Don't get fooled.

Moderate drinking does not protect the heart: any amount raises the risk of cancer and of death from any cause. The Global Burden of Disease 2018 analysis and Mendelian randomization studies (which use genes as a natural experiment) both rule out a J-shaped curve.

A therapeutic dose would take more than 1 L of wine a day; what people actually take in is too small to matter.

It confuses proportion with absolute amount. Fat loss is set by the 24-hour energy balance, not by which fuel you burn during the session.

At matched calories, shifting the share of carbohydrate does not add fat loss (randomized trials in metabolic wards, where every meal is controlled). What high and low days actually do is make the weekly calorie total easier to hold.

Calories from ultra-processed food and whole food do not behave the same: five mechanisms — reward, hormones, gut microbes, eating speed and food structure — open a real calorie gap between them (Hall 2019).

Time-restricted eating does about as well as plain calorie restriction and does not raise your metabolism. For pregnant people or anyone with a history of eating disorders it is harmful.

The active compound in red yeast rice, monacolin K, is chemically the same molecule as the statin drug lovastatin. Natural does not mean safe: it brings variable doses and contamination with the toxin citrinin.

It lowers HbA1c, a long-term blood-sugar measure, by about 0.7-1% — the same range as metformin, and nowhere near the strength of GLP-1 receptor agonist drugs.

It is meant for people with a BMI (body mass index) of 30 or more, or 27 or more with a related health condition (the STEP-1 trial). Within a year of stopping, about two-thirds of the lost weight comes back (STEP-4).

Hunger does not simply fade: one year after losing 10 kg, the hunger hormone ghrelin was still high and the fullness hormones PYY and leptin were still low — the body's defensive hunger does not reset (Sumithran 2011, NEJM).

Measured carefully, adults who called themselves diet-resistant had underestimated what they ate by about 47% and overstated their exercise by about 51% (Lichtman 1992, NEJM). Resting metabolism differs between people by only ±200 kcal — far smaller than that reporting gap.

Meal replacements are portion-control tools, nothing more. Stop using them and the weight returns; a pooled analysis (Heymsfield 2003) found no advantage over an ordinary diet with the same calories.

In metabolic-ward trials where every meal was controlled (Hall 2015 and 2021), a low-fat diet lost more body fat than a low-carb one at equal calories; eating freely, the low-fat plant-based group ate 689 fewer kcal a day. Under controlled testing, the carbohydrate-insulin model fails.

Timing has no independent effect; total energy decides fat accrual. Sofer 2011 actually showed shifting carbs to dinner improved satiety hormones and weight loss in a small RCT.

One day of overfeeding cannot reverse months of leptin and RMR adaptation; it usually just erases the week's hard-won deficit.

BMI (body mass index) is crude for any one person but strongly informative across a population: it shows a robust J-shaped curve with death from any cause (Global BMI Mortality Collaboration, Lancet 2016, 10.6 million people).

In common obesity, leptin is already high — the body has become resistant to it — so injected leptin is ineffective (Heymsfield 1999, JAMA). Only people with a rare inherited leptin deficiency respond.

Within a year of stopping, about two-thirds of the lost weight comes back, so in effect it is a lifelong drug. About 70% of people have gut side effects, and loss of lean (muscle) mass is higher (STEP 1 extension, Wilding 2022).

Over 12 months, alternate-day fasting lost about the same weight as standard calorie restriction (−6.0% vs −5.3%, not a significant difference), but people stuck to it less well and the risk of a binge cycle was higher (Trepanowski 2017, JAMA Internal Medicine).

An hour of running burns about 500 kcal; a single doughnut is about 400. Diet drives weight loss (American College of Sports Medicine position stand, Donnelly 2013); exercise's main value is keeping muscle, heart and lung fitness, and keeping the weight off.

Routine salt tablets are unsupported and can be counterproductive for most exercisers; sodium is covered by food + electrolyte drinks, and only very salty, high-intensity sweaters need individualized sodium (NATA 2017).

Pushing through is exactly what sets up heatstroke. The right approach is to acclimatize first, check the WBGT heat index, drink to thirst, pre-cool, and heed your body's signals (Racinais 2015).

The liver and kidneys already do this. 'Detox' programs have no human clinical evidence; short-term weight loss is mostly water and bowel contents.

In the large GAIT trial (2006, NEJM) the main result was negative — no benefit was shown. A signal in people with moderate-to-severe pain did not pass the analysis set in advance.

Oral peptides are degraded to amino acids in the gut; this is the 'eat pork knuckle to feed your skin' fallacy.

