Sigma Nutrition Radio

Links: Subscribe to Premium Go to this episode's page (with links) Live event: London - March 18th Receive 'Sigma Synopsis' emails Description: When thinking about the effect of eating or not eating a certain food or nutrient, we can't consider this in isolation. Meaning, we need to evaluate the impact within the context of what such an inclusion/exclusion does to an individual's overall diet patt...

Links: Episode page Subscribe to Premium Live Event: London, UK Receive the Sigma Synopsis emails     About This Episode: Does sodium lead to calcium losses? Do high-salt diets harm bone health? At what thresholds could there be an impact? Does any of this change our recommendations around salt/sodium intake? Thanks to  Sigma Nutrition Premium  subscriber Kate Wall for submitting a question in the...

Links: Subscribe to Premium Episode page   Description: Nutritionists, dietitians and other health & fitness professionals face many challenges when attempting to help their clients and in understanding what approaches are best in a given situations. There are often discussions around improving client adherence to dietary recommendations. However, sometimes we need to think deeper about this topic...

Links: Episode page Subscribe to Premium Live event in London, UK Description: Meal timing has been a popular, and at times controversial, topic of interest in nutrition. Despite much speculation over the years as to potential advantages to specific meal timing or meal frequencies, for many outcomes there seems to be little pragmatically meaningful difference. For example, when accounting for calo...

Research in the field of 'chrononutrition' has continued to grow in the past couple of years, with some important studies being published in recent times. Chrononutrition is a research area that looks at the relationship between temporal (time-related) eating patterns, circadian rhythms, and metabolic health. While past podcast episodes have covered various aspects of chrononutrition, the latest r...

There is almost universal agreement that excess added sugar in the diet is detrimental to health. However, much of this negative health impact clearly relates to the ability of high sugar intakes to drive excess calorie intake and fat accumulation, which cause health issues. But what about situtaions of where there is not a calorie surplus (hypercaloric diet) or weight gain? Some people claim that...

This episode brings you a "debate" between Danny Lennon and Dr. Jackson Peos on the utility of intuitive eating. Specifcally, they make a case for and against, respectively, for the position: "Intuitive eating can be recommended eating approach for those with fitness and/or physique goals". This episode is a Premium-exclusive episode, so you'll need to be a Premium subscriber to listen to the full...

Iron is an important nutrient for athletes, given that it is used for oxygen transport and energy production. However, research on athletes often reports a relatively high prevalence of iron deficiency. Common symptoms of low iron status like lethargy, fatigue and negative mood states are naturally of concern to athletes. But there is also the potential for low iron to directly impact work capacit...

Iron deficiency is a prevalent issue. Worldwide, it is the leading nutritional deficiency. And although there is lower prevalence in high-income countries, a significant number of people are still affected. Iron deficiency may be a result of too little iron coming in (i.e., via diet choices or low absorption), or from excess losses (e.g., commonly from blood losses). Understanding how these can im...

Iron is involved in a whole range of biological processes and a consistent supply of iron is crucial for cellular turnover. But despite iron being an essential mineral for human function, it is highly toxic to cells and tissues if present at high levels. Therefore an intricate and tight regulation of iron is necessary. If iron status gets too low, iron-deficiency anaemia can result. In such situat...

The current food environment is continuously highlighted as a problem for public health. And so there is a strong focus in both public policy and research circles to determine which strategies could lead to a healthier food environment. One potential strategy that is widely recommended by public health experts is the use of fiscal/taxation policies to decrease the consumption of unhealthy foods an...

In October 2022, Ruddick-Collins  et al . published results of an RCT looking at the impact of different calorie distributions across the day. This study was from the 'Big Breakfast Study' project, primarily from the University of Aberdeen. In this study, 30 subjects underwent two 4-week calorie-restricted diets that were matched for calories. One diet was "morning-loaded", meaning that daily calo...

