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Articles by Maria Cross
the cholesterol paradox: why people with HIGH cholesterol live longer
Cholesterol is, hands down, the topic I get asked about the most. Should I avoid egg yolks? Is butter/meat/dairy really bad for me? My doctor wants me on statins—what should I do? Are saturated fats dangerous? The confusion makes sense. For decades we’ve been told that cholesterol is the enemy, that eating fat “clogs our arteries,” and that the only path to safety is lowering our numbers, often with medication.
Nutritional Heresy №5: Fruit and Vegetables Can Be Bad For You
Why you might need to cut back Maria Cross · Follow 5 min read · -- Microsoft Designer We’ve had it well and truly hammered into us that we should all eat as much fruit and veg as we can fit on our plates. That the reason why we are all so sick with chronic disease is because we don’t eat enough plant foods, unlike all those fit and healthy immortals living in the Mediterranean regions. But what if all those healthy plant foods are, in reality, doing more harm than good?
Nutritional Heresy No. 4: You Probably Don’t Eat Enough Red Meat
We’ve been cutting down for years, and look where that’s got us Maria Cross · Follow 6 min read · -- When planning big international events, some see it as an opportunity to impose their ideology on others, certain they’ll be sure to cooperate. That must have been the thinking of the organisers of the 2024 Olympic games. They decided that athletes should ignore human biology and switch to an inferior, 60% meatless menu, for the sake of the planet.
Can Spermidine Help Prevent Memory Loss?
Studies show how this natural compound helps the brain detoxify itself Maria Cross · Follow Published in Feed Your Brain · 5 min read · -- image Considering that spermidine was first discovered in 1678, in a sample of human semen, it’s remarkable that it has only recently become a supplement of interest. I must admit to having given spermidine little attention until recently.
How to Maintain Eyesight as You Get Older
Dietary strategies to optimise your vision Maria Cross · Follow 7 min read · -- image Wouldn’t it be great if we could all cruise through a long life with few health problems, then die peacefully in our sleep when our number’s up. That happy and healthy scenario is granted to just a lucky few. For the rest of us, stuff happens: accidents, genetic curveballs, inexplicable maladies. But too many people go through life with what are largely preventable chronic diseases, and that’s a tragedy.
How a Blood Test Can Reveal One Major Cause of Depression
Genes, diet and toxic homocysteine Maria Cross · Follow Published in Feed Your Brain · 4 min read · -- Ofall the possiblereasons to feel depressed, a genetic mutation is probably the least likely to spring to mind. It’s also the least likely to be investigated. The evidence suggests it should be. A simple blood test could tell you if you have a genetic mutation, or variation, that leads to elevated levels of an amino acid called homocysteine.
Unresolved Gut Problems: Could It Be Histamine Intolerance?
It’s often overlooked. Here are the signs and symptoms Anyone experiencing unresolved, chronic gut and other health issues will be familiar with the long, complex search for a solution. It’s a journey that often involves many twists, turns, and wild goose chases down rabbit holes that lead to… nowhere. To get to the solution, you must first get to the cause.
Nutritional Heresy №2: Saturated Fat Is Not Just Harmless, It’s Healthy
Nutritional Heresy №2: Saturated Fat Is Not Just Harmless, It’s Healthy Advice on saturated fat is usually paired in sentences with sugar. “Diets high in saturated fat and sugar will kill you”, or something along these lines, is a common caution. This is defamation of character. Unlike sugar, saturated fat is a giver, not a killer, as anyone who really knows anything about nutrition will tell you.
Avoid Wholegrains if You Care About Your Health
I'll go even further and say that if you base your diet on wholegrains, you might experience some gut problems. You might also experience blood sugar issues along with protein, vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Don't expect to live longer, either, because wholegrains are said to be the stars of the Blue Zones diet. Or is it the Mediterranean diet? Because neither diet actually exists in the real world. They exist only in books and articles.
The Anti-dementia Effect of Coconut Oil
Anyone who has ever taken a hammer to a coconut will know that it is a hard nut to crack. Is it worth the effort? Most definitely, especially if your goal is to maintain your cognitive faculties and ward off dementia. Some extraordinary health claims have been made about the coconut, some more creative than others.Traditionally, it is said to cure almost anything, from abscesses to syphilis, from baldness to toothache. You won't find a great deal of evidence to support most of these claims.
