Metabolic health, explained.
Evidence informed articles on weight loss, insulin resistance, nutrition, and getting the most from your metabolism. From our physician team.
Why a Fluoroquinolone Antibiotic Can Damage a Tendon Months After You Stop Taking It
Fluoroquinolones like ciprofloxacin injure tendons long after the course ends. The direct damage is well documented, and I think a gut stripped of the bacteria you need to absorb copper, zinc, and magnesium helps explain why the repair stalls.
Read articleWhat a 15-Year Swedish Study Found About Red Meat and the 'Alzheimer's Gene'
A 15-year Swedish study found that older adults carrying the APOE ε4 'Alzheimer's gene' who ate the most unprocessed meat had 55% lower dementia risk, and their inherited disadvantage all but disappeared.
Read articleWhy Outdoor Workers Don't Get More Melanoma
Research suggests sun exposure isn't the cause of melanoma. Intermittent burning raises the risk while steady, continuous exposure doesn't and may even lower it, which leaves an obvious question about whether to hide from the sun or get more of it.
Read articleHealthy Skin Starts in the Gut, and in the Minerals It Lets In
Your skin is downstream of your gut. A disrupted microbiome feeds the inflammation behind acne and eczema, and an unhealthy gut also fails to absorb the zinc, copper, and selenium your skin is built from.
Read articleHow Statins Can Damage Your Mitochondria
Statins lower cholesterol by blocking the same pathway that builds CoQ10, the carrier your mitochondria need to make energy. That depletion is the real mechanism behind the muscle aches and brain fog many statin users feel.
Read articleArtificial Sweeteners, Your Gut, and the Colon Cancer Connection
Diet soda is sold as a free lunch, but the artificial sweeteners in it reshape the gut microbiome, and that change reaches all the way to the colon.
Read articleWhat Chimpanzees and the Amish Reveal About Cancer
Cancer gets blamed on bad genes or on living longer. Two natural controls, our closest animal relative and a population living off the modern grid, point somewhere else.
Read articleCore Metabolic Labs and the Difference Between Normal and Optimal
A 'normal' lab value only means you fall within the range of the people tested, not that the number is healthy. Here are the core metabolic labs worth tracking and where the optimal level often sits.
Read articleWill You Need a GLP-1 Forever? What Happens When You Stop
GLP-1 medications work while you take them. The harder truth is what happens when you stop, and why a lasting result depends on what you build during treatment.
Read articleWhat the Science Says About the Harms of Synthetic Food Dyes
Synthetic dyes make food look brighter and do nothing else. A growing body of research suggests they are not the harmless additives regulators long assumed, and children take the largest dose for their size.
Read articleWhen Does Cholesterol Become Dangerous? Look at Your Blood Sugar
Cholesterol is not dangerous or safe on its own. Its risk depends on the metabolic company it keeps, and the variable that flips it is blood glucose.
Read articleAre We Turning Into Foie Gras? Fatty Liver and How to Reverse It
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease now affects roughly a third of adults. It develops much the way foie gras does, and the liver is remarkably willing to reverse it.
Read articleWhy You Should Never Take Zinc Without Copper
Taking zinc on its own, day after day, can quietly cause a copper deficiency serious enough to bring on anemia. The two minerals compete, and the way to balance them is food.
Read articleCan Colostrum Help Against the Flu? What the Evidence Shows
Colostrum is an immune package, not really a food. A provocative question keeps surfacing about whether bovine colostrum could help adults fight viral illness, and the evidence is interesting but limited.
Read articleWhy Colon Cancer Is Striking Younger People, and the Microbiome's Role
Colorectal cancer in adults under 50 has climbed for decades. Our genes did not change in a generation, so the environment did. A growing body of research points at the gut microbiome as the link.
Read articleHoney vs Refined Sugar and Its Gentler Effect on Blood Glucose
Honey is still sugar, but research shows it moves blood glucose differently, and often more gently, than table sugar. Here is what the evidence actually says.
Read articleCan Local Honey Help Your Allergies? What the Evidence Shows
A spoonful of local honey is a classic folk remedy for seasonal allergies. The science is more complicated, and more interesting, than the legend suggests.
