Nutrition Diva

886. Put "GLP-1" on a label and you can sell almost anything right now: supplements, snacks, drink powders, even a gadget that sits next to your toilet.Some of these products are designed for people taking GLP-1 medications, who can have real nutritional needs. Others promise to boost your body's own GLP-1 as a path to weight loss. That second pitch is a lot shakier, and the reason comes down to what these medications are and how they work.Monica separates the science from the marketing:What GLP-1 is, and what this gut hormone does after you eatWhy semaglutide, tirzepatide, and retatrutide aren't technically "GLP-1s," and what receptor agonists, dual agonists, and triple agonists areThe more accurate names the medical community has proposed for this drug class, and why none of them has stuckHow fermentable soluble fiber feeds your gut microbiome, produces short-chain fatty acids, and raises natural GLP-1Why nobody was talking about boosting natural GLP-1 until these medications took offA bathroom device that estimates your fiber intake from the air around your toilet, and why it doesn't measure GLP-1 at allWhy these medications don't treat a GLP-1 deficiencyWhy your natural GLP-1 breaks down within minutes while semaglutide stays active for days, and what that difference means for appetite and weight lossWhy eating more fiber is still a good idea, even if it won't do what the label impliesNutrition science you can trust, in plain English.Have a food or nutrition question for a future episode? Email [email protected]. To book Monica for a live or virtual event, visit wellnessworkshere.com.New to Nutrition Diva? Check out our special Spotify playlist for a collection of the best episodes curated by our team and Monica herself!Follow Nutrition Diva on Facebook and subscribe to the newsletter for more diet and nutrition tips.Find out about Monica's keynotes and other programs at WellnessWorksHere.comNutrition Diva is a part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

885. You need choline every day. Nobody can tell you exactly how much. There's no RDA for choline, because there isn't enough data to set one. What we have instead is an estimate — and it traces back largely to a single study that enrolled only men. The numbers for women were scaled down from there, mostly by body size.Choline is an essential nutrient a lot of people have never heard of. Your liver makes some of it, but not enough, so the rest has to come from food. It's needed to build phosphatidylcholine and the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, and it plays an outsized role in brain development before birth and in early childhood.Monica walks through what's known and what isn't:Why choline gets grouped with the B vitamins even though it isn't oneWhat severe deficiency does to the liver, and what recent research links low intake to in older adultsWhy there's no RDA for choline, and what an Adequate Intake is actually based onHow estrogen changes the picture, and why premenopausal women may need less than men rather than moreWhy pregnancy may call for more than the current recommendation, and why most prenatal vitamins leave choline out or include very littleWhat ACOG advises for women who are pregnant or trying to conceiveWhere choline shows up in food, from egg yolks and liver to soybeans, mushrooms, and cruciferous vegetablesWhy falling short of the Adequate Intake isn't the same as being deficientThe prostate cancer findings, and why a nutrient that supports healthy cell division can behave differently in someone who already has cancerThe TMAO question, and why fish raises TMAO more than eggs or beef doWho might reasonably consider a supplement, and why more isn't betterCholine Content of Common FoodsNutrition science you can trust, in plain English.Have a food or nutrition question for a future episode? Email [email protected]. To book Monica for a live or virtual event, visit wellnessworkshere.com.New to Nutrition Diva? Check out our special Spotify playlist for a collection of the best episodes curated by our team and Monica herself!Follow Nutrition Diva on Facebook and subscribe to the newsletter for more diet and nutrition tips.Find out about Monica's keynotes and other programs at WellnessWorksHere.comNutrition Diva is a part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

