This edition is devoted to the simple fact that improving our diet helps, if not cure, all chronic health problems. Hopefully, you have the patience and long-term vision required to see results. Unfortunately, most people don’t, which is why they end up addressing the symptoms of their diseases, not the real cause.
Hugo Rodier, MD
Women with excessive insulin three times more likely to have abnormal uterine bleeding
“HealthDay (6/42025, Thompson) reports a study found that “women with excess levels of insulin are three times more likely to suffer from abnormal uterine bleeding.” This means “they are more apt to bleed between periods, experienced prolonged bleeding or have extremely heavy periods.” Researchers “said it’s possible that the chronic inflammation caused by high insulin levels might explain this association, given that inflammation has previously been linked to abnormal bleeding.” The results “could open up a new way to help women who are suffering from abnormal bleeding, by preventing it through lifestyle changes and better blood sugar control. Also, “severe hot flashes decreased by 92% among a group of menopausal women assigned to eat a low-fat vegan diet for three months.” Researchers observed the women “also lost an average 8 pounds by eating vegan.” Overall, the results suggest that “replacing the consumption of both unprocessed or minimally processed and ultra-processed animal foods with plant foods (regardless of the level of processing), was associated with significant weight loss and a reduction in severe hot flashes.” The study was published in the journal Menopause.”
Comment: Menopause can be minimally bothersome in women who eat their veggies. Bonus: they lose weight without starving, nor counting calories (see below), and they reduce inflammation and insulin resistance, two common denominators in practically all diseases.
Calorie-restricted diets may be linked with depressive symptoms
“HealthDay (6/4/2025, Gotkine) reports a study published in BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health found that “dietary patterns seem to be associated with depressive symptoms.” Researchers examined “National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2007 to 2018 data to examine the association between restrictive dietary patterns and depressive symptoms stratified by sex and body mass index.”
Comment: any diet that helps you lose weight is welcome. However, some of them, like intermittent fasting can have undesired consequences. Insulin resistance and inflammation are associated with depression and moods. You are going to be cranky skipping meals.
Sugar from beverages more harmful than sugar from food
“Cardiovascular Business (6/2/2025, Walter. Investigators came to this conclusion after analyzing “data from more than 800,000 adults who had originally participated in one of 29 different studies.” The findings were published in Advances in Nutrition.”
Comment: this is because liquids are absorbed from GI tract faster than solids.
Sugar-sweetened beverages responsible for about 340K deaths each year from Diabetes Type II, cardiovascular disease
“The New York Times (1/6/2025, Jacobs) reports, “Across the world, the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is responsible for about 340,000 deaths each year from Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, according to a study published Monday that is one of the largest attempts to assess how the spread of Western eating habits is affecting global health.” The study “also found that sugary drinks were linked to 2.2 million additional cases of Type 2 diabetes and 1.2 million cases of cardiovascular disease in 2020, with a disproportionate share of those cases concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.” The findings were published in Nature Medicine.”
Comment: insulin resistance and inflammation at play, yet again.
Nut, seed intake does not increase diverticulitis risk
“HealthDay (5/6/2025, Thompson) reports a study suggests that eating nuts and seeds does “not increase the risk of diverticulitis.” Researchers “analyzed government survey data from nearly 30,000 U.S. women who filled out diet and health questionnaires every two to three years from 2003 to 2022. The data found no link between the women’s intake of seeds, nuts or popcorn and their risk for diverticulitis.” The study was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.”
Comment: by eating a plant-based diet you improve your microbiome, which leads to reduced gas pressure and inflammation inside your colon. Those factors lead to diverticulosis, or the formation of blind, hollow, outward projecting “skin tags.”
Gut microbiome alterations are associated with Parkinson’s disease
J. Nature Communications 2025;16:Article number 4227
“There is strong interest in using the gut microbiome for Parkinson’s disease (PD) diagnosis and treatment… Meta-analysis of metagenomes delineates PD-associated microbial pathways potentially contributing to gut health deterioration and favoring the translocation of pathogenic molecules along the gut-brain axis. Strikingly, microbial pathways for solvent and pesticide biotransformation are enriched in PD. These results align with epidemiological evidence that exposure to these molecules increases PD risk.”
Comment: pesticides have been associated with many diseases, including neurologic problems. Afterall, they were historically derived from nerve gas. Eat as organic as possible.
