Is it possible for a single vitamin to do everything?

Maybe not -- but if I had to pick one all-purpose must-have nutrient, I'd go with that dazzling D. It's about as close to perfect as a single letter can be.

And now, two new studies add to the already impressive body of evidence for this wonder vitamin: It may help you control your blood pressure, and even lower your risk of dying from heart disease.

How many patients need to be involved in a study before it's taken seriously?

100? 1,000? 100,000?

How about 1.23 million? Think that's enough to finally knock down a widely used (and very dangerous) drug?

I hate to be a pessimist, but I doubt it.

It is one of the great oddities of nutrition that public health guidelines invariably recommend salt reduction but the science is so hard to do that the value of doing so can’t be proven unequivocally.  Hypertension specialists insist that salt reduction is essential for controlling high blood pressure, and many people with high blood pressure can demonstrate that this is true.

So why can’t the science show it? 

Dear Pharmacist,

In a recent column, you stated that fennel tea is good for gas and bloating. I’ve seen it as a vegetable in my grocery store, but how do I make it into a tea, and what else is it good for? 

--H.S., Crystal River, Florida

When I am out of the country it is always with some concern when I answer a call on my cell phone early in the morning.

I am in Thailand at the moment and early yesterday when I was asleep my cell phone rang and I learnt that my only sister had just died. I share this with you as there are some lessons to be learnt.

That it's good for your heart isn't anything shocking. But just HOW good green tea can be for your ticker—that's big news.

Because a new study in Japan, appearing in the Annals of Epidemiology, has shown that drinking 7 cups of green tea a day could cut heart disease risk death by a massive 75%.

Dear Dr. Mirkin,

Which blood test is a better predictor of heart attacks: CRP or cholesterol?

Last week, I explained how preventing heart disease has very little to do with simply lowering cholesterol with statin drugs. Our current thinking about how to treat and prevent heart disease is at best misguided, and at worst harmful. We believe we are treating the causes of heart disease by lowering cholesterol, lowering blood pressure, lowering blood sugar with medication. But the real question is what causes high cholesterol, high blood pressure and high blood sugar in the first place.[i] It is certainly not a medication deficiency!

It’s true! You really can eat your way to optimum brain power and continue to feed your brain at any age.

The right foods will help you use your brain to the max, and the more you use it, the more you’ll challenge your brain to grow new cells, create new connections, and improve your problem-solving and memory functions.

We have all been led to believe that cholesterol is bad and that lowering it is good. Because of extensive pharmaceutical marketing to both doctors and patients we think that using statin drugs is proven to work to lower the risk of heart attacks and death.

But on what scientific evidence is this based, what does that evidence really show?