Health & Medicine: 1)New study finds sharp rise in young men contacting Ontario gambling helpline; 2)3M Canadian adults taking GLP-1 drugs, reshaping eating and spending, survey suggests; 3) Teenage girls are most likely to tear their ACLs. Parents say more must be done to protect them; 4)New football chinstrap designed to lessen force of blows to facemask; 5)Electrolyte supplements are everywhere. Who benefits from them and when?; 6) If you’re struggling to lose weight, could chilling your carbs help?

1) New study finds sharp rise in young men contacting Ontario gambling helpline

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press
By Rianna Lim, March 2, 2026.

The rate of young men contacting Ontario’s mental health helpline for gambling-related problems has increased by more than 300 per cent after the province allowed private online gambling, a new study suggests.

The researchers behind the study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal on Monday say the findings represent a need for stronger harm-reduction measures and more access to treatment.
The study analyzed the number of contacts to ConnexOntario, the province’s free 24-hour mental health and addictions helpline, for gambling-related concerns from January 2012 to September 2025.
It noted an increase after January 2015, when the government launched the gambling platform PlayOLG, as well as after the province expanded private online gambling in April 2022.

Over the 13-year period researchers looked at, ConnexOntario was contacted more than 745,700 times, the study said, and about 37,000 of those contacts were gambling-related.
The study found that among boys and men aged 15 to 24, the mean monthly rate of gambling-related outreach per million people rose by 317 per cent from the time before Ontario’s launch of PlayOLG to the period after the privatization of online gambling.

The rate increased about 108 per cent over the same time frame for men aged 25 to 44, the study further found. Prior to the policy changes, the rates were stable, it said.

While better awareness of the hotline could be a factor, the spike may not be solely explained by people seeking help for existing problems, said Dr. Daniel Myran, a research chair at North York General Hospital who co-authored the study.

“There’s very good evidence that most people with gambling disorders or gambling problems don’t seek care, and when they do seek care, it’s often through helplines like ConnexOntario,” said Myran.
“The increases that we’re seeing in these contacts to the helpline — is it the tip of the iceberg of much larger increases in the number of people who are engaged in gambling in harmful patterns?”
Myran noted there has been a higher volume of gambling marketing since the privatization of betting in the province.

“I think that we need to think very carefully about who these ads are reaching and the messages that they’re conveying. And I think we need move to place restrictions on them because they’re right now occurring in venues that are widely seen by youth,” he said.
“When we see that the visits or the contacts have really gone up in young men, I think that this is exactly who’s being targeted by the advertisements and who’s going to be placing sports bets.”

The study further found that between the dawn of online gambling privatization in April 2022 and August of last year, the number of active player accounts per 100,000 people aged 15 or older increased from roughly 2,160 to more than 7,300 — a 239 per cent increase.

Myran added there are concerns around micro-betting and other types of gambling that are associated with higher risk of addiction.
“Let’s say that you bet on the outcome of the Super Bowl. It’s one bet that you’ve made. … But you can now actually bet on events that occur within the game itself,” he said.
“That means that if you lose money, you might do what’s called loss chasing, where you try and re-wager it to win more, and it can really accelerate people into gambling disorders.”

Ultimately, the study’s findings underscore why gambling disorders need to be treated as a public health issue and treatment should be readily available, said Myran.
“Gambling can have really severe consequences to individuals. People who have gambling disorders are really at high risk of mental health conditions including self-harm and suicide,” said Myran.
“It can also have much broader impacts on families and communities around them,” he added. “I think that we have not adequately considered how some of the changes that have occurred may have much broader health implications for society.”

2)3M Canadian adults taking GLP-1 drugs, reshaping eating and spending, survey suggests

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Nicole Ireland, March 3, 2026

A new survey suggests about three million Canadian adults are currently taking GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic or Mounjaro and that many more would like to, but cost is a barrier. 

The poll conducted by Leger Healthcare says more than half of the people surveyed who are taking the medications reported decreased appetite and 40 per cent said they have fewer food cravings. 

Leger Healthcare says those effects are reshaping how GLP-1 users are spending their money, with about 30 per cent going to restaurants or getting takeout food less often.  

The survey released Tuesday says about a third of them are buying more fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as protein-rich foods. 

It says weight loss is the No. 1 reason people are taking or considering taking GLP-1 medications, followed by diabetes. 

