Archive for October, 2005
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - New research confirms that eating cruciferous vegetables, such as cabbage, broccoli and sprouts, protects against the development of lung cancer, and also hints that a person’s genetic makeup may influence these anti-cancer benefits.
In a study comparing more than 2100 adults with lung cancer and an equal number without, researchers found that the protective effects of cruciferous vegetable consumption was most apparent in those who had inactive forms of two genes, GSTM1 and GSTT1.
In the study, information on vegetable consumption was obtained by a food questionnaire and the genetic status of the subjects was determined by a blood sample.
Dr. Paul Brennan from the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, and colleagues report in The Lancet medical journal this week that weekly consumption of cruciferous vegetables reduced the risk of developing lung cancer by 33 percent in people who had an inactive form of the GSTM1 gene.
Those with an inactive form of GSTT1 had a 37 percent protection from eating cruciferous veggies, while those with both genes inactivated enjoyed a 72 percent protective effect.
No protective effect was found in people with active forms of these two genes.
Cruciferous vegetables are rich in isothiocyanates, which are believed to be the compounds responsible for warding off cancer. Isothiocyanates are eliminated in the body by an enzyme called GST, which is produced by GSTM1 and GSTT1. Therefore, people who have inactive forms of these genes have higher concentrations of isothiocyanates.
By looking at a genetic marker for isothiocyanates,” Brennan added in comments to Reuters Health, “this results in a more specific analysis of the effect of cruciferous vegetables, and provides stronger evidence than previously obtained.”
The main message against lung cancer, Brennan commented, is “if you smoke, then quit, and if you do not smoke then don’t start.” Over and above that, he concluded, “this study provides increasing evidence that there is a specific protective effect for regular consumption of cruciferous vegetables against lung cancer.”
SOURCE: The Lancet, October 29, 2005.
Taken From: http://today.reuters.co.uk
October 31st, 2005
THURSDAY, Oct. 27 (HealthDay News) — A diet high in fat and sugar triggered immune system abnormalities — including reduced levels of natural killer T (NKT) cells — in the livers of mice, says a study led by Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
The study authors said these diet-related changes may contribute to obesity-related liver disease. The findings appear in the October issue of the journal Hepatology.
Natural killer T (NKT) cells in the liver regulate production of cytokines, which are cell proteins.
The study found that the mice on the high-fat diet gained much more weight than mice fed a normal diet. The mice on the high-fat diet also developed fatty livers and had increased production of IL-12, a cytokine that reduces NKT cell viability, and had increased NKT cell death.
The high-fat diet also promoted production of pro-inflammatory cytokines. When the researchers induced liver injury in the mice, they found that those on the high-fat diet experienced more liver inflammation and damage than mice on the normal diet.
The findings show that high-fat diets are associated with a chronic inflammatory state in the liver, which promotes chronic liver disease, the study authors said. They said this may be the result of diet-induced depletion of NKT cells that normally balance production of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines.
“Further evaluation of other mouse strains, different age groups and genders will be necessary to clarify if any of these factors modulate susceptibility to diet-related changes in hepatic NKT cells,” the authors said. “Nevertheless, our findings are important because they clearly demonstrate significant dietary effects on ‘classic’ NKT cells and cytokine production by other liver mononuclear cells.”
October 31st, 2005
By Megan Rauscher
Fri Oct 28, 4:10 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A condition involving abnormally high levels of androgens (steroid hormones) known in medical circles as “hyperandrogenemia” starts early in obese children, a study shows, possibly placing them at increased risk for the metabolic syndrome — a cluster of conditions such as high blood pressure and high blood sugar levels that raise the risk of heart disease and diabetes.
The study also shows that weight loss leads to decreasing androgen levels. Weight loss is the “therapy of choice” for obese children with elevated androgen levels, Dr. Thomas Reinehr who led the study told Reuters Health.
“Androgens,” Reinehr explained, “are steroid hormones such as testosterone or androsterone, which control the development and maintenance of masculine characteristics in both males and females.”
“Obesity is known to be associated with increased androgen production in adult females, while studies of obese adult males have linked obesity to low androgen production,” Reinehr from the University of Witten/Herdecke in Datteln, Germany added. “There has been minimal study into the role of androgens in obese children, and it has, until now, remained unknown whether the (levels) of these hormones change after obese children lose weight,” he also pointed out.
To investigate, Reinehr and colleagues compared androgen levels in 273 obese and 79 normal weight children of the same age and pubertal stage, and studied the effect of weight loss on these hormone levels.
