Starting in the fall, 53 medical schools will implement at least 40 hours of nutrition education or a competency equivalent. They will be getting $5 million from Health & Human Services to help them develop nutrition education. Hopefully this is the “beginning of a beautiful friendship.” While doctors don’t need to be nutritionists, they could have a taste of dramatic results by applying Hippocrates’ dictum, “let thy food be thy medicine.” Hugo Rodier, MD
Ultra-processed food consumption linked to adverse behavioral, emotional issues in young children
“HealthDay (3/5/26, Thompson) reports a study found that “kids who eat more ultra-processed foods have a higher risk of problems like anxiety, fearfulness, aggression or hyperactivity.” Study results showed that “for every 10% increase in calories from ultra-processed foods, children had higher scores on checklists for emotional and behavioral problems.” It is unclear “exactly how ultra-processed foods might affect a child’s emotions and behaviors, but researchers offered some theories. These foods are high in saturated fat, sugars and sodium, all of which have been found to alter the brain, researchers said. Saturated fat is associated with brain inflammation, sodium with heightened stress, and sugar with emotional problems like depression.” The study was published in JAMA Network Open.”
Comment: the brain consumes 20% of the energy we take in. And it is formed and maintained by the nutrients we consume. This is especially true in children.
Avocado and mango may improve vascular health in patients with prediabetes
“Healio Minute, 3/6/26 (Kim A. Williams Sr., MD, MACC, FAHA)
Addition of avocado and mango to daily diet improved endothelial function in people with prediabetes. Avocado and mango also affected diastolic BP among men who participated in the study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.”
Comment: many consider the wall paper on the inside of arteries to be an organ in and of itself, underscoring its importance. Without proper circulation our body cannot deliver energy and raw materials to any other organ. Hence the importance of maintaining proper circulation. Other than toxic relationships ultra-processed foods and environmental toxins (see below) wreak havoc on the endothelium. Also add fish, nuts and beets to your diet.
Many preservative additives that extend food shelf life significantly associated with increased cancer risk
Healio Minute, January 15, 2026 (BMJ. 2026;doi:10.1136/bmj-2025-084917)
“Multiple preservatives that are added to food products to lengthen their shelf life have significant associations with overall cancer development. The findings from more than 100,000 individuals in the French NutriNet-Santé cohort highlight the impact dietary choices can have on health outcomes. “It’s another piece in the overall evidence supporting potential adverse health effects of these very highly processed industrial foods,” Mathilde Touvier, PhD, HDR, head of the nutritional epidemiology research team at Inserm and principal investigator of the NutriNet-Santé cohort, told Healio. “We were not surprised about the findings, but yet, they were quite striking.”
Touvier and colleagues previously found ultra-processed foods increased the risk for multiple diseases, including several cancers, cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, and multiple studies have confirmed those findings, she said. Over the past 5 years, they focused their research on the ingredients that could cause these health effects.
Preservative additives — substances that prevent food deterioration from microorganisms and oxidation — could be found in more than 20% of items in the Open Food Facts World database in 2024, according to study background. “You can find them everywhere,” Touvier said. “When we talk about nitrates, for instance, we find them mostly in processed meat such as ham, sausages and so on. Sulfites are found mostly in alcoholic beverages, salsas and vinegar. You can also find these preservatives in many food groups, such as ready-made meals, industrial pastries and dairy desserts.“There have been studies conducted on cell or animal models suggesting there were already risks for several of these preservatives in terms of insulin resistance, cell proliferation, inflammation or oxidative stress,” she added. “Many mechanisms that are involved in the etiology of diabetes or cancer.” Touvier and colleagues used the NutriNet-Santé cohort, which started enrolling in 2009, to conduct the “first study” on preservative additives and cancer in a human population. They included 105,260 individuals (mean age, 42 years; standard deviation, 14.5; 78.7% women) who had at least two 24-hour dietary records in their first 2 years of follow-up, did not misreport energy intake and did not have prevalent cancer. The association between additive preservatives and cancer incidence served as the primary endpoint. Researchers investigated 58 preservatives and evaluated cancer risk for those consumed by 10% of the study population.
Nearly all participants (99.7%) ate additive preservatives during their first 2 years of follow-up. At least 10% of participants consumed 17 of the 58 preservatives examined. The highest consumed preservatives included citric acid (91.7%), lecithins (87.1%), total sulfites (83.5%), ascorbic acid (83.5%), sodium nitrite (73.8%) and potassium sorbate (65.5%). After median follow-up of 7.57 years, 4% of participants developed cancer. The most common malignancies included breast, prostate and colorectal cancer.
Regular consumption of certain preservatives was also significantly associated with increased risk for breast cancer, including total non-antioxidants. High intake of sodium nitrate was significantly associated with increased risk for prostate cancer. Overall, 11 of the 17 preservatives evaluated did not have an association with cancer development.
Researchers acknowledged study limitations, including its observational nature. However multiple potential confounders such as alcohol and tobacco use, physical activity, caloric, sugar, salt and fiber intakes and family history of diseases were carefully accounted for in these analyses. “An important public health recommendation is to try to lower our exposure to non-essential additives,” Touvier said. Touvier and colleagues are continuing to investigate additive preservatives on other health outcomes, including cardiovascular disease and hypertension. They also are studying food colors, both synthetic and natural, and additive mixtures. “We ingest all these additives together,” Touvier said. “There may be some interactions and synergistic effects. We are also testing this. We have assessed biomarkers of inflammation, oxidative stress, metabolic perturbations and gut microbiota of several thousands of participants within the NutriNet-Santé cohort, and now we are studying the associations between these biomarkers and the profiles of exposure to ultra-processed food, food preservatives and other food additives.” They are conducting mechanistic work, as well. The research is only part of the equation, though. Government policies will be needed to truly reduce the impact ultra-processed foods and additives have on the public’s health. “We need policies that will target potentially harmful foods,” Touvier said. “We’re talking about foods with high fat, high sugar, high salt, low fiber, and also ultra-processed foods and foods with many additives for which we have increasing signals.”
Potential interventions include food labeling, cost measures and restrictions on advertisements. “In France and Europe, we have Nutri-Score, which is a front-of-pack label with five colors and five letters — A, B, C, D, E — about the nutritional quality of food products,” Touvier said. “It has been adopted already in eight countries. An OECD report evaluated that if we had this label on all food packaging in Europe, we could avoid 2 million chronic diseases by 2050. There are 150 publications showing the positive impact of Nutri-Score, but it’s still not mandatory.” The United Kingdom recently banned junk food advertisements on television before 9 p.m. and online always. “We can say things to consumers and patients,” Touvier said. “Doctors can help relay these messages. We need strong political measures to maximize consumer protection.”
Comment: Commentators have opined that this “lone study” is not enough to prove the point. But there have been MANY studies demonstrating the same effect. They have not been as extensive due to suboptimal funding and opposition from the food industry. Follow the money.
It’s scary’: Prostate cancer tumors contain microplastics
Healio Minute, February 23, 2026. (Data derived from Loeb S, et al. Abstract 379. Presented at: ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium; Feb. 26-28, 2026; San Francisco.)
“An evaluation of 10 men with prostate cancer found 90% had microplastics in their tumors, with concentrations more than double that found in surrounding benign prostate tissue. The data, which will be presented at ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, highlight growing concerns about potential health effects of microplastics.”
Comment: microplastics are endocrine disruptors; they interfere with our hormones. They are also dubbed Xenoestrogens; they have an overstimulating estrogen effect on prostates AND breast, uterus and ovaries. Eat a lot of cruciferous veggies to help detoxify them.
