THERE’S a common fallacy which suggests that fresh foods, especially fresh fruit and vegetables, are nutritionally superior to their frozen counterparts.

FOLATE is essential for a healthy pregnancy and key to our overall health.

EVERY year, US News assembles a judging panel of top nutrition experts to adjudicate on the best popular diets.

According to reports, the WHO is soon to revise its sugar intake guidelines downwards.

Beyoncé, Gwenth Paltrow and Sarah Jessica Parker have deprived themselves of solid food for days on end in order to lose weight.

FOLLOWING the food fest of Christmas, we pledge to adopt healthier eating habits and drop weight.

IT’S easy at this time of year to put the feet up and shelter from the cold outside.

OFTEN we have a visual image in our head of what constitutes overweight and obesity.

In August, medicine lost one of its towering figures — a man whose work on maternal nutrition had led to the conclusion that what happens to us in the womb is the most important determinant of our health in middle and old-age.

THE positive effects of fluoride on dental health were first noted in Colorado Springs in the early 1900s.

The WHO found those with a high intake of sugar-sweetened drinks were 50% to 60% more likely to be obese.

SPINA bifida and anencephaly belong to a group of disorders known collectively as Neural Tube Defects (NTDs).

THE Irish are among the fattest in Europe. Seventy percent of adult men, aged 18-64 years, and 52% of women, in the same age bracket, are overweight or obese, and these figures are higher among our over-65s.

THE link between high cholesterol levels and increased risk of heart disease and stroke was first established in the mid-1950s.

IT’S rare for dietitians or nutritionists to make sweeping pronouncements on the overall health aspects of any specific food or food group.

THE supposed benefits of eating a good breakfast are endless, from its metabolism-boosting powers to staving off mid-morning hunger pangs.

WHILE many of us associate high blood pressure with a reddened complexion, sweating, jitters and other outward signs of stress; in reality, it’s usually much more difficult to spot.

NUTRITION can be a complicated business sometimes.

SEVEN out of 10 Irish men and more than half of Irish women are either overweight or obese.

THREE weeks ago, I attended a gathering of doctors and researchers at the Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital and UCD’s Centre for Human Reproduction.

IF THERE’S a season for dieting then it has to be summer.

THE term ‘inflammatory rhetoric’ has been regular in the media.

OUR national indifference to fish is a strange thing. We’re an island nation whose folklore includes legends like the salmon of knowledge and whose predominant doctrine traditionally prescribed the consumption of fish on Wednesdays and Fridays.

IN the mid-1990s, people were starting to talk about carb-restriction as the answer to dieters’ prayers — the South Beach Diet, the Atkins’ Diet, and others, evangelised the benefits of replacing potatoes, bread, pasta and rice with red meats and fatty foods that were traditionally no-nos.

UNTIL recently, few scientists or clinicians have paid much attention to the relationship between sunlight and health.

FEW of us associate mental health with what we eat.

THE proliferation of diet books on the shelves can be bewildering, even for nutrition boffins like myself.

It’s the start of a new year, and all across the country earnest pledges about diet, exercise, smoking and alcohol are being put into practice.

DIETARY supplements date from the mid-1930s, when nutritional science was in its infancy.

IRELAND has the fourth highest prevalence of asthma in the world.

IF you suffer from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), you’re not alone.

How much are we in control of what we eat?

BRIGITTE Bardot once remarked “It’s sad to grow old, but nice to ripen”. She’s right.

More than 40,000 students are about to start third level education.

As Olympic fever gripped the nation over the last few weeks, we bore witness to some of the greatest athletic feats in history.

LET me set the scene — Johnny won’t eat a breakfast, Aoife’s lunchbox arrives back untouched, Jack refuses his dinner and Emma won’t touch the veggies.

Helen O’Callaghan gets the skinny from experts on the latest blockbuster diet which promises results in six weeks flat.

There’s an ongoing debate in nutrition circles about the effect of sugar-sweetened drinks (non-diet fizzy drinks) on body weight.

Since the dawn of time, people have been fascinated and frustrated in equal measure by the ephemeral nature of youth. We struggle (in vain) to find new ways of maintaining our fresh appearance and vigour, with all sorts of exotic pills and potions being hailed as the next “elixir of youth”. However, as science unravels the complex mechanisms of the ageing process, it seems the most effective remedy may lie not with these elaborate concoctions, but with some humble foods readily available from the supermarket. We run the rule over a few of the key players in this nutritional war on ageing.

HOW do they do it? From Beyoncé to Victoria Beckham and Tipperary pop star Una Healy — all the glamorous new mothers seem to snap back into shape within weeks of having a baby.

HOW do they do it? From Beyoncé to Victoria Beckham and Tipperary pop star Una Healy — all the glamorous new mothers seem to snap back into shape within weeks of having a baby.

A patient once told me she couldn’t lose weight. She’d been on multiple diets over the previous years and had retained elements of each in her quest for a slimmer figure. It didn’t work...

LIFE can be pretty hectic for new parents — the constant schedule of feeding, changing, bathing and sleeping can leave even the most organised people feeling flustered.

Irish people in the 1860s had just 9% fat in their daily diet as opposed to the 35%-36% fat levels in today’s heavily processed average daily intake, says dietician Daniel McCartney.