7:39 minutes (1.76 MB)

Phil dishes out this week's food news with topics such as: low-fat fried foods, anti-oxidants helping with the aging process, pediatricians claiming that apple juice is good for children, and much more.

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Asthma will get worse for most people as Fall approaches. Learn some simple ways to improve your respiratory health and how to decrease the number and severity of your asthma attacks.

Millions of people spend billions of dollars on antioxidant vitamin supplements each year.

Guess what? They don't work.

Selenium was the darling supplement of the 1980s, believed to prevent and possibly treat heart disease. The claims were based on a study that found that countries with the highest rate of disease were usually lacking in the trace element.

Selenium carried the reputation of super supplement through the '80s and '90s, but a study published last month in The American Journal of Epidemiology has revealed that when it comes to heart health, selenium was never all it was cracked up to be.

It's easy to pop a vitamin every day. It's one of the less labor intensive steps in taking care of your health. But do you know what's going on inside that pill? All vitamins are definitely not created equal. This means that there's a decent chance that the $4 bottle I bought from Trader Joe's might not stand up to a $30 bottle from a health food store, but it may also mean that the more expensive brand is all hype and no substance.

As with many hyped supplements, selenium has legitimately intriguing attributes, but is far from perfect.

One of my favorite resources, The Berkeley Wellness Letter, takes a critical look at the mineral in its December newsletter. Citing several recent studies, Berkeley concludes that selenium has been linked to cancer prevention because it may: