Every day you have to navigate a toxic nutritional landscape. You have to hunt and gather in a food desert. You have to survive the American supermarket and dodge the dangers of industrial food. The good news is that if you follow 10 simple rules you can eat...

Last year my friend Chelsea Clinton recommended I read a book by the former head of the National Health Service in Great Britain, called Turning the World Upside Down -- about what we can learn from poor countries in the developing world about putting patients and communities at...

In a spate of recent media appearances, Paula Deen, the unapologetic queen of culinary excess and indulgence would have us believe that she didn't eat herself into type 2 diabetes -- that it was just Russian Roulette. Genes do matter, but just a little. Sorry Paula, but type 2 diabetes,...

If you are a post-menopausal woman with high cholesterol, your doctor will almost certainly recommend cholesterol-lowering medication or statins. And it just might kill you. A new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that statins increase the risk of getting diabetes by 71 percent in post-menopausal...

Last week I began a discussion about a modern epidemic, a deadly disease that one of every two of you have, a disease that's making you fat, sick and will kill you, but 90 percent of you don't even know you have it.

This disease is diabesity, the...

One of every two of you have a deadly disease that's making you sick and will kill you, and 90 percent of you don't even know you have it.

What's worse is your doctor is not trained how to find it, and they are not even looking for...

Medicine doesn't always come in a pill. In fact, some of the most powerful medicines are delicious and can be found at your local supermarket or "farmacy." Healing foods have been used for centuries in Asia as part of the cuisine. In Asia food and medicine are often...

Do vitamins kill people?

How many people have died from taking vitamins?

Should you stop your vitamins?

It depends. To be exact, it depends on the quality of the science, and the very nature of scientific research. It is very hard to know things exactly...

What you put at the end of your fork is more powerful medicine than anything you will find at the bottom of a pill bottle. Food is the most powerful medicine available to heal chronic disease, which will account for more than 50 million deaths and cost the global economy...

Schools have become hazardous health zones full of empty calories, junk food and stripped-down physical education programs that are cultivating a nation of fatter, dumber and more aggressive kids. In the film, "The Social Network," Mark Zuckerberg tells his friend that there are more geniuses in China than...

I admit it. I was addicted to sugar, caffeine, and adrenaline. I am a recovering dopamine addict, and it almost killed me. Twenty years ago, a freshly minted doctor, I swallowed the propaganda that doctors are invincible, that "MD" stood for "medical deity." During my training, one of...

I have recently spent more time in drugs stores than I would like helping my sister on her journey through (and hopefully to the other side of) cancer. Rite Aid, CVS and Walgreens all had large diabetes sections offering support for a "diabetes lifestyle" -- glucose monitors, lancets, blood pressure...

If all doctors followed the latest cholesterol treatment guidelines and all their patients took their prescribed statin medication, there would be 3.5 million more diabetics in America. But wait! There is another pill (or injection, actually) that has been shown to reduce the risk of diabetes. And it's only about...

If you can't convince them, confuse them.
--Harry Truman

The current media debate about the benefits (or lack of harm) of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in our diet misses the obvious. The average American increased their consumption of HFCS (mostly from sugar sweetened drinks and processed...

Though in some cases I am pro-vaccine, I am not pro-flu vaccine, because its effectiveness remains unproven and its safety in question.

The importance of vaccines in advancing public health cannot be overstated. Last year, after the earthquake in Haiti, I cared for a man dying of tetanus. There...

The Romans conquered the Andalusia region of southern Spain two centuries before the birth of Christ. They thrived on its fertile lands, rivers and valleys. At its peak, Rome had 20,000 citizens, while at its peak, the city of Cordova in Andalusia, had over 500,000 citizens and was the largest...

It's confirmed. Dairy products and sugar cause acne.

As our sugar and dairy consumption has increased over the last 100 years so has the number of people with acne. We now have over 17 million acne sufferers, costing our health care system $1 billion a year, and...

We are all programmed to like sugar. New research shows some are genetically much more prone to sugar and food addiction than others. I have observed this in my patients, but now it is becoming clear why some have more trouble kicking the sugar habit than others.

As...

The singular focus on treating cholesterol as a means to prevent heart attacks is leading to the deaths of millions of people because the real underlying cause of the majority of heart disease is not being diagnosed or treated by most physicians.

For example, I recently saw...

If I am confused about what fish to eat and have spent my life studying nutrition and environmental science, then I imagine most people are confused. I am left with so many questions and had almost given up trying to figure it out. Until I met Tim O'Shea,...