In a study of 87-year-olds, 8 weeks of progressive strength training raised strength by 174% (Fiatarone 1994, NEJM). It has been replicated for more than 30 years.

Pooled randomized trials show testosterone rises only about 14-15% — still within the body's normal range of variation.

Real mechanism is dampening cortisol overshoot — a subset of what sleep + exercise + nutrition already do.

A single dose shows no reliable thinking or memory benefit in healthy adults; long-term human data is thin.

Testosterone rises about 10%, on the same order as ashwagandha — within normal physiological variation and far below what the marketing claims.

Human randomized trials show only that blood NAD+ levels rise; there are zero data on the outcomes that matter, lifespan or healthy lifespan.

An IV drip stops at the same stand-in marker, blood NAD+. There are zero randomized trials on real health outcomes, and it adds a risk of infection and allergic reaction.

A physiological dose of 0.3 mg works as well; 5-10 mg overloads the receptors, bringing next-day grogginess and a disrupted body clock.

Its main effect is easing the jitters caffeine causes; there is no strong evidence for it on its own as an insomnia treatment.

Raised nerve growth factor has been seen only in cells and rodents; the human evidence on thinking and memory is small, short-term randomized trials.

CARET 1996 was halted early — β-carotene supplementation raised lung cancer in smokers. Antioxidant ≠ safe.

It contains pseudo-B12, a look-alike that cannot activate the human enzymes that depend on B12 — and it may even crowd real B12 off its receptors.

Taking 200 mg a day or more does not lower how often you catch colds; it only shortens them by about 8% (Cochrane review, Hemilä 2013, more than 11,000 people).

In the PHS-II trial, a multivitamin did nothing for cardiovascular disease and cut total cancer by just 8%. The gap was never a pill.

A low-calcium diet actually raises the risk of oxalate stones, because it leaves more free oxalate in the gut (Curhan 1993, NEJM).

1000 mg is the total weight of the fish oil; the EPA and DHA in it are usually only 300-500 mg. Read the active content, not the headline number.

The US Preventive Services Task Force withdrew its recommendation for people 60 and over in 2022: the bleeding risk outweighs the heart and blood-vessel benefit, a net harm.

It is poorly absorbed and the liver quickly tags it for removal (phase II conjugation), so almost no free compound reaches liver cells. A Cochrane review found no effect on death or complications, and the SyNCH trial, at 3-5x the customary dose, was no better than placebo.

Transaminases are enzymes that leak from ruptured liver cells — a leakage reading, not a function reading; in end-stage disease with nothing left to leak it reads normal, and it fluctuates on its own, so any before-after pair of draws may show a fall.

No supplement has been shown to offset ethanol's liver injury, and in alcoholic liver disease milk thistle showed no significant effect on mortality or complications; treating it as permission only postpones the one thing that works — drinking less.

Cell studies show glucose-related signals; human trials are few and small and show no reliable effect, and adding it to diabetes drugs can stack into low blood sugar.

Measured broth has ~26-80 mg calcium/L — a bowl is <5% of daily need vs ~300 mg in a cup of milk (7-30x more); what renders out is mostly fat.

The phrase bundles at least four different situations, told apart by hemoglobin and ferritin; the non-heme iron in foods like jujube is low and poorly absorbed, with no human evidence it corrects iron-deficiency anemia.

Jujube iron is non-heme, low and poorly absorbed; the 'nourish blood' signal is only cell/animal, with no human evidence it corrects iron-deficiency anemia.

Bird's nest is mostly glycoprotein, e-jiao is basically collagen/gelatin; claimed benefits come mostly from lab and animal work, with little quality human evidence.

No scientific basis and harmful: with produce avoided, vitamin A and C intake fell below half the recommended amount; the postpartum body needs vitamin C, folate, and fiber.

Sweat heavy-metal concentration is 100× lower than urine; total 'toxin' excretion <1% via sweat.

Oral hyaluronic acid is broken down in the gut; injecting it or applying it to the skin is the only route with data on skin outcomes.

Polycystic ovary syndrome runs on two linked problems, insulin resistance and androgens (male-type hormones); cutting sugar addresses only one. What matters is losing 5-10% of body weight, plus myo-inositol.

Menopausal hormone therapy acts on bone density, hot flashes and night sweats, and vaginal and urinary symptoms all at once; plant estrogens have scattered effects and are no substitute.

H₂ solubility in water is tiny (~1.6 mg/L); a 500 mL bottle delivers ≤0.8 mg — orders of magnitude below animal dosing.