884. Your doctor can write you a prescription for a statin or a blood pressure medication. What if they could also prescribe fresh vegetables, and your health insurance paid for them?That’s one of the central ideas behind the Food Is Medicine movement, and cardiologist Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian is one of its leading voices. In his new book, “Food Is Medicine: Healing Our Bodies, Nourishing Our Minds, and Transforming Our Food System,” he argues that diet is the leading driver of chronic disease in the US and that it can also be part of the treatment.Monica Reinagel, MS, LDN, talks with Dr. Mozaffarian about:What “food is medicine” means, and what it doesn’tHow produce prescriptions and medically tailored meals and groceries work, and how they differ from SNAPPromising results from pilot programs serving people with type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart failure, and high-risk pregnanciesWhy opening grocery stores in food deserts didn’t change how people ateWhat car safety and anti-smoking efforts can teach us about changing the food systemHow much nutrition training doctors need, and where registered dietitians fit inWhy a healthy diet is more about adding good food than cutting out bad foodNutrition science you can trust, in plain English.Have a food or nutrition question for a future episode? Email [email protected]. To book Monica for a live or virtual event, visit wellnessworkshere.com.Related episodes:735 – A provocative new study on ultra-processed foods334 – Is the Mediterranean Diet all it's cracked up to be?New to Nutrition Diva? Check out our special Spotify playlist for a collection of the best episodes curated by our team and Monica herself!Follow Nutrition Diva on Facebook and subscribe to the newsletter for more diet and nutrition tips.Find out about Monica's keynotes and other programs at WellnessWorksHere.comNutrition Diva is a part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

883. You've probably been told to skip broccoli, garlic, spicy food, sushi, peanuts and even your morning coffee while breast-feeding. How much of that advice holds up?Monica Reinagel, MS, LDN, sorts fact from folklore on what to eat and what to avoid while nursing. She covers the colic theory about cruciferous vegetables, the open question of whether eating peanuts during breast-feeding affects a baby's allergy risk, and the NIH ESCAPE trial now testing it.In this episode, Monica explainsWhether cabbage, broccoli and garlic really cause gas and colic in breast-fed babiesWhy spicy food doesn't harm breast milk, and how your diet shapes your baby's food preferencesWhat the research says about peanuts during breast-feeding, and why early peanut introduction cuts allergy riskHow much caffeine and alcohol are considered safe, and how long to wait before nursingWhy the pregnancy rules on sushi and soft cheese don't apply while nursingWhich fish to choose, how many extra calories and fluids you need, and what to know about vitamin D for babyReferencesMaternal Versus Infant Vitamin D Supplementation During Lactation: A Randomized Controlled Trial - PubMedRandomized trial of peanut consumption in infants at risk for peanut allergy - PubMedPrevention and Treatment of Peanut Allergy - PubMedRelated episodes261: Can diet and nutrition help you get pregnant?281: How much weight should you gain during pregnancy?New to Nutrition Diva? Check out our special Spotify playlist for a collection of the best episodes curated by our team and Monica herself!Follow Nutrition Diva on Facebook and subscribe to the newsletter for more diet and nutrition tips.Find out about Monica's keynotes and other programs at WellnessWorksHere.comNutrition Diva is a part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

882. Someone in your office comes back from vacation with a box of soups and shakes and announces they're doing a five-day fast. Except they're eating.Fasting-mimicking diets are unusual among viral wellness protocols in that there is a real body of peer-reviewed research behind them. There is also a company selling the five-day kits, founded by the researcher who developed the protocol and funding many of the trials. Both of those things are true at the same time.In this episode, Monica breaks down what the research actually shows:What the five-day protocol involves, including the calorie targets and why it's deliberately low in proteinWhat "fasting mimicking" means, and which effects of a multi-day fast it's trying to reproduceThe 2017 trial in 100 healthy adults, where participants lost about five and a half pounds over three months but saw no change in blood sugar, cholesterol, blood pressure, or inflammationWhy the subgroup findings are interesting and why they aren't proofThe 12-month trial in people with type 2 diabetes, where 40% reduced their diabetes medication compared with 5% in usual careWhat the cancer research has shown in mice, what it hasn't yet shown in people, and why anyone in treatment needs their oncology team in the conversation firstWhy the claim that five days can make you two and a half years biologically younger is the weakest part of the evidence, and what happened to the third of participants whose scores got worseWhether you can replicate the protocol without buying a branded kit, and what you might be giving up if you doWhat the dropout rates in these studies say about how doable this really isNew to Nutrition Diva? Check out our special Spotify playlist for a collection of the best episodes curated by our team and Monica herself!Follow Nutrition Diva on Facebook and subscribe to the newsletter for more diet and nutrition tips.Find out about Monica's keynotes and other programs at WellnessWorksHere.comNutrition Diva is a part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network.Related Episodes 788: intermittent fasting Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.