GOOD nutrition

Researchers Uncover Potential Breakthrough Cure for Type 1 Diabetes

2011-02-05T06:18:00.000-08:00

Exciting possibilities but we also have to remember these studies/results are based on MICE (not humans). Definately keeping an eye on this one.

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"We've all been brought up to think insulin is the all-powerful hormone without which life is impossible, but that isn't the case," says Dr. Roger Unger from UT Southwestern Medical Center....

In this published study, UT Southerwestern Medical Center researchers obtained normal blood sugars when they prevented the release of glucagon from the liver and the release of insulin from the beta-cells.

The new findings suggest that Type 1 diabetes could be converted to an asymptomatic, non-insulin-dependent disorder by eliminating the actions of a specific hormone.

As we have learned from the thousands of diabetes studies and the coming and going of cures for diabetes, there are many mechanisms and reactions involved in the conversion of glucose to energy, so caution needs to be taken with the results of this study, until it can be duplicated especially in human subjects.

Scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center studied the hormone glucagon, which prevents low blood sugar in healthy people and causes high blood sugar in people with Type 1 diabetes. When glucagon was suppressed in mice, the hormone insulin became unimportant. Glucose tolerance returned to normal.

These findings in mice show that insulin becomes completely superfluous and its absence does not cause diabetes or any other abnormality when the actions of glucagon are suppressed. Glucagon, a hormone produced by the pancreas, prevents low blood sugar levels in healthy individuals. It causes high blood sugar in people with Type 1 diabetes.

Dr. Unger, professor of internal medicine and senior author of the study stated that, "We've all been brought up to think insulin is the all-powerful hormone without which life is impossible, but that isn't the case." "If diabetes is defined as restoration of glucose homeostasis to normal, then this treatment can perhaps be considered very close to a 'cure.'"

Insulin treatment has been the gold standard for Type 1 diabetes (insulin-dependent diabetes) in humans since its discovery in 1922. But even optimal regulation of Type 1 diabetes with insulin alone cannot restore normal glucose tolerance. These new findings demonstrate that the elimination of glucagon action restores glucose tolerance to normal.

Normally, glucagon is released when the glucose, or sugar, level in the blood is low. In insulin deficiency, however, glucagon levels are inappropriately high and cause the liver to release excessive amounts of glucose into the bloodstream. This action is opposed by insulin, which directs the body's cells to remove sugar from the bloodstream.

Dr. Unger's laboratory research previously found that insulin's benefit resulted from its suppression of glucagon.

In Type 1 diabetes, which affects about 1 million people in the U.S., the pancreatic islet cells that produce insulin are destroyed. As a countermeasure to this destruction, Type 1 diabetics currently must take insulin multiple times a day to metabolize blood sugar, regulate blood-sugar levels and prevent diabetic coma. They also must adhere to strict dietary restrictions.

In this study, UT Southwestern scientists tested how mice genetically altered to lack working glucagon receptors responded to an oral glucose tolerance test. The test -- which can be used to diagnose diabetes, gestational diabetes and prediabetes -- measures the body's ability to metabolize, or clear, glucose from the bloodstream.

The researchers found that the mice with normal insulin production but without functioning glucagon receptors responded normally to the test. The mice also responded normally when their insulin-producing beta cells were destroyed. The mice had no insulin or glucagon action, but they did not develop diabetes.

"These findings suggest that if there is no glucagon, it doesn't matter if you don't have insulin," said Dr. Unger, who is also a physician at the Dallas VA Medical Center. "This does not mean insulin is unimportant. It is essential for normal growth and development from neonatal to adulthood. But in adulthood, at least with respect to glucose metabolism, the role of insulin is to control glucagon.

"And if you don't have glucagon, then you don't need insulin."

Dr. Young Lee, assistant professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern and lead author of the study, said the next step is to determine the mechanism behind this result.

"Hopefully, these findings will someday help those with Type 1 diabetes," Dr. Lee said. "If we can find a way to block the actions of glucagon in humans, then maybe we can minimize the need for insulin therapy."

Dr. Unger said anything that reduces the need for injected insulin is a positive.

"Matching the high insulin levels needed to reach glucagon cells with insulin injections is possible only with amounts that are excessive for other tissues," he said. "Peripherally injected insulin cannot accurately duplicate the normal process by which the body produces and distributes insulin. If these latest findings were to work in humans, injected insulin would no longer be necessary for people with Type 1 diabetes."

Dr. May-Yun Wang, assistant professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern, and researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine also contributed to the work. The study was supported in part by the VA North Texas Health Care System, the American Diabetes Association and the National Institutes of Health.

Diabetes January 26, 2011 vol. 60 no. 2 391-397

Sports Nutrition Guru

2010-11-08T21:13:00.001-08:00

Got to meet & talk with an idol of mine, Ellen Coleman, RD, MA, MPH.

Lovely woman. We had a short but interesting conversation about Paleo. We're both on the same page.

I'll explain Paleo next time I'm blogging here.

Chocolate Good for the Heart

2010-10-26T14:23:00.000-07:00

Summary: In a cross-sectional study involving 4,970 participants aged
25-93 years who participated in the National Heart, Lung, and Blood
Institute (NHLBI) Family Heart Study, results indicate an inverse
association between chocolate consumption and risk of coronary heart
disease (CHD). After adjusting for potential confounders, chocolate
intake 5+ times/week was associated with a 57% reduced risk of CHD,
compared with no chocolate intake.

Chocolate consumption is inversely associated with calcified atherosclerotic plaque in the coronary arteries: The NHLBI Family Heart Study. Djoussé L, Hopkins PN, Arnett DK, Pankow JS, Borecki I, North KE, Curtis Ellison R.

Division of Aging, Brigham & Women Hospital and Harvard Medical School, 1620 Tremont Street, 3rd Floor, Boston, MA 02120, USA; Massachusetts Veterans Epidemiology and Research Information Center and Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center, Boston Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, Boston, MA, USA.

Abstract
BACKGROUND & AIMS: While a diet rich in anti-oxidant has been favorably associated with coronary disease and hypertension, limited data have evaluated the influence of such diet on subclinical disease. Thus, we sought to examine whether chocolate consumption is associated with calcified atherosclerotic plaque in the coronary arteries (CAC).

METHODS: In a cross-sectional design, we studied 2217 participants of the NHLBI Family Heart Study. Chocolate consumption was assessed by a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire and CAC was measured by cardiac CT. We defined prevalent CAC using an Agatston score of at least 100 and fitted generalized estimating equations to calculate prevalence odds ratios of CAC.

RESULTS: There was an inverse association between frequency of chocolate consumption and prevalent CAC. Odds ratios (95% CI) for CAC were 1.0 (reference), 0.94 (0.66-1.35), 0.78 (0.53-1.13), and 0.68 (0.48-0.97) for chocolate consumption of 0, 1-3 times per month, once per week, and 2+ times per week, respectively (p for trend 0.022), adjusting for age, sex, energy intake, waist-hip ratio, education, smoking, alcohol consumption, ratio of total-to-HDL-cholesterol, non-chocolate candy, and diabetes mellitus. Controlling for additional confounders did not alter the findings. Exclusion of subjects with coronary heart disease or diabetes mellitus did not materially change the odds ratio estimates but did modestly decrease the overall significance (p = 0.07).

CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that chocolate consumption might be inversely associated with prevalent CAC.

Its a Matter of National Security

2010-10-16T19:58:00.000-07:00

US Obesity rates is now a matter of National Defense. Smaller pool of potential recruits. Not to mention the growing number of current members who are not "fit to fight" any more (e.g. weight creep, poor nutritional habits, inactivity, injuries).

More Military-Aged Americans Are Too Fat to Fight
Released: 10/15/2010 7:05 AM EDT
Source: Cornell University

Newswise — At a time when American military forces are stretched thin overseas, a growing number of potential recruits are too fat to enlist, according to an analysis by Cornell University researchers.

In the past half-century, the number of women of military age who exceed the U.S. Army’s enlistment standards for weight-to-height ratio and body fat percentage has more than tripled. For military-age men, the figure has more than doubled.

As of 2007-08, 5.7 million American men and 16.5 million women of military age were ineligible for duty because they were overweight or obese, according to John Cawley, Cornell associate professor of policy analysis and management, and a Cornell economics doctoral student Catherine Maclean.

The findings, published in September by the National Bureau of Economic Research in a working paper titled, “Unfit for Service: The Implications of Rising Obesity for U.S. Military Recruitment,” are cause for alarm for the four U.S. military branches, which together must attract more than 180,000 new service members each year.

“Almost one in four applicants to the military are rejected for being overweight or obese – it’s the most common reason for medical disqualification,” Cawley said. “It is well-known that the military is struggling to recruit and retain soldiers. Having a smaller pool of men and women who are fit enough to serve adds to the strain and creates even more problems for national defense.”

The study follows a similar report last spring by retired generals and admirals. But Cawley and Maclean chart the climbing obesity rates over a much longer period, using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys spanning 1959-2008. Moreover, the Cornell study estimates the number of civilians who meet the body fat requirements of each military branch, which had not been tracked previously.

“It’s another example of the underappreciated public consequences of obesity,” Cawley said. “We tend to think of obesity as a personal, individual health problem. But the fact that U.S. military leaders view it as a threat to national security and military readiness shows its far-reaching impact.”

The paper is available online: http://www.nber.org/papers/w16408

Best Tasting Health Cereals from Bon Appetit

2010-08-23T05:26:00.000-07:00

This blog on Bon Appetit Magazine is doing a taste test tour of supermarket foods. I love the Quaker Oat Squares for dry snacking. Kashi GoLean is a great high protein (soy) cereal that works for breakfast & snacking. Barbara's Bakery also have gluten-free Puffins.

Supermarket Standoff: Healthy Cereals
4:00 PM / August 10, 2010 / Posted by Julia Bainbridge

Call them healthy, call them grown-up; whatever you want to call them, this group of cereals doesn't include Fruit Loops and Cap'n Crunch. We wanted to find out which were the best tasting out of the so-called "healthy" cereals sold in national supermarkets. So we compiled a list of thirteen boxes, picked them up along with some milk, and settled in our conference room early this Monday morning to crunch, much, and scribble on score sheets. Flakes, squares, clusters--all shapes and sizes were included. We also got nutritionist Sandra Frank to weigh in, breaking down which three cereals are the best for you out of the already good-for-you pack. Find both our winners for taste and Frank's picks for health after the jump.

The Results:

Our Favorites for Flavor

TIED FOR #1

Quaker Oatmeal Squares
Nutrition: Serving size 1 cup = 210 calories, 2.5g fat, 250mg sodium, 210mg potassium, 44g carbs, 10g sugars, 6g protein, 10% vitamin A, 50% vitamin C, 0% calcium, 10% iron, 100% vitamin E, etc.
Cost: $4.29 at Stop & Shop in Glen Cove, NY
Blind Tasting Notes: "Hearty and substantial"; "Not too sweet"; "Nice crunch/density"; "A good snacking cereal"

Barbara's Bakery Shredded Spoonfuls
Nutrition: Serving size 3/4 cup = 120 calories, 1.5g total fat, 200mg sodium, 125mg potassium, 24g carbs, 5g sugars, 4g protein, 0% vitamin A, 8% vitamin C, 2% calcium, 4% iron, 4% vitamin E
Cost: $3.69 at Whole Foods in New York, NY
Blind Tasting Notes: "Has some sweetness but not a ton"; "Crispy"; "Crunchy and slightly sweet"

Barbara's Bakery Puffins
Nutrition: Serving size 3/4 cup = 90 calories, 1g total fat, 190mg sodium, 85mg potassium, 23g carbs, 5g sugars, 2g protein, 0% vitamin A, 25% vitamin C, 0% calcium, 2% iron
Cost: $3.49 at Whole Foods in New York, NY
Blind Tasting Notes: "Delish!"; Cinnamon-y"; "Surprisingly good if it's healthy"; "Wonderfully crisp texture and light sweetness"; "Light but crunchy"

#2

Whole Foods Market 365 Everyday Value Raisin Bran
Nutrition: Serving size 1 cup = 200 calories, 0.5g fat, 210mg sodium, 210mg potassium, 44g carbs, 15g sugars, 6g protein, 0% vitamin A, 0% vitamin C, 2% calcium, 15% iron
Cost: $2.69 at Whole Foods in New York, NY
Blind Tasting Notes: "Like Raisin Bran with more heft"; "A very crunchy flake"; "Nice sweetness"; "Like the raisins, but flakes are tough to chew"

TIED FOR #3

Cheerios
Nutrition: Serving size 1 cup = 100 calories, 2g fat, 190mg sodium, 170mg potassium, 20g carbs, 1g sugars, 3g protein, 10% vitamin A, 10% vitamin C, 10% calcium, 45% iron, 10% vitamin D
Cost: $4.49 at Whole Foods in New York, NY
Blind Tasting Notes: "Yummy"; Classic"; "Almost burnt grainy flavor--tastes healthy"; "Light"; "This is what I ate as a kid"; "The old standby; a workhorse"

Fiber One Honey Clusters
Nutrition: Serving size 1 cup = 160 calories, 1.5g fat, 230mg sodium, 180mg potassium, 44g carbs, 6g sugars, 3g protein, 20% vitamin A, 0% vitamin C, 10% calcium, 25% iron, 15% vitamin D, 70% vitamin E
Cost: $4.99 at Stop & Shop in Glen Cove, NY
Blind Tasting Notes: "Caramel/butterscotch flavor"; Nice maple syrup note"; "Good crunch, good cluster, nice plain flake"

Nutritionist Sandra Frank's Picks
Note: "Adding variety helps you obtain the different nutrients you need, as well as keeping your meals interesting," says Frank. In other words, these cereals are healthy, but eating them every morning is not.

#1 Cheerios
Nutrition: Serving size 1 cup = 100 calories, 2g fat, 190mg sodium, 170mg potassium, 20g carbs, 1g sugars, 3g protein, 10% vitamin A, 10% vitamin C, 10% calcium, 45% iron, 10% vitamin D
Cost: $4.49 at Whole Foods in New York, NY
Frank's Comments: "Cheerios is lowest in calories per one cup serving. It is considered low in fat and a good source of fiber. For those watching your waistline, this is the best choice. In addition, Cheerios provides 45% of the daily value of iron."
Our Assessment: We ranked this in third place, so it's good news that it's also healthy. We should note, though, that some of us weren't fans of this cereal, commenting that it tastes like cardboard or sawdust.

#2 Kashi GoLean
Nutrition: Serving size 1 cup = 140 calories, 1g fat, 85mg sodium, 480mg potassium, 30g carbs, 6g sugars, 13g protein, 0% vitamin A, 0% vitamin C, 6% calcium, 10% iron
Cost: $3.49 at Whole Foods in New York, NY

Frank's Comments: "Need fiber? Go with Kashi GoLean. It scored highest in fiber, protein, and potassium and the lowest in sodium per serving. It is defined as a low fat, low sodium, and high fiber food."
Our Assessment: Uh oh. "Tastes about as dull as rice cakes. Does nothing for me"; "Too mealy and dry"; Yuck. No flavor and weird texture." Those were some of the comments we received about Kashi GoLean. Some of us were more into it, though: "Great assortment of textures and flavors"; "Nice sweetness." And some were confessional: "I eat this at home because I know it's healthy, but it really tastes like cardboard."

#3 Barbara's Bakery Puffins
Nutrition: Serving size 3/4 cup = 90 calories, 1g total fat, 190mg sodium, 85mg potassium, 23g carbs, 5g sugars, 2g protein, 0% vitamin A, 25% vitamin C, 0% calcium, 2% iron
Cost: $3.49 at Whole Foods in New York, NY

Frank's Comments: "Barbara's Bakery Puffins came in as the second lowest in calories. It is a low fat and a high fiber food. The ratio of fiber to calories placed it third. The good outweighs the lower iron content, but make sure you include iron-rich foods throughout the day. Some foods rich in iron include: lean meats, liver, seafood, shrimp, salmon, poultry, eggs (yolks contain iron), kidney beans, lima beans, black beans, pinto beans, soy beans and lentils; dark green vegetables (spinach, collard greens, mustard greens, broccoli, asparagus, swiss chard); nuts and; dried fruits."

Our Assessment: Hooray! We ranked this number one! We urge you to go for Barbara's Puffins if you want a healthy cereal that tastes scrumptious.

