by Bianca Garilli, ND, USMC Veteran Military ranks are full of healthy men and women participating in regular physical fitness routines comprised of cardiovascular fitness, strength training, and flexibility exercises all designed to keep the warfighter in tip top condition, ready to deploy and engage at a moment’s notice. In fact, due to the sharp focus on exercise and weight standards of the US Armed Forces, active duty troops are much healthier than their civilian counterparts. For example, rates of…

by Bianca Garilli, ND Among the general US adult population, obesity rates (BMI >30 kg/m2) were nearly 40% in 2015-2016 and have continued to rise over recent years.1 This growing epidemic has spared virtually no demographic in the country, including the active duty military and military veteran populations.1 Active duty military obesity rates and consequences Within the active duty ranks, obesity rates have climbed from 5% in 1995 to 12.7% in 2008.2 Although lower than the general population, the observed…

In this presentation made at The New York Academy of Sciences, Frank Hu, MD, PhD, Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School, provides an edifying overview of the relationship between nutrition and metabolic diseases. Dr. Hu delves deep into systems epidemiology, which integrates a wide range of information from genetic predisposition, epigenetics, genetic expression and other factors into population-based epidemiological studies. According to Dr. Hu, systems epidemiology exists at the intersection of human observational…

by Bianca Garilli, ND and Ashley Jordan Ferira, PhD, RDN Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is no longer a Western world phenomena, but rather a global epidemic, with research revealing an association between higher T2D rates and a country’s wealth or economic growth.1 As a clear example, in a publication titled “Prevalence of type 2 diabetes in the Arab world: impact of GDP and energy consumption”, it was observed that the higher a country’s gross domestic product (GDP), the higher the…

by Bianca Garilli, ND Globally, 39% of adults aged ≥18 years were classified as overweight and 13% obese in 2016, totaling a jaw-dropping 1.9 billion adults overall.1 With obesity rates soaring, tripling worldwide since 1975, most of the Earth’s population now lives in countries where overweight and obesity cause more morbidity and mortality than being underweight.1 Keeping pace with these gains in adiposity is the behemoth weight loss and weight management market, which consists of fitness centers, slimming centers, consulting…

by Bianca Garilli, ND Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the most common form of heart disease in the US, resulting in over 370,000 deaths annually.1 Because of its frequent and often fatal nature, it is important to understand the risk factors associated with heart disease and ways to mitigate that risk. A partial list of common CHD risk factors include: elevated blood pressure and cholesterol levels, diabetes and prediabetes, smoking, overweight or obesity, sedentary lifestyle, family history of early heart…

by Sara Gottfried, MD and Lewis Chang, PhD Media headlines have claimed that aspirin has no benefit for older adults. What’s the truth? Should we, as one major news website suggests, toss our aspirin? Aspirin is derived from the bark of several species of willow trees. It has been used for centuries for pain and inflammation. As a low-dose therapy, aspirin has been prescribed to reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, and stroke based on the results of multiple…

by Lewis Chang, PhD A ketogenic diet is a dietary approach that promotes nutritional ketosis by restricting carbohydrates and increasing the intake of fat with adequate consumption of protein. According to systematic reviews and meta-analyses, ketogenic diets may prevent an increase in appetite on reduced calorie diets1 and help achieve long-term body weight reduction.2 Emerging studies have suggested that ketogenic diets may be beneficial in diabetes management and exercise performance.3,4 Compliance with ketogenic diets can be difficult because the amount…

by Bianca Garilli, ND Obesity, a preventable condition, has tripled worldwide since 1975, with 340 million children and adolescents between 5-19 years of age with overweight or obesity in 2016 according to the World Health Organization (WHO).1 In children and adolescents, BMI-for-age growth charts are used to determine weight status; >85th and <95th percentile is considered overweight, while ≥95th percentile is obese.2 In the US, overweight and obesity disproportionally affect children of low-income households, whereas the risk of overweight and…

There is a need to identify methods to complement and enhance compliance for the ketogenic diet in order to induce and sustain ketosis. Exogenous ketone supplementation, particularly with beta-hydroxybutyrate (βHB) salts, is one such method that has grown in commercial popularity, but clinical studies that test the efficacy and safety of exogenous ketones are lacking. A pilot study1 published in the Journal of Nutritional Health & Food Engineering assessed the circulating βHB blood (capillary) concentration in response to acute, oral βHB…