Archive | Understanding Our Bodies

ost of us already know that we should be eating fiber – according to the Institute of Medicine, adults should be eating 20-35 grams of it per day. But why? What’s so important about fiber anyway? What does it do for us physiologically? And does it matter what kind of fiber we eat? I can hear…

Almost everyone has heard of Insulin. You probably know that people with type 1 diabetes need to inject themselves with insulin to survive, and must constantly monitor the amount of sugar they eat. But what do you really know about insulin? What is its purpose in the body, and why do we need it? How does…

It seems like every day there’s a new super-food that is chock full of antioxidants and ready to cure everything from the flu to cancer. Antioxidants are touted as a nutritional panacea, but I would bet that few people really understand what antioxidants are, how they function in the body, and how including them in…

As I’ve been writing the “Understanding Our Bodies: The Physiology of Nutrition” series, I’ve tried to explain how the various chemical systems in our bodies relate to how and what we eat. For example, two of the biggest hormones that affect our eating habits – Leptin, the fullness hormone, and Dopamine, the brain’s reward hormone – seem to…

As much as we’d like to deny it, there’s a lot more involved in our decision making when it comes to food than just the advice of our inner and outer nutritionists. For the most part, we know that we should be eating. Yet time and time again when a friend asks us if we want to…

Just about every diet I know of supports eating a large portion of protein. Whether the strategy is to cut carbs or to cut fat or to cut calories in general, just about everyone agrees that protein is good for you. But why? And do the sources make a difference? What about protein makes it…

Continuing the series on The Physiology of Nutrition, I present to you the connection between food and mood – serotonin. While it’s easy to see how what we eat has a direct impact on our waistlines, it seems a little foggier how our nutritional choices affect our brains. Even still, we all know intuitively how important…

Time and time again, I tell you guys that the best way to stay healthy is to stay informed. Read labels, I say. Know what you’re eating. Know what you’re not eating. Know this, know that, etc and make informed decisions. Well, part of making informed decisions is understanding how your body works. And for…