"There were a lot of factors to consider, so I turned to the labeling laws and the diet manual for assistance," says Frank. Nutrition ratings considered the following:

1.A food is considered low fat if it has 3 grams or less fat per serving.
2.A good source of fiber contains 10 to 19 percent of the daily value for fiber (2.5 to 4.75 grams) per serving.
3.Low sodium is defined as a food containing 140 milligrams or less sodium per serving.
4.Lowest calories per one cup (not per serving).
5.Iron fortification.

NY Times Editorial - Beware Claims About Foods

2010-06-13T09:21:00.000-07:00

Snake Oil for Breakfast
Published: June 11, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/opinion/12sat4.html?th&emc=th

More than a century after President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Pure
Food and Drug Act, deception is still a far too popular marketing tool
for food makers.

The Federal Trade Commission barred Kellogg’s last year from running ads
saying Mini-Wheats are “clinically shown to improve kids’ attentiveness
by 20 percent.” To claim “benefits to cognitive health, process or
function provided by any cereal or any morning food or snack food,” was
a no-no, unless the claims were true. But the F.T.C.’s order covered
only cognitive abilities. So just as it was signing its consent,
Kellogg’s was starting a new campaign in which “Snap, Crackle and Pop”
called out to parents from the Rice Krispies box promising to help
“support your child’s IMMUNITY.”

Last week, the F.T.C. said that it had closed that loophole, reaching an
agreement with Kellogg’s that would bar the company from making any
claims about the health benefits of their food unless they were backed
by scientific evidence and not misleading.

Businesses have been making dubious claims about their products at least
since the 17th century, when the British clergyman Anthony Daffy sold
Daffy’s Elixir as a cure for scurvy as well as agues, gout, rheumatism,
rickets, worms and other ailments. Hucksterism — no matter how
implausible the claim — lives on.

In 2004, the F.T.C. barred KFC from saying its fried chicken was
compatible with low-carbohydrate weight-loss programs — because such
diets specifically advise against breaded, fried foods. The Food and
Drug Administration sent letters to 17 food companies in March warning
them about misleading product labels. Dreyer’s claimed there is no
trans-fat in its ice cream but forgot to mention it has lots of
saturated fat. POM Wonderful claimed its pomegranate juice helps treat,
prevent or cure hypertension, diabetes and cancer.

This might be par for the course for an era of swift-boating political
ads and a torrent of television commercials plumping for myriad wonder
drugs (sudden death may result). It leaves the consumer in a quandary:
what part of the label can be believed?

Protein Drinks May Be Harmful

2010-06-04T07:05:00.000-07:00

A study by Consumer Reports found that most people do not need to add a protein supplement to their diet and that some protein drinks contain contaminants and metals that can cause serious health problems.

Manufacturers of protein drinks once marketed only to body builders, athletes and health fanatics, however in recent years they have aimed promotion of these supplement products to busy professionals, working mothers, pregnant women, young adults and even children. Some protein drinks entice consumers with advertising claims including weight loss, muscle building, energy boosting or anti-aging. They encourage consumers not only to supplement their daily diet with these products, but also to use them to replace meals.

The Consumer Reports investigation sent fifteen protein drinks to an independent laboratory for analysis, reviewed government documents and interviewed health experts, fitness experts and consumers. They found that most people get enough protein in their regular diet and do not need these supplements. Consumer Reports recommends that people who need more protein, can find it in healthier, cheaper sources such as milk, eggs and chicken breast.

The results of the laboratory analysis found that all fifteen of the protein drinks tested contained one or more of the contaminants arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury. Three of the products tested raised particular concern because consuming more than three servings per day could expose the consumer to levels of these contaminants that are above recommended limits:

- Eas Myoplex (Arsenic and Cadmium)
- Muscle Milk Chocolate (Cadmium and Lead)and;
- Muscle Milk Vanilla Crème (Lead)

“It is our company mission to do everything possible to ensure that our products are superior in quality, reliability, authenticity and safety,” said Greg Pickett, Founder of CytoSport, Inc. who manufactures Muscle Milk. “Additionally, our products are rigorously tested by both us and independent third party agencies including NSF International to ensure their safety and efficacy.”

The article detailing the study appears in the July 2010 issue of Consumer Reports Magazine. The non-profit consumer organization Consumers Union publishes the monthly periodical.

Watch the Early Show on CBS as they take a hidden camera into nutrition stores in New York City where salespeople failed to warn of dangers and even said taking more than the recommended doses would cause no harm.

“What we're concerned about here is the chronic low level exposure of a heavy metal. And what people should know, is that heavy metals, once they come into our bodies, once they're metabolized, they tend to stay there for a long period of time,” Urvashi Rangan of Consumer Reports told
CBS. According to the American Heart Association, people who have an excess of protein in their diet may be at higher risk of kidney and liver disorders, and osteoporosis. While everyone can suffer adverse health effects from exposure to heavy metals, children, growing teens, pregnant women and their unborn children are especially at risk.

Lead exposure can cause developmental problems such as damage to the brain and nervous system or slowed growth in growing children and teens. In adults, it can cause reproductive problems, high blood pressure and hypertension, nerve disorders, effect memory or concentration or cause muscle and joint pain. Ingesting very high levels of arsenic can result in death. Exposure to lower levels can cause nausea and vomiting, decreased production of red and white blood cells, abnormal heart rhythm, damage to blood vessels and a sensation of “pins and needles” in hands and feet. Cadmium is a known carcinogen, meaning cancer causing. Ingesting cadmium can damage kidneys and bones. Exposure to mercury can permanently damage the brain and kidneys. Effects on brain functioning may result in irritability, shyness, tremors, changes in vision or hearing and memory problems.

“The results of this analysis aren't alarming,” Andrew Shao of the Council for Responsible Nutrition told CBS. “The heavy metals that were found are well below the limits FDA Food and Drug Administration) would be concerned about, so they don't pose a health risk to consumers at all.”

Chocolate Milk is a 'Natural' for Post-Exercise Recovery

2010-06-03T16:22:00.000-07:00

New research suggests drinking chocolate milk after a workout offers advantages for post-exercise performance and muscle repair

BALTIMORE (June 2, 2010) – One of the best post-exercise recovery drinks could already be in your refrigerator, according to new research presented at the American College of Sports Medicine conference this week. In a series of four studies, researchers found that chocolate milk offered a recovery advantage to help repair and rebuild muscles, compared to specially designed carbohydrate sports drinks.

Experts agree that the two-hour window after exercise is an important, yet often neglected, part of a fitness routine. After strenuous exercise, this post-workout recovery period is critical for active people at all fitness levels – to help make the most of a workout and stay in top shape for the next workout.

The new research suggests that drinking fat free chocolate milk after exercise can help the body retain, replenish and rebuild muscle to help your body recover. Drinking lowfat chocolate milk after a strenuous workout could even help prep muscles to perform better in a subsequent bout of exercise. Specifically, the researchers found a chocolate milk advantage for:

Building Muscle – Post-exercise muscle biopsies in eight moderately trained male runners showed that after drinking 16 ounces of fat free chocolate milk, the runners had enhanced skeletal muscle protein synthesis – a sign that muscles were better able to repair and rebuild – compared to when they drank a carbohydrate only sports beverage with the same amount of calories. The researchers suggest that "athletes can consider fat-free chocolate milk as an economic nutritional alternative to other sports nutrition beverages to support post-endurance exercise skeletal muscle repair."1

Replenishing Muscle "Fuel" – Replacing muscle fuel (glycogen) after exercise is essential to an athlete's future performance and muscle recovery. Researchers found that drinking 16 ounces of fat free chocolate milk with its mix of carbohydrates and protein (compared to a carbohydrate-only sports drink with the same amount of calories) led to greater concentration of glycogen in muscles at 30 and 60 minutes post exercise.2

Maintaining Lean Muscle – Athletes risk muscle breakdown following exercise when the body's demands are at their peak. Researchers found that drinking fat free chocolate milk after exercise helped decrease markers of muscle breakdown compared to drinking a carbohydrate sports drink.3

Subsequent Exercise Performance – Ten trained men and women cyclists rode for an hour and a half, followed by 10 minutes of intervals. They rested for four hours and were provided with one of three drinks immediately and two hours into recovery: lowfat chocolate milk, a carbohydrate drink with the same amount of calories or a control drink. When the cyclists then performed a subsequent 40 kilometer ride, their trial time was significantly shorter after drinking the chocolate milk compared to the carbohydrate drink and the control drink.4

Why Chocolate Milk?

Chocolate milk's combination of carbohydrates and high-quality protein first made researchers take notice of a potential exercise benefit. The combination of carbs and protein already in chocolate milk matched the ratio found to be most beneficial for recovery. In fact, studies suggest that chocolate milk has the right mix of carbs and protein to help refuel exhausted muscles, and the protein in milk helps build lean muscle. This new research adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting milk can be just as effective as some commercial sports drinks in helping athletes refuel and recover.

Milk also provides fluids for rehydration and electrolytes, including potassium, calcium and magnesium lost in sweat, that both recreational exercisers and elite athletes need to replace after strenuous activity. Plus, chocolate milk is naturally nutrient-rich with the advantage of additional nutrients not found in most traditional sports drinks. Penny-for-penny, no other post-exercise drink contains the full range of vitamins and minerals found in chocolate milk.

Sources:

1. Lunn WR, Colletto MR, Karfonta KE, Anderson JM, Pasiakos SM, Ferrando AA, Wolfe RR, Rodriguez NR. Chocolate milk consumption following endurance exercise affects skeletal muscle protein fractional synthetic rate and intracellular signaling. Medicine & Science in Sports and Exercise. 2010;42:S48.

2. Karfonta KE, Lunn WR, Colletto MR, Anderson JM, Rodriguez NR. Chocolate milk enhances glycogen replenishment after endurance exercise in moderately trained males. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 2010;42:S64.

3. Colletto MR, Lunn W, Karfonta K, Anderson J, Rogriguez N. Effects of chocolate milk consumption on leucine kinetics during recovery from endurance exercise. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 2010;42:S126.

4. Ferguson-Stegall L, McCleave E, Doerner PG, Ding Z, Dessard B, Kammer L, Wang B, Liu Y, Ivy J. Effects of chocolate milk supplementation on recovery from cycling exercise and subsequent time trial performance. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 2010;42:S536.

About the National Milk Mustache "got milk?"® Campaign

The Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP), Washington, D.C., is funded by the nation's milk processors, who are committed to increasing fluid milk consumption. The National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board, through MilkPEP, runs the National Milk Mustache "got milk?"® Campaign, a multi-faceted campaign designed to educate consumers about the health benefits of milk. For more information, go to www.whymilk.com. Deutsch, A Lowe and Partners Company, is the creative agency for the National Milk Mustache "got milk?"® Campaign.

Milk Does More for Muscle Building and Fat Losing!

2010-05-30T16:38:00.000-07:00

Milk: 2 glasses a day tones muscles, keeps the fat away in women, study shows

HAMILTON, CANADA – Women who drink two large glasses of milk a day after their weight-lifting routine gained more muscle and lost more fat compared to women who drank sugar-based energy drinks, a McMaster study has found.

The study appears in the June issue of Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise.

"Resistance training is not a typical choice of exercise for women," says Stu Phillips, professor in the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster University. "But the health benefits of resistance training are enormous: It boosts strength, bone, muscular and metabolic health in a way that other types of exercise cannot."

A previous study conducted by Phillips' lab showed that milk increased muscle mass and fat loss in men. This new study, says Phillips was more challenging because women not only steer clear of resistance training they also tend to steer away from dairy products based on the incorrect belief that dairy foods are fattening.

"We expected the gains in muscle mass to be greater, but the size of the fat loss surprised us," says Phillips. "We're still not sure what causes this but we're investigating that now. It could be the combination of calcium, high-quality protein, and vitamin D may be the key, and. conveniently, all of these nutrients are in milk.

Over a 12-week period, the study monitored young women who did not use resistance-training exercise. Every day, two hours before exercising, the women were required not to eat or drink anything except water. Immediately after their exercise routine, one group consumed 500ml of fat free white milk; the other group consumed a similar-looking but sugar-based energy drink. The same drinks were consumed by each group one hour after exercising.

The training consisted of three types of exercise: pushing (e.g. bench press, chest fly), pulling (e.g. seated lateral pull down, abdominal exercises without weights), and leg exercises (e.g. leg press, seated two-leg hamstring curl). Training was monitored daily one on one by personal trainers to ensure proper technique.

"The women who drank milk gained barely any weight because what they gained in lean muscle they balanced out with a loss in fat" said Phillips. "Our data show that simple things like regular weightlifting exercise and milk consumption work to substantially improve women's body composition and health." Phillips' lab is now following this study up with a large clinical weight loss trial in women.
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If you are not allergic to milk protein, nonfat milk is a good source of protein, calcium and Vitamin D. 500 ml nonfat milk is about 2 cups (180 kcal, 16 g protein, 24 g CHO). Lots of studies about building lean muscle mass after weight lifting exercise support a mixture of carbohydrate & protein. Some have suggested a ratio of 4 g CHO per 1 g PROT as an optimal ratio (found in chocolate milk). Maybe there is something in the Vitamin D (serum levels were measureable higher in the test group, consistent with fortification of milk). Unfortunately, so many women skip dairy products because they are worried about calories or concerned that milk is not "food for humans". Even people with lactose intolerance can usually tolerate small amounts liquid milk and 6-8oz servings of yogurt.

Chocolate & Heart Risk

2010-04-03T16:29:00.000-07:00

Study: Chocolate could reduce heart risk
By MARIA CHENG - AP Medical Writer

LONDON (AP) -- The Easter Bunny might lower your chances of having a heart problem. According to a new study, small doses of chocolate every day could decrease your risk of having a heart attack or stroke by nearly 40 percent.

German researchers followed nearly 20,000 people over eight years, sending them several questionnaires about their diet and exercise habits.

They found people who had an average of six grams of chocolate per day - or about one square of a chocolate bar - had a 39 percent lower risk of either a heart attack or stroke. The study is scheduled to be published Wednesday in the European Heart Journal.

Previous studies have suggested dark chocolate in small amounts could be good for you, but this is the first study to track its effects over such a long period of time. Experts think the flavonols contained in chocolate are responsible. Flavonols, also found in vegetables and red wine, help the muscles in blood vessels widen, which leads to a drop in blood pressure.

"It's a bit too early to come up with recommendations that people should eat more chocolate, but if people replace sugar or high-fat snacks with a little piece of dark chocolate, that might help," said Brian Buijsse, a nutritional epidemiologist at the German Institute of Human Nutrition in Nuthetal, Germany, the study's lead author.

The people tracked by Buijsse and colleagues had no history of heart problems, had similar habits for risk factors like smoking and exercise, and did not vary widely in their Body Mass Index.

Since the study only observed people and did not give them chocolate directly to test what its effects were, experts said more research was needed to determine the candy's exact impact on the body. The study was paid for by the German government and the European Union.

Doctors also warned that eating large amounts of chocolate could lead to weight gain, a major risk factor for heart problems and strokes.

"This is not a prescription to eat more chocolate," said Dr. Robert Eckel, a professor of medicine at the University of Colorado and a past president of the American Heart Association. He was not linked to the study. "If we all had (a small amount) of chocolate every day for the rest of our lives, we would all gain a few pounds."

Eckel said it was amazing to find such a small amount of chocolate could have such a protective effect, but that more studies needed to be done to confirm its conclusions.

Alice Lichtenstein, a nutritionist at Tufts University School of Medicine, said it was difficult to link the reduction in heart disease and stroke risk to the chocolate alone, since there may have been other differences between the study participants.

"The relationship between chocolate and good health outcomes is still uncertain," she said. "If somebody really enjoys eating chocolate, then they should have a small amount of that and just really enjoy it," she said.

© 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.

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I have a presentation "For The Love of Chocolate" that I enjoy giving. It's wonderful to get reinforcement that enjoying a small amount of good quality chocolate is potentially healthy. 1 oz dark chocolate will cost you about 150 calories (or about a good brisk 1 1/2 mile walk).

Juiced Fasts: Do You Need Them?

2010-02-28T12:18:00.000-08:00

I was recently interviewed for a piece about Juice Fasting (not necessarily for weight loss but that is definately a side effect). Do our bodies need this for "detoxing"?
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This Is Not Your Grandmother’s Diet

A new batch of juice cleanses aims to improve your overall health
By Geraldine Campbell February 18th, 2010 - 12:00am

Liquid fasts, from the squeezed-to-order Blueprint Cleanse to L.O.V.E. (Live, Organic, Vegan Experience), are the next big thing (again). But the latest crop of detox diets isn’t necessarily about losing weight—though that’s still part of it—it’s about kick-starting a healthier lifestyle. Think of it as dieting 2.0.