Weight loss was achieved via a 12-month intervention program that incorporated exercise, behavior and nutrition therapy consisting of a high-carbohydrate low-fat diet.
The study revealed that obese children, regardless of their gender or pubertal stage, show significantly higher testosterone and DHEAS levels as compared to children who are lean or normal weight.
In girls, and also in boys who were prepubertal, there was a positive link between body mass index and androgen levels. However, obese pubertal boys did not demonstrate increased androgen levels in this study.
“Overall, weight loss led to a decrease in testosterone among obese prepubertal children and pubertal girls,” Reinehr said. Therefore, “although obesity tends to be associated with an increase in androgens, this increase is reversible pending weight loss,” he concluded.
SOURCE: Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism October 2005.
Taken From: http://news.yahoo.com
October 31st, 2005
FRIDAY, Oct. 28 (HealthDay News) — A new initiative to combat obesity in U.S. black and Hispanic children is ready for launch in 2006, according to sponsors at the American Council for Fitness and Nutrition (ACFN) and the American Dietetic Association Foundation (ADAF).
Both groups plan to analyze data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other sources to assess the need for, and the best methods of, combating obesity among black and Hispanic children. Statistics have long showed these minority youngsters to be at especially high risk for obesity.
Based on the information they receive, the two organizations will create separate detailed guides for black and Hispanic community leaders, to help create and expand programs to help families adopt healthier lifestyles. The ACFN and ADAF plan to enlist respected organizations in the black and Hispanic communities to take part in the development and distribution of these guides.
“ACFN and the ADA Foundation are ideal partners to address a need that goes beyond putting great nutrition and physical activity resources into the hands of community leaders. We intend to show how to achieve collaboration in communities - the key to getting more families and children involved,” registered dietitian Cecilia Pozo Fileti, a member of the ACFN advisory board, the ADA, and head of the Latinos and Hispanics in Dietetics and Nutrition, said in a prepared statement.
Taken From: http://news.yahoo.com
October 31st, 2005
Mon Oct 24,12:32 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Experiments in mice genetically engineered to develop a form of
Alzheimer’s disease show that a diet high in saturated fats and low in carbohydrates reduces levels of the protein amyloid-beta in the brain, which is thought to be one of the key factors in the diseases
Previous studies have suggested that diets rich in saturated fats increase the deposition of amyloid-beta and increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s, Dr. Samuel T. Henderson and colleagues note in their report in the journal Nutrition and Metabolism. However, those studies did not investigate the effect of a high-fat diet that’s also low in carbohydrates.
In their own experiments, Henderson from Accera, Inc., in Broomfield, Colorado, and colleagues in Belgium used mice that produce high levels of amyloid-beta in the brain and extensive plaque deposition.
Eight of the animals were fed a standard high-carbohydrate low-fat diet. Another eight mice were fed a diet very low in carbohydrates and high in fat for 43 days beginning at three months of age.
Levels of amyloid-beta were significantly reduced — by about 25 percent — during the high-fat low-carb diet, though levels were not related to weight change or brain protein content.
“The data presented here,” Henderson’s group concludes, “suggested that it may not be fats in the diet that increase amyloid-beta levels, but perhaps levels of total calories, carbohydrates, or the metabolic state of the animal.”
SOURCE: Nutrition & Metabolism, October 17, 2005.
Taken From: news.yahoo.com
October 26th, 2005
By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer
Tue Oct 25, 4:12 AM ET
WASHINGTON - Kids don’t run outside and play like they used to, and parents say being a couch potato is a major culprit in the growing problem of childhood obesity.
Lack of exercise edged out easy access to junk food as the main concern of the 21 percent of parents who conceded in an AP-KOL poll that their children are overweight. KOL is the kids’ service of America Online.
Parents’ big frustration is how to change sedentary habits.
“What do kids like to do other than hang out with their friends?” asks Kim Nethery of Crestwood, Ky., who has tried fruitlessly to find a physical activity her 15-year-old daughter will do. Even a walk is difficult, because the family lives on a high-traffic country road risky for pedestrians.
Parents also fret over improving children’s eating habits. More than half cited the cost of healthy food and television commercials and food packaging as at least a minor problem, according to the poll conducted by Ipsos for The Associated Press and KOL. Another issue: food served in school cafeterias.
Her son’s middle school lets him order lunch a la carte, complained Margaret Gunderson of Loveland, Colo.