More than half of people interested in taking the medication said having insurance coverage or lower-cost generic options would affect their decision. 

“GLP-1s are no longer a niche health topic. They’re a mainstream consumer and health-care story,” Melicent Lavers-Sailly, vice-president of research at Leger Healthcare, said in an interview. 

“What the research found is that the impact of GLP-1s is showing up in shopping baskets and behaviours, not just prescriptions.” 

In addition to not going to restaurants as often, about 35 per cent of people taking the medications said they order smaller portions than they used to, choose “lighter or healthier options,” or don’t finish their whole meal. 

Thirty-six per cent said they have decreased their alcohol consumption. 

GLP-1 use is also changing what people buy outside of the grocery store, the survey said, with increased spending on clothes, personal care products, beauty services and fitness. 

The survey findings also estimate that about two million Canadian adults are not taking the medications but would like to. 

Although lack of insurance coverage and cost were barriers for about half of respondents interested in taking GLP-1s, another 36 per cent said they would take the medication if the risk of side-effects was lower. 

Some people experience gastrointestinal side-effects including nausea, vomiting, constipation and diarrhea.

More severe complications can include gall bladder inflammation and pancreatitis, but most side-effects are minor, doctors say. 

Fifty-eight per cent of people taking or considering taking GLP-1 drugs said weight loss was their main driver, while 42 per cent said diabetes was their primary reason. 

Twenty-two per cent said they wanted to take a GLP-1 for their heart health. Men were more likely to cite this reason than women. 

The survey found a quarter of the respondents taking GLP-1 medications were paying for the drugs — which can cost hundreds of dollars a month — completely out of pocket. 

The medication was fully covered by either private or public insurance plans for 28 per cent of them. 

Almost half said they had partial insurance coverage. 

Leger Healthcare conducted the online survey with 1,536 Canadians aged 18 and over from Feb. 6 to 9, 2026.  

Eight per cent of the respondents said they were taking a prescription GLP-1 medication. Using 2025 adult population statistics, Leger Healthcare extrapolated that would equal about three million Canadian adults. 

Similarly, six per cent of respondents said they were interested in taking a GLP-1 but weren’t. The researchers extrapolated that would translate to more than two million Canadian adults. 

The polling industry’s professional body, the Canadian Research Insights Council, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.

However, a probability sample of comparable size would yield a margin  of error of ±2.5% (19 times out of 20), according to Leger Healthcare. 

Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.

3) Teenage girls are most likely to tear their ACLs. Parents say more must be done to protect them

Courtesy Barrie360.com and The Associated Press

Sofia Tepichin was about 30 minutes into her club soccer team practice in October when she spotted a fast-approaching defender. She tapped the ball away and hopped over the defender’s outstretched foot, came down awkwardly, and heard a “pop.”

She immediately fell to the ground, pain shooting through her left knee and knew it wasn’t good. It was, she said, “heartbreaking.”

“And I knew personally that I tore my ACL,” Tepichin said.

Tepichin joined the growing ranks of female high school athletes tearing their anterior cruciate ligament, a devastating knee injury that researchers are pressing the sports world to take more seriously.

Decades of research on prevention methods is available, but parents, researchers and trainers say that teams, coaches and leagues aren’t doing enough to protect the girls and educate parents.

High school female athletes are most vulnerable

Sports fans hear often about high-profile athletes like U.S. Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn tearing their ACLs, and many ACL injuries are chalked up to bad luck or a part of sports that will continue to happen at all competitive levels.

Still, high school-age female athletes suffer these injuries at much higher rates than their male counterparts — up to eight times more likely, one study says — and adults, most often in noncontact situations in sports that require fast changes in direction, researchers say.

Biomechanics researchers, trainers and physical therapists say there are pre-workout warm ups and strengthening routines — such as FIFA 11+ or PEP — that can at least reduce the risk of an injury that takes such a high physical and mental toll on young athletes.

But, they say, most coaches lack training or expert help, and high school girls compete in settings with far fewer resources than the professional and collegiate levels. As a result, risk-reduction routines are rarely included in day-to-day coaching curricula and practices.

“The real crime in this is that the data has been out there for 25 years,” said Holly Silvers-Granelli, a physical therapist and biomechanics researcher who advises athletes, professional teams and major sports leagues on injury prevention. “People are clamoring for answers, and the answers are largely there.”