After antibiotics, a generic probiotic actually delayed the gut microbes' recovery by 3-6 months (Suez 2018, Cell). What matters is matching the strain, the condition and the dose.

The World Health Organization (2023) conditionally advises against non-sugar sweeteners for weight control; the International Agency for Research on Cancer lists aspartame as Group 2B (possibly carcinogenic); in the Suez 2022 trial, saccharin and sucralose worsened blood-sugar responses.

Stable anti-inflammatory signal comes from whole dietary patterns (Mediterranean / DASH), not 'avoid nightshades' lists.

Its test-tube antioxidant score (ORAC) does not translate into outcomes in the body; clinical data on heart disease, lifespan or skin aging is thin.

The number came from a 1960s Japanese pedometer ad; the benefit plateaus at about 7000-8000 steps (Lee 2019, Paluch 2022).

Lactate clears within 1-2 hours. Delayed-onset muscle soreness comes from microdamage to muscle fibers during eccentric work (the muscle producing force while it lengthens), plus an inflammatory response that peaks 24-72 hours later.

Six weeks of ab training did not change belly fat (Vispute 2011). In Kostek 2007 the local difference showed up only on skinfold calipers; MRI scans saw fat lost across the whole body.

A higher share of fat at low intensity does not mean more fat burned in total; total energy use and the extra burn after exercise (EPOC) favor high intensity.

Knees travelling past toes is normal squat biomechanics; restricting it shifts load to hips + low back.

Hypertrophy is driven by progressive overload + total volume; exercise variety ranks far below intensity/frequency.

Lactate is a fuel, not waste. The burn comes from hydrogen ions that build up alongside it — they happen together, but lactate is not the cause.

Stretching's effect on sports-injury prevention is small enough to ignore; what cuts injuries by about two-thirds is strength training, not a pre-game stretch.

Sweat is cooling, not detox. Sweating more mostly means you are hot and losing water and salt — not getting cleaner.

The real anabolic window is 24-48 hours after training; 24-hour protein total matters far more than a 30-minute clock.

Men's blood testosterone is more than 15 times women's; with the same strength training women gain muscle at a similar relative rate, but from a much smaller base, so the result is lean and defined, not a bodybuilding-stage look.

The interference effect is real but oversold: it shows up mainly with high endurance volume, running more than cycling, and sequencing plus spacing keep the loss small.

BCAAs supply only 3 of 9 essential amino acids — they ring the start bell without delivering bricks. Complete protein or whey wins in almost every case.

Hypertrophy returns plateau around 1.6 g/kg/day; extra protein past that adds less and less. 0.8 g/kg is the deficiency floor, not the training dose.

Timing decides the trade: after a race or multi-event day, cold may return you to usable faster; immediately after lifting it blunts anabolic signalling and costs some long-term growth.

Keto is a therapeutic diet, not the endurance default. High-intensity anaerobic performance usually drops once glycogen is depleted, and long-term cardiovascular effects are unclear.

Feeling recovered is not being recovered. When participants rated themselves as adapted, their reaction times still sat 30-40% below baseline (Van Dongen 2003).

The receptors saturate at 400 mg. What coffee pushes through is the feeling of sleepiness, not the underlying impairment — working memory and error rates stay worse than baseline.

Deep sleep (NREM stage 3) rebounds that night; REM (dreaming) sleep not until night 2-3; metabolic and immune markers need 3-7 days to return to baseline. How you feel misleads you.

Lying awake does not clear adenosine, the molecule that builds sleep pressure, does not reach deep sleep (NREM stage 3), and does not clear beta-amyloid. It beats scrolling, but it is not a substitute for sleep.

300-400 mg of caffeine plus sugar, taurine and guarana: the US Food and Drug Administration's adverse-event system (MedWatch) has repeatedly logged acute heart-rhythm disturbances and high-blood-pressure events.

The burst from your fight-or-flight (sympathetic) system lasts 5-15 minutes, then a deeper crash follows. It is a stopgap when a nap is impossible, not a substitute.

Strength drops 5-11%, your sense of body position dulls, and injury rates rise — the day you go for a personal record becomes the day you get hurt. The flip side works: banking extra sleep the week before is real (Rupp 2009).

That is selective memory. Chronic short sleep is linked to higher risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia and depression — the long-term picture in population studies is not kind.

Water has zero calories and cannot become fat. A 1-2 kg daily swing is water: glycogen holds 3-4 times its weight in water (Olsson & Saltin 1970), plus sodium retention and hormones. Watch the 2-week trend.

