Recently, it has become a craze to demonize hydrogenated vegetable oils, also known as trans fats. Indeed, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.) is seeking to outright ban this class of substances, since they are, after all, "artery-clogging" and "a threat to public health." Trans fats are found in most pre-packaged foods, especially anything... Read More

Former president George W. Bush recently had surgery to open a blocked coronary artery. As the NBC Nightly News reported (click link for video) So George W. Bush, a famous fitness fanatic, had a blocked artery. Now, he was experiencing no symptoms, so "heart disease" may be a bit of a strong term. Indeed, it... Read More

Continuing my inquiry into this matter, one question that hasn't been satisfactorily answered is why has the obesity rate shot up in the past few decades? As I've made plain in previous posts, variation in obesity between individuals within a group at any given time is largely heritable, as is a good portion of the... Read More