The trendline of ACL injuries isn’t entirely clear, but the National ACL Injury Coalition — formed by the Aspen Institute and the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York — said its analysis of data from high school athletic trainers showed that the average annual ACL injury rate for high school athletes grew almost 26% from 2007 to 2022.

The rate for girls grew more than 32%, compared to 14.5% for boys, it said.

On their own to recover

When they get injured, high school athletes and their parents often find themselves on their own to deal with it. ACL injuries can require surgery and a year of rehab, physical therapy and strength training, which insurance may not fully cover.

Recovery changes their routine and identity: They miss out on the camaraderie of the team and stand on the sidelines, which can be as hard as the physical trauma, parents say.

Many high school athletes who tear their ACL never perform again at the same level, if they even return to the sport, the National ACL Injury Coalition says. And once injured, they carry a heightened risk of another ACL injury and long-term complications like degenerative joint disease, researchers say.

The coalition has urged the sports world to treat ACL injuries like brain injuries, now that professional and youth sports have tried to improve training, rules and equipment standards to prevent and detect concussions.

Sophia Gerardi, a sophomore at Pennsylvania’s Apollo Ridge High School who tore her ACL during a basketball game in December, was told by her doctors that she’ll forever have to wear a knee brace to play sports. She had surgery in January, will miss volleyball season and hopes to be back for next winter’s basketball season.

Like many girls who tore their ACL, she didn’t recall getting any ACL injury-prevention training.

Surveys of coaches show that many don’t know about risk-reduction programs, aren’t trained to do them or aren’t encouraged to learn about them, said Vince Minjares, who leads the Aspen Institute’s ACL injury prevention project. Some coaches tell Minjares that it takes too much time.

He hopes that’s changing.

‘What is the solution’

This spring, the American Youth Soccer Organization — one of major national organizations in U.S. youth soccer — will roll out new age- and stage-based neuromuscular training programs aimed at preventing ACL injuries through warm-ups.

Coaches will get a regimen of exercises in bite-sized chunks, with video instructions. The goal is to build good habits before preteens age into more physical and demanding competition.

“My biggest shock was that this didn’t already exist,” said Scott Snyder, AYSO’s senior director of programs and education. “Everyone I talk to says, ‘Yeah, that makes perfect sense,’ but nobody’s done it yet.”

Last year, biomechanical researchers at the Scottish Rite for Children hospital in metropolitan Dallas began providing high school teams with resources typically only available or affordable at the professional and collegiate levels.

They created pre-season injury-prevention trainings, tailored for female athletes, to improve strength and movement quality. At the start of the eight-week program, each athlete gets a free motion-capture 3D-level assessment to identify weaknesses in strength, movement or balance. Another assessment at the end determines if the program reduced risk.

Future trainings could include nutrition and sleep, said Sophia Ulman, who directs the hospital’s Movement Science Laboratory.

“My team and I got tired of studying ‘why, why, why’ when there’s so many different possibilities to answer that question. And we wanted to move into the ‘what is the solution,’” said Ulman. Other biomechanics labs in the U.S. are trying similar outreach, she said.

One of the teams that participated was Plano East High School in Texas, where players — including Tepichin — had suffered a rash of ACL tears the past couple years.

Cristy Cooley, Plano East’s coach, said that getting a hands-on demonstration from trained professionals in proper exercises and movement patterns makes a big difference.

“It’s one thing talking about it,” Cooley said. “But it’s a totally different thing to show us.”

‘Something’s got to change’

Like other parents, Tiffany Jacob said she learned a lot about preventing ACL injuries that she wished she had known before her daughter — East Plano sophomore Aliya Jacob — tore her ACL last February. For instance, the surgeon told them three days a week of strength training is an absolute must for soccer players.

“Something’s got to change,” Tiffany Jacob said. “Coaches, clubs, something. They have to do something to prevent this because it’s just such a horrible injury.”

Aliya — who knows at least seven other female soccer players who tore an ACL, her mother said — is back playing for East Plano now. She endured twice-a-week physical therapy, the isolation of rehabilitation and, her mother said, “figuring out who you are when you’re not playing soccer.”

Tepichin, a high school senior, recalls her surgeon telling her to take a couple days to get all her sadness and anger out — and then devote herself to her recovery.

She’ll miss her last year of playing high school and club team soccer. Her next time on a field could be for Saint Vincent College in Pennsylvania, where she committed to the NCAA Division III team.