Read articleWhy the Difference Between Folate and Folic Acid Matters
People use folate and folic acid as if they mean the same thing, but they don't. One is a vitamin found throughout nature, the other a synthetic molecule your body has to convert, and many people convert it poorly.
Read articleCholesterol, Low LDL, and Cancer, and What the Inverse Link Means
Your body cannot live without cholesterol, and very low LDL travels with higher cancer rates. That link is real, but what it means is widely misunderstood.
Read articleCooking Fats by the Numbers, Saturated Fat vs Linoleic Acid
The stable saturated fats people cooked with for generations behave nothing like the seed oils that replaced them. Here's how common cooking fats compare on saturated fat versus fragile linoleic acid.
Read articleWhy Saturated Fat Isn't the Cause of Coronary Artery Disease
Saturated fat has worn the heart-disease villain label for fifty years. The biology and the data point elsewhere, since coronary artery disease begins with injury to the artery wall, and saturated fat does not start it.
Read articleSeed Oils, Linoleic Acid, and Your Mitochondria
Industrial seed oils flooded the food supply with linoleic acid over the last century. A growing mechanistic case says this fragile fat lodges in our mitochondrial membranes, impairs how we make energy, and nudges us toward insulin resistance.
Read articleWhy We Sleep, and the Role of ATP and the Mitochondria
One of the most compelling explanations for why we must sleep starts not in the brain's wiring but in its power supply, the mitochondria and the energy molecule they make.
Read articleCreatine and Type 2 Diabetes, a Mitochondrial Angle
We call type 2 diabetes insulin resistance, but underneath sits a cell that struggles to handle energy. Seen that way, it makes sense that creatine, of all things, may help with blood sugar.
Read articleCreatine for Older Adults, and What It Does for Muscle, Strength, and Memory
Most people file creatine under supplements for young lifters. The people who may benefit most are older adults, who stand to gain muscle, strength, and even memory.
Read articleCan Organ Meats Help an Underactive Thyroid?
The thyroid runs on a short list of nutrients (iodine, selenium, iron, zinc, and vitamin A), and organ meats are the richest food source of nearly all of them. For some people, an animal-based diet built around them meaningfully improves thyroid function and symptoms.
Read articleMinerals in Animal-Based Foods, and What Each One Does
A practical guide to the minerals concentrated in animal foods, including which meats, organs, eggs, and seafood are richest in each and the job each one does in the body.
Read articleWhy an Animal-Based Diet Pairs So Well With Tirzepatide
Protein-forward, animal-based eating is one of the most reliable ways to lose fat and protect muscle. Combined with tirzepatide, it builds the habits that keep weight off after treatment.
Read articleThe Power of Intermittent Fasting, and How Micro-Dose Tirzepatide Helps You Learn It
Intermittent fasting is one of the simplest, best-studied levers for metabolic health. The hard part is hunger, which is exactly where a low dose of tirzepatide can turn fasting from a willpower battle into a learnable habit.
Read articleBody Fat, Muscle, and How Long You Live
The scale and even BMI miss what matters most for longevity, namely how much of you is fat, where it sits, and how much muscle you've kept. Here's what the research shows.
Read articleObesity, Cancer, and Why Fat Tissue Is More Than Storage
Excess body fat raises the risk of more than a dozen cancers. The reason has a lot to do with the fact that fat tissue behaves like a hormone-producing organ.
Read articleInsulin Resistance Is Not One Thing
We use insulin resistance as if it names a single problem, but it doesn't. The hormone still reaches every organ, while the pathways it controls fail selectively, and differently, in the liver, muscle, fat, and brain.
Read articleFasting Insulin, the Metabolic Marker Most Lab Panels Skip
Fasting glucose and A1c are lagging indicators. Fasting insulin often shifts years earlier, which makes it one of the most useful and most overlooked windows into your metabolic health.
Read articleIs Mitochondrial Dysfunction at the Root of Type 2 Diabetes?
Insulin resistance is the core defect in type 2 diabetes, and a large body of research points to struggling mitochondria as an early driver. Here's what the science shows.
Read articleMicro-Dose Tirzepatide and L-Carnitine for Steadier Weight Loss
What tirzepatide actually does, why we use lower micro-doses paired with L-carnitine, and what the trial evidence says about losing weight and keeping it off.
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