Sodium (and salt for that matter) has been made out to be the villain when it comes to nutrition. In fact, without sodium, you wouldn't be alive. While high amounts of salt in the diet are related to high blood pressure, the evidence to support a link with heart and other diseases isn't clear. In this episode we discuss why you need sodium, how much is too much, is sodium as harmful as we're told and how getting more potassium can help.

References cited in this podcast:

Urinary Sodium and Potassium Excretion, Mortality, and Cardiovascular Events: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1311889

Sources of potassium in food: https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/food-sources-potassium

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Or is it? Most people have some sort of breakfast some of the time. There are also plenty of studies linking breakfast to weight loss, health and even school performance. But is the idea of breakfast based on science or what cereal companies tell us? In this episode, we discuss why people think breakfast is important, how it affects your health and what happens if you don't eat breakfast.

References cited in this podcast:

The Importance of Breakfast in Atherosclerotic Disease: Insights from the PESA Study: https://www.jacc.org/doi/10.1016/j.jacc.2017.08.027

Effect of breakfast on weight and energy intake: Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials: https://www.bmj.com/content/364/bmj.l42

Omission of a carbohydrate-rich breakfast impairs evening endurance exercise performance despite complete dietary compensation at lunch: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17461391.2020.1797890

The average person consumes 39 000 to 52 000 microplastic particles per year through food and drink. This number doubles when taking into account how many microplastics we might inhale. Microplastics have been found in blood samples and almost every organ in the human body. In this episode, we discuss what are microplastics, how they get into your body, how they affect your health and how to avoid being exposed to them.

References cited in this podcast:

Human Consumption of Microplastics: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.9b01517

Polypropylene microplastics promote metastatic features in human breast cancer: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-33393-8

Microplastics and Nanaoplastics in Atheromas and Cardiovascular Events: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2309822