“They’re ordering pizza, ice cream. They blow through their lunch money by Tuesday,” she said.
The government counts 9 million children ages 6 to 16 who are overweight, at increased risk for diabetes and other health problems, not to mention being teased by peers or left out of fun activities. Overweight children usually grow into overweight adults.
In the survey, children whose parents earned less than $50,000 a year were a little more likely to be overweight than those from more affluent families.
Children are supposed to get at least an hour of vigorous activity a day. But research shows far too few get anywhere close.
More than half the parents surveyed said their children had expressed a desire to exercise more, and 30 percent said their child wanted to lose weight.
Jeff Chabot, an engineer from Rutland, Vt., said he encourages his children to participate in outdoor activities like snowmobiling and skiing.
Chabot said his older son is a little heavy. “Junk food is a big temptation,” he said. “There’s a temptation to park himself on the couch and eat after school.”
Between heavy traffic that hinders bike-riding and easy access to video games, “children’s forms of entertainment are much less active than the entertainment we had growing up,” said teacher Dierde Karcher of Montclair, N.J.
Reducing time spent in front of television and computers has been proven to slow children’s weight gain.
“We as parents need to do more,” said Elena Penson, a sales clerk from Lufkin, Texas, whose family makes a point of going to a park twice a week to play catch. “But when we get home, we’re tired, too. We’ve gotten lazy.”
Inactive parents teach their children by example to be sedentary, warned
American Heart Association president Dr. Robert H. Eckel, who researches obesity at the University of Colorado.
Getting active doesn’t have to mean joining a ball team. “One of the strongest correlates of how overall active a child is, is how much time they spend outdoors,” said Dr. Nancy Krebs, who co-chairs an American Academy of Pediatrics’ obesity panel. “Nature takes over from there.”
Parents who earned less than $25,000 a year were more likely than those with higher incomes to cite the cost of healthy food as a problem in improving their children’s eating habits. Almost four in 10 parents in rural areas noted that problem, too, more than suburban parents.
Moms were nearly twice as likely as dads to cite as factors healthy food prices, TV commercials and junk-food packaging aimed at children, and unhealthy school food.
And 49 percent of parents said the lack of time for home-cooked meals was a problem. Restaurant meals tend to have more calories and fewer fruits and vegetables.
“By the time we get off from work, it’s more convenient to stop at a restaurant than get a home-cooked meal,” said nurse Susan Henderson of Yucaipa, Calif.
Almost a quarter of parents who thought their children were overweight blamed easy access to junk food.
“I try to keep my daughter on her recommended diet, make sure she gets an appropriate amount of vegetables and very little meat,” said Darrell Scott of Oklahoma City. “But it’s a battle.”
The AP-KOL poll of 961 parents of children between ages 6-17 was conducted from Oct. 5-23 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Taken from: news.yahoo.com
October 26th, 2005
By Brad Dorfman
Tue Oct 25, 4:11 PM ET
CHICAGO (Reuters) - McDonald’s Corp. customers will soon know that the Big Mac they bought contains almost half their recommended daily fat intake just by looking at the wrapper.
In its latest measure to fend off critics that blame the world’s largest restaurant company for contributing to a rising incidence of obesity and other health problems, McDonald’s on Tuesday said it will start printing nutritional information on the packaging of its food.
Information including calories, fat grams, protein, carbohydrates and sodium is already available in brochures at McDonald’s restaurants and on the company’s Web site.
But putting it on the wrappers puts it right in front of the customer, McDonald’s Chief Executive Officer Jim Skinner said.
“We think this the absolutely easiest way to communicate it,” Skinner said in an interview. He added that the consumer can then choose whether or not to use the information in deciding what to eat.
“We’ve given them what they asked for and then people take responsibility about whether they add it up or not add it up,” Skinner said.
The information is similar to the labeling food companies are required to put on packages sold in U.S. stores. It includes the amount of the item — say, 30 fat grams in a Big Mac — and the percentage of the daily recommended intake, based on a 2,000 calorie diet (47 percent of total recommended fat for the Big Mac.)
Customers also will be able to go to the company’s Web site and tailor the information for themselves, using age, gender and other variables.
The new packaging was a useful step, but the company could have gone further, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said.
“A far better step would be to provide calorie counts right on the menu board, so consumers would have that one critical piece of information before they placed their order,” Michael Jacobson, executive director of the consumer group, which is frequently critical of the food industry, said in a statement.
McDonald’s said it had considered that step, but that the information was too complicated to put on the menu board.
