Browse the evidence

Low-GI diets are associated with modest to clinically important benefits for cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors and diabetes management, including lower total cholesterol and improved glycemic control.

Prioritize foods with a lower Glycemic Index (GI) to help manage blood sugar and cholesterol levels. This is particularly beneficial for individuals with diabetes or those at risk for heart disease.

The health effects of reallocating time between behaviors are asymmetric; losing MVPA has a much larger negative impact than gaining MVPA has a positive impact.

Protecting your existing MVPA time is crucial. Losing 10 minutes of vigorous activity has a much larger negative impact on waist circumference than the positive impact of gaining 10 minutes. Prioritize not losing your current activity levels.

Ghrelin levels are inversely correlated with body fat mass, being suppressed in obesity and elevated in states of negative energy balance such as anorexia nervosa or low-calorie diets.

Your body produces less of the 'hunger hormone' (ghrelin) when you are obese, likely as a response to high caloric intake. However, this does not mean you are immune to hunger. When you lose weight, ghrelin levels rise, which may increase your appetite as your body tries to regain weight.

Adiponectin levels are negatively correlated with obesity and insulin resistance, and low levels are associated with an increased risk of type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Low levels of adiponectin, an hormone produced by fat cells, are a strong indicator of insulin resistance and higher risk for type II diabetes. Losing weight and exercising can naturally increase your adiponectin levels, improving your metabolic health.

Wrist actigraphy using standard algorithms (e.g., Cole-Kripke) provides high accuracy (approx. 86%) and sensitivity (approx. 96%) for estimating total sleep time compared to polysomnography, but exhibits low specificity (approx. 33%), leading to an overestimation of sleep and underestimation of wakefulness.

Use wrist actigraphy to track general sleep patterns and total sleep time in population studies or personal trends, but do not rely on it for precise wake time or clinical diagnosis of insomnia. Be aware that it likely overestimates sleep duration and underestimates time awake, especially if you spend significant time awake in bed.

Experiencing weight-based stigma is associated with increased use of maladaptive coping strategies, specifically eating more food, which may perpetuate weight gain and obesity.

If you experience weight stigma, be aware that eating more is a very common way people cope with that stress. This is not a moral failing but a learned response. To manage weight, consider developing alternative coping strategies for dealing with bias, such as positive self-talk or seeking social support, which were also reported but less frequently linked to weight gain.

Coping strategies such as positive self-talk and seeking social support are associated with better psychological outcomes (higher self-esteem, lower depression) in response to weight stigma.

When facing weight stigma, try using positive self-talk and seeking support from others. These strategies are linked to higher self-esteem and lower depression, helping you maintain better mental health despite external bias.

Consumers infer product 'cleanliness' and health benefits primarily through peripheral cues on front-of-pack labels (e.g., organic logos, 'free-from' claims, short ingredient lists) rather than central processing of back-of-pack nutritional data.

When evaluating 'clean label' products, do not rely solely on front-of-pack claims like 'organic' or 'free-from'. These are often marketing heuristics. To truly assess healthfulness, you must inspect the back-of-pack ingredient list and nutrition facts, as consumers often overestimate the health benefits of products with these labels due to 'halo effects'.

Sleep quality and duration directly regulate glymphatic system efficiency, which clears neurotoxic protein waste (amyloid-beta, tau, alpha-synuclein) from the brain; age-related decline in deep NREM sleep reduces this clearance, contributing to protein aggregation and dementia risk.

Prioritize sleep quality and duration as a non-negotiable component of brain health. Focus on achieving deep NREM sleep, which is critical for glymphatic clearance. If you are aging, be aware that sleep fragmentation increases, so strategies to improve sleep hygiene and cardiovascular health (which drives the fluid flow) are essential to maintain cognitive function and reduce dementia risk.

Physical activity tracks significantly from childhood to adulthood, with stability being higher in males than females and higher in adolescence/adulthood than in early childhood.

Encourage physical activity in children and adolescents because their activity levels tend to persist into adulthood, especially for males. Interventions are most critical during transitional phases (childhood to adolescence) and for inactive youth, as inactivity also tracks. Focus on building habits and skills rather than just specific sports.

Abdominal obesity, measured by waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio, is a strong independent risk factor for colon cancer and large adenomas, increasing risk even after adjusting for overall body mass index and physical activity levels.

Monitor your waist size and waist-to-hip ratio, not just your weight. Abdominal fat is a strong independent risk factor for colon cancer. Maintaining a healthy waist circumference (e.g., <35 inches for men in this study's reference group) and reducing abdominal adiposity through lifestyle changes can significantly lower your risk.

The combination of high body mass index and low physical activity results in a substantially elevated risk of colon cancer, significantly higher than either factor alone.

Do not rely on exercise alone to offset the risks of excess weight. The combination of high body mass and low activity creates a synergistic risk for colon cancer. To minimize risk, aim for both regular physical activity and a healthy body weight, particularly reducing abdominal fat.