Heritability is a population statistic, not a personal verdict. Genes give a tendency, not an endpoint; the same genome yields very different weights in different environments (Loos & Yeo 2022).

There is no human evidence for it. Replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat lowers coronary heart disease (Mozaffarian 2010); the appetite idea has only been shown in mice (Alvheim 2012). The real issue is the fried, packaged form of the food, not the molecule.

Being a night owl is heritable (Jones 2019, 351 gene locations), but being born late does not make staying up free. In overweight people, more social jet lag — the gap between workday and free-day sleep times — tracks with a higher BMI (Roenneberg 2012). Sleep enough, aligned to your rhythm.

Superfood has no scientific definition; its core basis, a test-tube antioxidant score (ORAC), was withdrawn by the US Department of Agriculture in 2012, and evidence on real human outcomes for any single star food is sparse.

Organic and conventional food have nearly identical nutrient content (Smith-Spangler 2012, Stanford, 237 studies). Organic certifies how food is produced, not its nutrition or safety.

The liver (through two stages of chemical processing, phase I and II) and the kidneys clear metabolic waste around the clock. A review (Klein & Kiat 2015) found no rigorous randomized trials behind commercial detox; the short-term weight loss is just water and bowel contents.

Your lungs and kidneys hold blood pH tightly at 7.35-7.45, and stomach acid neutralizes the water first; a systematic review (Fenton 2016, BMJ Open) rules out a cause-and-effect link between acid-base balance and cancer.

Originates from a 1968 uncontrolled letter; Geha 2000 double-blind challenge found only 2.3% responding, non-reproducibly — glutamate is the same molecule as in tomato and breast milk, safe at dietary doses.

Across 15 randomized trials, linoleic acid did not raise the inflammation markers CRP, IL-6 or TNF-α (Johnson & Fritsche 2012); replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat cuts coronary heart disease by about 19% (Mozaffarian 2010). The real issue is the fried, ultra-processed form, not the molecule.

Gluten-free is a medical fact for celiac disease (~1%), but Lebwohl 2017 (BMJ, 110k) shows no cardiovascular benefit for those without it — and gluten-free packaged foods are often lower-fiber, higher-sugar.

Sugar you drink bypasses fullness, so its calories stack on instead of replacing food. One daily serving of a sugary drink raised type 2 diabetes risk by 18% (13% after adjusting for body fat); juice by about 5% (not significant), 7% after adjusting for body fat (Imamura 2015, BMJ, 17 cohorts, 38,253 cases).

Group 1 from the International Agency for Research on Cancer measures how certain the evidence is, not how big the risk is. Eating 50 g of processed meat a day carries a colorectal-cancer relative risk of about 1.18; smoking's lung-cancer relative risk is about 15-30 (Bouvard 2015, Lancet Oncology).

Oral collagen is broken into amino acids in the gut, not shipped intact to skin or joints (Paul 2019); hydrolyzed peptides show a weak signal, but Myung 2025 found no effect in non-industry-funded studies — and bone broth's dose is a blind box.

Charcoal only adsorbs just-swallowed poison within ~1 h in the ER (Chyka 2005); taken daily it never reaches the blood and instead indiscriminately soaks up drugs (incl. oral contraceptives) and nutrients — its whitening is enamel abrasion.

Coconut oil is about 82% saturated fat, and its main fatty acid, lauric acid, raises LDL (bad) cholesterol. A pooled analysis of 16 trials (Neelakantan 2020, Circulation) found it raises LDL compared with vegetable oils and burns no fat; the American Heart Association (2017) advises against it.

There are no human trials for the anti-aging or brain claims, the antioxidant pitch rests on a withdrawn test-tube score (ORAC), and the US Federal Trade Commission fined açaí weight-loss false advertising ($1.5M settlement). They are just decent ordinary fruits.

The mechanism is real (it runs through the mevalonate pathway), but a pooled analysis of 6 randomized trials with 302 people found coenzyme Q10 does not reliably relieve the muscle pain (Banach 2015).

An effect of acid-blockers on calcium or iron is plausible but weakly supported and debated; what is solid is low blood magnesium with long-term use (FDA 2011) and low vitamin B12.

From a 1960 plastic-surgery observation, not a habit study; the real median is ~66 days, range 18-254 (Lally 2010).

The ego-depletion model — the idea that willpower drains like a tank — failed a preregistered replication across 23 labs (effect size d=0.04, Hagger 2016); design your environment, don't white-knuckle it.