McDonald’s plans to have the new packaging in more than 20,000 of its roughly 30,000 restaurants by the end of 2006, starting in February at the Olympic Winter Games in Turin, Italy.
The cost of changing the packaging will have a minimal impact on earnings, Skinner said.
In recent months, McDonald’s has undertaken a campaign to promote what it calls balanced, active lifestyles, eliminating “Super Size” menu options, and using marketing and advertising to promote physical activity.
The company also has added several entree-sized salads and grilled chicken sandwiches to its menu.
The campaign followed the 2004 release of Morgan Spurlock’s film “Super Size Me,” a cautionary tale about the dangers of eating too much fast food, in which the filmmaker subsisted on nothing but McDonald’s fare for a month.
Taken From: http://news.yahoo.com
October 26th, 2005
Fri Oct 21, 7:29 AM ET
VANCOUVER, Canada (AFP) - Following just a few simple rules regarding moderate exercise, healthy eating and lifestyle can ensure weight control and lower the risk of disease, say the world’s leading researchers on obesity.
“There’s been a hysteria in place over the last many years,” said Dr Steven Blair, who presented a key speech on the state of the art in exercise to an international science conference on obesity here Friday.
“We have a public health problem of overweight and obesity, but it’s been blown out of proportion,” said Blair. “We focus on obesity and not on other health habits and other risk factors.”
Scientists concur that there’s a crisis in soaring rates of obesity and related diseases, like diabetes, in most developed countries. Current treatments, especially for extreme obesity, are few, have limited success and, in the case of surgery, can be radical and invasive.
But there was also good news for the majority of people at the annual conference of NAASO, The Obesity Society, held in this western Canadian city.
As long as people don’t smoke, eat healthy foods and get enough exercise, excess weight may not be as much of a health risk as is commonly thought.
New research in sleep, nutrition, stress, social and consumer factors in obesity and the chemical triggers of weight gain could soon lead to better prevention and treatment.
Findings by scientists at the US Centers for Disease Control show that being merely “overweight” does not, by itself, increase the risk of disease and death. While obesity remains a major cause of early death, fewer people die because of excess fat than previous research indicated.
Meanwhile, scientists now believe that a healthy amount of exercise is attainable for most people.
Despite the enormous range of exercise programs and gear for sale in developed countries, keeping fit simply requires a daily total of 30 minutes of brisk walking, just five days a week, said Blair.
Blair, whose Texas-based Cooper Institute studies and designs physical activity programs around the world and trains fitness instructors for the US military, cited dramatics effects from a simple walk routine.
Walking “cuts the risk of dying in half over next eight to ten years,” he said. “It cuts the risk of diabetes, hypertension, metabolic syndrome, and colon cancer … sometimes in half.”
“It cuts your risk of becoming depressed, and if you are depressed, it helps ameliorate the symptoms,” said Blair.
“If you exercise, you call into action nearly every body system including your heart and lungs, and molecules and hormones dash madly around the body.”
“A whole cascade of many body functions are affected by exercise,” even if the 30-minute daily walks are divided into three 10-minute or two 15-minute walks.
For the 25 percent of Americans who get no exercise at all and who may be discouraged by complex fitness programs, the fact that almost all benefits of exercise are attained in the walk program may be encouraging.
Blair noted that the health benefits do increase during more intense or prolonged exercise, but that the extra benefit from more exercise is relatively small.
Meanwhile, for people who are extremely obese and for whom walking is not possible, treatment options are few but improving.
There are only two effective drugs for obesity currently on the market, said psychologist Thomas Wadden, president of The Obesity Society. “But we will have a lot of new medications in the next ten to 20 years.”
And as research shows bariatric surgery, sometimes known as “gut stapling”, increases life expectancy, the procedure has rapidly increased. Wadden said about 125,000 such surgeries are now performed each year in the US, up from less than 75,000 in 2002.
Taken from: news.yahoo.com
October 24th, 2005
By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter Fri Oct 21,11:47 PM ET
FRIDAY. Oct. 21 (HealthDay News) — Contradicting widely held views, a new study has found that consumption of carbonated soft drinks from school vending machines has a negligible impact on adolescent weight problems.
Given that, the data does not support a policy of banning or restricting sales of soft drinks in schools, the authors concluded.
“We don’t want this research to be taken to indicate that we think the problem of adolescent overweight is nonexistent or something we shouldn’t pay attention to,” said study author Richard A. Forshee, deputy director and director of research at the University of Maryland’s Center for Food, Nutrition and Agriculture Policy. “We believe adolescent obesity is a very serious problem. We think these kinds of analyses are necessary to help us find most effective interventions so we can have a positive impact on a problem we all care about.”