While you’re eliminating junk food, caffeine and alcohol from the mix, the premise behind juicing is that it frees up the body’s energy to engage in deep cleaning.

“The energy normally spent on breaking down a sandwich, a Twinkie or even a big healthy salad can now be redirected to helping the body ‘clean house,’” Blueprint Cleanse founder Zoe Sakoutis says. “We like to think of it as a way to press the re-set button and start with a clean slate.” More specifically, Sakoutis says juicing can boost your immune system, improve thyroid function, alleviate allergies and increase energy, not to mention giving your sex drive a jump.

But nutritionists aren’t sold on the benefits of a juice-only diet. For one, there’s no real physiological evidence to support the idea that your body goes into a warp-like cleaning overdrive, or that guzzling liquid seaweed will draw out stored toxins. “Your liver, kidneys, skin and digestive tract do a pretty darn good job at ridding excess toxins daily,” says Christy Maskeroni, the director of nutrition at CLAY, a cutting-edge holistic health club in New York City.

Holly Brewer, a Canyon Ranch nutritionist for the past eight years and the pediatric dietitian on staff at Sunrise Hospital, isn’t drinking the Kool-Aid, either. “While these drinks are adding more calories, they’re still not complete. Anytime you squeeze a fruit, you’re basically just getting water and carbohydrates. The vast majority of the nutrients in fruits and vegetables come from the solid mass.” Bottom line, Brewer says: “Eat your fruit; don’t drink it.” Still, Maskeroni and Brewer admit that some people need to go cold turkey before they can build back to a balanced diet. “A juice cleanse may help jumpstart the desire for a healthier lifestyle,” Maskeroni says.

“It’s not a miracle cure,” Brewer says, “but one to two days won’t hurt you.”
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Bottom line: If this is what you need to help "jump start" a change in your eating habits, it won't hurt. But it isn't necessary. And these programs are missing many essential nutrients - most importantly, PROTEIN! Best way to make a significant change in your life is to THROW OUT all the junk in the house and then refill on a daily basis with FRESH produce (get only what you need for the next 24-48 hours). Pick your proteins lean (and also fresh, but you can safely stock up and freeze). Choose only whole grains. If it's in a box with a flavoring packet, don't buy it (full of sodium, preservatives and too many multisyllable additives).

Enjoy a Little Chocolate

2010-02-14T06:41:00.001-08:00

Another reason to include real chocolate (aka "dark" chocolate or >40% cacao) in your life. According to a research analysis that will be presented at a neurology meeting in April, two out of three studies showed a decrease risk of stroke in people who consumed about an ounce and a half of chocolate per week. Nice news to read on Valentine's Day.

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Can chocolate lower your risk of stroke?
ST. PAUL, Minn. – Eating chocolate may lower your risk of having a stroke, according to an analysis of available research that will be released today and presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 62nd Annual Meeting in Toronto April 10 to April 17, 2010. Another study found that eating chocolate may lower the risk of death after suffering a stroke.

The analysis involved reviewing three studies on chocolate and stroke.

"More research is needed to determine whether chocolate truly lowers stroke risk, or whether healthier people are simply more likely to eat chocolate than others," said study author Sarah Sahib, BScCA, with McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Sahib worked alongside Gustavo Saposnik, MD, MSc, where the study was completed at St. Michael's Hospital and the University of Toronto.

Chocolate is rich in antioxidants called flavonoids, which may have a protective effect against stroke, but more research is needed.

The first study found that 44,489 people who ate one serving of chocolate per week were 22 percent less likely to have a stroke than people who ate no chocolate. The second study found that 1,169 people who ate 50 grams of chocolate once a week were 46 percent less likely to die following a stroke than people who did not eat chocolate.

The researchers found only one additional relevant study in their search of all the available research. That study found no link between eating chocolate and risk of stroke or death.

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The American Academy of Neurology, an association of more than 22,000 neurologists and neuroscience professionals, is dedicated to promoting the highest quality patient-centered neurologic care. A neurologist is a doctor with specialized training in diagnosing, treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system such as Parkinson's disease, ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), dementia, West Nile virus, and ataxia. For more information about the American Academy of Neurology and the AAN Annual Meeting, visit http://www.aan.com.

Non-late-breaking abstracts to be presented at the AAN Annual Meeting will be posted online in advance of the AAN Annual Meeting at 4 pm, ET, Wednesday, February 17, 2010, at http://www.aan.com/go/science/abstracts.

All RDs Are Nutritionists - But Not All Nutritionists Are RDs

2010-02-13T14:39:00.000-08:00

Nutritionist. Food Coach. How Good Is Their Diet Advice?

Anyone can claim to be a "nutritionist" or "food coach."
So here's what you should look for

By Katherine Hobson
Posted on US News & World Report: February 5, 2010

If you feel the need for professional help with your eating habits or diet, you may assume a nutritionist is the person to talk to. As it turns out, that's not a particularly specific or useful term—a point driven home by recent advice published in a magazine from a "nutritionist" who claimed weight loss is aided by eating carbs and protein at separate meals, a notion not supported by science.

By no means is everyone calling herself a nutritionist (or a nutritional consultant, food coach, or weight-loss specialist) dispensing hogwash. But for consumers attempting to make an informed choice, the titles are meaningless; they don't capture the possessor's education, experience, or credentials. And those are all important when it comes to seeking eating advice, given the proliferation of fad diets and quick weight-loss schemes. “I can’t think of a field that has more quackery than nutrition,” says Lisa Sasson, a clinical associate professor of nutrition and food studies at New York University.

One specific title to look for: registered dietitian. In order to call himself an R.D., a person must have an undergraduate degree in nutrition or dietetics—or the equivalent in coursework—from an accredited institution, says Dee Sandquist, an R.D. and spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association, the professional organization that credentials R.D.'s (through the Commission on Dietetic Registration). On top of that, R.D.'s have to complete a yearlong, supervised internship and pass a national exam. And they must get credits in continuing education on an ongoing basis. Anyone calling herself simply a dietitian is also legally supposed to be an R.D.

The American College of Nutrition also issues C.N.S. (certified nutrition specialist) credentials for people with advanced degrees—master's, doctorate, M.D.—in nutrition or related areas. They, too, have to sit for an exam and also earn continuing education credits, says Madelyn Fernstrom, director of the nutrition and weight management program at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and author of The Real You Diet. Either an R.D. or C.N.S. designation means the holder has relevant education and experience, has passed an exam, and will make evidence-based recommendations, says Fernstrom.

I saw Fernstrom identified as a "board-certified nutritionist," referring to her C.N.S. certification. (She has a Ph.D. from MIT.) But the term "nutritionist" alone is meaningless. "It's not a bad thing," says Fernstrom. "But it's like saying you're a cook—you could be working in Denny's or at a five-star restaurant." So ask: What's the nutritionist's educational background? Does she have an R.D. or a C.N.S.? What experience does she have? Has she treated patients like you before? Is her practice grounded in scientific evidence? "You don't have to discount someone who has some other certification, but do your homework," Fernstrom says. "It's just like reading labels."

Making matters even more confusing is that most states have some kind of licensing, registration, or certification system in place but the systems vary in rigor. Some won't allow anyone to practice without meeting certain requirements, others allow qualified persons to use the titles "dietitian" or "nutritionist" but let others practice under different job titles, and others simply require people, regardless of credentials, to register with the state. (Here are the laws, state by state.) To be certain you're getting someone who has met national industry standards, look for an R.D. or C.N.S. credential.

If you have specific needs—say, you're an athlete who wants to know how to recover from races, are a newly diagnosed diabetic seeking help in planning meals, or are seeking help for your overweight child—be even more pointed in your questioning. Ask what specialized education or experience the person has. The ADA, for example, has additional credentials for R.D.'s who want to focus on kidney disease or cancer patients, children, the elderly, or athletes. The "Ask the Dietitian" website, run by Joanne Larsen, a registered dietitian, has some additional tips for vetting anyone offering nutrition advice. Among them: Question eating plans that require the purchase of certain supplements, avoid diets that eliminate entire food groups or prescribe "magic" foods that must be eaten daily, and ask for research—not testimonials—to substantiate claims.

One title that's grown in popularity is "coach." People seeking guidance or help in their career, for example, may hire a business, life, or personal coach. There also are people who call themselves wellness, weight-loss, food, or health coaches. Rather than calculating how many grams of protein or carbohydrate someone should eat or tracking a client's weight, they're more likely to help a customer define his or her goals and needs and figure out how to meet them. Denise Holz, a weight-loss coach in Seattle, says she helps her clients—both in person and over the phone—to eat mindfully, teaching them to be present, slow down, and focus on taste while they eat. And she helps them figure out what's really causing the bad eating habits they want to change. Doing that, she says, helps them address the underlying issues and learn to eat in accordance with their true hunger and taste. "They approach food in a whole new way," Holz says. "They don't have to sneak, don't have to feel bad about themselves."

If coaching rather than (or in combination with) nutritional advice sounds like what you're after, be aware that, like "nutritionist," anyone can call himself a "coach," says Sasson. There are some certification bodies, including the International Coach Federation. And a company called Wellcoaches Corp., in partnership with the American College of Sports Medicine, now trains and certifies healthcare professionals in wellness coaching. Its training, says Margaret Moore, the company's founder, chairman, and CEO, is "based on theories that have evidence behind them" about things like how to motivate people. Until there's some kind of national credential (similar to an R.D.), ask prospective coaches about their education, training, and experience, says Moore. "They should have a background in what they're coaching and should be able to talk the language of what makes people change," she says. "Ask about their track record and talk to current or former clients. And find someone who fits with you—if your personalities don't jibe, it's not going to work." Sort of like finding the perfect diet.

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When I am asked "what is the difference between a Registered Dietitian and a Nutritionist", I always ask "Who makes the decisions about food & meals in your home?". That would be your personal nutritionist. As an RD I'm uniquely trained in medical nutrition therapy for a wide variety of health conditions. And have further specialized to deal with diabetes, pediatrics and many GI disorders. Another important skill is the ability to interpret and explain the research results and real meaning behind all the headlines announcing some nutrition or weight loss breakthrough.

I'm sorry there are NO magic bullets. There are NO "one diet fits all". There are NO shortcuts if you want good health. If it sounds too good to be true. If it makes amazing promises. If it claims to be a secret that the medical professionals don't want you to know. It's going to be a waste of your time & money (and possibly even dangerous). Please consult a licensed/certified health care professional. Ask to see his/her credentials & where they went to school/did their internship. Shop around to find someone who can help you succeed.

Are You a Couch Potato?

2010-01-16T12:21:00.000-08:00

"Couch Potatoes Endanger Their Lives, Australian Study"

If you think vegging out in front of the tube after a stressful day is the best way to unwind, you may want to think again.

A study by the Australian Science Media Centre followed 8,800 adults over a six-year period and found that people who watched four hours or more television per day — as compared to less than two hours — had an 80 percent higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease. The findings were independent of traditional risk factors such as smoking or obesity.

The study says watching the television itself is not the problem, but rather sitting while you watch.

To combat these effects, researchers suggest not only regular exercise, but also to stand up and "get moving" during any prolonged period — be it in front of your television, computer, at work or during transport.
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The Q&A session with the researchers can be found HERE. The journal Circulation will have the published article up shortly.

What do you think of the study?

Again, There is NO Magic Bullet

2010-01-07T15:05:00.000-08:00

Headline news in the diet field.

Setting the record straight on weight loss
It's time to set the record straight. The only reliable way to lose weight is to eat less or exercise more. Preferably both.

So why bother to state the obvious? Because a body of scientific literature has arisen over recent years, suggesting that fat oxidation – burning the fats we eat as opposed to the carbohydrates – is enough to promote fat loss. It isn't.

Sydney scientists have demonstrated that mice genetically altered to burn fats in preference to carbohydrates, will convert the unburned carbohydrates into stored fat anyway, and their ultimate weight and body composition will be the same as normal mice.

It all comes down to an enzyme known as ACC2 (acetyl-CoA carboxylase), which controls whether cells burn fats or carbohydrates. When it was shown that 'blocking' ACC2 will force cells to burn fats in preference to carbohydrates, many assumed that such 'fat burning' could make fat stores evaporate, and make people thin without changing food intake or energy expenditure.

Associate Professor Greg Cooney, from Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research, discusses misconceptions surrounding ACC2 in findings that appear in the prestigious international journal, Cell Metabolism, article available online today.

"Our data urges a correction in people's concept of a magic bullet - something that will miraculously make them thin while they sit on the couch watching television," said Professor Cooney.

"While none of the large pharmaceutical companies have marketed ACC2 inhibitors, there are many kinds of so-called 'fat-burning pills' available in the health food, body building and alternative medicine markets, where limited clinical effectiveness data are required."

"Many such products can also contain potentially harmful stimulants or come with a recommendation to follow a calorie-controlled diet and do more exercise while taking them. If you follow those recommendations, then of course you'll lose weight - but you'd lose it anyway."

"The energy you use in your home can come from a coal-fired power station, hydroelectric power, or a wind turbine. You won't know which because the end result is electricity."

"The energy that fuels your body can come from fats, proteins or carbohydrates. You won't know which because the end result is ATP, or cellular energy."

"Your body will use the energy it needs and store the leftover fats, proteins or carbohydrates as fat. When you do the sums, it's ultimately a matter of calories in and calories out."

"It's important to stress that the focus of our study was limited to an analysis of the impact of fat oxidation on overall fatness. We didn't investigate all impacts of fat oxidation – and so we don't rule out benefits of burning off fats in specific tissues."

"For example, manipulating fat metabolism may - or may not - lead to better insulin action in muscles or in the liver. Should insulin action be improved, that would obviously benefit obese people with Type 2 diabetes. But we can't comment either way until we do the experiments."

And the take-home message? Follow a healthy, balanced diet and get plenty of exercise.

###

ABOUT GARVAN

The Garvan Institute of Medical Research was founded in 1963. Initially a research department of St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, it is now one of Australia's largest medical research institutions with nearly 500 scientists, students and support staff. Garvan's main research programs are: Cancer, Diabetes & Obesity, Immunology and Inflammation, Osteoporosis and Bone Biology, and Neuroscience. The Garvan's mission is to make significant contributions to medical science that will change the directions of science and medicine and have major impacts on human health. The outcome of Garvan's discoveries is the development of better methods of diagnosis, treatment, and ultimately, prevention of disease.

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Translation: Calories count! There is no magic bullet that will allow you to lose weight without controlling your energy balance. Eat less and exercise more.
There are some benefits to what foods/nutrients you eat and when you eat that can make you more successful in this endeavor, just as there are some more effective exercise/activity patterns that can influence how much weight is lost (but not *where* the fat comes off).

A Cure for Celiac???

2009-12-22T22:17:00.000-08:00

New hope for celiac disease sufferers?
By Cathryn Delude, posted December 21, 2009

In a sense, the 2 million plus Americans with celiac disease are lucky. No other autoimmune disease has such a safe and effective treatment.

Purging the diet of gluten -- the protein in wheat, rye and barley that triggers an immune reaction in the gut -- can reverse the disease and reduce intestinal inflammation. That's important, because studies now show that the consequences of untreated celiac disease are graver than previously thought, causing anemia, arthritis, osteoporosis, hepatitis, neurological problems and even malignancies, as well as increased general mortality.

Still, it is very difficult to eliminate gluten entirely. It lurks in disparate sources such as vinegars, soy sauce, medications, lip balm and Play-Doh (which some children consider edible); and even gluten-free foods, which are expensive, may contain enough traces to cause symptoms. "When we study celiac patients who have been doing their best to follow a gluten-free diet, even after five years we see lots of damage in the small intestines in about half of them," said Dr. Robert Anderson, a gastroenterologist in Melbourne, Australia, who is working on a vaccine to prevent or switch off the reaction to gluten.

His is one of many efforts underway to develop new, non-dietary treatments for celiac disease. Ultimately, celiac patients may be able to take a pill before a meal so they could, for example, have stuffing with their holiday turkey. Or, as is Anderson's goal, they could go for a series of treatments similar to allergy shots that would teach their immune systems to tolerate gluten.

