Judy Foreman Author & Journalist

When the seventh and posthumous – edition of Dr. Benjamin Spock’s “Baby and Child Care” was published recently, the guru’s endorsement of a vegetarian diet for kids over 2 caused many nutritionists and doctors to choke on their leafy greens. Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, professor emeritus of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, thinks it’s “absolutely…

Jesus thought fasting was good for the soul. So do Jews, who fast on Yom Kippur; Muslims, who fast by day during Ramadan; and Catholics, who fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Ghandi fasted for political reasons – to liberate India in the 1920s and 1930s. IRA member Bobby Sands did, too, fasting in…

We’ve become a nation of water drinkers, so bitten by the bug to imbibe that we lug plastic bottles around all day, not just to stave off dehydration but to avoid just about every other ill from dry skin to constipation to fatigue, muscle weakness, and colds. Are we really that desiccated? Or just deluded?…

About six years ago, Canadian researchers discovered quite by accident that people who sloshed down their high blood pressure medicine with a glass of grapefruit juice got an extra kick: The drug became much more effective, apparently because it was absorbed better by the body. So much more effective, in fact, that some doctors now…

As incidence of diabetes rises, a major effort is launched to head off costly and debilitating illness Chances are, you think of diabetes as a problem of sheer bad luck — either you get it or you don’t. But preliminary studies have suggested that, far from being inevitable, diabetes may actually be preventable, even if…

High-protein diets, America’s latest food fad, are like an overstuffed deli sandwich – some healthy nuggets here and there surrounded by a fair amount of unhealthful baloney. That, at least, is the view of mainstream nutritionists, many of whom feel that Americans hooked on books like “The Zone,” by Barry Sears, “Protein Power,” by Drs….

Weight loss center pinning hopes for fat profits on diet drugs – and doctors hired to prescribe them on demand. So. You’re determined to lose those 20 pounds this year. Okay, maybe a little more. Really. Once and for all. You go to your friendly family doctor, who’s been badgering you for years to gets…

Is your toddler is getting pudgy? Is your preschooler shorter than the other kids? Are your kids’ teeth sprouting white spots or brown stains? If so, the culprit may be the juice craze that’s sweeping the nation, as well-meaning parents stuff lunchboxes and backpacks with juice boxes and kids guzzle the stuff all day. Last…

Dr. Dean Ornish, the California guru whose radical approach to diet has been shown to reverse heart disease, settles in at the corner table at the Ritz cafe, facing Temptation. Temptation, his luncheon partner one recent winter day, points to the lobster bisque, the special Ritz cheeseburger with aged cheddar, the Boston cream pie. “They…