Tepichin has seen a sports psychologist, gotten comfort from others who underwent the surgery — her sister, her father and her friend — and found a new routine after having been constantly busy with two soccer teams and a job.

“There’s not a day that I go that I’m not working out or doing something,” she said, “or getting better for my health and my recovery.”

4)New football chinstrap designed to lessen force of blows to facemask

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Dan Ralph, Feb. 26, 2026.

Erin Hanson wants to make taking it on the chin in football much safer in Canada.

Guardian Sports officially launched the Guardian Flex chinstrap on Thursday for individual and team sale, with the CFL being among the leagues to have reviewed the item. The product has been engineered to reduce the impact of blows to the facemask.

According to the company, the chinstrap reduces Head Acceleration Response Metric (HARM) scores by up to 35 per cent and targets facemask impacts, which research suggests account for about half of all hits and are an area where traditional helmets underperform.

The chinstrap will be far less noticeable to fans than the Atlanta-based company’s Guardian Cap. Introduced 14 years ago, the soft padded shell fits over a football helmet and is secured by elastic straps attached to the facemask.

While the cap does not eliminate concussion risk, studies have shown it can reduce it by 15 to 34 per cent.

“The Guardian Cap helps address impact reduction on head-to-head, or head-to-ground blows,” said Hanson, Guardian Sports’ chief executive officer and co-founder. “Now the Guardian chinstrap is the first to improve an area where approximately half of all impacts occur.

“The Guardian chinstrap addresses a critical gap in football safety.”

Across North America, particularly at the minor and high-school levels, there has been an effort to reduce head contact in tackling. Players are taught to keep their heads up, initiate contact with their shoulders and then wrap with their arms.

However, players still butt heads — offensive and defensive linemen do so on nearly every play. At every level, tacklers sometimes lack the time to use proper technique and will do whatever they can to bring the ballcarrier down, resulting in contact involving the facemask or head.

Guardian’s chinstrap has a hard outer shell with a foam insert and what the company describes as SoftShox technology — a hydraulic shock-absorbing mechanism positioned where the player’s chin rests that engages to help absorb force from impacts to the facemask.

The chinstrap became available for presale last August, and on Sept. 13, Notre Dame offensive lineman Billy Schrauth became the first player to wear it in a game.

Compatible with all major helmets, the white chinstrap comes in two sizes — small/medium and large/extra large — and retails for $69.

Guardian has shared samples and research with the CFL, which in turn did so with its teams. Each franchise will decide whether to purchase the chinstraps, though the expectation is all nine will carry them this season.

CFL players choose their own equipment — including helmets, facemasks, chinstraps, shoulder and leg pads — and teams are required to make approved options available.

The CFL mandated the use of Guardian Caps in 2023 during training camp and regular-season contact practices. All offensive and defensive linemen, running backs and linebackers had to wear them.

That year, then-CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie said the introduction of Guardian Caps helped create a 42 per cent decrease in training camp concussions. In 2024, the league extended the use of the caps to defensive backs and receivers while allowing players to wear them during games.

On Aug. 24, 2024, Saskatchewan running back Thomas Bertrand-Hudon, a native of Mont-Saint-Hilarie, Que., became the first pro football player to wear the cap during a CFL regular-season game versus the Montreal Alouettes. Others, such as B.C. Lions defensive back T.J. Lee, have followed.

This season, Alaric Jackson, a Windsor, Ont., native and starting offensive lineman with the NFL’s St. Louis Rams, donned the protective headgear during games. And on Jan. 26, New England guard Jared Wilson became the first player to wear a Guardian Cap in the Super Bowl, doing so in the Patriots’ 29-13 championship loss to the Seattle Seahawks.

The CFL is not the only football league in Canada examining the new chinstrap.

“U Sports is following the advancement of student-athlete protective equipment,” the governing body of Canadian university sport told The Canadian Press. “Once the Guardian Sport chinstrap is approved for play by Football Canada, U Sports athletes will be permitted to use it on a volunteer basis in competitions and training.”

Guardian caps are also available to U Sports football players, with a number having used them during practices in 2025. U Sports said only a few wore them in regular-season games in 2025 and none in bowl games or the Vanier Cup.

5)Electrolyte supplements are everywhere. Who benefits from them and when?

Courtesy Barrie360.com and The Associated Press

By Travis Lollie, March 2, 2026

Social media is filled with influencers rating electrolyte supplements or even telling followers how to make their own. But experts say many of the claims about the health benefits of these drinks need to be taken with a grain of salt.