"It's very exciting that the pathophysiology of celiac disease is understood to such a degree that we can design potential therapies," said Dr. Peter Green, director of the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York.

There are two categories of treatments being developed. One would supplement a gluten-free diet and protect patients from occasional gluten exposure; the other would train the immune system to tolerate gluten and allow patients to eat a regular diet.

Enzyme therapy

Within the first category, one approach uses oral enzymes that target gluten. We cannot completely digest gluten because humans lack digestive enzymes that can break it down, but researchers at Stanford University combined enzymes from bacteria and barley that finish what our own digestive juices cannot. They showed in rats that when gluten is broken down into smaller fragments, it no longer causes inflammation in the intestines. Alvine Pharmaceuticals, based in San Carlos, Calif., has developed this "glutenase" therapy and is now recruiting patients for a Phase II clinical trial.

In this trial, as with the others, participants have had a diagnosis of celiac disease confirmed by a biopsy but have had it under control on a gluten-free diet. They are given either a drug or placebo, along with a gluten challenge, often the equivalent of one or two slices of bread.

"From the early data it looks like the oral enzymes break down enough gluten to be useful," said Dr. Daniel Leffler, director of clinical research for the Celiac Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Leffler was not involved in the enzyme trial but is an investigator in a nearly completed Phase II trial testing a different drug, larazotide, developed by Alba Therapeutics in Maryland.

The larazotide approach leaves the gluten peptides, or small fragments of proteins,intact but aims to prevent them from penetrating beneath the lining of the gut into the mucous layer where the immune reaction occurs. In celiac disease, as in many autoimmune diseases, including Type 1 diabetes, this intestinal barrier is "leaky" or permeable.

Larazotide is a bioengineered drug designed to close those leaks to keep out gluten and prevent or reverse the disease. In preliminary results from about 300 patients in Phase I and II trials, the drug did seem to benefit patients, who had fewer adverse symptoms after eating gluten. It also reduced the levels of the antibody that serves as a blood marker for the immune response to gluten. But interestingly, the drug did not seem to reduce intestinal permeability.

"So the drug works, but maybe through a different mechanism that we don't understand yet," said Green, who is on the clinical advisory board for both Alba and Alvine. He predicts that, if ultimately found effective, the oral enzymes and larazotide would be marketed as supplements to a gluten-free diet but that many patients would want them to actually replace the restrictive diet. It's unclear not only whether such a use would be possible but also whether it would be a daily regimen or followed only when dining out or traveling, for instance.

Immunotherapy

The second category of treatment, known as immunotherapy, is more investigational but also more exciting, Leffler said. It would allow patients to eat a regular diet by quelling immune response in the gut. This response is driven by immune cells known as T cells, which react when other immune cells display gluten fragments on their surface.

In Australia, a company founded by Anderson, called Nexpep, is packaging the gluten peptides that trigger this immune response into a vaccine that will desensitize the immune reaction. The theory, which he says works in animals, is that by introducing these peptides through injections under the skin rather than through the gut, the immune cells learn to tolerate them and no longer display them to the T cells. That can theoretically prevent or turn off the reaction that damages the intestines

Anderson expects Phase I safety trials of this vaccine, Nexvax2, to be completed in mid-2010. He anticipates that patients would receive a series of injections of the vaccine, followed by occasional maintenance doses.

"If we can figure out how to give the drug, how frequently and when we need maintenance therapy," he added, "then we can use the same principle to explore treatments for other autoimmune diseases." Several other groups are also developing vaccines for celiac disease, but this one is furthest along.

A low-tech immunotherapy approach might require just one inoculation -- of hookworm. It is known that a non-pathogenic hookworm introduced to the gut can relieve asthma symptoms. Researchers suspect that it is because we evolved with intestinal parasites that trained our immune system to tolerate environmental irritants, but our hygienic modern living has deprived us of this beneficial symbiosis.

Researchers at the Brisbane Princess Alexandra Hospital in Queensland, Australia, tested the effects of hookworm inoculation on 20 patients with celiac disease to see if it would blunt the immune response to gluten. In addition to hoping to provide relief for celiac patients, the researchers want to learn if this could be an effective therapy for inflammatory bowel disease and Crohn's disease.

The results have not been published, but when the Phase II trial was over and the patients were offered a medication that would kill the parasites, they all opted to keep their hookworms.

health@latimes.com
Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
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Extending the Honeymoon in Type 1 Diabetes - New Use for an Old Drug

2009-12-05T15:16:00.000-08:00

FDA-approved drug may slow beta cell destruction in type 1 diabetes patients

DALLAS — Dec. 4, 2009 — New findings by UT Southwestern researchers suggest that a drug already used to treat autoimmune disorders might also help slow the destruction of insulin-producing cells in patients recently diagnosed with insulin-dependent (type 1) diabetes.

In type 1 diabetes, formerly known as juvenile diabetes, cells in the pancreas called beta cells, which produce insulin, are destroyed by an autoimmune process.

Researchers at UT Southwestern and 14 other centers worldwide found that injections of the drug rituximab slowed beta cell destruction in the pancreas of those newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes for at least a year, suggesting a potential treatment option that might improve management and reduce long-term complications of the disease.

“Our findings in no way suggest that rituximab should be used as a treatment or that it will eliminate the need for daily insulin injections,” said Dr. Raskin, principal investigator of the trial’s local effort. “This is not a cure for type 1 diabetes.

“The results do, however, provide evidence that B cells play a significant role in type 1 diabetes and that selective suppression of these B cells may deter the destruction of the body’s beta cells.”

Prior research has shown that two types of immune cells — B cells and T cells — help trigger type 1 diabetes. T cells attack and destroy the insulin-producing beta cells. The B cells, however, don’t directly attack insulin-producing cells, but researchers have speculated that they trigger the T cells to attack. Rituximab directly attacks and destroys the beta cells.

For the current study, researchers conducted a randomized, double-blind study in which 81 participants received infusions of either rituximab or a placebo once a week for four weeks. The participants, who ranged in age from 8 to 40 years and had been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes within 100 days of enrollment in the study, returned approximately every three months for two years to undergo blood tests and meet with a physician. Two-thirds of the 81 participants received the drug.

The scientists found that after one year, the participants who received rituximab needed lower doses of insulin and were able to produce more of their own insulin than those who received the placebo. They also had better control of their blood sugar.

Dr. Raskin said researchers do not think rituximab could ever be used to completely reverse type 1 diabetes because the pancreas typically is too damaged by the time diabetes is diagnosed.

He also said that while the exact mechanism of how rituximab affects type 1 diabetes remains unclear, the study clearly shows that a therapy that targets B cells may improve beta-cell function in early type 1 diabetes.

The next step, Dr. Raskin said, is to evaluate the potential effects of rituximab in diabetes.

Other UT Southwestern researchers involved in the study include Dr. Perrin White, professor of pediatrics; Dr. Bryan Dickson, associate professor of pediatrics; Dr. Soumya Adhikari, assistant professor of pediatrics; Dr. Mark Siegelman, associate professor of pathology; Marilyn Alford, senior advanced practice nurse in internal medicine; Tauri Harden, a former advanced practice nurse in internal medicine; Erica Cordova, registered nurse at Parkland Memorial Hospital; and Nenita Torres and Maria Lourdes Pruneda, senior research nurses in internal medicine.

The study is supported by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International, the American Diabetes Association and the Type 1 Diabetes TrialNet Study Group, a clinical trials network funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Visit www.utsouthwestern.org/endocrinology to learn more about UT Southwestern’s clinical services in endocrinology, including diabetes.

BUZZ: Movie Popcorn is Bad For You (Duh!)

2009-11-21T15:59:00.000-08:00

I love reading headlines related to food and nutrition. This is what showed up on my Yahoo BUZZ today:

Horror at the Movies: Popcorn
by Claudine Zap (posted 21 Nov 2009)

We would want to be the last ones to ruin movie night, but this just in from Center for Science in the Public Interest: Chowing down on a medium popcorn and soda is the calorie equivalent to three McDonald's quarter-pounders and 12 — yes 12 — pats of butter. And it gets worse: About 90% of this 1,600 calorie bomb comes from fat.

‘Two Thumbs Down’ for Movie Theater Popcorn
(posted 18 Nov 2009)

New Lab Tests of Movie Theater Popcorn Show It’s Still the Godzilla of Snacks

WASHINGTON—It's hard to picture someone mindlessly ingesting three McDonald's Quarter Pounders with 12 pats of butter while watching a movie. But according to new laboratory analyses commissioned by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, that food is nutritionally comparable to what you’d find in a medium popcorn and soda combo at Regal, the country’s biggest movie theater chain: 1,610 calories and three days’ worth—60 grams—of saturated fat. (Nutrition aside, that combo costs $12—for raw ingredients that must cost Regal pennies.)

The study, published as the cover story in the December issue of Nutrition Action Healthletter, updates a famous exposé the group conducted 15 years ago. For Regal and AMC, CSPI tested samples from theaters in the Washington, D.C., area. For Cinemark, samples came from Texas, Illinois, and Maryland.

The oversized boxes and bags (four to five ounces) of candy sold at movie chains are universally high in calories. A 5-ounce bag of Twizzlers has 460 calories and 15 teaspoons of sugar. A 7-ounce box of Nerds has 790 calories and 46 teaspoons of sugar. Chocolate candies like Butterfinger Minis, Raisinets, Sno-Caps, or M&M's have between 400 and 500 calories and at least a half day’s worth of saturated fat. An 8-ounce bag of Reese's Pieces is just a cup of candy. But with 1,160 calories and 35 grams of saturated fat, it's like eating a 16-ounce T-bone steak plus a buttered baked potato.
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Another interesting thing about popcorn, is that eating it while watching a movie leads us into mindless eating. Tons of it. For some real interesting insights into portion size influencing our eating habits, take a read of this:

Big portions influence overeating as much as taste, even when the food tastes lousy, Cornell study finds
By Susan S. Lang (posted 5 Nov 2005)

Large portions push people to overeat -- even to overeat foods they don't like.

According to a new Cornell University study, when moviegoers were served stale popcorn in big buckets, they ate 34 percent more than those given the same stale popcorn in medium-sized containers. Tasty food created even larger appetites: Fresh popcorn in large tubs resulted in people eating 45 percent more than those given fresh popcorn in medium-sized containers.

"We're finding that portion size can influence intake as much as taste," said Brian Wansink, the John S. Dyson Professor of Marketing and of Applied Economics at Cornell. "Large packages and containers can lead to overeating foods we do not even find appealing."

Wansink and Junong Kim, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Central Florida, gave 158 moviegoers either medium (4.2 oz) or large (8.4 oz) tubs of free popcorn that was either fresh or 14 days old. The researchers asked the moviegoers to describe the popcorn after the movie, and they weighed how much popcorn was left in the containers. As expected, the 14-day-old popcorn was described with such remarks as "stale" and "it was terrible."

When the moviegoers were asked if they thought they ate more because of the size of the container, 77 percent of those given the large tubs said they would have eaten the same amount if given a medium container. "This means that the moviegoers were unaware that the exceptional amount they ate was due to the size of the container," said Wansink, who also is the author of the new book, "Marketing Nutrition: Soy, Functional Foods, Biotechnology, and Obesity," and director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab, made up of a group of interdisciplinary researchers who have conducted more than 200 studies on the psychology behind what people eat and how often they eat it.

Several of Wansink's previous studies show that larger portions prompt people to eat more not because of a clean-your-plate mentality, but because large packages and portions suggest larger consumption norms. "They implicitly suggest what might be construed as a 'normal' or 'appropriate' amount to consume," said Wansink, who tested this concept in 1996 with volunteers given different-sized bags of M&Ms that were too large to be finished while watching a videotape; those given larger bags ate twice as much as those with smaller bags.
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For some interesting reading, I highly recommend his book Mindless Eating – Why We Eat More Than We Think, by Brian Wansink. Published by Bantam-Dell (2006).

So what do I eat at the movies? Sometimes I brought in my own snacks (grapes or raisins; one evening I even packed an entire dinner in to-go containers and used a big purse). But lately I just don't get anything to eat or drink. It's not like we're going to starve during the 2 hr show. It's one way to break that behavior change of tv & movies connected to food & eating. And think of all the money you save by skipping the snack bar.

Positive Placebo Power

2009-11-10T19:09:00.000-08:00

Experts: Placebo power behind many natural cures
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione, Ap Medical Writer – Tue Nov 10, 3:16 pm ET

EDITOR'S NOTE: Ten years and $2.5 billion in research have found no cures from alternative medicine. Yet these mostly unproven treatments are now mainstream and used by more than a third of all Americans. This is one in an occasional Associated Press series on their use and potential risks.

___

People looking for natural cures will be happy to know there is one. Two words explain how it works: "I believe."

It's the placebo effect — the ability of a dummy pill or a faked treatment to make people feel better, just because they expect that it will. It's the mind's ability to alter physical symptoms, such as pain, anxiety and fatigue.

In just the past few weeks, the placebo effect has demonstrated its healing powers. In tests of a new drug to relieve lupus symptoms, about a third of patients felt better when they got dummy pills instead of the drug.

The placebo effect looms large in alternative medicine, which has many therapies and herbal remedies based on beliefs versus science. Often the problems they seek to relieve, such as pain, are subjective.

"It has a pejorative implication — that it's not real, that it has no medicinal value," said Dr. Robert Ader, a psychologist at the University of Rochester in New York who has researched the phenomenon.

But placebos can have real and beneficial effects, he said.

"Much of the results of certain alternative procedures are largely placebo effects, unless you believe there are people who exert magical powers so they can hold their hands over your body and cure you of disease," Ader said. "Make you feel better? That's entirely possible, especially if you believe it."

The placebo effect accounts for about a third of the benefits of any treatment — even carefully tested medicines, scientists say. This dates to a landmark report in 1955 called The Powerful Placebo. Viewed as groundbreaking, the analysis of dozens of studies by H.K. Beecher found that 32 percent of patients responded to a placebo.

Later studies found that dummy pills could raise pulse rates, blood pressure and reaction speed when people were told they had taken a stimulant; the opposite occurred when people were told that a drug would make them drowsy.

How does it work? Scientists do not always know, but there are many possible ways. Brain imaging shows that beliefs ("I know these pills will help") can cause biological changes and affect levels of chemical messengers and stress hormones that signal pain or pleasure.

Emotions, too, can trigger physical changes. Take the case of a child with croup. Crying tightens the airways and makes it tougher to breathe. Many people believe that cool mist is helpful, but when it has been tested in hospital studies with croup tents, it has not been found to help, said Dr. Owen Hendley, a pediatrician at the University of Virginia.

Try it at home, though, and you may get a different result.

"The child sits in the lap of the mother and the mother holds the mist maker close to the child. The child settles down, the mother settles down. The setting, and the mother feeling that it is helping, makes everybody calmer," and the child actually is able to breathe better, Hendley explained.

If it were not for the placebo effect, "physicians would not be nearly as successful as we are," said Dr. Thomas Schnitzer, a Northwestern University arthritis specialist. He helped lead a big study that found glucosamine and chondroitin supplements were no better than dummy pills for arthritic knee pain.

Doctors sometimes exploit the placebo effect to help patients. One survey found that many doctors admitted sometimes giving patients sugar pills or drugs or vitamins that would not really help their condition, in an effort to trigger a placebo effect.

In Baltimore, the University of Maryland Medical Center's shock trauma center is offering some patients Reiki therapy, which claims to heal through invisible energy fields manipulated by a special "master." The hospital's anesthesia chief, Dr. Richard Dutton, says it is self-hypnosis and compares it to Lamaze classes that teach pregnant women breathing exercises to take their minds off the pain of labor.

Roy A. Armstrong's family agreed to it after he was injured in a motorcycle crash last year. The 39-year-old suffered cardiac arrest and had many broken bones. As he lay tethered to a breathing machine, nurse Donna Audia and a partner circled his bed, waving their arms through the air and touching his head while humming and making tunes by rubbing a crystal bowl with a wand.

Armstrong was too sedated to remember anything, but "I think in some way it helped him to get better," his wife said. He is still recovering through physical therapy.

Dutton said: "You can call it a placebo effect, you can call it a chicken soup effect. It's all about creating the right mental state in the person. The patients tell us they seem to like it. And in pain management, that's the whole goal. If 30 percent of your patients get better on placebo, why not give it to them?"

Swear-by-it stories and anecdotal reports of benefit are one thing. Proving a treatment helps is quite another. Many alternative medicine studies have not included a placebo group — people who unknowingly get a dummy treatment so its effect can be compared.