Living near a golf course linked with Parkinson’s risk
“MedPage Today (5/8/2025, George) reports a study suggests that “people who lived near a golf course had higher risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.” Researchers found that “after adjusting for patient demographics and neighborhood characteristics, living within 1 mile of a golf course was associated with more than double the odds of developing Parkinson’s disease compared with living more than 6 miles away.” Furthermore, “living in a water service area with a golf course also showed higher odds of Parkinson’s compared with other water service areas or having a private well,” researchers said. They concluded, “Our study found that both distance from a golf course and karst topography were independently associated with risk of Parkinson’s disease.” The study was published in JAMA Network Open.”
Comment: three guesses as to why this is so.
Coffee drinking is associated with better survival, but timing of consumption matters
“MedPage Today (1/7/2025, Lou) reports that “any presumed health benefits of coffee may be limited to morning cups of” coffee. Investigators found that “compared with non-coffee drinkers, those who mostly drank coffee in the morning had a lower risk of all-cause mortality…and cardiovascular mortality…when followed over a median 9.8 years.” “It appeared that survival was particularly improved with morning consumers drinking moderate (>1 to 2 cups and >2 to 3 cups/day) and heavy (>3 cups/day) amounts of coffee rather than lesser amounts.” “People who kept drinking coffee later in the day, the all-day type, had no reduction in all-cause and cardiovascular mortality…regardless of how much they consumed.” The findings were published in European Heart Journal.”
Comment: coffee helps with detoxification in the liver, reduces insulin resistance and inflammation because it is rich in antioxidants. As such, it may also help in Parkinson’s disease.
Microbiota-Focused Dietary Approaches to Support Health
J. Nutrition 2025;155:381-401
“Diet affects the intestinal microbiota. Increasingly, research is linking the intestinal microbiota to various human health outcomes. Consumption of traditional prebiotics (inulin, fructo-oligosaccharides, and galacto-oligosaccharides) confers health benefits through substrate utilization by select intestinal microorganisms, namely Bifidobacterium and Lactobacilli spp. A similar but distinct concept focused on microorganisms to support human health is through direct consumption of certain live microorganisms recognized as probiotics, which classically include Lactobacilli or Bifidobacterium strains. With advances in sequencing technologies and culturing techniques, other novel functional intestinal microorganisms are being increasingly identified and studied to determine how they may underpin human health benefits. These novel microorganisms are targeted for enrichment within the autochthonous intestinal microbiota through dietary approaches and are also gaining interest as next-generation probiotics because of their purported beneficial properties. Thus, characterizing dietary approaches that nourish select microorganisms in situ is necessary to propel biotic-focused research forward. As such, we reviewed the literature to summarize findings on dietary approaches that nourish the human intestinal microbiota and benefit health to help fill the gap in knowledge on the connections between certain microorganisms, the metabolome, and host physiology. The overall objective of this systematic review was to summarize the impact of dietary interventions with the propensity to nourish certain intestinal bacteria, affect microbial metabolite concentrations, and support gastrointestinal, metabolic, and cognitive health in healthy adults.”
Comment: veggies feed good bacteria, sugar feeds bad bacteria. See July 2025 blog.
Exercise Isn’t Just for Your Muscles—It’s Great for Your Gut, Too
J Scientific American, June 18, 2025
“We’ve all heard the saying “you are what you eat”—especially when it comes to gut health. But what if your workout matters just as much as your diet?”
Comment: beware that overdoing exercise increases stress levels, which can have deleterious consequences for the microbiome.
Gut microbiota regulates stress responsivity via the circadian system
J. Cell 2025; 37:138-153.
“Stress and circadian systems are interconnected through the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis to maintain responses to external stimuli. Yet, the mechanisms of how such signals are orchestrated remain unknown. Here, we uncover the gut microbiota as a regulator of HPA-axis rhythmicity. Microbial depletion disturbs the brain transcriptome and metabolome in stress-responding pathways in the hippocampus and amygdala across the day. This is coupled with a dysregulation of the circadian pacemaker in the brain that results in perturbed glucocorticoid rhythmicity. The resulting hyper-activation of the HPA axis at the sleep/wake transition drives time-of-day-specific impairments of the stress response and stress-sensitive behaviors. Finally, microbiota transplantation confirmed that diurnal oscillations of gut microbes underlie altered glucocorticoid secretion and that L. reuteri is a candidate strain for such effects. Our data offer compelling evidence that the microbiota regulates stress responsiveness in a circadian manner and is necessary to respond adaptively to stressors throughout the day.”
Comment: true, but there are other factors that contribute to the microbiome affecting stress levels. Among them, insulin resistance and inflammation.
