Link Dump

• Behold: the 40 deadliest fast food meals.

• A new genetic test "claims to show whether people will do better on a low-fat or a low-carb weight loss plan." Mindy Dopler Nelson, a Stanford nutritional biologist, conducted a study that concluded that "women on diets well-matched to their genes, as defined by the test, lost roughly five times more weight than those on mismatched diets." According to Nelson, "the study tested four diets -- Atkins (ultra-low-carb), the Zone (low-carb), Ornish (very low-fat) or a low-fat diet following the federal Food Pyramid." In the end, "researchers saw that women whose diets matched their genetic makeup lost more than 13 pounds over a year compared to less than 3 pounds for women on mismatched diets." 

• Could it be that Wal-Mart's produce is better than Whole Foods'?

• If you're healthy, don't go on cholesterol medications as a preventative measure. Medical experts say that statins -- "the most widely prescribed drugs in the United States -- may not be as safe a preventive medicine as previously believed for people who are at low risk of heart attacks or strokes." Among other things, "recently published evidence indicates that statins could raise a person’s risk of developing Type 2 diabetes by 9 percent."

• The secret to touching your toes: "It's a tennis ball. You don't need to throw it, hit it or catch it. You just need to roll it under each foot for a few seconds. Then put it aside, bend down again and you're guaranteed to reach a smidge closer to the ground." Is this why Ichiro rubs his feet with a wooden dowel?

• This isn't news to anyone who's read Gary Taubes' "Good Calories, Bad Calories," but it's gradually getting out there that we should be eating more (good) fat: "Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, the cardiologist who led the Harvard meta-analysis that's published in current issue of the journal PLoS Medicine, says that in their zeal to rid diets of 'fat' many consumers, snack makers, and restaurateurs have loaded their meals with sugar and simple carbohydrates, instead. It's a bad trade-off for the heart."