Fad or fact? We check.
Morning sunlight, cold plunges, magnesium before bed, zone 2 cardio: Fad or Fact cuts through the hype with clear, evidence-based answers, written plainly.
How to fall asleep faster, sleep deeper and wake up rested — timing, environment, and what actually helps.
Using morning sunlight, evening darkness and light timing to anchor your body clock.
Cold plunges, cold showers and sauna — protocols, dosing and what the research supports.
Which supplements have real evidence behind them, which forms to take, and how to dose them.
Training for strength, endurance and longevity, and recovering well between sessions.
Attention, focus, memory and mental performance — evidence-based tools and routines.
The habits with the strongest evidence for better sleep: enough time asleep, a regular schedule, light timing, caffeine and alcohol, a cool room, and CBT-I when sleep problems persist. Supplements and trackers come last.
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Light is the strongest signal for your body clock. What the research shows about morning light, evening light, screens and darkness at night, with expert targets for each.
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An evidence-based overview of cold plunges, cold showers and sauna: what each does to the body, what the newest reviews find, common protocols and the limits of the research.
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A sceptical guide to supplements: the few with good evidence for a specific goal (creatine, caffeine, protein), what the US task force says about vitamins, how supplements are regulated, and how to check quality.
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Time-restricted eating means eating within a consistent daily window, usually 8 to 12 hours. Mouse studies were striking; human trials are more modest, and the largest show little extra weight loss when calories are matched. Here is the evidence, a practical protocol and who should be careful.
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Weekly exercise targets from the WHO, what the newest research says about strength-training volume, how to balance easy and hard training, and which recovery habits matter most.
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What the research says about focus: sleep has the largest effect, caffeine and exercise give small reliable gains, and most supplements add little.
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How cold, how long and how often: the water temperatures and session lengths studies actually used for cold plunges, ice baths and cold showers, whether colder and shorter beats longer and milder, and how to stay safe.
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Cohort studies of more than 750,000 people link higher cardiorespiratory fitness with lower mortality. Here is what those studies can and cannot show, how VO2 max is measured, and what randomized trials and meta-analyses found about intervals such as 4x4.
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Peter Attia's centenarian decathlon asks you to pick the physical tasks you want to manage in your last decade and train backward from them. Here is the framework, what cohort studies say about the fitness qualities it targets, and how to turn it into a weekly plan.
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You cannot reset or flush your dopamine. But structured breaks from habits like social media have mixed-to-modest evidence. Here is what dopamine detox claims get wrong, what break studies show, and a sensible way to run a 30-day experiment.
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The US RDA for vitamin D is 600 IU a day for most adults and 800 IU over 70, with an upper limit of 4,000 IU. A 2024 Endocrine Society guideline advises against routine testing in healthy people and against extra vitamin D for most adults under 75. Here is the evidence and where popular advice differs.
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A simple morning light routine: get outdoors soon after waking, for longer on cloudy days. What the research supports, and where the popular 10-minute rule goes beyond it.
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Intermittent fasting can cost a little lean mass when it is used for weight loss without training, but trials that pair it with resistance training mostly show muscle and strength maintained. Here is the evidence and how to protect muscle while fasting.
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Fasting and calorie restriction extend lifespan in mice and improve health in monkeys. In people, no trial has measured lifespan. Here is what animal studies, the two-year CALERIE trial and the eating-window mortality data actually show.
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Short walks after meals, eating vegetables and protein before carbohydrates, and brief muscle activity while sitting all reduce post-meal glucose rises in controlled studies. Here is what the trials measured, how big the effects were, and how to apply them.
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In head-to-head trials, intermittent fasting and ordinary daily calorie restriction produce about the same weight loss and similar changes in blood pressure, lipids and glucose. Here is what the year-long trials and meta-analyses found, and how to choose.
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Five measures define metabolic health in US surveys: waist size, blood pressure, fasting glucose and A1c, triglycerides and HDL cholesterol. Here are the published cut-offs from NIH, CDC and large studies, how few adults meet them all, and extra markers like fasting insulin and the triglyceride-to-HDL ratio.
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Time-restricted eating means eating within a consistent daily window, usually 8 to 12 hours. Mouse studies were striking; human trials are more modest, and the largest show little extra weight loss when calories are matched. Here is the evidence, a practical protocol and who should be careful.
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Water, plain tea and black coffee are generally treated as fast-compatible; anything with meaningful calories is not. Sweeteners and small amounts of fat sit in a grey zone that depends on your goal. Here is what the studies and the Huberman Lab fasting episodes actually say.
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A sceptical guide to supplements: the few with good evidence for a specific goal (creatine, caffeine, protein), what the US task force says about vitamins, how supplements are regulated, and how to check quality.
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Health trends come and go. We help you tell the fads from the facts, plainly and honestly, including when the evidence is strong, mixed or missing.
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