Depression is the most common mental health condition in the United States, affecting an estimated 21 million American adults in any given year. It’s also one of the most misunderstood – not because the information isn’t available, but because the lived experience of depression is difficult to communicate to anyone who hasn’t been through it, […]
The Nutrition Facts label has been on packaged food in the US since 1994. The FDA updated it significantly in 2016, with full compliance required by 2020. It’s one of the most evidence-based public health tools available – and most people don’t read it correctly, or at all. This article covers how to interpret every […]
Most people think of muscle loss as something that happens to very old people. The reality is more uncomfortable: the process begins in your mid-thirties, is well underway by your fifties, and accelerates dramatically after sixty. By the time it becomes noticeable – clothes fitting differently, difficulty with stairs, struggling to carry groceries – a […]
When people think about malnutrition, they rarely picture a 75-year-old American living independently in their own home, eating meals every day. Yet malnutrition in older adults is one of the most common and most consequential – and least recognized – health problems in the United States. Estimates suggest that 15-30% of community-dwelling older adults (those […]
There’s a form of malnutrition that doesn’t look like malnutrition. The person is at a normal weight, eating regular meals, maybe even eating what they’d describe as “pretty healthy.” And yet their body is quietly running deficient on vitamins and minerals that are essential to how every cell in their body functions. This is micronutrient […]
Uric acid is one of those lab values that patients often encounter but rarely understand fully. It shows up on metabolic panels, gets mentioned in connection with gout, and is sometimes flagged as elevated on routine bloodwork without much explanation. The relationship between uric acid levels, gout, kidney stones, and broader metabolic health is more […]
Hormone panels generate some of the most confusing lab reports people encounter. The values are often unfamiliar, the reference ranges are wide, and the relationship between individual hormones and symptoms is rarely straightforward. A testosterone of 320 ng/dL – is that low? It depends on the lab’s reference range, the clinical context, the time of […]
Nutrition is one of the most studied and simultaneously most confused fields in science. The combination of genuinely complex research, financial interests shaping public messaging, and the internet’s ability to amplify confident misinformation has produced a landscape where myths travel faster than corrections – and often sound more convincing. Some nutrition myths are harmless. Others […]
The fitness industry is one of the most myth-saturated spaces in popular health culture. Some of these myths are harmless but waste time and effort. Others actively work against the goals of the people following them – steering people toward ineffective training, unnecessary suffering, or outright injury. Here are seven of the most persistent exercise […]
“Don’t eat after 7pm” has the status of received nutritional wisdom. It shows up in diet programs, fitness advice, and general health conversations with the confidence of an established fact. The idea seems intuitive – you eat late, you sleep, you don’t burn it off, it turns to fat. The reality is more nuanced than […]