amount is sufficient.

Adherence to Mediterranean or DASH dietary patterns significantly reduces the risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) in the general population.

Adopt a Mediterranean or DASH-style eating pattern. This means prioritizing vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and olive oil, while limiting red meat and sugar-sweetened beverages. This approach has been shown to significantly lower the risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes.

High consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) and artificial sugar-sweetened beverages significantly increases the risk of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.

Avoid both sugar-sweetened beverages and artificially sweetened beverages. Both are associated with a significantly increased risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes. Choose water, unsweetened tea, or coffee instead.

Low-Carbohydrate Diets (LCDs) produce greater short-term weight loss than Low-Fat Diets (LFDs), but this difference disappears after 12 months when both diets are isocaloric.

If you prefer eating less bread and pasta, a Low-Carbohydrate Diet will likely help you lose weight faster in the first 6 months than a low-fat diet. However, after a year, your results will likely be similar to someone eating a low-fat diet, provided you are eating the same number of calories. Choose the diet you can adhere to long-term.

A low-carbohydrate diet (26% of calories) significantly reduces serum triglycerides when combined with calorie restriction, but not when low-carbohydrate is applied without calorie restriction.

If you want to improve your blood triglyceride levels, a low-carbohydrate diet alone may not be enough. You need to combine low-carbohydrate intake (26% of calories) with calorie restriction (1200-1500 kcal/day) to see significant reductions in triglycerides. This combination was the only one to significantly lower triglycerides in this study.

Low Glycemic Load (LG) diets result in a higher percentage of weight loss as fat and less loss of fat-free mass (FFM) compared to High Glycemic Load (HG) diets during caloric restriction, provided the individual loses more than 5% of body weight.

If you are dieting to lose weight, choosing a Lower Glycemic Load diet (moderate carbs, higher protein/fat) helps you lose more fat and keep more muscle than a High Glycemic Load diet, as long as you actually stick to the diet and lose a meaningful amount of weight (over 5%). However, this diet type does not prevent your metabolism from slowing down during weight loss. Focus on adherence; if you lose weight, the LG approach protects your muscle mass better.

Low-fat diets (LFD) result in greater reductions in Total Cholesterol (TC) and Low-Density Lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol compared to low-carbohydrate diets (LCD) over a duration of 6 to 23 months.

If your primary health concern is high LDL or Total Cholesterol, a low-fat diet (less than 30% of calories from fat) is likely more effective than a low-carb diet for lowering these specific numbers over the next 6-23 months. Note that this benefit disappears after 24 months.

In elderly men, 20g of soy protein isolate fails to stimulate myofibrillar protein synthesis (MPS) at rest or after resistance exercise, whereas 40g only stimulates MPS post-exercise, while equivalent doses of whey protein stimulate MPS in both conditions.

For elderly men, 20g of soy protein is insufficient to build muscle, whether you exercise or not. You need 40g of soy protein, and even then, it only works if you perform resistance exercise. If you want to maximize muscle growth with less protein or without exercising, whey protein is a more effective source due to better leucine availability and lower oxidation.

Current global agricultural production overproduces grains, fats, and sugars while underproducing fruits, vegetables, and protein, creating a nutritional imbalance that contributes to obesity and diabetes.

Stop assuming that having enough food means you are eating well. Current global diets are skewed heavily toward grains, fats, and sugars, which drives obesity and diabetes. To fix this, prioritize increasing the intake of fruits, vegetables, and plant-based proteins, and reduce reliance on energy-dense processed foods.

Low consumption of nuts/seeds and seafood omega-3 fats imposes the highest per capita cardiometabolic disease costs ($81 and $76 respectively), while high consumption of red meat and polyunsaturated fats imposes the lowest ($3 and $20 respectively).

Increase intake of nuts, seeds, and seafood omega-3s, as these changes offer the greatest potential to reduce cardiometabolic disease costs. Reduce processed meats and sodium, and increase polyunsaturated fats, though their individual impact is smaller.

The proportion of fat-free mass lost during weight reduction increases with the magnitude of the weight loss, meaning large weight losses (such as those from bariatric surgery) result in a disproportionately higher loss of lean tissue compared to modest weight losses.

If you are losing a large amount of weight (e.g., through bariatric surgery or extreme dieting), expect to lose a higher proportion of your lean muscle mass compared to someone losing a small amount of weight. This is a physiological reality of large energy deficits, not necessarily a failure of your effort. Monitoring body composition rather than just scale weight is crucial to accurately assess progress in these scenarios.

Ultra-processed foods drive obesity primarily through their high glycemic load and disrupted cellular structure, which accelerates digestion and hormonal response, rather than just their energy density.

Minimize ultra-processed foods, especially those high in carbohydrates. Whole foods retain cellular structures that slow digestion and blunt glycemic spikes, reducing the hormonal drive for fat storage.

A 2-week ketogenic diet significantly upregulates adaptive immune pathways (T cell activation, oxidative phosphorylation) and alters microbiome amino acid metabolism, whereas a vegan diet upregulates innate immune pathways (antiviral responses, type I interferon) and erythrocyte differentiation.

Switching to a ketogenic diet for just two weeks shifts your immune system toward adaptive responses (T cells, oxidative phosphorylation), while a vegan diet shifts it toward innate/antiviral responses. This suggests diet can be used as a tool to modulate specific immune pathways, potentially relevant for managing inflammation or infection risk, though long-term disease outcomes require further study.

Time-Restricted Eating (TRE) with an 8-hour daily eating window improves nocturnal and postprandial glycaemic control in men with overweight/obesity, independent of weight loss.

Try Time-Restricted Eating (TRE) by limiting your daily eating to an 8-hour window (e.g., 10 AM to 6 PM). This can improve your blood sugar control without needing to count calories or cut out specific foods. It is a practical strategy for maintaining metabolic health during isolation.