A Guide for Young People
Gallstones are very painful. They are also increasingly common and affect more young people than ever. Like most chronic conditions, they are associated with lifestyle factors, meaning that they are largely avoidable. So why not avoid them if you can? Once you know the risk factors, it becomes easier. Below are some ways you can avoid being one of an ever-growing number of people with gallstone disease. But first, you should know that there's a good chance you already have gallstones.
Could Mental Illness be Linked to Poor Metabolism?
By Maria Cross Studies on the ketogenic diet are positive image Quiz time: What is the link between mental illness and poor metabolism? The correct answer may be fat, according to a recently published pilot study. Dietary fat, that is. Not the fat that accumlates where you wish it wouldn't. A high fat diet, with very...
The Role of Magnesium
By Maria Cross It's a crucial element, but deficiency is rife Image Magnesium is a mineral usually associated with bones and muscle. Less celebrated is its involvement in brain health, and the consequences of inadequate daily amounts. In previous articles I've discussed the role of various nutrients that help retain memory function: zinc, omega-3 fatty acids...
How To Protect Your Brain From Memory Loss
By Maria Cross Four ways to ensure you get enough of this memory mineral image Magnesium is a mineral usually associated with bones and muscle. Less celebrated is its involvement in brain health, and the consequences of inadequate daily amounts. Emerging evidence suggests that increasing your intake of magnesium may improve brain function. In men...
It’s a Crime: How Food Can Trigger Aggressive Behaviour
Food affects mood. But it can go a lot further than that If you Google the question “Why is everyone so angry?”, as I recently did, you’ll find plenty of articles dissecting this troubling phenomenon and citing startling facts and figures. CBS News has covered it, so too has the New York Times and most of the British newspapers. We’ve all noticed it: people are angry in shops, on airplanes, in restaurants, and in their cars and homes.
This is What the Ketogenic Diet Does to Your Brain
Stone-Age humans had a taste for large, fatty animals. They liked nothing better than a woolly mammoth, with its thick layers of delicious, unctuous fat. The farther north humans travelled during the Palaeolithic era, the more they relied entirely on megafauna for survival, as plant foods became less available. They were living in the Ice Age, after all. Fast forward to 2024, and the megafauna have disappeared along with the ice.
How Vitamin K Helps Sharpen Your Memory
Vitamin K is not the first thing you think of when seeking natural ways to strengthen your mental faculties. But that belies the considerable scientific literature documenting the potential of this workhorse of a vitamin, ploughing away under the radar. There are two main forms of this fat-soluble vitamin: vitamin K1 (phylloquinone) and vitamin K2 (menaquinone).
How To Repair Your Liver
You’ve had a rest and now it’s time to clear up There’s something rather soothing about the first few months of the year. There’s not much going on, diary-wise, but there’s a pile of books still waiting to be read and plenty of great stuff to catch up with on TV. This is a time of rest and some light internal housekeeping. The liver is the place to start. The liver is a thing of wonder, the multi-tasker par excellence.
Choose Free-Range Foods For Better Health
Meat, dairy, fish and eggs are the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet. But even then, the quality and quantity of the nutrients they offer depend on the diet of the animals in question. Therefore, it makes sense to choose food from livestock that has eaten well. Meat may be sourced from animals that are grass-fed, pasture-fed or concentrate-fed. Grass-fed does not necessarily mean that the animal grazed on grass all its life.
How Intermittent Fasting Can Help Crohn’s, Cancer, and Depression.
There’s much more to IF than weight loss. Here’s the latest research. Fibre is one of those food components that we automatically assume to be essential for good gut health. Yet our assumptions are frequently challenged. November saw the publication of a study that looked at how a fibre-free diet is an effective treatment to induce remission in children with Crohn’s disease. Crohn’s disease is a debilitating and painful condition, potentially life-threatening.
How to Feed Your Brain
Seven evolutionary steps to transform your mental health When I first started to write this book, I assumed it would be a straightforward matter of detailing all the nutrients that help the brain to function at its best. I soon realised that the task I’d set myself was more complex than I’d anticipated. To understand the requirements of the modern human brain, I first had to comprehend how it had grown, from small and unremarkable to large and phenomenal, over the course of human evolution.
How Coffee Helps Prevent Dementia
Full disclosure: I’m a coffee lover so I’ll say anything good about it. I write this, fully caffeinated and heavily biased. But, in my defence, there is some very good research suggesting that coffee might promote brain health. That’s because it can trigger a process called autophagy. In 2016, Japanese cell biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi won a Nobel Prize for his discovery of the mechanism of autophagy, the process the body uses to clear out and recycle old cell components.
How to Feed Your Brain: The Book is OUT NOW!
