Scientia Press

Caffeine, the world’s most widely used psychoactive substance, attracts a lot of research. PubMed contains 23,000+ citations for caffeine, for instance.Caffeine also attracts controversy. Some scientists argue that caffeine is a benign and useful drug whose side effects are only of concern in regard to a small number of “sensitives”, including those with pre-existing anxiety or similar symptoms. They note that caffeine improves attention, reaction time, numeric and verbal memory, and work output and endurance in long-term exercise.

But other researchers claim that caffeine causes multiple damaging effects ranging from boosting blood pressure to disrupting sleep, and that these affect hundreds of millions. Continue reading »

The Mediterranean Diet offers a healthy, tasty, aromatic array of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, wild greens, fish, olive oil, and red wine while sharply reducing intake of milk products, meat, processed foods, sweets, and caffeine. The MD prevents cardiovascular disorders, reduces the incidence of cancer and diabetes, and—it appears—curbs neurodegenerative processes. It is strange, therefore, that, in spite of the pressing need to confront the global obesity epidemic, the MD has received relatively little attention in regard to its potential for weight loss.

One reason may be that the centrality of olive oil in the MD seems flagrantly at odds with the need to reduce body fat. Another reason: the MD threatens the profits of the dairy and meat industries, the processed food industry, the beverage industry (except for red wine), pharmaceutical companies, and commercial dieting companies. So it is often ignored in discussions of approaches to weight loss. A third reason: the MD is not really a diet at all in the sense of a way of reducing energy intake in order to reduce weight. It is rather a traditional cuisine—a mode of ordinary healthy eating. And it contains no agreed-upon prescriptions regarding portion size or the exact balance of various ingredients. Continue reading »