One of the most common questions I get from SquintMom readers is along the lines of is item/substance/compound XYZ toxic? I’d like to go ahead and answer this once and for all: YES, it is. Now let me explain what I mean, and how I can answer this very generic question in a catch-all way…
I’m guest-posting today! Alice at Science of Mom has recently featured two articles about conventional versus organic milk; the first claimed that milk from rBST-treated cows was the same as (or even preferable to) milk from non-rBST-treated cows, while the second claimed that conventional milk was just as good as organic. As a chemist with…
The decision to start solids is both an exciting one (your baby is growing up!) and a difficult one for many parents. The latter is because there’s so much conflicting information floating around (“Starting solids sooner will make your baby sleep better!” “Starting solids too soon will give your baby allergies!”). The purpose of this…
Extended nursing is loosely defined. In the United States, where only about a third of babies are exclusively breastfed until 3 months of age and fewer than a sixth are exclusively breastfed until 6 months of age (per the CDC), one could reasonably claim that breastfeeding beyond a year is “extended.” The American Academy of…
Megavitamin therapy is the use of very large doses of vitamins to prevent or treat illness or some symptom thereof. While not the first major proponent of megavitamin therapy, Linus Pauling is perhaps the best known; he advocated using huge doses of vitamin C (many grams per day) to treat and prevent disease. As a…
Nitrates and nitrites are chemically related to one another, and are commonly used as preservatives in a variety of food items. Bacon is perhaps the most notable example, but many packaged, processed meats — including many lunch meats — are among those that contain nitrates and nitrites. Even “natural” lunch meats, which don’t list nitrates…
I wanted to follow up last week’s post on DHA supplementation with a look into the research on fish oil supplementation, since while fish oil is a common source of supplemental DHA, there are supplements that contain pure DHA (as opposed to the normal mix of fats present in fish oil). While I concluded that…
**This article addresses the science associated with DHA supplements, not fish oil capsules. DHA is a component of fish oil, but fish oil contains other components as well, and is addressed in another article on this site** We live in a supplement-obsessed culture. Otherwise healthy men and women take multivitamins as “insurance” against nutritional…
High-‐fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is ubiquitous in the American diet, and unless you make a concerted effort to avoid the stuff, your child consumes it in everything from soda to fast food to the convenient prepared snacks and juice boxes you tuck into backpacks and leave in the pantry for after school. The debate over…
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) acknowledges that breast milk is the gold standard in infant nutrition, but nevertheless recommends supplementing all infants — formula- or breastfed — with a daily dose of 400 IU of vitamin D. Two things about this mystify me. First, the implication that human milk is universally low in vitamin…