Acupuncture is especially hard to research. Positive studies tend to lack comparison groups that have been given a sham treatment. Or they are often done in China, where the treatment is an established part of health care.

One U.S. study found that true acupuncture relieved knee arthritis pain better than fake acupuncture, in which guide tubes were placed but no needles were inserted. But a European study involving twice as many patients and using a more realistic sham procedure found the fake treatment to be just as good. The conclusion: Pain relief was due to the placebo effect.

Advertisements and testimonials from product users can encourage a placebo effect. The Federal Trade Commission last summer reached a settlement over advertising claims for Airborne, a product "invented by a teacher" that was supposed to ward off germs spread through the air.

"Products like Airborne are what we call `credence products.' That's a fancy word for saying it's difficult or impossible for consumers to determine if the product has done anything for them," said commission lawyer Rich Cleland. "Part of that is because of the placebo effect. Part of that is because people don't want to believe they've been ripped off."

Barbara Domen, a former kindergarten teacher in Caswell Beach, N.C., said she was prone to colds and used Airborne six or seven times a year when she flew on planes.

"It worked for me," although it could be because since she retired, "I'm away from all the germs," she said. She skipped it on one flight and caught a terrible cold.

"Maybe it's psychological, but I think I'll continue to use it," she said.

Some placebo effects are due to conditioning, or ascribing benefits to something you did that may in fact have played no role in your improvement. Insomnia is an example, said Michael Perlis, a psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania.

If you have trouble sleeping one night, your body's need for sleep makes it very likely you'll sleep well the next night. If you take a sleeping pill, you think you slept well because of the pill, he said.

Do any herbal remedies work for insomnia? "Not that I know of," Perlis said. "But all of them have potential to be useful with time. It has nothing to do with them — it has everything to do with conditioning."

FDA article on placebos (2000)
American Cancer Society article on placebos (2009)

Food and Health Communications Food Blog » Get the Nutrition Right Game

2009-10-30T15:56:00.000-07:00

Food and Health Communications Food Blog » Get the Nutrition Right Game

Chewing Gum May Help People Lose Weight

2009-10-28T16:57:00.000-07:00

Study finds chewing gum can help lower calorie intake and increase energy expenditure

WHAT: New research from University of Rhode Island presented at The Obesity Society's 2009 Annual Scientific Meeting shows the role of chewing sugar-free gum, such as Wrigley's Extra®, in helping to reduce calorie intake at lunchi and increase energy expenditure among individuals in a laboratory setting.ii Primary outcomes include:

•After subjects chewed gum in the morning, their calorie intake at lunch was decreased by 68 calories.

◦Despite consuming fewer calories at lunch, participants did not report greater hunger and did not compensate by increasing their calorie intake later in the day.

◦When participants chewed gum, they reported feeling less hungry, as compared to when they did not chew gum.

•When subjects chewed gum with a relaxed, natural pace before and after eating, their energy expenditure increased.

◦When participants chewed gum before eating, their energy expenditure was higher by approximately 5%, as compared to when they did not chew gum.

◦When participants chewed gum after eating, their energy expenditure was also higher by approximately 5%, as compared to when they did not chew gum.

◦Furthermore, with gum chewing, subjects reported reduced weariness and less perceived effort to do things, as compared to when they did not chew gum.

Overall, this study demonstrates the effects of chewing sugar-free gum on meal intake and energy expenditure, such that over a half-day about 62 kilocalories could be 'saved' by a total of one hour of relaxed gum chewing compared to not chewing gum. It also contributes to a growing body of evidence in these two areas. Three previous studies have reported that chewing gum before snacking can help reduce hunger, diminish cravings and decrease snack intake.iii,iv,v And, nutritionists report that even small changes in caloric intake can have a significant impact in the long term. In addition, a previous study has demonstrated increased energy expenditure when chewing gum.vi

A research summary with additional information on methodology is available upon request.

WHO: Kathleen J. Melanson, Ph.D., R.D., Associate Professor of Nutrition and Food Sciences, University of Rhode Island, led the research study and is available for interviews to discuss the potential role of chewing gum on appetite control, meal intake and calorie expenditure.

Gilbert Leveille, Ph.D., Executive Director, Wrigley Science Institute™, will also be available to discuss study findings and research on the Benefits of Chewing™ gum related to weight management and other areas including oral health, stress relief, and focus, alertness and concentration.

WHEN: Research will be presented at The Obesity Society's 2009 Annual Scientific Meeting from noon—1:00 p.m. EST and 5:30—6:30 p.m. EST on Monday, October 26 and Tuesday, October 27; Washington Marriott Wardman Park, Washington, D.C.

###
WRIGLEY SCIENCE INSTITUTE™:
Wrigley is committed to advancing and sharing scientific research that explores the benefits of chewing gum. The Wrigley Science Institute works with independent researchers at leading institutions around the world to learn more about the potential health and wellness benefits of chewing gum. The current work of the Wrigley Science Institute is focused on exploring the impact of chewing gum in four key scientific areas: oral health; stress relief; focus, alertness and concentration; and weight management. More information may be found at www.wrigley.com.

The study was supported by an unrestricted research grant from the Wrigley Science Institute™ presented during the 2007 Annual Meeting of The Obesity Society.

© 2009 Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company. All Rights Reserved. Extra, Benefits of Chewing and Wrigley Science Institute are registered trademarks of the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company.

i Kathleen J. Melanson, Kaitlyn E. Reti, and Daniel L. Kresge. Impact of chewing gum on appetite, meal intake, and mood under controlled conditions. Obesity 2009. Washington, D.C. October 2009.

ii Daniel L. Kresge, Kaitlyn E. Reti and Kathleen J. Melanson. Relationships between gum chewing, energy expenditure and RQ before and after controlled breakfasts. Obesity 2009. Washington, D.C. October 2009.

iii Hetherington MM, Boyland E. "Short term effects of chewing gum on snack intake and appetite." Appetite. 2007; 48(3):397-401.

iv Hetherington MM, Regan MF. "Effect of chewing gum on short-term appetite control and reduced snack intake in moderately restrained eaters." Obesity. 2007; 15: 510-P.

v Paula J. Geiselman, Corby Martin, Sandra Coulon, Donna Ryan, and Megan Apperson. Effects of chewing gum on specific macronutrient and total caloric intake in an afternoon snack. FASEB J. 2009 23:101.3.

vi Levine J, Baukol P, Pavlidis I. "The energy expended in chewing gum." New England Journal of Medicine. 1999; l 341(27): 2100.

You Don't Need Extra Protein to Build Muscle

2009-10-27T17:31:00.000-07:00

I've been working with folks trying to lose weight (but not muscle) for most of my dietetic career. And this includes a lot of gym rats who continue to insist that protein is king and post workout protein shakes are the magic bullet.

Here's another research study supporting my philosophy of protein with every meal, but not more than your palm (or a deck of cards) and that most people DON'T need protein shakes/supplements.

Moderate amounts of protein per meal found best for building muscle
Study: 1 ounce per meal is muscle synthesis improvement 'ceiling'

Contact: Jim Kelly
jpkelly@utmb.edu
409-772-8791
University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston

GALVESTON, Texas — For thousands of years, people have believed that eating large amounts of protein made it easier to build bigger, stronger muscles. Take Milo of Croton, the winner of five consecutive Olympic wrestling championships in the sixth century BC: If ancient writers are to be believed, he built his crushing strength in part by consuming 20 pounds of meat every day.

No modern athlete would go to such extremes, but Milo's legacy survives in the high-protein diets of bodybuilders and the meat-heavy training tables of today's college football teams. A recent study by University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston metabolism researchers, however, provides evidence that strongly contradicts this ancient tradition. It also suggests practical ways to both improve normal American eating patterns and reduce muscle loss in the elderly.

The study's results, obtained by measuring muscle synthesis rates in volunteers who consumed different amounts of lean beef, show that only about the first 30 grams (just over one ounce) of dietary protein consumed in a meal actually produce muscle.

"We knew from previous work that consuming 30 grams of protein — or the equivalent of approximately 4 ounces of chicken, fish, dairy, soy, or, in this case, lean beef — increased the rate of muscle protein synthesis by 50 percent in young and older adults," said associate professor Douglas Paddon-Jones, senior author of a paper on the study published in the September issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. "We asked if 4 ounces of beef gives you a 50 percent increase, would 12 ounces, containing 90 grams of protein, give you a further increase?"

The UTMB researchers tested this possibility by feeding 17 young and 17 elderly volunteers identical 4- or 12-ounce portions of lean beef. Using blood samples and thigh muscle biopsies, they then determined the subjects' muscle protein synthesis rates following each of the meals.

"In young and old adults, we saw that 12 ounces gave exactly the same increase in muscle protein synthesis as 4 ounces," Paddon-Jones says. "This suggests that at around 30 grams of protein per meal, maybe a little less, muscle protein synthesis hits an upper ceiling. I think this has a lot of application for how we design meals and make menu recommendations for both young and older adults."

The results of the study, Paddon-Jones points out, seem to show that a more effective pattern of protein consumption is likely to differ dramatically from most Americans' daily eating habits.

"Usually, we eat very little protein at breakfast, eat a bit more at lunch and then consume a large amount at night. When was the last time you had just 4 ounces of anything during dinner at a restaurant?" Paddon-Jones said. "So we're not taking enough protein on board for efficient muscle-building during the day, and at night we're taking in more than we can use. Most of the excess is oxidized and could end up as glucose or fat."

A more efficient eating strategy for making muscle and controlling total caloric intake would be to shift some of extra protein consumed at dinner to lunch and breakfast.

"You don't have to eat massive amounts of protein to maximize muscle synthesis, you just have to be a little more clever with how you apportion it," Paddon-Jones said. "For breakfast consider including additional high quality proteins. Throw in an egg, a glass of milk, yogurt or add a handful of nuts to get to 30 grams of protein, do something similar to get to 30 for lunch, and then eat a smaller amount of protein for dinner. Do this, and over the course of the day you likely spend much more time synthesizing muscle protein."

###

Other authors of the paper ("A Moderate Serving of High-Quality Protein Maximally Stimulates Skeletal Muscle Protein Synthesis in Young and Elderly Subjects") include postdoctoral fellow T. Brock Symons, associate professor Melinda Sheffield Moore and University of Arkansas professor Robert R. Wolfe. The study was supported by funding from the National Cattlemen's Beef Association Checkoff Program and UTMB's National Institutes of Health Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center.

********************************

Here is the actual article in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association:
A Moderate Serving of High-Quality Protein Maximally Stimulates Skeletal Muscle Protein Synthesis in Young and Elderly Subjects

Are Artificial Sweeteners Really That Bad for You?

2009-10-20T20:21:00.000-07:00

Are Artificial Sweeteners Really That Bad for You?

By Claire Suddath Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2009 on Time.com

Too much sugar will make you fat, but too much artificial sweetener will ... do what exactly? Kill you? Make you thinner? Or have absolutely no effect at all? This week marks the 40th anniversary of the Food and Drug Administration's decision to ban cyclamate, the first artificial sweetener prohibited in the U.S., and yet scientists still haven't reached a consensus about how safe (or harmful) artificial sweeteners may be. Shouldn't we have figured this out by now?

The first artificial sweetener, saccharin, was discovered in 1879 when Constantin Fahlberg, a Johns Hopkins University scientist working on coal-tar derivatives, noticed a substance on his hands and arms that tasted sweet. No one knows why Fahlberg decided to lick an unknown substance off his body, but it's a good thing he did. Despite an early attempt to ban the substance in 1911 — skeptical scientists said it was an "adulterant" that changed the makeup of food — saccharin grew in popularity, and was used to sweeten foods during sugar rationings in World Wars I and II. Though it is about 300 times sweeter than sugar and has zero calories, saccharin leaves an unpleasant metallic aftertaste. So when cyclamate came on the market in 1951, food and beverage companies jumped at the chance to sweeten their products with something that tasted more natural. By 1968, Americans were consuming more than 17 million pounds of the calorie-free substance a year in snack foods, canned fruit and soft drinks like Tab and Diet Pepsi.

But in the late 1960s, studies began linking cyclamate to cancer. One noted that chicken embryos injected with the chemical developed extreme deformities, leading scientists to wonder if unborn humans could be similarly damaged by their cola-drinking mothers. Another study linked the sweetener to malignant bladder tumors in rats. Because a 1958 congressional amendment required the FDA to ban any food additive shown to cause cancer in humans or animals, on Oct. 18, 1969, the government ordered cyclamate removed from all food products.

Saccharin became mired in controversy in 1977, when a study indicated that the substance might contribute to cancer in rats. An FDA move to ban the chemical failed, though products containing saccharin were required to carry warning labels. In 2000, the chemical was officially removed from the Federal Government's list of suspected carcinogens.
(Read TIME's 1974 article on cyclamate and saccharin.)

In 1981, the synthetic compound aspartame was approved for use, and it capitalized on saccharin's bad publicity by becoming the leading additive in diet colas. In 1995 and 1996, misinformation about aspartame that linked the chemical to everything from multiple sclerosis to Gulf War syndrome was widely disseminated on the Internet. While aspartame does adversely effect some people — including those who are unable to metabolize the amino acid phenylalanine — it has been tested more than 200 times, and each test has confirmed that your Diet Coke is safe to drink. Nor have any health risks been detected in more than 100 clinical tests of sucralose, a chemically altered sugar molecule found in food, drinks, chewing gum and Splenda.

The fear-mongering and misinformation plaguing the faux-sweetener market seems to be rooted in a common misconception. No evidence indicates that sweeteners cause obesity; people with weight problems simply tend to eat more of it. While recent studies have suggested a possible link between artificial sweeteners and obesity, a direct link between additives and weight gain has yet to be found. The general consensus in the scientific community is that saccharin, aspartame and sucralose are harmless when consumed in moderation. And while cyclamate is still banned in the U.S., many other countries still allow it; it can even be found in the Canadian version of Sweet'n Low. Low-calorie additives won't make you thinner or curb your appetite. But they help unsweetened food taste better without harming you. And that's sweet enough.

Breakfast Cereal Recommendations from RealSimple.com

2009-10-18T05:21:00.000-07:00

This article showed up on Yahoo.com this morning and, as always, I checked out the "who" that is touting this "best" list. Real Simple is a Time Inc. magazine that started in 2000, has expanded to a TV show on TLC and involves Registered Dietitians in food and health articles. Glancing through their offerings I can see how this could be another resource for folks looking for information, recipies and great home ideas to improve eating choices.

The Best Breakfast Cereals

The Classics

Many breakfast-cereal concoctions come and go (R.I.P., Donkey Kong Crunch; adios, Urkel-O's). Then there are the beloved stalwarts-raisin bran, corn flakes, crispy rice-that will be breakfast staples forever. But which brands in these traditional categories are best? Real Simple testers ate their way through 42 boxes to find out. (Note: All cereals tested in this story were free of high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils.)

The Best O's: Cheerios

The pure oaty flavor and the hearty crunch of these whole-grain rings, which contain just one gram of sugar per serving, easily won over testers. “No wonder my toddler can’t get enough of them,” one enthused.

To buy: $4 for 14 ounces.

The Best Crispy Rice: Erewhon Organic Original Crispy Brown Rice

Made with brown rice (a nice twist on the traditional white), these delicate puffs have “a pleasing nutty flavor,” a staffer raved. “Topped with strawberries, they would make a great light breakfast.”

To buy: $4 for 10 ounces.

The Best Shredded Oats: Life

Mikey liked it back in the 1970s, and Real Simple testers feel the same way today. The thin oat squares strike a tasty balance of salty and sweet.

To buy: $4 for 15 ounces.

The Best Raisin Bran: Cascadian Farm Organic Raisin Bran

“The plump, juicy raisins aren’t overwhelmed by the number of flakes,” said a fan. “Plus, the fruit is free of that awful coating of sugar so many companies use.”

To buy: $4 for 14 ounces.

The Best Corn Flakes: Trader Joe’s Organic Corn Flakes

“These large, sturdy flakes hold their shape, have a strong corn flavor even when drowned in milk, and don’t develop a slimy film like some other versions,” said one appreciative tester.

To buy: $2.50 for 12 ounces.

The Best Frosted Wheat: Three Sisters Sweet Wheat

These bites have a dusting of icing on one side that adds a touch of sweetness to the milk. Bonus: The resealable plastic bag cuts down on wasteful packaging.