Other nutrition experts argued that the study missed the larger picture.
“You’re not going to be able to find one thing that is going to be the be-all and end-all in obesity in kids,” said Cathy Nonas, director of the diabetes and obesity programs at North General Hospital in New York City and a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. “I don’t think any one thing is going to have a strong effect, but if we don’t start to do some of these things now, we don’t have a chance in hell of reducing obesity.”
The study appeared in the October issue of Risk Analysis, and was funded by the American Beverage Association. Forshee maintained that his group “followed a very rigorous scientific process” and that the association had no input into the analysis, design, interpretation or decision to publish the research. The researchers had initially approached the association for funding.
According to background information in the article, the percentage of adolescents classified as overweight increased from 10.5 percent in the 1988-94 period to 15.5 percent in the 1999-2000 period.
Scientists, policy makers and concerned citizens alike are trying to find effective ways to stem the rising poundage. One strategy under consideration is banning or limiting sales of soft drinks from vending machines in schools.
In January, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy statement recommending that soft drink sales in schools be severely restricted, pointing out that sweetened drinks (including fruit drinks as well as soft drinks) are now the main source of added sugar in the daily diets of children.
The authors of the current study stated there is little scientific evidence to support such a policy, and set out to analyze the existing literature.
To this end, they used the tool of “risk analysis,” which, Forshee said, “has not been applied as widely as it should be in nutrition policy.”
The idea was to apply the tool to a controversial area in nutrition policy (soft drink sales in schools) as a way to demonstrate that it might have wider utility.
Forshee and his colleagues used two federally funded data sets, including the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999-2000 (NHANES), and one data set from the National Family Opinion consumer research firm.
The researchers used the largest association between school soft drinks and body mass index (BMI) they could find, which was a .24 unit change in BMI for every one serving change in soft drink consumption.
Even using this upper-end figure, Forshee said, “there was no statistically significant association and, in fact, regular carbonated soft drinks accounted for less than 1 percent of the variance in BMI.”
Consumption of soft drinks from school vending machines was also quite low, with estimates ranging from half an ounce to two ounces per day per student. Adolescents drank five times as much at home.
The findings implied that consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages need to be cut by more than four servings a day to reduce BMI by 1 kilogram per meter squared.
With current consumption of such drinks at 2 servings a day for males and 1.2 a day for females, it’s unlikely that such a policy in schools will make a “meaningful difference in BMI distribution of the population,” the authors wrote.
“We’re not saying that there’s no kid that has a problem with consumption with sweetened beverages,” Forshee said. “We’re wondering what kind of public policy interventions are going to be effective at dealing with public health issues.”
“Restricting sales of soft drinks in schools does come with some costs,” he added. “It restricts choices, and it is a source of revenue for schools.”
For Nonas, however, restricting soft drink sales in schools would be part of a larger policy initiative which also would include making parks safer, more gym time in schools, reduced television watching and getting rid of sweetened drinks at home.
“I’ve always said that vending machines is a start, but nowhere near enough to make a dent,” Nonas said. “This, by itself, is not an effective policy. That’s different from saying it shouldn’t be done.”
Taken From: news.yahoo.com
October 24th, 2005
They say impact of genes that cause illnesses can be modified by diet
By MALCOLM RITTER
Associated Press
Oct. 22, 2005, 5:57PM
NEW YORK - As a registered dietitian, Ruth DeBusk has eaten a healthy diet for a long time. As a geneticist, she wondered if she could do better.
So earlier this year, she had her DNA tested by a company that gives personalized nutrition advice based on genetics. The results indicated she needed more folate.
So DeBusk doubled her minimum amount of folate, a B vitamin found in leafy greens and citrus.
“I’m more diligent about being sure that I get it every day if possible, because it really matters,” said DeBusk, who has a private practice in Tallahassee, Fla., and has written a book on nutrition and genetics. “I’ll actually make an effort to drink a glass of orange juice or eat an extra big salad in the evening, being aware it hasn’t been one of my better folate days.”
That’s the way it’s supposed to work in nutritional genomics or nutrigenomics.
“Every time we go to the supermarket we’re using educated guesses about what we should eat and what we shouldn’t eat,” says Raymond Rodriguez, director of the National Center of Excellence for Nutritional Genomics at the University of California, Davis.
