Dr. Ann

Americans love to eat at restaurants, but should you be eating out for most of your meals? Today I want to share a bit on the perils of dining out. Over the past few decades, the most dramatic shift in our dietary habits has been the replacement of home-cooked meals with foods prepared by restaurants, […]

Sugar substitutes’ reputation as a useful tool for weight control and a “safe” substitute for sugar just received a major setback. In this study, scientists could not identify a sufficient level of evidence to indicate that sugar substitutes help us with weight control. To the contrary, the studies that followed individuals for the longest periods […]

Even a few nights of poor sleep in healthy individuals results in a transient state of pre-diabetes. That is the eye-opening conclusion of a study that underscores how vital sleep is for metabolic function. For this study, researchers subjected 19 healthy, young men to four consecutive nights of sleep deprivation (just 4.3 hours of sleep) […]

Eating “ultra-palatable” foods with any regularity. Foods high in fat and/or sugar and salt can directly stimulate the brain’s pleasure centers predisposing to food addiction and chronic loss of appetite control. The worst offenders are traditional fast foods, along with ice cream, cookies, pastries, cake, donuts, and other sweets/desserts. Using fat-free salad dressings. Most are excessive […]

Exercise most days — If you don’t accumulate at least 30 minutes of moderate aerobic activity most days of the week you are virtually guaranteed to accumulate belly fat. And the more the better! Eat an abundance of non-starchy veggies and fruits. Enjoy beans daily. Avoid the “Great White Hazards” — white flour products, white rice, white […]

  Your weight status in young adulthood appears to have a significant influence on your future risk of several major cancers. That was the conclusion of an illuminating, new study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology. For this study, scientists followed the body weight (BMI) and cancer status of over 220,000 adults for an average […]

Enjoying a generous handful of walnuts daily can improve the quality of your diet and boost your cardiometabolic health-without sabotaging your waistline. That was the encouraging conclusion from a clinical trial conducted to test the effects of a daily dose of walnuts on cardiometabolic health. For this study, researchers provided diet counseling to 112 adults […]

Evidence is rapidly mounting that junk foods may be truly addicting.  Both in animal and human studies, it seems that ultra palatable foods, especially those high in both fat and sugar (think donuts, milk shakes, cheesecake) can highjack our normal appetite regulatory mechanisms, throwing us into a perpetual cycle of desire and binging. A laboratory study […]

Diet soda, better known as a “science experiment in a can,” has ZERO nutritionally redeeming values and a growing list of strikes against it on the health front. I urge you to wise up and ditch the habit. Here are seven science-based reasons to dump the diet drinks forever. (I’m launching my latest e-course on […]

An eye-popping report adds to growing evidence that diet drinks may be working against us in our efforts to lose weight. Researchers who followed 474 people over a 10-year period found those who used diet sodas experienced a 70% increase in their belly circumference vs. those who did not drink diet sodas. For frequent diet […]

We now have credible data to support that calories consumed late at night are more fattening than those consumed during the day.  An intriguing laboratory study revealed “hard data” to give us reason to be particularly food-wary during the wee hours of the night. Scientist have consistently observed that shift workers who are frequently forced to eat […]

Have you ever noticed that your hunger increases as the day goes on and peaks at night? If so, know that science has backed up this “gut feeling,” and the body’s internal clock (the circadian system) appears to be highly involved. The researchers noted that although this pattern of appetite and subsequent food consumption may have served […]