To buy: $3.40 for 15.5 ounces, Whole Foods Market.

The Best High-Fiber, Low-Fat

Cereals touted for their nutritional profile can’t always make the same claim for taste. Real Simple staffers sampled 77 options―all containing at least 3 grams of fiber, no more than 10 grams of sugar, and less than 2 grams of fat, as recommended by Marilyn Tanner-Blasiar, a registered dietitian and an American Dietetic Association spokesperson. Here are the breakfast champions.

The Best High Fiber: Kashi Go Lean

A medley of bran twigs, honey whole-grain puffs, and mini soy graham crackers, this won praise for being hearty and delicious. One of the healthiest of all the winners, it packs 13 grams of protein and 10 grams of fiber into a single serving.

To buy: $4 for 14.1 ounces.

The Best Shredded Wheat: Kashi Autumn Wheat

Passionate shredded-wheat devotees raved about how the squares “absorb the milk just enough, without soaking it up like a sponge.” Said one of them, “It’s tightly woven and yet has a lovely, airy crunch.”

To buy: $4.20 for 17.5 ounces.

The Best Crispy Whole Grain: Multi-Bran Chex

Molasses perks up the flavors of corn, wheat, and rice in these woven brown crisps. “Forget toast in the morning. This reminds me of my favorite wheat bread, but with a more robust, nutty flavor,” a panelist said.

To buy: $3.30 for 14 ounces.

The Best Whole Wheat Flakes: Organic Weetabix Crispy Flakes

This flake version of a popular English cereal has a pleasant, grainy texture and a slight sweetness, thanks to cane juice and a touch of sea salt.

To buy: $4.50 for 12 ounces.

The Best High-Fiber Twigs: Fiber One Original

Many twigs are thin and brittle, said a taster. “This sturdy example stands up well to milk and fruit.” For an afternoon snack, try the cereal solo or sprinkled on yogurt. Half a cup contains a whopping 14 grams of fiber.

To buy: $4.20 for 16.2 ounces.

The Best Flax: Nature’s Path Organic Flax Plus Multibran

It’s easy to get more heart-healthy omega-3s in your diet with these golden flakes. “They have a cute, cuplike shape that holds the milk,” commented a fan.

To buy: $4.60 for 13.25 ounces.

The Best Kids'

Remember when you loved visiting Susie Schumacher’s house because her mom bought “sugar” cereal? It’s still a special treat today. A panel of 32 elementary-school testers munched their way through 93 contenders, none exceeding 15 grams of sugar (the limit for registered dietitian Tanner-Blasiar). These picks hit the sweet spot.

The Best Puffs: EnviroKidz Organic Gorilla Munch

“Super crunchy!” one youngster said of this gluten-free corn cereal with 8 grams of sugar (the lowest per serving of the bunch). “I’d eat them during recess as a snack,” another noted.

To buy: $4.60 for 10 ounces.

The Best Cinnamon Squares: Total Cinnamon Crunch

The “fresh cinnamon-stick taste” of these small, ultra-crispy squares enticed many panelists to go back for seconds.

To buy: $3.90 for 15.4 ounces.

The Best Marshmallow: Three Sisters Marshmallow Oaties

Testers liked that the white, pink, and purple marshmallows in this addictive cereal didn’t dissolve. “They keep their shape until the very end,” one noted.

To buy: $3.40 for 12.5 ounces, Whole Foods Market.

The Best Honey-Nut O's: Honey Nut Cheerios

“Drinking the flavored milk is the best part,” one tester proclaimed after sampling this honey-and-almond classic made with whole-grain oats.

To buy: $3.80 for 12.25 ounces.

The Best Fruity: Apple Jacks

Red flecks of dried apple cover these frosty-hued O’s. Made of corn, wheat, and oats, this cereal gets extra sweetness from apple juice and cinnamon.

To buy: $3.80 for 12.2 ounces.

The Best Cocoa: Erewhon Organic Cocoa Crispy Brown Rice

“I could eat these all day,” said one 10-year-old panelist of the airy rice pebbles. “They stay crisp in the milk but seem to melt in your mouth. And they taste like hot chocolate.” (For a fourth grader, that’s a good thing.)

To buy: $4 for 10.5 ounces.

Food Safety?

2009-10-06T14:14:00.000-07:00

Dangerous foods list includes leafy greens, eggs, tuna

By Aaron Smith, CNNMoney.com staff writer
On Tuesday October 6, 2009, 2:07 pm EDT

Leafy greens -- including lettuce and spinach -- top the list of the 10 riskiest foods, according to a study from a nutrition advocacy group released Tuesday.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest listed the following foods, in descending order, as the most risky in terms of outbreaks: leafy greens, eggs, tuna, oysters, potatoes, cheese, ice cream, tomatoes, sprouts and berries.

The scientists rated these foods, all of them regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, by the number of outbreaks associated with them since 1990, and also provided the number of recorded illnesses.

The severity of the illnesses ranged from minor stomach aches to death, the center said. With leafy greens such as lettuce, the top cause of illness were pathogens like E. coli, Norovirus and Salmonella in foods that were not properly washed.

Over the past 20 years, leafy greens caused 363 outbreaks, resulting in 13,568 reported illnesses, the center said. That's compared to berries, No. 10 on the list, which were associated with 25 outbreaks totaling 3,397 reported illnesses.

"Leafy greens are a healthy home run, but unfortunately they're associated with food-borne illness," said Sarah Klein, a staff lawyer with the center who helped prepared the study.

In all, the Top 10 resulted in more than 1,500 outbreaks, totaling nearly 50,000 reported illnesses, according to the center, which added that most food-related illnesses don't get treated or reported, so the real total is likely much larger.

"Millions of consumers are being made ill, hundreds of thousands hospitalized and thousands are dying each year from preventable foodborne illnesses," the study said. "Unfortunately, the FDA is saddled with outdated laws, and lacks the authority, tools and resources to fight unsafe food."

Food producers, including the Western Growers Association, released statements criticizing the report.

"Farmers are consumers, too," the association said, in a release from spokesman Paul Simonds. "They eat the fresh produce they grow as do the members of their families, and have invested millions of dollars enhancing food safety practices in the last few years. Scaring people away from eating some of the healthiest foods on the planet, like fresh produce, does not serve consumers."

Salmonella was also a chief culprit in egg, cheese and tomato-related illnesses, the study said, in cases when eggs are undercooked and when cheese is not processed properly.

Salmonella can be difficult to remove from raw tomatoes without cooking, according to the study.
The study also associated Salmonella and E. coli with potatoes. Klein said this generally happens when cold-prepared potato items, such as potato salad, are mixed with other contaminated ingredients.

Unrefrigerated fresh tuna deteriorates quickly, the study said, releasing harmful toxins, and canned tuna gets dragged into the picture because of mixed-in ingredients such as mayonnaise. Improperly washed oysters are at risk of Norovirus.

Rich Ruais, executive director of the Blue Water Fisherman Association and the American Blue Fin Tuna Association in Salem, N.H., disagreed with the study's "bad rap" on tuna.

"Tuna? I beg to differ," he said. "Tuna is one of the healthiest foods on the Earth. It's life sustaining; it's life prolonging."

Ruais said the tuna-based diet of Japanese citizens plays a big part in their high average longevity. He also said the FDA strictly mandates that tuna is gutted and stuffed with ice immediately after it's caught by commercial fisherman, and submerged in slush once it gets to shore, to prevent risk of pathogens.

More surprisingly, bacteria can also survive in ice cream, primarily from the Salmonella contamination of eggs, an important ingredient that is sometimes undercooked, the study said. Much of the study's blame goes to a 1994 outbreak that sickened thousands of ice cream lovers in 41 states.

The National Milk Producers Federation released a statement criticizing the report as "based on outdated information."

"Cheese and ice cream products are among the safest, most stringently regulated foods in this country," said the federation, in its release. "The cheese examples in this report mostly concern consumption of raw milk products, which neither [the] FDA nor the dairy industry recommends. The ice cream example is 15 years old and was an isolated incident."
--------------------------

This article can raise a few red flags for any consumer, but also has some "Chicken Little running around screaming about a falling sky" in it. And some possible misunderstanding if someone only looks at the list itself and not at the true risk factors associated with food borne illnesses.

Wash your fruits & vegetables (as I stated in an earlier blog post a few years ago)!!!

Potatoes are not the dangerous food - it's the recipes used for potato salad and then improper refrigeration that causes increased risk food borne illnesses.

For proper food handling and safety, check out "Fight BAC" (from the Partnership for Food Safety Education).

Restrict or Not to Restrict; Candy & Kids Experiment

2009-09-23T16:53:00.000-07:00

What would happen if you gave a toddler/pre-school child unlimited access to candy & sweets? Would the child eat junk all day and fill up on non-nutritional foods? Or would she/he get bored and realize that if it's there all the time, it's not so special anymore.

Annie Sasseville RD, CNSD, a Pediatric Dietitian at Mile High Climbers, LLC wondered the same thing. And having access to an adorable 2 1/2 yo daughter, was able to test this hypothesis. She posted the first week results of her unique experiment HERE and a month later, the final outcome HERE.

What do you think of her tips for parents? Would this work for adults?

Can Wheat Cause Type 1 Diabetes?

2009-08-26T16:40:00.000-07:00

You might think so after reading this headline:

Type 1 diabetes linked to immune response to wheat

Press release headlines are designed to elicit a response, a desire to read the actual article. But most people never get passed the press release because the actual science is boring or difficult to understand in the manner it is published.

Here is the press release as published:
Scientists at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and the University of Ottawa have discovered what may be an important clue to the cause of type 1 diabetes. Dr. Fraser Scott and his team tested 42 people with type 1 diabetes and found that nearly half had an abnormal immune response to wheat proteins. The study is published in the August 2009 issue of the journal Diabetes.

Early in life, the immune system is supposed to learn to attack foreign invaders such as viruses and bacteria, while leaving the body's own tissues and harmless molecules in the environment alone (including food in the gut). When this process goes awry, autoimmune diseases and allergies can develop. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that occurs when the immune system mistakenly attacks the pancreas, the organ that regulates blood sugar. Dr. Scott's research is the first to clearly show that immune cells called T cells from people with type 1 diabetes are also more likely to over-react to wheat. His research also shows that the over-reaction is linked to genes associated with type 1 diabetes.

"The immune system has to find the perfect balance to defend the body against foreign invaders without hurting itself or over-reacting to the environment and this can be particularly challenging in the gut, where there is an abundance of food and bacteria," said Dr. Scott, a Senior Scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and Professor of Medicine at the University of Ottawa. "Our research suggests that people with certain genes may be more likely to develop an over-reaction to wheat and possibly other foods in the gut and this may tip the balance with the immune system and make the body more likely to develop other immune problems, such as type 1 diabetes."

In a commentary accompanying the paper, diabetes expert Dr. Mikael Knip of Finland said "These observations add to the accumulating concept that the gut is an active player in the diabetes disease process."

Dr. Scott's previous research has shown that a wheat-free diet can reduce the risk of developing diabetes in animal models, but he notes that more research will be required to confirm the link and determine possible effects of diet changes in humans. Research is also needed to investigate links with celiac disease, another autoimmune disease that has been linked to wheat.
###
This research was funded by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. The authors include Dr. Majid Mojibian, Dr. Habiba Chakir, Dr. David E. Lefebvre, Jennifer A. Crookshank, Brigitte Sonier and Dr. Erin Keely, as well as Dr. Scott. Patients were enrolled at The Ottawa Hospital and the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario.

An estimated 246 million people have diabetes worldwide. Type 1 diabetes is the most severe form, representing about 10 per cent of all cases. Insulin injections can help control blood sugar levels in those affected but there is no cure.

---------------------------------

Celiac is another autoimmune disorder. It has long been known if you have 1 autoimmune problem, your risk for another is much higher. In Type 1 diabetics about 5% or more have also been diagnosed with Celiac (I worked with one family who's daughter was diagnosed with BOTH at the same time). This study noted that the genetic subset for Celiac was not present in the tested patients (by the way, a very small number of test subjects) and this immune response was not the same as that for Celiac.

Here is an abstract of the actual article in the Journal of Diabetes (published by the American Diabetes Association). I'm a member of ADA but I was unable to access the full text of the article online.

Diabetes-Specific HLA-DR–Restricted Proinflammatory T-Cell Response to Wheat Polypeptides in Tissue Transglutaminase Antibody–Negative Patients With Type 1 Diabetes
Majid Mojibian, Habiba Chakir, David E. Lefebvre1, Jennifer A. Crookshank, Brigitte Sonier, Erin Keely and Fraser W. Scott

Abstract
OBJECTIVE There is evidence of gut barrier and immune system dysfunction in some patients with type 1 diabetes, possibly linked with exposure to dietary wheat polypeptides (WP). However, questions arise regarding the frequency of abnormal immune responses to wheat and their nature, and it remains unclear whether such responses are diabetes specific.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS In type 1 diabetic patients and healthy control subjects, the immune response of peripheral CD3+ T-cells to WPs, ovalbumin, gliadin, α-gliadin 33-mer peptide, tetanus toxoid, and phytohemagglutinin was measured using a carboxyfluorescein diacetate succinimidyl ester (CFSE) proliferation assay. T–helper cell type 1 (Th1), Th2, and Th17 cytokines were analyzed in WP-stimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMNC) supernatants, and HLA was analyzed by PCR.

RESULTS Of 42 patients, 20 displayed increased CD3+ T-cell proliferation to WPs and were classified as responders; proliferative responses to other dietary antigens were less pronounced. WP-stimulated PBMNCs from patients showed a mixed proinflammatory cytokine response with large amounts of IFN-γ, IL-17A, and increased TNF. HLA-DQ2, the major celiac disease risk gene, was not significantly different. Nearly all responders carried the diabetes risk gene HLA-DR4. Anti-DR antibodies blocked the WP response and inhibited secretion of Th1 and Th17 cytokines. High amounts of WP-stimulated IL-6 were not blocked.

CONCLUSIONS T-cell reactivity to WPs was frequently present in type 1 diabetic patients and associated with HLA-DR4 but not HLA-DQ2. The presence of an HLA-DR–restricted Th1 and Th17 response to WPs in a subset of patients indicates a diabetes-related inflammatory state in the gut immune tissues associated with defective oral tolerance and possibly gut barrier dysfunction.

---------------------------

What does that mean for regular people? There is a possibility that people with Type 1 diabetes show a autoimmune response to wheat that is NOT Celiac. But this is a correlation result, NOT cause & effect. The headlines could easily be misconstrued to suggest eating wheat causes Type 1 diabetes. Nothing could be further from the truth. While this might be one potential trigger in someone who is genetically susceptable, there are many folks with genetic potential who eat wheat and never develop Type 1 diabetes. I'd like to see what happens if they open up this screening to a larger number of people with Type 1 diabetes and include first degree relatives who do NOT have Type 1 diabetes.

Living With Celiac

2009-08-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

I do not have Celiac, but as a Registered Dietitian I have worked with many families newly diagnosed. So I have an interest in related news and internet postings. Here is one that caught my eye today.

The Expense of Eating With Celiac Disease

By LESLEY ALDERMAN, NY Times. Posted Aug 15, 2009

YOU would think that after Kelly Oram broke more than 10 bones and experienced chronic stomach problems for most of his life, someone (a nurse? a doctor?) might have wondered if something fundamental was wrong with his health. But it wasn’t until Mr. Oram was in his early 40s that a doctor who was treating him for a neck injury became suspicious and ordered tests, including a bone scan.

It turned out that Mr. Oram, a music teacher who lives in White Plains, had celiac disease, an underdiagnosed immune disorder set off by eating foods containing gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye and barley.

Celiac disease damages the lining of the small intestine, making it difficult for the body to absorb nutrients. Victims may suffer from mild to serious malnutrition and a host of health problems, including anemia, low bone density and infertility. Celiac affects one out of 100 people in the United States, but a majority of those don’t know they have the disease, said Dr. Joseph A. Murray, a gastroenterologist at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota who has been studying the disease for two decades. The disease can be detected by a simple blood test, followed by an endoscopy to check for damage to the small intestine.

Seven years after receiving his diagnosis, Mr. Oram, who is married and has one daughter, is symptom-free, but the cost of staying that way is high. That’s because the treatment for celiac does not come in the form of a pill that will be reimbursed or subsidized by an insurer. The treatment is to avoid eating products containing gluten. And gluten-free versions of products like bread, pizza and crackers are nearly three times as expensive as regular products, according to a study conducted by the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University.

