Dieting
Many young adults take chances with food safety
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Efforts to teach young adults about food safety may not be hitting home, a new study suggests.
Dr. Carol Byrd-Bredbenner of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and colleagues found that many college students engaged in eating behaviors that could make them sick, like eating raw homemade cookie dough or runny eggs.
While people are becoming increasingly aware of food safety issues, Byrd-Bredbenner and her team note, surveys still show a substantial proportion run the risk of food poisoning by eating raw eggs, undercooked hamburger and other foods that may harbor harmful bacteria.
We are what we drink
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University of Utah scientists developed a new crime-fighting tool by showing that human hair reveals the general location where a person drank water, helping police track past movements of criminal suspects or unidentified murder victims.
“You are what you eat and drink – and that is recorded in your hair,” says geochemist Thure (pronounced Tur-ee) Cerling, who led the research effort with ecologist Jim Ehleringer.
Their findings are being published online Feb. 25 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The new hair analysis method also may prove useful to anthropologists, archaeologists and medical doctors in addition to police.
Eat breakfast to curb middle-age weight gain
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Looking for ways to limit middle-age weight gain? Eat more at breakfast and less later in the day, researchers suggest.
“Shifting a greater proportion of a day’s total calorie intake to breakfast time is potentially beneficial for lower weight gain over time among middle-aged men and women,” Dr. Nita Forouhi told Reuters Health.
Forouhi, of the Institute of Metabolic Science, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, in Cambridge, UK, and colleagues studied 6,764 men and women, 40 to 75 years old, who were assessed at the start of the study and an average of 3.7 years later.
Study gives scientific weight to high-protein diet
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New research suggests that high-protein foods may be better at curbing a key “hunger hormone” than either fats or carbohydrates.
In a study of 16 healthy adults, researchers found that a high-protein drink was more effective than either a high-fat or high-carb drink at suppressing an appetite-stimulating hormone called ghrelin.
All three beverages caused blood levels of ghrelin to dip, but the fatty drink was least effective. The high-carb drink, by comparison, was most effective at curbing the hormone in the first three hours after the “meal,” but over the next three hours ghrelin levels shot back up to levels that were higher than before the test meal.
Mediterranean Diet in Pregnancy Helps Ward Off Childhood Asthma and Allergy
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Mums to be who eat a Mediterranean diet while pregnant could help stave off the risks of asthma and allergy in their children, suggests research published ahead of print in Thorax.
The findings are based on 468 mother and child pairs, who were tracked from pregnancy up to 6.5 years after the birth.
What the mothers ate during pregnancy and what their children were eating by the time they were 6 years old were assessed using food frequency questionnaires.
Diets of Alzheimer’s patients lack many nutrients
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People with Alzheimer’s disease eat less nutritiously than their peers without dementia, even in the early stages of the disease, new research from Canada shows.
This is particularly concerning given that adequate intakes of certain nutrients, such as omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin K, and other antioxidants, could possibly help to preserve mental function, Dr. Bryna Shatenstein of the University of Montreal and her colleagues say.
Bad diet ups cancer risk for poor, black women
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Poor black women in U.S. cities face a greater risk of getting cancer because of unhealthy diets, according to a report released on Wednesday that says the finding applies to other ethnic groups.
The study of more than 150 women living in public housing in Washington, D.C., found that 61 percent of them met none or just one of five goals for maintaining a healthy diet.
High glycemic index diet may boost diabetes risk
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Regular consumption of foods with a high glycemic index appears to increase the risk of type 2 diabetes in African-American and Chinese women, according to the results of two studies published Monday.
Glycemic index refers to how rapidly a food causes blood sugar to rise. High-glycemic index foods, like white bread and potatoes, tend to spur a quick surge in blood sugar, while low-glycemic index foods, such as lentils, soybeans, yogurt and many high-fiber grains, create a more gradual increase in blood sugar.
Dieting hardest for emotional eaters: study
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Emotional eaters—people who eat when they are lonely or blue—tend to lose the least amount of weight and have the hardest time keeping it off, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.
They said the study may explain why so many people who lose weight gain it all back.
Officials battle through “samurai” diet
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Overweight local government officials in Japan have slimmed down with a three-month “samurai” diet, soldiering on despite a fellow samurai’s death.
The mayor of the city of Ise in west Japan and six officials joined forces as the “Seven Metabolic Samurai,” after Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai” movie, to fight the so-called metabolic syndrome—excess belly fat, high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels.
High glycemic index diet boosts fatty liver risk
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People who eat lots of high glycemic index (GI) foods not only risk gaining weight, they also run a greater risk of developing a condition that can lead to liver failure and death, finds a new study in mice. The condition is known as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).
GI refers to how rapidly a food causes blood sugar to rise. High-GI foods, like white bread and potatoes, tend to spur a quick surge in blood sugar, while low-GI foods, such as lentils, soybeans, yogurt and many high-fiber grains, create a more gradual increase in blood sugar.
“Eating competence” may lead to healthier hearts
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People who are confident, comfortable, and flexible eaters may be less prone to develop cardiovascular disease than those who are not, new research suggests.
According to the Satter Eating Competence Model, developed by registered dietitian Ellyn Satter, competent eaters are aware of hunger and appetite, regularly eat a variety of enjoyable and nourishing food, and eat in harmony with the body’s biological tendency to maintain a preferred and stable weight.
Low-salt diet seen acceptable to many
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Adults may be amenable to lowering their salt intake, particularly in the context of a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, which is naturally low in salt, research shows.
“There is a public perception that reduced sodium diets are unpalatable,” Dr. Eva Obarzanek noted in an interview with Reuters Health. “But what we found is that there is really no difference in acceptability ratings from a higher and a lower sodium diet.”
Harvard’s New Eating Guide Busts Diet Myths for Diabetes
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Myths abound when it comes to diabetes and food—one of the most common being that there is a “diabetes diet” that prohibits sugar and other items. A new report from Harvard Health Publications dispels this and other misconceptions, and explains what people with diabetes should eat to keep their blood sugar steady. The report includes 40 new recipes.
The advice for people with diabetes is similar to that for the general population, but with extra emphasis on controlling weight, blood sugar, and risk factors for heart disease, explains the report, Healthy Eating for Type 2 Diabetes.
Drinking coffee seems to protect the liver
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Data from 10 studies conducted in Europe and Japan suggest that people who drink coffee may be reducing their risk of liver cancer, although the reasons for the apparent protective effect of coffee remain to be determined.
The 10 studies reviewed by Dr. Francesca Bravi from Milan’s Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche “Mario Negri” and colleagues included 2,260 cases of HCC. Collectively, the results showed a 41 percent reduction in the risk of liver cancer (or hepatocellular carcinoma, HCC) among coffee drinkers compared to those who never drank coffee.