How to Feed Your Brain: The Book is OUT NOW! As it says on the back cover of How to Feed Your Brain, everything you eat affects the way your brain works. How to Feed Your Brain is big on information, guidance, and tips. It is a distilled version of the science, with the focus directly on what you need to know and what you need to do, to maximise your brain function. Everything is given in simple, practical terms. It’s an ancient story.
How to Maintain Body Strength as You Age
I listened to a fascinating BBC Food Programme podcast the other day. It was called Eating Wild and was hosted by food journalist Dan Saladino. It was fascinating in several ways, not least because it offered a glimpse into how a traditional, ancestral diet may be the key to healthy ageing. In this half-hour programme, Saladino talks to British explorer and "chef adventurer" Mike Keen. Mike, 54, undertook a 3,000 km solo expedition, kayaking from south to north up the west coast of Greenland.
How to Feel Good, Happy and Calm
You are responsible for your own feelings, so you should take control of your emotions, change your attitude, think positive ... and so on. These are popular motivational slogans that may be well intended, but do not really address the fundamental matter of how best to achieve the emotions you seek. Those emotions are produced by particular neurotransmitters that are active in the brain: dopamine, serotonin and GABA. Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers and are made from the food you eat.
Cut Down on Your Fruit and Vegetables
Sometimes I tell a client that they should remove much of the fruit and vegetable content from their diet. Plus all those beans, lentils, nuts and seeds they are convinced are the path to health and longevity. From their expression it is immediately clear that they are in a mild state of confusion and wondering what sort of nutritionist I am. I go on to explain my rationale, and they leave reassured. About a week or so later, they get in touch to let me know just how much better they feel.
an Antidote to Lust
The breakfast cereal (made from wheat, rice and corn) is a relatively modern feature of the human diet. It's quick and convenient, but that's not why it was created. It was to stop your impure thoughts. It all began with one woman - Ellen G. White, the co-founder of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in the 1840s. She claimed to have had over 2000 divine visions that decreed the abstinence of alcohol, tobacco, spices, tea, coffee, and meat.
How To Feed Your Brain
This is my BIG ANNOUNCEMENT. My book on diet and mental health will be published in October 2023, and I could not be more excited. How to Feed Your Brain is a guide to eating the most nutritious, brain-friendly foods available, to maximise brain function throughout each stage of life, starting in the womb. It's also about avoiding brain disorders.From anxiety to depression, from ADHD to Alzheimer's, discover the way that food influences your mental wellbeing.
What You Should Eat For Your Mental Health: Mussels
A regular weekend treat in our household is mussels steamed in butter and white wine. As well as being a feast for the senses, this dish is also a complete brain food, par excellence. Mussels are an extraordinarily rich source of the key brain nutrients: vitamin B12, zinc, omega-3 fatty acids, selenium, and of course iodine. Mood, memory and concentration all depend on these nutrients. Mussels are also a decent and surprising source of vitamin C.
Indigestion? If you're on antacids, you may be making things worse
Too little, rather than too much, stomach acid may be the problem Your digestive tract is about 9 meters (30 feet) long, from start to end. That's a lot of scope for malfunction. Problems can originate in the mouth, pick up speed in the stomach, intestines or colon, and culminate in an explosive finale at the bitter end. But for now, let's just focus on the stomach. This pouch-like structure lies at the bottom end of a short shaft, the oesophagus, and is reached via the lower oesophageal sphincter.
Eggs for Breakfast, Eggs for Brains
By Maria Cross Image Do you avoid eggs because you worry about cholesterol and fat? Find yourself separating the white from the yolk, only to be left with a sad shell of a compromise? There's no need to worry, or to compromise. Eggs - whole eggs - are nutritious...
How to Prevent Memory Loss
By Maria Cross Proven methods, with and without side effects Great news: a new Alzheimer's drug was recently proven to slow down memory loss in people at the early stages of the disease. Also great news: there are several dietary interventions that are also proven to slow down memory loss in people at the early stages of the disease.
Your Sperm Count is Plummeting
By Maria Cross And that's a warning sign for other health problems A paper published in November 2022 describes data from 223 international studies that reveal that sperm count across the globe has decreased by more than half over the last fifty years. According to the team of scientists who made this discovery, humanity faces a "fertility crisis."
Why You Crave Carbohydrates
By Maria Cross Food addiction is part of your wiring, but it is not inevitable I recently went to a local Christmas craft fair. It was delightful, in a tinsel-tat sort of way. The food stall was the main attraction, for me, so I quickly made my way over, hoping to discover something new and special. Alas no, it was the usual cake fest. Don't get me wrong: there's no denying the artistry...
How Vegetable Cooking Oils Destroy Your Health
By Maria Cross You thought sugar was bad? Meet its evil twin I recently came across these empty cooking oil containers that had been deposited behind a restaurant near my home. It's not an unusual sight in areas with catering establishments. Less visible is the damage that these commonplace oils do to human health.
How to Know if You are Iron Deficient
By Maria Cross Beyond fatigue: from your hair to your heart, everything's affected. Without sufficient iron, you're likely to feel very, very tired. But that's just the start of it. And if you think you're immune because you already eat plenty of iron, think again. What you eat and what you absorb are two very different matters.
This Is What Happens To Your Brain When You Cut Out Carbohydrates
By Maria Cross Mental and physical health are linked - here's how. Image Treatment for mental health conditions is not always effective. Sometimes the meds work, sometimes they don't. When they don't, science has to look beyond the usual parameters for the solutions needed.
Cancer: The Carbohydrate Connection
Cancer: The Carbohydrate Connection We’ve known about this for a hundred years. Time to act. Image: Bundesarchiv, Bild 102–12525 / Georg Pahl / CC-BY-SA 3.0 In 1924, German medical doctor and scientist Otto Heinrich Warburg made a discovery that was to potentially revolutionise our understanding of cancer. His astonishing breakthrough, that was to later earn him a Nobel Prize in physiology, could have — should have — changed the course of cancer prevention and treatment. But it didn’t. It wasn’t…
Cancer: The Carbohydrate Connection
We’ve known about this for a hundred years. Time to act. Image: Bundesarchiv, Bild 102–12525 / Georg Pahl / CC-BY-SA 3.0 In 1924, German medical doctor and scientist Otto Heinrich Warburg made a discovery that was to potentially revolutionise our understanding of cancer. His astonishing breakthrough, that was to later earn him a Nobel Prize in physiology, could have — should have — changed the course of cancer prevention and treatment. But it didn’t. It wasn’t about drugs.
The Truth Is In There
Brain “plasticity” was one of the most sensational neuroscientific discoveries of the 20th century. Contrary to long-held assumptions, the brain is not hardwired for life once adulthood is reached. It can and does change. All it takes is imagination. Just imagine Alvaro Pascual-Leone is a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School.
Should Fluoride Be Added to Drinking Water?
The fluoridation of water is regarded as a key strategy in the prevention of tooth decay. Some people are very keen on it, whereas others object strongly. Why on earth would anyone oppose such an apparently effective solution? After all, it is widely stated by health authorities that levels of around 1 mg per litre of fluoride in drinking water are associated with lower incidence of dental caries. Opinions aside, nobody could doubt that we have a problem in need of a solution.
Why You Should Always Choose the Full-Fat Option
In order to eat a whole food diet, you need to eat the whole food. I recently bought a tub of fat-free, natural yogurt. For a nutritionist, this was more than a terrible mistake. It was an entry-level error that made me feel like an amateur. Removing the fat from whole food benefits no one, other than the manufacturer doing the removing. That may come as a surprise to some, but don’t believe the health hype.
How Giving Up Sugar Can Improve Your Mental Health
By Maria Cross From anxiety to depression - why you should hold that cake. Sugar makes you fat, which is bad enough. But can it really make you depressed? Clinically depressed, even? The evidence is compelling, and it's a journey that starts with a mild blood sugar imbalance and can end with serious mental illness.
Three Effective Ways to Control Your Hunger Hormones
By Maria Cross Smart weight loss is about knowledge, not willpower What makes you want to eat? However complex your motivations may seem, the hunger game is essentially a game of hormones. Don't turn it into a power struggle - you can learn how to trigger or suppress the hormones involved in the desire to eat, and stay in control of your appetite.
United States’ History Comes to Life
You are who you vote for AdobeStock_236242476.jpeg (Rawpixel.com) If you want to know why diversity efforts are failing, we need only to look at election results. Even if I concede that Trump is right for the economy, I must believe that money matters above all else. Of course, it does. This is the United States. But you can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can’t maintain happy, positive relationships with the people whose interests you vote against.
Why You Need Cholesterol For Your Mental Health
By Maria Cross And how it could even save your life Image Think cholesterol, and you probably think heart disease. But without this fat-like substance, you wouldn't be able to think about anything much at all. It is one of the most important substances in the brain. Keep it there.
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