Unfortunately for celiac patients, the extra cost of a special diet is not reimbursed by health care plans. Nor do most policies pay for trips to a dietitian to receive nutritional guidance.

In Britain, by contrast, patients found to have celiac disease are prescribed gluten-free products. In Italy, sufferers are given a stipend to spend on gluten-free food.

Some doctors blame drug makers, in part, for the lack of awareness and the lack of support. “The drug makers have not been interested in celiac because, until very recently, there have been no medications to treat it,” said Dr. Peter Green, director of the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University. “And since drug makers are responsible for so much of the education that doctors receive, the medical community is largely unaware of the disease.”

As awareness grows and the market expands, perhaps the prices of gluten-free products will come down. Meanwhile, if you suffer from the disease, here are some ways to keep your costs down.

When people first learn they have celiac disease, they tend to stock up on gluten-free versions of breads, crackers and pizza made from grains other than wheat, like rice, corn and buckwheat. But that can be expensive and might not even be that healthy, since most gluten-free products are not fortified with vitamins.

“The most important thing to do after being diagnosed is to get a dietary consultation,” Dr. Murray said. With planning, you can learn to base your diet on fruits, vegetables, rice and potatoes. “I have some patients who rarely use those special gluten-free products,” he said.

Get in the habit of reading labels, advises Elaine Monarch, executive director of the Celiac Disease Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Studio City, Calif. Soy sauce, for instance, often has wheat protein as a filler. But Ms. Monarch found a brand of light soy sauce at her local grocery with no wheat that cost much less than one specifically marked as gluten-free. “There are often alternatives to specialty products, but you have to look,” she said.

Gluten-free bread is more expensive than traditional bread and often less palatable. And that holds for many gluten-free items. Some people, including Mr. Oram, end up buying a bread machine and making their own loaves. Nicole Hunn, who cooks gluten-free meals for her family of five and just started the Web site glutenfreeonashoestring.com, avoids mixes, which she says are expensive and not that tasty, and instead bakes with an all-purpose gluten-free flour from a company called Bob’s Red Mill, which can be used in place of wheat flour in standard recipes.

If you’re too busy to cook, look for well-priced gluten-free food at large chains like Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe’s. “Trader Joe’s now carries fantastic brown rice pasta that is reasonably priced and brown rice flour tortillas that can sub for bread with a variety of things,” says Kelly Courson, co-founder of the advice site CeliacChicks.com. Ms. Courson put out a Twitter message to her followers and learned that many were fans of DeBoles gluten-free pastas, which can be bought in bulk on Amazon, and puffed brown rice cereal by Alf’s Natural Nutrition, just $1 a bag at Wal-Mart.

Finally, it may be worthwhile to join a celiac support group. You can swap cost-cutting tips, share recipes and learn about new products. Many groups invite vendors to bring gluten-free products to meetings for members to sample — members can buy items they like at a discount and skip the shipping charges. Support groups typically have meetings, as well as newsletters and Web sites where you can post questions. Groups to check out include the Celiac Disease Foundation and the Gluten Intolerance Group of North America.

Finally, if you itemize your tax return and your total medical expenses for the year exceed 7.5 percent of your adjusted gross income, you can write off certain expenses associated with celiac disease. You can deduct the excess cost of a gluten-free product over a comparable gluten-containing product.

Let’s say you spend $6.50 on a loaf of gluten-free bread, and a regular loaf costs $4; you can deduct $2.50. In addition, you can deduct the cost of products necessary to maintain a gluten-free diet, like xanthan gum for baking. If you mail order gluten-free products, the shipping costs may be deductible, too. If you have to travel extra miles to buy gluten-free goods, the mileage is also deductible. You’ll need a doctor’s letter to confirm your diagnosis and your need for a gluten-free diet, and you should save receipts in case of a tax audit.

Do you have a flexible spending account at work? Ask the plan administrator if you can use those flex spending dollars on the excess cost of gluten-free goods — many plans let you do this. For more on tax deductions, go to the tax section of the Celiac Disease Foundation’s Web site.

Yes, managing the disease is a hassle. But untreated celiac disease can wreak havoc with your health. A study published in the July issue of the journal Gastroenterology found that subjects who had undiagnosed celiac were nearly four times as likely to have died over a 45-year period than subjects who were celiac-free.

“Sometimes I resent how time-consuming it is to cook from scratch,” Ms. Courson of CeliacChicks.com said. “But I remind myself that my restrictions actually help keep me in line, more than the next person with unhealthy foods readily available.”
-------------

Yes, if you are diagnosed with Celiac, the most important thing you can do is take the time to sit down with a Registered Dietitian (RD) to really learn about Gluten-free (GF) living. Make sure the RD is experienced and comfortable working with the GF diet and he/she will direct you to the proper books and websites for additional help. Physicians who just hand you a piece of paper or tell you to look it up on the internet are doing you a disservice. While there is a slew of good information available for self-motivators/self-studiers, there is also potential for misinformation.

The other issue I have noticed is a increase of 'self-diagnosed' folks beliving they are wheat-intolerant or that GF diet will change behavior. Wheat allergy is not the same thing as Celiac (although sometimes it's easier to explain the diet restriction to a layperson by using the term "food allergy"). Living GF isn't always easy, make sure you are properly diagnosed before you embark on the GF diet. Because once you are Celiac, you will always be Celiac and the GF diet is a lifetime (no cheating) committment to your health.

Some additional links:
University of Maryland Center for Celiac Research
Celiac Sprue Association
Gluten Free Living Magazine
Living Without Magazine
Whole Foods Market Gluten-Free Information
Trader Joe's Labels & Lists
The Gluten-Free Diet, by Shelley Case, RD

Should Someone Be Fired for Promoting Healthy Eating?

2009-08-14T09:50:00.000-07:00

Fla. doc fired over 'doughnuts equal death' sign

By MELISSA NELSON, Associated Press Writer Melissa Nelson, Associated Press Writer Thu Aug 13, 4:41 pm ET
PENSACOLA, Fla. – Dr. Jason Newsom railed against burgers, french fries, fried chicken and sweet tea in his campaign to promote better eating in a part of the country known as the Redneck Riviera. He might still be leading the charge if he had only left the doughnuts alone.

A 38-year-old former Army doctor who served in Iraq, Newsom returned home to Panama City a few years ago to run the Bay County Health Department and launched a one-man war on obesity by posting sardonic warnings on an electronic sign outside:

"Sweet Tea (equals) Liquid Sugar."
"Hamburger (equals) Spare Tire."
"French Fries (equals) Thunder Thighs."

He also called out KFC by name to make people think twice about fried chicken.

Then he parodied "America Runs on Dunkin'," the doughnut chain's slogan, with: "America Dies on Dunkin'."

Some power players in the Gulf Coast tourist town decided they had had their fill.

A county commissioner who owns a doughnut shop and two lawyers who own a new Dunkin' Donuts on Panama City Beach turned against him, along with some of his own employees, Newsom says. After the lawyers threatened to sue, his bosses at the Florida Health Department made him remove the anti-fried dough rants and eventually forced him to resign, he says.

"I picked on doughnuts because those things are ubiquitous in this county. Everywhere I went, there were two dozen doughnuts on the back table. At church, there were always doughnuts on the back table at Sunday school. It is social expectation thing," says Newsom, a lean 6-foot, 167-pounder in a county where 39 percent of all adults were overweight in 2007 and one in four was considered obese.

Newsom was hired by the state Health Department to direct the county agency. His $140,000-a-year salary is paid jointly by the state and the county. His job primarily involves educating the public about health issues — swine flu, AIDS and the like — but he also decided to address the dangers of glazed, sprinkled and jelly-filled treats.

He angered staff members by barring doughnuts from department meetings and announcing he would throw the fat-laden sweets away if he saw them in the break room. He also banned candy bars in the vending machines, putting in peanuts instead.

In May, lawyers Bo Rivard and Michael Duncan, co-owners of a new Dunkin' Donuts, asked Newsom to take down the "America Dies on Dunkin'" message. Newsom already had run other anti-doughnut warnings, including "Doughnuts (equals) Diabetes," and "Dunkin' Donuts (equals) Death."

The businessmen had the backing of County Commissioner Mike Thomas, who owns a diner and a doughnut shop. Thomas called for Newsom's ouster, saying the doctor shouldn't have named businesses on the message board.

"I think he was somewhat of a zealot," Thomas says. "I don't have a problem with him pushing an agenda, it's the way he did it. People borrowed money to go into business and they are being attacked by the government."

A short time after Newsom's meeting with Rivard and Duncan, Newsom says, his bosses at the state Health Department told him that his leadership wasn't wanted and that he could be fired or resign. He chose to resign May 8 but has reapplied for the job.

"I have never been known for my subtlety. I don't have a knack for it. I speak the truth to people and just assume that that my data and purpose are so real and true that everyone will see the value of what I'm doing," says Newsom, who now works at a prison, doing exams of inmates.

Rivard and Duncan did not return numerous calls to their offices.

"Dunkin' Donuts is pleased that the signs have been removed," Andrew Mastrangelo, a spokesman for Canton, Mass.-based Dunkin' Donuts said in an e-mail.

The Florida Health Department has refused to talk about Newsom since he is considered a job applicant. "We will be happy to talk to you after the position has been filled," department spokeswoman Susan Smith said in an e-mail.

Newsom is hoping to get his job back so that he can resume his campaign against overeating.

"My method was a little provocative and controversial," he says, "but there wasn't a person in Bay County who wasn't talking about health and healthy eating."

___

I guess if he had kept his signs 'generic' instead of mentioning brands by name, he wouldn't be in such hot water.

It's sad that health promotion is not supported. Instead, society/lawyers/insurance companies are so focused on disease treatment instead of prevention.

Healthy lifestyles saves health care dollars. Department of Defense and other entities have proven that. Worksite wellness programs save companies money with decreased sick days and insurance premiums. But there is still very little reimbursement or insurance coverage for wellness services (i.e. office visits with a Registered Dietitian to provide a personalized approach to healthier eating within the patient's lifestyle/preferences).

How Bad is a High Fat Diet?

2009-08-13T06:07:00.000-07:00

High-Fat Diet May Make You Stupid and Lazy

Short-term memory getting worse? Exercise getting harder? Examine your diet. New research published online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) showed that in less than 10 days of eating a high-fat diet, rats had a decreased ability to exercise and experienced significant short-term memory loss. These results show an important link between what we eat, how we think, and how our bodies perform.

"Western diets are typically high in fat and are associated with long-term complications, such as obesity, diabetes, and heart failure, yet the short-term consequences of such diets have been given relatively little attention," said Andrew Murray, co-author of the study and currently at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. "We hope that the findings of our study will help people to think seriously about reducing the fat content of their daily food intake to the immediate benefit of their general health, well-being, and alertness."

Rodents are thought to be good analogues to humans for studies like this, but research in humans would be needed to confirm that the effects cross over. Also, because rats live much shorter lives, study effects may play out on significantly shorter time scales than in humans.

Murray and colleagues studied rats fed a low-fat diet (7.5 percent of calories as fat) and rats fed a high-fat diet (55 percent of calories as fat). Muscles of rats eating the high-fat diet for four days were less able to use oxygen to make the energy needed to exercise, causing their hearts to worker harder - and increase in size.

After nine days on a high-fat diet, the rats took longer to complete a maze and made more mistakes in the process than their low-fat-diet counterparts.

In the fat-laden rats the researchers found increased levels of a protein called uncoupling protein 3, which made them less efficient at using oxygen needed to make the energy required for running.

"It's nothing short of a high-fat hangover," said Dr. Gerald Weissmann, editor-in-chief of journal. "A long weekend spent eating hotdogs, French fries, and pizza in Orlando might be a great treat for our taste buds, but they might send our muscles and brains out to lunch."
-----------------------------

Andrew J. Murray, Nicholas S. Knight, Lowri E. Cochlin, Sara McAleese, Robert M. J. Deacon, J. Nicholas P. Rawlins, and Kieran Clarke
Deterioration of physical performance and cognitive function in rats with short-term high-fat feeding
FASEB J. first published on August 10, 2009 as doi:10.1096/fj.09-139691 Abstract

The full article is available online but only for FASEB members (which I am not).

Humor

2009-07-07T23:53:00.000-07:00

Nutrition for the Athlete

2009-07-07T03:09:00.000-07:00

Adapted from the Health & Lifestyle lecture I have been providing at Joint Base Balad, Iraq during my deployment with the 332d Expeditionary Medical Group.

The first priority for athletes is meeting energy requirements. Energy balance is key to maintaining lean tissue mass, immune and reproductive function, and optimum athletic performance.

To have calories in = calories out means you will have a balance effect on the scale. If you have more energy coming in then going out then your weight will start increasing. If you have less energy coming in and more energy going out then you will have a wt loss.

With limited energy intake the body will then use fat and lean body tissue for fuel. Not maintaining enough energy for fuel compromises the benefits of training.

You will most likely not achieve your best physical performance while restricting calories. (Keep in mind that it is certainly possible for an over-fat, way out of shape individual to both lose weight and improve their physical performance at the same time) However, for a normal weight, relatively “in-shape” individual…caloric restriction will be detrimental to performance.

Low-energy intakes can result in loss of muscle mass, menstrual dysfunction, loss or failure to gain bone density, and increased risk of fatigue, injury, and illness.

To help optimize training and prevent illness, athletes should consume a daily diet rich in nutrient-dense carbohydrates and high-quality protein in order to provide adequate energy for muscular activity and maintenance of optimal immune system functions.

Carbohydrates are the body’s main source of energy. The body converts Carbs you eat into glucose. Glycogen is the main storage form of glucose and it is stored primarily in muscle and liver.

Continuous exercise uses up the body’s glycogen stores. It is important to ensure adequate Carb intake pre, during, and post intense physical activity. Repetitive training/competition reduces glycogen storage leading to impaired performance.
Athletes (and very active military members) need adequate Carb intake to keep glycogen stores high, therefore allowing for optimal physical performance.

Approximate protein intake guidelines are based on the type of athlete. Requirements include the need to repair exercise-induced microdamage to muscle fibers, use of small amounts of protein as an energy source during exercise, and the need for additional protein to support gains in lean tissue mass. However, repeated research has shown that protein intake in excess of 2 g/kg simply results in the excess amino acids being converted to fat and stored appropriately.

Turns out that most Americans (even non-athletes) easily achieve these protein intakes as part of their regular diet, therefore it is rare that an athlete would need to deliberately add a protein supplement to their diet. Except when people are limiting their total caloric intake for weight loss.

For optimal benefit, spread protein evenly throughout the day.

Fat is important in the diets of athletes as it provides energy, fat-soluble vitamins, and essential fatty acids. Additionally, there is no scientific basis on which to recommend high-fat diets to athletes. There are no ergogenic effects from fat intake (i.e. eating more will not improve athletic performance, but not eating enought total calories may hurt your progress). Be sure to limit saturated fats since that is the type of fat that can raise blood cholesterol.

How much energy do you need? Even when you are trying to lose weight, there is a minimal amount of calories you need to prevent loss of muscle mass. You need to support your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR).

Once you calculate what your body needs to support stable weight at your activity level, you can reduce the intake, increase the activity, or best - combination of both, to help promote weight loss. But never eat less than your RMR if you want to keep your metabolically active muscles - see "Maximizing Metabolism" Lecture (coming soon).

Want to gain weight (muscle)? You have to support the proper exercise (higher resistence, fewer repetitions to fatigue) with adequate rest for repair and building. And you need enough extra CALORIES (not extra protein). Remember the protein needs even when in anabolic mode (muscle building) are maximum 2 g/kg (or ~1 g/lb body weight).

Look at your hands; your two hands are a good representation of the total amount of protein you can use in a day for support of muscle building. Magazines advertising protein powders and bars and supplements are owned by the companies selling these products. High protein diets tend to increase blood acidity, phosphorus load (thus pulling calcium out of your bones and then it is lost in your urine), and nitrogen released when protein is used for energy (fortunately healthy kidneys can remove the excess nitrogen from our blood).

To get extra calories between meals try dried fruit & nuts, peanut butter sandwich, high fiber snack bars.

Hydration (Fluid) is very important. And being deployed in the desert (Iraq) makes it a prime concern even if you are not exercising. Water is the best rehydration for most people. Electrolyte-replacement Sport drinks (i.e. Gatorde or Powerade) are useful when your workout is over 60 min or you are drinking a lot of water and not eating (don't want to dilute the sodium in your blood).