Electrolytes are electrically charged substances that help regulate chemical reactions in the body. In the context of hydration, they balance fluid levels inside and outside of cells, said Julia Zumpano, a registered dietitian at the Cleveland Clinic.

We lose some electrolytes through sweat, primarily sodium chloride — which is what is in table salt. Drinking too much plain water when sweating very heavily can dilute the salt in your body even further, throwing things out of balance. Electrolyte drinks and powders are meant to hydrate and replace the lost salt. They often contain other electrolytes like potassium and magnesium. Many also contain some form of sugar.

In general, the kidneys in a healthy person do an excellent job of keeping our electrolytes in balance. Extras simply come out in your urine, said Vanderbilt University nephrologist Hunter Huston, who also consults for a UK-based company that provides electrolyte replacement plans for endurance athletes.

Taking “an electrolyte-enriched drink, just for health purposes, probably isn’t doing much,” he said.

Today “rapid hydration” and “advanced hydration” drinks are taking off, but who actually benefits from them and when?

It all started with Gatorade

It was 1965 at the University of Florida and then-assistant Gators football Coach Dwayne Douglas had something on his mind. As Robert Cade, the school’s first kidney researcher, later explained, Douglas asked him, “Doctor, why don’t football players wee-wee after a game?”

“That question changed our lives,” Cade said.

The obvious answer was that the football players couldn’t urinate because they were losing so much fluid through sweat. Cade’s research team determined a player could lose as much as 18 pounds (8.16 kilograms) during a game. But it wasn’t just water the players were losing. They were sweating away sodium and chloride and losing both plasma volume and blood volume. The losses were sapping their strength and stamina.

Cade mixed up a briny solution to replace the water and salt players were losing. Sugar would help the gut absorb the sodium. The first batch made him vomit. Some lemon juice made it taste a little better. It still wasn’t delicious, but soon the team’s performance improvement could not be ignored — especially in the second half of games when the opposite team’s players were starting to wilt in the Florida heat and humidity.

Cade, who died in 2007, said he never dreamed Gatorade would be purchased by regular consumers.

No one-size-fits-all

While it seems that everyone is drinking electrolyte supplements these days, not everyone actually needs them.

A good rule of thumb is that if you are exercising for less than two hours, plain water is probably fine, said Vanderbilt’s Huston. The average healthy person can tolerate losing around 2% of their body weight in sweat before they really start to feel it, he said. “That’s increased thirst, it’s fatigue, it cramping.”

Everyone is different, though. Some people sweat very heavily or have sweat that is especially salty.

In the world of extreme sports like ultramarathons, athletes often get professional help to test how much they sweat and get a tailored nutrition plan.

“Most folks that are exercising, that are, say, doing a marathon, are gonna be way past that two hours, and it does then make sense to be thinking about, ‘What’s going to be my fluid and electrolyte replacement plan?’” Huston said.

Aspirational athletes

Darren Rovell has followed the rise of sports drinks from a niche market to the mainstream. He is the author of “First in Thirst: How Gatorade Turned the Science of Sweat Into a Cultural Phenomenon” and was an investor in the sports drink Bodyarmor.

When he was a runner in high school, he said, they were given Gatorade to drink and told the reason it tasted bad was because it was good for you. “And then at some point in the nineties, it got to be sugary.” After PepsiCo purchased the brand in 2001, “that really became the first time where you see Gatorade everywhere in front of your face including in a pizza place, and it starts to be, ‘OK. Is this just a different type of soda?’”

Rovell says electrolyte brands market the idea that drinking their products will either make you an athlete or, if you already are an athlete, give you a performance edge.

“It all starts in the aspiration of being better, but you know we do have to check ourselves,” he said.

A flood of newer options

The supplements out today have an incredibly wide variety of electrolyte concentrations, said Patrick Burns, who practices emergency medicine at Stanford Health Care and occasionally runs in ultramarathons. With some having five times the sodium of others, consumers should not assume all supplements are the same.

Burns also warned that people should be careful about supplementing potassium, because it can be dangerous in large amounts.

He noted that many brands now offer zero sugar varieties, even though the glucose in sugar is what allows for rapid absorption of the sodium.

“They’re not internally consistent, at all, with what they’re trying to sell you,” he said. “For optimal absorption, you need some sugar in with your salt.”