Exercise training improves endothelium-derived nitric oxide (NO) function in humans, with the magnitude of improvement depending on the muscle mass trained and the presence of pre-existing endothelial dysfunction.

To improve your vascular health through exercise, prioritize large muscle group activities like cycling or running. These create systemic shear stress that boosts nitric oxide function throughout your body, even in areas you aren't directly exercising. If you have existing heart risk factors, this benefit is particularly pronounced.

Exercise training improves endothelial function primarily by increasing nitric oxide bioactivity, which counteracts oxygen free radicals and upregulates eNOS expression, leading to structural arterial remodeling over the long term.

Consistent exercise helps your blood vessels produce more nitric oxide, which protects them from damage by free radicals. Over time, this not only improves blood flow but can physically remodel arteries to be healthier, especially if you have existing cardiovascular risks.

Replacing saturated fats with monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fats reduces LDL cholesterol without lowering HDL, thereby reducing coronary heart disease risk, whereas replacing saturated fats with carbohydrates may lower HDL and reduce the predicted benefit.

To improve your heart health, focus on swapping saturated fats (like butter and fatty meats) for unsaturated fats (like olive oil, nuts, and fish). Avoid simply replacing fat with refined carbohydrates, as this can lower your good cholesterol (HDL) and reduce the heart benefits.

Individuals with metabolically healthy obesity (MHO) have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality compared to metabolically healthy lean individuals, despite having a lower risk than those with metabolically unhealthy obesity.

If you have obesity but normal blood work, you are not 'safe' like a lean person. Your risk for heart disease and early death is still higher than someone with a healthy weight. You should not ignore your weight, but you may prioritize preserving your current metabolic health over aggressive weight loss if it causes stress or muscle loss, while still addressing lifestyle factors like fitness and diet quality.

Higher consumption of ultra-processed foods is associated with a significantly increased risk of overall cancer and breast cancer.

This large-scale study indicates that increasing your intake of ultra-processed foods (like sugary drinks, packaged snacks, and processed meats) by 10% of your total diet is linked to a 12% higher risk of developing cancer and an 11% higher risk of breast cancer. To mitigate this risk, consider reducing the proportion of ultra-processed items in your diet and replacing them with less processed alternatives, as the specific processing artifacts and additives in these foods appear to contribute to cancer risk independent of basic nutritional content.

Smoking cessation after a myocardial infarction significantly reduces coronary mortality and all-cause mortality.

If you smoke and have heart disease, quitting is the single most effective thing you can do to extend your life. It cuts your risk of dying from heart issues by nearly half. Seek professional help, including medications like varenicline or NRT, to increase your chances of success.

Restricting sleep duration to 4 hours per night for 6 days significantly decreases circulating leptin levels (mean -19%, maximal -26%) and reduces the amplitude of the diurnal leptin rhythm compared to extended sleep (12 hours).

If you consistently sleep less than 7-8 hours, your body produces less leptin, the hormone that signals fullness. This happens even if you don't change your diet. To manage appetite and prevent overeating, prioritize getting 8 hours of sleep as rigorously as you prioritize your food choices.

Sleep restriction (4 hours/night) impairs glucose tolerance and increases post-breakfast insulin resistance, as measured by elevated HOMA values, despite similar insulin levels to rested conditions.

Sleeping only 4 hours makes your body handle carbohydrates poorly the next morning, leading to higher blood sugar spikes. This happens even if you eat the same amount of food. Prioritize sleep to maintain good glucose tolerance.

Higher body mass index (BMI) causally increases the risk of type-2 diabetes (T2D), with a 1 SD increase in BMI resulting in a 3.29-fold increase in T2D risk.

Maintaining a healthy BMI is one of the most effective ways to prevent type-2 diabetes. This study confirms that higher BMI directly causes a significantly higher risk of developing T2D. Focus on sustainable weight management through diet and physical activity to lower this risk.

Aerobic endurance training reduces blood pressure by decreasing systemic vascular resistance, mediated by reductions in sympathetic nervous system activity (plasma norepinephrine) and renin-angiotensin system activity (plasma renin activity).

Your body adapts to regular aerobic exercise by relaxing your blood vessels and calming the hormonal systems that constrict them. This biological change is what lowers your blood pressure over time, not just immediate blood flow changes during exercise.

Subcutaneous abdominal fat is a stronger predictor of insulin resistance than visceral fat and retains independent significance after adjusting for visceral fat.

Don't just measure your waistline. If you are carrying weight, where it sits matters. Subcutaneous fat (the soft fat under the skin) is a major driver of insulin resistance, potentially more so than deep visceral fat. Focus on overall body composition and muscle health rather than just trying to shrink your waist circumference, as muscle quality (attenuation) is also a key independent factor.

Consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is estimated to be responsible for 8.7% of type 2 diabetes cases in the US and 3.6% in the UK over a 10-year period, assuming causality.

On a population level, reducing sugar-sweetened beverage consumption could prevent a significant number of new diabetes cases in the US and UK. Public health policies targeting SSBs are supported by this evidence.