Not ready yet
In the future, more of that guesswork may be replaced with accurate, personal DNA-based dietary advice, which Rodriguez says is “rapidly emerging on the horizon.”
But that time isn’t here yet, most experts say. Nutrigenomics is still in its infancy, with plenty to be learned.
Most of the research targets heart disease and cancer, and scientists may be ready to deliver personalized diet recommendations in those areas within five years, said Jose Ordovas, director of the nutrition and genomics laboratory at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Nutrition Research Center at Tufts University in Boston.
“We have scientific evidence that the concept is right, that we can provide something along those lines in the future,” Ordovas said. “We are not there yet.”
No? You can walk into some pharmacies or grocery stores right now and pay $99 for a DNA test kit that will get you personalized diet advice for heart health, bone health, or any of three other areas.
It’s from Sciona Inc., a small company based in Boulder, Colo., that started offering DNA-based diet advice in 2001. Such tests are also available by mail order and on the Internet.
Sciona customers collect their DNA with a cheek swab, complete a diet and lifestyle questionnaire and send it all in for analysis. Sciona encourages customers to review its advice with a doctor.
The company acknowledges that some scientists say it’s too soon to offer such a service, but says its testing is based on solid research.
A basic approach
Testing focuses on 19 genes, and the company is studying others, said Rosalynn Gill-Garrison, chief scientific officer and a company founder.
Sciona’s approach basically starts with standard healthy-eating recommendations and modifies them when genetic analysis indicates a need for something more, Gill-Garrison said.
After a DNA test, Sciona may recommend steps like eating more broccoli or omega-3 fatty acids, she said, or limiting caffeine to protect against bone loss.
Gill-Garrison said studies show that people with a certain version of a gene called MTHFR tend to have high blood levels of a substance called homocysteine, which has been linked to a higher risk of heart disease and stroke.
Studies also show that people with this gene version can reduce their homocysteine levels by taking in more folate, she said. So that’s the advice Sciona customers with that gene version get.
DeBusk, who said she has no financial ties to any of the companies, figures the time for DNA-based diet advice has come.
“The scientist in me says we shouldn’t do this now, we need to wait another 20 years until many studies have been done,” she said. But her clients want to know what the best science is right now, and “it’s difficult to say, ‘Come back in 20 years.’ You can’t do that.
“Do we know everything we’d like to know? No. … Do we know enough to start introducing this type of technology and start the long process of educating people? I would say yes.”
Taken from: http://www.chron.com
October 23rd, 2005
Here’s a quick nutrition knowledge quiz. True or false:
* If I eliminate all visible fat from meat and discard the skin from poultry, I’ll get rid of most of the cholesterol.
* Meat labeled 85 percent lean is a healthy choice.
* Ounce for ounce, green peppers contain as much vitamin C as oranges.
* Tomatoes and carrots provide more nutritional value when they’re eaten raw.
All four of those statements are false. How did you score?
If you missed one or more, don’t worry! A dietetics professional can help you learn the straight facts on nutrition and develop a personalized eating plan that is right for your and your family.
Taken From: http://www.local6.com/
October 20th, 2005
Wednesday October 19, 2005
by LYNN F. LITTLE
From the creamy, buttery Yukon Gold to the Purple Peruvian, the Garnett sweet potato or the familiar Russet, potatoes come in many colors and shapes. First cultivated more than 4,000 years ago in Peru, potatoes are one of the most common food crops in the world. In the United States, nearly 35 billion pounds of potatoes are grown per year.
What makes the potato so popular in America? Perhaps it’s that potatoes are naturally nutritious, widely available, versatile and easy to prepare.
Potatoes provide many important vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. Potatoes are a great source of potassium, which is important for heart health and for building strong bones. One medium baked potato provides about 20 percent of the potassium recommended daily by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Potatoes also are rich in vitamin C, providing nearly 40 percent of the recommended daily value of this important vitamin, which is necessary to produce collagen and to help wounds heal. It is also a powerful antioxidant.
Sweet potatoes and the full-fleshed red, blue and purple potatoes are rich in a variety of carotenoids and other antioxidants.
Potatoes are a good source of dietary fiber. One medium potato with the skin contains 3 grams of dietary fiber. Fiber helps keep the digestive system functioning properly and might help reduce the risk for some cancers and heart disease.
Finally, though they’re often considered fattening, potatoes themselves are fat-free and relatively low in calories. A medium-sized baked or boiled potato contains about 100 calories with no fat, cholesterol or sodium. Frying potatoes as hash browns or french fries, however, doubles the number of calories per serving. Potatoes have less than 10 percent daily value for carbohydrates.
