NutritionFacts.org arises from my annual review of the medical literature. With the help of a team of hundreds of volunteers, we churned through tens of thousands of papers published in the peer-reviewed scientific nutrition literature and are ramping up to break new records in 2020. How do I choose which studies to highlight? In general, I strive to focus on the most groundbreaking, interesting, and useful findings; but which topics resonate the most? The practical ones, offering cooking or shopping tips? Or those that dissect the studies behind the headlines? Maybe it’s the geeky science ones exploring the wonderfully weird world of human biology? As you can see from the below list, the answer seems to be a bit of all of the above:
#10 Time-Restricted Eating Put to the Test
I was so excited to start to put all my intermittent fasting videos up. This one was more of a backgrounder. The thrilling conclusion can be found in The Benefits of Early Time-Restricted Eating, a video that ended up changing my own family’s eating habits.
#9 Eggs & Breast Cancer
How few eggs should we eat to reduce the risk of prostate, ovarian, colon, and breast cancer? This was part two of a three-part video series. The others were Dietary Cholesterol & Cancer and Oxidized Cholesterol 27HC May Explain 3 Breast Cancer Mysteries.
#8 Is It Best to Drink Tap, Filtered, or Bottled Water?
When I was writing the hydration chapter in How Not to Diet I figured I should do a deep dive into the best water filtration system. Given the disinfection byproducts in tap water, Brita, PUR, ZeroWater, and refrigerator water filters are put to the test.
#7 Is Butter Really Back? What the Science Says
Years ago I tried to put the controversy to rest with my videos The Saturated Fat Studies: Set Up to Fail and The Saturated Fat Studies: Buttering Up the Public but it keeps rearing it’s buttery head.
#6 Kidney Stones and Spinach, Chard, and Beet Greens: Don’t Eat Too Much
Given their oxalate content, how much is too much spinach, chard, beet greens, chaga mushroom powder, almonds, cashews, star fruit, and instant tea? Wait, what are oxalates? You may want to also check out the prequel video Oxalates in Spinach and Kidney Stones: Should We Be Concerned?
#5 The Best Diet for Diabetes
The case for using a plant-based diet to reduce the burden of diabetes has never been stronger and the good news is that finally the guidelines are starting to catch up: Plant-Based Diets Recognized by Diabetes Associations.
#4 Which Is a Better Breakfast: Cereal or Oatmeal?
One of the things I learned while writing How Not to Diet was the importance of not just whole grains but intact whole grains, the remarkable impact of the structure of food beyond nutritional content or composition.
#3 How to Cook Greens
Dark green leafy vegetables are the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet. What’s the best way to prepare them? What about other vegetables? Another popular video this year was Best Way to Cook Vegetables.
#2 Keto Diet Theory Put to the Test
Multiple videos from my ketogenic diet series made the top 10, but I decided to just list one, but you can find the rest here!
#1 Evidence-Based Weight Loss
Even though this just came out recently it’s already skyrocketed to the single most watched video of the year. It offers a sneak peek into How Not to Diet. If you want to watch the one I did on my last book check out How Not to Die.
In 2019 I did a series of webinars on fasting, which you can find here. They were so popular I decided to do a whole series of webinars on a variety of topics in 2020 (in between my 200-city speaking tour!). The first one explores the origin of the obesity epidemic. Obesity exploded throughout the industrialized world in the late 1970s. What happened? Any potential driver would have had to be global in nature and coincide with the upswing of the epidemic. So how do the various explanations stack up?
I hope you’ll join me as I sift through all competing theories and answer your questions in this 2-hour live webinar. Check out the full list of topics here.
To join, make a donation with this form ($20 is the suggested amount) and we will send you a link to register for the webinar as a donor reward. Your support helps NutritionFacts.org undergo its own explosion in global growth!
Webinar Date & Time: January 24, 2020, 2pm ET
Last Day to Register: January 16, 2020
In health,
Michael Greger, M.D.
PS: If you haven’t yet, you can subscribe to my free videos here and watch my live, year-in-review presentations:
- 2019: Evidence-Based Weight Loss
- 2016: How Not To Die: The Role of Diet in Preventing, Arresting, and Reversing Our Top 15 Killers
- 2015: Food as Medicine: Preventing and Treating the Most Dreaded Diseases with Diet
- 2014: From Table to Able: Combating Disabling Diseases with Food
- 2013: More Than an Apple a Day
- 2012: Uprooting the Leading Causes of Death
