In our nutrition practice, and in our personal eating practices, we focus on getting enough of the great stuff more than limiting the not-so-great stuff. If we put this into the context of activities for the day and said, “You cannot walk on the grass today. You also can’t run through the sprinklers. You also can’t fly a kite.” That would seem…

By Lisa Rapaport (Reuters Health) – Roughly one third of U.S. adults should be on cholesterol-lowering drugs, according to current guidelines, but almost half of these people aren’t taking the medications, a recent study finds. More than 78 million people aged 21 and older have high enough levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) – the bad kind of cholesterol that builds up in blood vessels and can lead to blood clots and heart attacks – to be eligible for LDL-lowering drugs known as statins, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) note in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. “Making lifestyle modifications such as exercising and adopting a healthy diet and taking the appropriate medication can be extremely effective in lowering your cholesterol and ultimately reducing your risk of a heart attack or stroke,” lead report author Carla Mercado of CDC said by email.

By Lisa Rapaport (Reuters Health) – For women who develop diabetes during pregnancy, low-carbohydrate diets may not necessarily help keep the disease at bay after the baby arrives, a U.S. study suggests. Researchers found that women eating diets high in animal proteins and low in carbs actually raised their diabetes risk. A low-carb diet that was heavy in plant-based protein and fat, in contrast, wasn’t linked to an increased risk of diabetes in the study.