In this episode, the Sigma team explores the question: "Do vegan diets increase the risk of depression?" This is a question that emerges from a few different places. First, it's common to hear such a claim from proponents of largely animal-based diets. Some reference is often made about how vegan diets can, at best, worsen symptoms or, at worst, even cause depression. Or conversely, they may state...

Links: Show notes page (incl. study links & related episodes) Subscribe to Sigma Nutrition Premium Live event in London, UK About this episode: Over the past decade, the increasing uptake and acceptance of the Nova food processing classification system has placed focus on one of the categories in Nova; ultra-processed foods (UPFs). Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are products created from deconstruct...

Research has shown that food marketing strongly impacts children's eating behaviour. Marketing influences food purchase requests, purchases, and preferences. And the evidence of a relationship between food marketing exposure and obesity meets epidemiological criteria for causality. The evidence suggests that the impact of food marketing is a function of both exposure to the marketing message and i...

Never before has there been greater access to information about nutrition and health. But never before has there been such a low barrier to being seen as an "expert". There are large numbers of people getting information from, and basing their health decisions on, people who don't have direct expertise in the field in which they are talking about. Moreover, some promote the lack of domain expertis...

Obesity increases the risk of a range of chronic diseases and negative health outcomes. And trials where a sufficient amount of weight loss is achieved show health improvements. However, despite the "straightforward" nature of causing weight loss through a hypocaloric diet, it is clear that most people who lose weight will regain some or all of the weight. This is a result of both the physiologic...

The endocrine system plays a central role in growth, development, metabolism, reproduction, and physical well-being throughout life. Hormones interact in complex networks, orchestrating a range of critical functions. Over the life course, we experience various changes in hormone levels, fluctuations, patterns, and actions. Additionally, lifestyle factors and disease processes can impact the levels...

Stable isotopes have been used as tracers in human nutritional studies for many years. But what are they? Why do we use 'tracers' in nutrition studies? And what are some practical examples? A chemical element can have different forms or 'isotopes.' These different isotopes have the same atomic number and position in the periodic table but have different atomic masses and physical properties. An is...

Given the negative consequences of consistent overconsumption of food (leading to a caloric surplus), having a dietary intake that is of appropriate calorie intake is an important aspect of long-term health. Therefore, thinking about which foods and diets can help promote appropriate satiety to keep calorie intake in check is a key focus for many researchers and practitioners. There is a complex s...

Hypertension (elevated blood pressure) is a condition that significantly increases the risk of several diseases and is a major cause of premature death worldwide. In the US, recent estimates suggest that about half of the adult population has hypertension. At a population level, high sodium intake is one of the main dietary risk factors. All population health guidelines recommend keeping sodium in...

Exercise improves metabolic control both via increasing muscle glucose uptake during muscle contractions by insulin-independent mechanisms and by increasing skeletal muscle insulin sensitivity after physical activity. A reduction in skeletal muscle insulin sensitivity is an early event in the development of not only prediabetes, metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes but is also associated with o...

The term 'tactical populations' has been applied to those working in law enforcement, fire, first responders, and military. In addition to the importance of their work, the work they do itself presents some challenges for health and nutrition. Despite the fact that such individuals make up a significant number of the population and their work plays a crucial role in society, there is currently ver...

In this Premium-exclusive 'Ask Me Anything' episode, Alan & Danny answer a range of listener questions. Topics include obesity rates, lowering blood pressure, cholesterol drugs, PCOS, and what issues they have changed their minds on. See the full list of questions below. [02.37]  Do you feel that there is hope (or an effective way forward) for obesity rates to come down? Based on your response, wh...

When it comes to eating to promote muscle hypertrophy, muscle repair/recovery and maintenance of mass and function, protein has been an obvious focus. Indeed muscle mass and quality are dependent on the continuous remodeling of skeletal muscle proteins. This is related to the amount of muscle protein balance, i.e. the net difference between muscle protein synthesis (MPS) and muscle protein breakdo...