The bottom line

“Electrolytes can help, especially with heavy sweating or exercise, but for most people, they’re not something you need every single day, and you definitely don’t need large amounts of it,” the Cleveland Clinic’s Zumpano said.

For a healthy person who is not sweating intensely, the beverages probably won’t hurt you, but they won’t help you either.

“You’re getting extra sugar, and there’s no reason (for) rapid absorption of sodium because you’re not sodium depleted,” said Mark Segal, a professor of nephrology at the University of Florida College of Medicine. Most people get all the salt and potassium they need from food, he said.

As far as making your own electrolyte powders, the experts said it can be done, but you have to know what you are doing. They advised against using a recipe from an influencer.

“How do you know how much you need?” Zumpano asked. “There’s a large margin of error there. I’d probably just avoid it.”

6) If you’re struggling to lose weight, could chilling your carbs help?

Courtesy Barrie360.com and The Associated Press

By J.M. Hirsch, February 28, 2026

Online influencers claim the secret to low-calorie rice, pasta and potatoes may be as simple as chilling out.

Are they right? Not quite. But a small yet solid body of science does suggest that chilling these carbohydrate-rich foods after cooking them still could help people slim down.

For several years, wellness and nutrition influencers have promoted a process called retrogradation, urging people to cook, chill, then reheat carbohydrate-rich foods. They say doing so can cut the calories.

Retrogradation is real, but it isn’t quite that simple.

Two kinds of starch

Most of the carbohydrates in these foods — as well as most of the calories — come from starch, of which there are two types: hard-to-digest amylose and easily digested amylopectin. The latter is processed quickly and spikes blood sugar. The former is processed slowly and moderates blood sugar.

Most raw carbohydrates (think uncooked potatoes) are made mostly of the hard-to-digest starch (also called resistant starch), but cooking converts it into the easily digested one. This is why diabetics need to be mindful when eating starchy foods.

Here’s where the influencers get excited. Chilling those cooked foods triggers “retrogradation,” a process that converts easily digested starch back into resistant starch, making it harder to digest even if the food is then reheated.

What does that mean for calories and blood sugar? Here’s what we know:

Studies of how retrogradation influences diet mostly have been small and focused on how consumption of resistant starches influences blood sugar, particularly for diabetics.

Multiple studies since 2015 have found that people who ate rice that was cooked and then cooled had sometimes significantly lower blood glucose levels after eating compared to people who ate freshly cooked rice. Those findings are generally well-accepted.

Less studied is whether retrogradation also reduces the calories available from these foods.

Kind of, says Dr. David Ludwig, an endocrinologist and researcher at Boston Children’s Hospital. “It doesn’t appreciably change the calorie content of that food,” he explained. “(But) it may well affect your hormones and metabolism in a way that makes controlling calories a lot easier.”

Though retrogradation’s effects on calories is neither as direct nor as dramatic as some suggest, it nonetheless has promise as part of healthier eating, Ludwig said.

Reducing blood sugar spikes and cravings

Eating foods high in resistant starch reduces the surge in blood sugar typically seen after consuming cooked carbohydrates, he explained. And that’s key not only for diabetics.

Studies have shown that those sugar spikes activate the brain’s reward mechanism and trigger cravings, making overeating at snacks and later meals more likely.

Also, those blood sugar surges increase the body’s production of insulin, which not only makes us feel hungry, but prompts the body’s metabolism to store more calories as fat, Ludwig said.

“When the food retrogrades, it digests more slowly,” he said. “It’s going to keep your blood sugar more stable. You’ll have less insulin to drive fat storage and likely have an easier time avoiding overeating.”

So is chilling your pasta, rice and potatoes worth it?

If you eat a diet high in refined starches, chilling can technically mitigate some of their negative impacts. But Dr. Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, says that to be effective, it would have to be done consistently, and he questions whether that’s practical for most people.

It also isn’t plug-and-play simple. Retrogradation works better with some grain varieties than others. Some food manufacturers favor varieties of rice, for example, that are naturally low in resistant starch because they cook more quickly. But this information rarely is available to the consumer, so it’s hard to know when chilling makes a difference.

Willett also noted that retrogradation only helps with blood-sugar effects.

“Chilling does not restore the losses of fiber, minerals and vitamins that have been removed in the refining process,” he said.

Better, he said, would be to keep it simple: Substitute minimally processed whole grains cooked as one normally would.