Section

Nutrition

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Nutrition

Magnesium: How Much You Need, Where It Comes From, and What a Supplement Can and Cannot Do

Most people can meet their magnesium needs from spinach, nuts, seeds, beans and wholegrains. A supplement helps a few, does little for cramps or sleep in most, and has an upper limit worth respecting.

Sep 21, 2026/3 min read

A small terracotta pot filled with almonds and cashews against a green background, two of the nut sources of magnesium, photographed in June 2018

Nutrition

Oily Fish Twice a Week or Once: What the Official Advice Says, What Counts, and Who Should Eat Less

At least two portions of fish a week, one of them oily, is the standing advice in the UK. Tinned tuna does not count, tinned sardines do, and some groups are told to limit how much they eat.

Sep 14, 2026/3 min read

Grilled sardines served with a lemon wedge, red onion and green leaves, photographed in March 2017

Nutrition

A Mouse Study Says Sweeteners Left Marks Two Generations On, and It Is Being Read Far Too Confidently

47 mice drank water, sucralose or stevia. Their children and grandchildren, who drank only water, showed some of the same changes to gut bacteria and gene activity. That is genuinely interesting and it is not a finding about people.

Sep 1, 2026/3 min read

Three black laboratory mice on wood shavings in a cage, beside a cardboard tube

Nutrition

They Changed the Light and the Algae Started Making the Vitamin B12 a Human Can Actually Use

Ordinary spirulina is full of a B12 lookalike the body cannot use, which is why it has never been the answer for anyone avoiding animal food. Adjusting the light it grows under produced 1.64 micrograms of the active form per 100 grams.

Aug 31, 2026/3 min read

Open raceway ponds used to cultivate microalgae outdoors, the conventional growing method the study set out to improve on

Nutrition

Every One of 212 Plant Based Products Tested in Britain Contained a Fungal Toxin

A survey published in Food Control screened UK burgers, vegan sausages and oat, almond and soy drinks for 19 mycotoxins. All 212 carried at least one. Every measured level sat below the European guideline, which is the part people keep skipping.

Aug 30, 2026/4 min read

A plant based cheeseburger in a pretzel bun, served with fries, pickles and a pot of mayonnaise

Nutrition

Wine Drinkers Died Less Often in a 340,000 Person Study, and the Most Likely Explanation Is Dinner

An analysis of 340,924 UK Biobank adults found moderate wine drinkers had a 21 per cent lower risk of cardiovascular death, while beer, cider and spirits went the other way. The researchers' own leading explanation is not the wine.

Aug 28, 2026/4 min read

Tables laid with wine glasses, cutlery and folded napkins in a restaurant dining room

Nutrition

The Mice Kept Eating Less and Put the Weight Back On Anyway. That Is the Interesting Part.

A Yale study found semaglutide switches the brain's hunger neurons on rather than off, and that those neurons are required for fat loss to last. Remove them and the mice ate just as little and regained the weight within fifteen days.

Aug 25, 2026/4 min read

Three laboratory mice in a cage with bedding and a cardboard tube

Nutrition

Tahini Is One Ingredient, and the Jar in Your Cupboard Is Probably the Wrong One

Ground sesame, nothing else. Whether it is hulled or unhulled changes the taste completely, the bitterness people complain about is usually a sign of the cheap kind, and the trick that stops it seizing is counterintuitive.

Aug 21, 2026/3 min read

A jar of pale tahini with a spoon lifting a ribbon of the paste

Nutrition

Psyllium Husk Is the Dullest Thing in the Supplement Aisle and Almost the Only One That Works

It has an authorised FDA health claim, which almost no supplement does, and meta-analyses behind it for cholesterol, blood glucose and constipation. One gel-forming property explains all three, and so does the way it goes wrong.

Aug 20, 2026/5 min read

Nutrition

Sugar-Free Does Not Mean Carbohydrate-Free, and the Biscuit Knows That Even If You Do Not

A product can be free of sugar, full of refined flour, sweetened with something that still raises glucose, and carry more fat and calories than the version it replaced. Regulators in Europe eventually stopped allowing a diabetic food category altogether.

Aug 19, 2026/3 min read

An opened packet of plain biscuits beside a heap of white flour

Nutrition

Eating the Same Meal in a Different Order Cut Post-Meal Glucose by More Than a Third

Identical food, identical calories, identical macronutrients. The only variable was what went in the mouth first, and glucose at sixty minutes fell by 36.7 per cent. It is the cheapest intervention in diabetes nutrition.

Aug 18, 2026/3 min read

Three plates in sequence: salad, then grilled fish, then rice