Keep potatoes healthy by eating them with skin on. Cut potatoes will darken or discolor due to the carbohydrates reacting with oxygen in the air (similar to the reaction of cut apples.) Prevent discoloration by storing cut potatoes in cold water for no more than two hours in order to retain water soluble vitamins.
When selecting potatoes, choose ones that are clean, smooth, firm and free from rot, sprouts, cracks, sunburn or other damage. Mature potatoes have thick, dry skins and are good for most purposes, depending on the shape. Immature or new potatoes have thin feathery skins and do not keep well at room temperature. They are better for boiling or creaming. Avoid new potatoes with large skinned and discolored areas.
Potatoes that have a green color have been overexposed to sun or artificial light. The green color indicates the presence of an alkaloid called solanine, which is bitter and can cause gastrointestinal illness if consumed in large amounts. Because of this, it’s best to avoid green potatoes, or at least the green part. In some cases, only the skin is green and the rest is not affected. In other cases, the greening penetrates deeply, causing a bitter flavor.
The best way to store potatoes is in brown, perforated plastic or burlap bags in a cool (45 to 50 degrees), dark and dry location. Warmer temperatures tend to cause potatoes to sprout and shrivel. Storing potatoes in the refrigerator can cause their starch to turn into sugar, producing an undesirable taste. Potatoes do not need to be washed before storing but should be washed before use. When stored properly, potatoes will generally keep about two months.
Taken From: http://www.herald-mail.com/
October 20th, 2005
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
By PATRICIA MACK
RECORD COLUMNIST
We provide nutrition information for our readers whenever it is available in the belief that it is helpful in making wise decisions about what to eat and drink.
But after perusing some recent research findings, I’m thinking that people don’t care.
Fewer than half of shoppers surveyed by ACNielsen said that they only check for fat and calories when they read nutrition information on packages of food. I think it’s fair to assume that the same attitude holds true on the recipes they prepare.
Fewer than one in 10 check information about gluten or the glycemic index, and just 35 percent of consumers have even heard of the glycemic index, which measures how a food item will affect a person’s blood sugar.
I thought, given the late great craze over low-carb diets, that Americans would be savvy about this particular issue.
But I was even more surprised to learn that fewer than six in 10 - 58 percent - know the difference between saturated and unsaturated fat.
I can’t for the life of me explain how this lack of knowledge jibes with the plethora of health-focused food and beverage products on supermarket shelves.
There’s no accounting for their presence, considering the findings of another research company, Information Resources Inc. In its studies, a third of consumers’ “food and beverage packaged goods dollars” are spent on products bought for pure enjoyment rather than nutritional value. Nearly half - 43 percent - of consumers say they rarely or never give up taste for health benefits.
Sales in eight of 10 categories of “pure enjoyment” products increased in the past year. The wine and spirits categories showed the largest gains (8.1 percent and 6.4 percent, respectively).
Not only do consumers compromise nutrition for taste, but they also give up nutrition for convenience, according to Harris Interactive, which conducted a study for the Ross Products Division of Abbott Laboratories.
Nine in 10 adults eat meals and snacks “on the go” - 60 percent daily. People who are most likely to do so include young adults (76 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds versus 47 percent of those age 55 or older), singles (73 percent versus 56 percent of those who are married), and people with children (66 percent versus 57 percent of those without). More than a quarter of us eat on the go two or three times a day.
Reasons are familiar: convenience (43 percent), too busy at work (26 percent), too busy running errands (22 percent) and too busy with children and household chores (22 percent).
Nearly everyone - 96 percent - says they fall off the “health and wellness wagon” in ways large and small.
People who try to eat a healthful diet say that they are often sidetracked by their busy lifestyles and just don’t have time to prepare or shop for good food.
The statistics on where Americans consume “on-the-go” meals are also distressing. For at least 60 percent of us, that place is in front of a television set. Other places are in the car (42 percent), at work (40 percent) and between household chores (27 percent).
Researchers put together a list of what consumers really want to know about food:
# Price - 93 percent
# Expiration date - 69 percent
# Calories/fat content - 53 percent
# Food preparation information - 41 percent
# Food safety information - 27 percent
# Origin (local or not) - 19 percent
So I ask, are we wasting paper printing nutrition information?
Taken From: http://www.northjersey.com/
Food Editor Patricia Mack can be reached at The Record, 150 River St., Hackensack, NJ 07601; by voice mail, (201) 646-4351; by fax (201) 457-2511; or by e-mail, mack@northjersey.com.
October 20th, 2005
October 19, 2005
When babies receive shots against diseases like polio and measles, their vaccinations may in the future include protection against getting fat, according to researchers.
Infection by certain pathogens triggers rapid increases in fatty tissue in animals, Nikhil Dhurnadha told the annual meeting of NAASO, the Obesity Society, in this western Canadian city.
At the same time, the discovery that many more obese people than normal-weight people have been exposed to a certain virus suggests a link between obesity and viral infection.
“Not all obesity can be explained by infection,” said Dhurandhar, of the Pennington Biomedial Research Center at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. “Infections can be one of the causes.”
Popular opinion has long held that most obesity is caused simply by overeating, underexercise and a lack of will power. But viruses are just one of many contributing factors that scientists have recently discovered.
Researchers are reporting at the conference on other fat triggers that include a genetic tendency to store fat among groups whose ancestors survived famines, medications such as treatments for psychotic mental disorders, toxins in the environment like organochlorines, and infectious agents like bacteria, viruses and prions.
“Obesity is multifactoral,” Dhurandhar told scientists at the conference.
In an interview with AFP, he said there is proof that at least 10 different pathogens cause obesity in animals. They include canine distemper virus, RAV7 and MAM1 avian viruses, the Borna virus in rats — which is also linked with depression in humans, types of scrapie, three adeno viruses including AD5, AD36 and AD37 which cause fat gain in several species, and chlamydia pneumonae bacteria.
Scientists have also found that when mice are infected by general bacteria from the guts of other mice, the recipients body fat increases.
Dhurandhar became interested in viral causes of obesity while working as a family physician in Bombay in the 1980s, during a severe outbreak of SMAM1, an adeno virus that kills chickens.
A friend noticed that the dead chickens were unusually fat, with enlarged livers, kidneys, low cholesterol levels and an atrophied thymus gland.
Dhurandhar wondered how the virus affected people. He tested his own patients, and found 20 per cent of his obese patients had been exposed to SMAM1, and that those people were significantly heavier with lower cholesterol levels.
He moved to the United States to conduct more research, and started working with Richard Atkinson at the University of Wisconsin. Because US authorities refused permission to import the Indian avian virus, the pair decided to work with adeno virus AD36.
First, they infected laboratory chickens, mice and monkeys, all of which grew significantly fatter and had lower cholesterol.
Then, because they could not test the virus on humans, they examined stored blood from 500 people in Wisconsin, Florida and New York. They found antibodies for AD36 in 30 per cent of the obese people, but only in 11 per cent of people with normal body weight.
And, just as Dhurandhar earlier discovered among his Indian patients, the obese who had been exposed to the virus were 20 per cent heavier than other overweight people.
Further tests on tissue from lab monkeys taken over a nine-year period showed that healthy monkeys newly infected by AD36 “gained 15 per cent body weight in six months, and dropped their cholesterol by 30 per cent.”
The scientists also studied 26 pairs of twins, and found that in cases where one twin had been exposed to AD36, in all cases their weight was significantly greater.
“In 10 years, people may be able to walk into a clinic and be told that their obesity is due to X cause, such as genes, the endocrine system, or pathogens. That may have a more productive outcome than a blanket treatment right now, (which) is not very successful,” said Dhurandhar.
And because viruses are hard or impossible to treat, he said, prevention through vaccines will be key.
Taken from: http://www.terra.net.lb
October 19th, 2005
October 19, 2005
Listening to music during physical activity may be the key to motivating people who dislike exercise, new research suggests.
US scientists reported their findings from a study of overweight and obese women to a conference on obesity. The research showed that the patients who were given a portable CD player to listen to music while walking lost more weight and body fat than the group who walked without music.
The group with CD players also followed the exercise program more faithfully, while fewer of them dropped out of the program, said psychology professor Christopher Capuano, of Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, New Jersey.
“Walking to music seemed to really motivate the women in our study to get out there,” he told the annual meeting of NAASO, The Obesity Society, in Vancouver, in western Canada.
Carpuano’s group studied 41 women during a 24-week program of dieting, walking exercise three times each week, and weekly group meetings.
Carpuano noted that one of the biggest problems with long-term weight control programs is the drop-out rate, and music may prompt participants to stick with their regime.
Taken from: http://www.terra.net.lb
October 19th, 2005
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