Water helps cool your body. When you are active your body heats up. Sweating brings water to the surface of your skin where evaporation pulls this heat away from your body. If you don't have enough water to sweat, or you cover up all your skin so you sweat but it cannot evaporate, you will overheat. If your body temperature gets too hot, you are "cooking" yourself into a severe illness.

Some ways to tell if you are drinking enough. Weigh yourself before and after your workout. Drink at least 2 cups of water for every pound lost. Check your urine; if it's darker than pale yellow straw you need to be drinking more. Here in Iraq I've been drinking about 4L per day.

For more information:
sportsmedicine.about.com/Sports_Nutrition.htm
www.dietitian.com/sportnut.html
Food and Nutrition Information Center (USDA)
Nancy Clark, MS RD “Sports Nutrition Guidebook”

---------------------

Sleeping is Good for Weight Control

2009-06-09T10:44:00.000-07:00

Public release date: 8-Jun-2009
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-06/aaos-srr060209.php

Sleep restriction results in weight gain despite decreases in appetite
and consumption

WESTCHESTER, Ill. – According to a research abstract that will be
presented on Monday, June 8 at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of
the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, in the presence of free
access to food, sleep restricted subjects reported decrease in appetite,
food cravings and food consumption; however, they gained weight over the
course of the study. Thus, the finding suggests that energy intake
exceeded energy expenditure during the sleep restriction

Results indicate that people whose sleep was restricted experienced an
average weight gain of 1.31 kilograms over the 11 days of the study. Of
the subjects with restricted sleep who reported a change in their
appetite and food consumption, more than 70 percent said that it
decreased by day 5 of the study. A group of well rested control subjects
did not experience the weight gain.

According to lead investigator Siobhan Banks, PhD, a research fellow at
the University of South Australia and former assistant research
professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, it was
surprising that participants did not crave foods rich in carbohydrates
after sleep restriction, as previous research suggested they might.
Results indicate that even though physiologically the desire to eat was
not increased by sleep loss in participants, other factors such as the
sedentary environment of the laboratory and the ability to snack for
longer due to reduction in time spent asleep might have influenced the
weight gain.

"During real-world periods of sleep restriction (say during shift work),
people should plan their calorie intake over the time they will be
awake, eating small, healthy meals," said Banks. "Additionally, healthy
low fat/sugar snacks should be available so the temptation to eat
comfort foods is reduced. Finally, keeping up regular exercise is just
as important as what food you eat, so even though people may feel tried,
exercising will help regulate energy intake balance."

The study involved 92 healthy individuals (52 male) between the ages of
22 and 45 years who participated in laboratory controlled sleep
restriction. Subjects underwent two nights of baseline sleep (10 hours
in bed per night), five nights of sleep restriction and varying recovery
for four nights. Nine well rested participants served as controls. Food
consumption was ad libitum (subjects had three regular meals per day and
access to healthy snacks, and during nights of sleep restriction
subjects were given a small sandwich at one a.m.).

We Probably All Could Use More Fiber

2009-06-05T10:40:00.000-07:00

But is sugar-sweetened cereal the best way to get more of it in our daily diet?
----------------------------------------------

One of the largest and loudest leaps onto the fiber bandwagon will take
place Thursday when Kellogg
(K) announces
plans to pump fiber into most of its cereal line.

Some 80% of Kellogg cereals will have at least 3 grams of fiber per serving
by the end of 2010. That may sound small, but foods with 3 grams are rated a
good source of fiber by the government. The fiber boost begins in August
with kid-targeted cereals Froot Loops and Apple Jacks.

The move is expected to rock the packaged foods industry, which is under
pressure from consumers and lawmakers to boost food quality. The industry
has recently begun embracing fiber-fortified products at warp speed.

New products touting higher fiber are rolling out at a record clip in 2009,
with 6.5% of new foods making such a claim through the month of May, reports
Datamonitor, the research specialist. Marketers from Dannon to Kraft have
introduced fiber-enriched products this year.

Fiber is the top-ranked item that consumers are asking Kellogg to add to kid
cereals, says Jose Alberto Duenas, vice president of U.S. cereal marketing.
The number of consumers who check fiber content on nutrition panels grew to
52% last year, vs. 42% in 2006, reports the International Food Information
Council.

Rest of article HERE.

---------------------------

What about eating naturally high fiber foods, teaching your children to enjoy fruits & vegetables and whole grains (rather than more processed foods). Lead by example. Enjoy real food.

Hydroxycut Case from Soldier With Health Problems

2009-05-25T11:41:00.000-07:00

Case study: A soldier suffers health problems after using Hydroxycut

Robert Tropea is a plaintiff in a planned lawsuit against maker Iovate Health Sciences Inc.
By Melissa Healy melissa.healy@latimes.com
May 25, 2009

Early this month, Robert Tropea was at his new job at the cash register of an Army PX when his former sergeant rushed in to deliver some news: Hydroxycut, the weight-loss supplement Tropea had taken for three months in 2007, had been recalled from the market. The FDA had linked the product to a string of illnesses, including liver damage, seizures, abnormal heart function and a condition called rhabdomyolysis.

Tropea says he was "completely shocked": How could an herbal supplement he took to trim down do all that? At least, he thought, it offered an explanation for the mysterious turn in his health and fortune.

A former Army radio operator stationed in Stuttgart, Germany, the 27-year-old had been medically discharged from the service just six months before. After a physical-training session with his sergeant in July 2007, Tropea's arm and shoulder muscles ached as they never had before. His urine was black. At the hospital, a blood test showed his creatine kinase levels -- a test for organ and muscle damage -- were 3,000 times the normal limit.

Doctors diagnosed rhabdomyolysis, an acute breakdown of muscle tissue that can damage the liver and kidneys and, in severe cases, cause sudden death. Because rhabdomyolysis is most often the result of crush injuries, heat stroke, alcoholism or drug use, doctors thought it was unusual to see the condition in a fit, active-duty serviceman who, according to his military records, drank alcohol very rarely, had regularly passed drug tests, and had no recent history of trauma. Fearing a potentially disastrous recurrence, Tropea's physicians have warned against physical exertion of any kind.

He used to bench press hundreds of pounds and could do push-ups with one arm. Now, says Tropea, he has trouble picking up his 3-year-old daughter and worries that he won't be able to coach her soccer team one day. His Army career -- from which he had planned to retire as an officer after completing his college degree -- is over.

Hydroxycut, Tropea believes, has left his health -- and his future -- uncertain. Tropea, who still lives in Stuttgart, is among the first wave of plaintiffs in a planned lawsuit against Iovate Health Sciences Inc., the maker of Hydroxycut.

"I thought of it as a supplement to help burn fat and increase energy -- no different than a vitamin to help me with exercise," says Tropea of the Hydroxycut Hardcore supplement he took. "I had read the label, looked at some of the ingredients. Quite a bit of it, I didn't know what it was. But they were selling it as something safe, and I took what they said and ran with it." Iovate refused to discuss Tropea's experience. "We have not seen the complaint and therefore cannot comment on it," said company spokeswoman Jamie Moss.

Like 59% of Americans polled by the Harris Poll in 2002, Tropea believed a government agency such as the FDA assured the safety of dietary supplements before they could be sold to the public. It is a belief that is only partially true.

Tropea had not even thought to inform his doctors that he had been taking Hydroxycut steadily for the three months leading up to his hospitalization, in an effort to boost his fitness level and get down to the weight limits set for active-duty soldiers. The only medication he had ever taken was Ibuprofen. And Hydroxycut, he reasoned, wasn't medication.

That's where Tropea was wrong.

"Dietary supplements are typically derived from plants and minerals, and they certainly can have effects on the body" as powerful as the effects that drugs can have, says David B. Allison, director of the University of Alabama at Birmingham's Clinical Nutrition Research Center and an expert on the safety of dietary supplements.

"This idea that dietary supplements are all natural is nice. But they're really no different than many drugs which are traditionally derived from minerals or extracts of plants or animals. And everything we do and take has side effects."

Another Weight Loss Gimmick or Tool?

2009-05-02T09:13:00.002-07:00

Friday, May 01, 2009

When Your Diet Needs a Band-Aid
A new "smart patch" determines caloric intake and expenditure.
By Lauren Gravitz

Weight watcher: A foam patch, like the one in this illustration, will monitor caloric intake and expenditure and send the data via Bluetooth to the user's cell phone. Credit: PhiloMetron

It could be a dieter's best friend or worst nightmare: technology that knows how much a person has just eaten, knows how many calories he has burned off, offers suggestions for improving resolve and success, and never lets him cheat. And it's all done by a small, stick-on monitor no bigger than a large Band-Aid.

The calorie monitor, which is being developed by biotech incubator PhiloMetron, uses a combination of sensors, electrodes, and accelerometers that--together with a unique algorithm--measure the number of calories eaten, the number of calories burned, and the net gain or loss over a 24-hour period. The patch sends this data via a Bluetooth wireless connection to a dieter's cell phone, where an application tracks the totals and provides support. "You missed your goal for today, but you can make it up tomorrow by taking a 15-minute walk or having a salad for dinner," it might suggest.

Caloric-intake monitoring has long been the bugaboo of dieting systems. There are devices, such as the bodybugg, that can measure energy expenditure through a combination of accelerometers, pedometers, and temperature and sweat sensors. But the intake side is much trickier to track. Currently, the most reliable way to determine caloric intake is meticulous diary keeping or having a trained professional do the calorie counting.

"What they're working on here, I would argue, is the holy grail in health and wellness," says Don Jones, vice president of business development for health and life sciences at Qualcomm, which specializes in wireless technologies. Other than the two methods mentioned above, he notes, which aren't scalable and aren't always accurate, "there are no good methods for calculating caloric intake."

PhiloMetron won't yet reveal exactly what makes its patch tick, but the company says that it consists of a single chip surrounded by numerous sensors, electrodes, and accelerometers, embedded in a foam adhesive patch. The system, which is designed to be replaced once a week, measures a variety of things (temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, skin conductivity, possibly even the amount of fluid in the body), then throws the data into an algorithm to calculate the number of calories consumed, the number burned, and the net yield. Caloric-intake measurements are accurate only to about 500 calories--about two Snickers candy bars. But PhiloMetron CEO Darrel Drinan says that it is much more accurate in determining net gain or loss and is most useful for measuring trends over the course of a week or a month. In fact, the system only provides users with rolling 24-hour totals and no instantaneous data.

An increasing number of studies conclude that a diet's success or failure depends on simply decreasing the number of calories consumed. Be it a Mediterranean, Atkins, Weight Watchers, or South Beach diet, it's the caloric bottom line that matters.

"A repeatable trend is a more useful value than an accurate number," says Drinan. "The trend line helps you establish the pattern to your behavior." He says that the company is working with the largest device manufacturers, weight management, and pharmaceutical companies--"and none believe we need more sensitivity because of the long-term nature of the underlying problem."

PhiloMetron's prior ventures include the recently launched Corventis which sells a sensor-based patch that detects the volume of fluid in a person with congestive heart failure and notifies her when it's time to take a diuretic. PhiloMetron plans to spin off another startup company to market a calorie monitor, with a product on the market in 18 months. Drinan envisions the product being sold through health-care professionals or personal trainers, or at gyms. But the system will cost a pretty penny: somewhere between $100 and $400, sold as a kit with multiple patches included.

"There's 1.6 billion people in the world who are overweight, and approximately 600 million of them are obese, so there's consumer applications all over the place here--for everything from weight management to part of disease-management programs, to consumer applications for fitness and wellness," says Jones of Qualcomm.

Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, in San Diego, and a practicing cardiologist, is interested in the device as a way to help keep his patients on track. He says that the technology is not only possible, it's reality: "Digestion and metabolic activity affects tissue conductance, and this can be detected via appropriate sensors worn on the skin."

Topol is interested in putting together a randomized clinical trial to see if the device can help people reverse type 2 diabetes, or help prevent progression to the disease in the first place. "I'm not suggesting that this is going to cure the obesity epidemic," he says. "[But] I think it has great potential--if it works and it's validated--to make an impact in the most common public-health problems today."

It Was Only A Matter of Time (and Consequences) Before The FDA Would Take Notice

2009-05-01T10:53:00.000-07:00

FDA warns dieters: Stop Hydroxycut use immediately
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press Writer Posted May 1, 2009

WASHINGTON – Government health officials warned dieters and body builders Friday to immediately stop using Hydroxycut, a widely sold supplement linked to cases of serious liver damage and at least one death.

The Food and Drug Administration said the maker of the dietary supplement has agreed to recall 14 Hydroxycut products. Available in grocery stores and pharmacies, Hydroxycut is advertised as made from natural ingredients. At least 9 million packages were sold last year, the FDA said.

Dr. Linda Katz of the FDA's food and nutrition division said the agency has received 23 reports of liver problems, including the death of a 19-year-old boy living in the Southwest. The teenager died in 2007, and the death was reported to the FDA this March.

Other patients experienced symptoms ranging from jaundice, or yellowing of the skin, to liver failure. One received a transplant and another was placed on a list to await a new liver.

There was no immediate comment from the U.S. distributor of the diet pill, Iovate Health Sciences, headquartered near Buffalo, N.Y. Made by a Canadian company, Hydroxycut is used by people trying to shed pounds and by body builders to sharpen their muscles.

Dietary supplements aren't as tightly regulated by the government as medications. Manufacturers don't need to prove to the FDA that their products are safe and effective before they can sell them to consumers. But regulators monitor aftermarket reports for signs of trouble, and in recent years companies have been put under stricter requirements to alert the FDA when they learn of problems.

Katz said it has taken so long to get a handle on the Hydroxycut problem because the cases of liver damage were rare and the FDA has no authority to review supplements before they're marketed. "Part of the problem is that the FDA looks at dietary supplements from a post-market perspective, and an isolated incident is often difficult to follow," she said.

The FDA relies on voluntary reports to detect such problems, and many cases are never reported, officials acknowledge.

Health officials said they have been unable to determine which Hydroxycut ingredients are potentially toxic, partially because the formulation of the products has changed several times. A medical journal report last month raised questions about one ingredient, hydroxycitric acid, derived from a tropical fruit. The article said it could potentially damage the liver.

FDA Press Release
-------------------------
RANT:
I've been worried about this product for many years. As well as another weight loss/muscle building supplement commonly known as NO-xplode.

I've seen a few young men in the pediatric ICU with heart issues and found out they were using these products....but the cardiologist were looking at physiological/organic causes rather than inorganic vasodilator/high caffeine/unknown proprietary 'blend' of ghod knows what. These products may be created from "natural" ingredients, but they have real medicinal affects on the human body. And finally there is some active reporting (but why did the doctors WAIT a year to report the death???). It took 81 reported deaths before ephedra was banned by the FDA.

The Dark Side of Vegetarianism

2009-04-01T11:10:00.000-07:00

By Steven Reinberg

WEDNESDAY, April 1 (HealthDay News) -- Despite its proven health benefits, a vegetarian diet might in fact be masking an underlying eating disorder, new research suggests.

The study, in the April issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, found that twice as many teens and nearly double the number of young adults who had been vegetarians reported having used unhealthy means to control their weight, compared with those who had never been vegetarians. Those means included using diet pills, laxatives and diuretics and inducing vomiting to control weight.

There's a dark side to vegetarianism, said Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine. He had no role in the research.

"Adolescent vegetarians [in the study] were more prone to disordered eating and outright eating disorders," Katz said. "This is not due to vegetarianism but the other way around: Adolescents struggling to control their diets and weight might opt for vegetarianism among other, less-healthful efforts."

Vegetarianism, or a mostly plant-based diet, can be recommended to all adolescents, Katz said. "But when adolescents opt for vegetarianism on their own, it is important to find out why because it may signal a cry for help, rather than the pursuit of health," he said.

Katz said he thinks a balanced vegetarian diet is among the most healthful of dietary patterns, and the study suggests some of the benefits.

"Adolescents practicing vegetarianism were less likely to be overweight than their omnivorous counterparts and, were the measures available, would likely have had better blood pressure and cholesterol, too," he said. "Eating mostly plants -- and even only plants -- is good for us, and certainly far better for health than the typical American diet."

The study's lead researcher, Ramona Robinson-O'Brien, an assistant professor in the Nutrition Department at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University in St. Joseph, Minn., agreed.

"The majority of adolescents and young adults today would benefit from improvements in dietary intake," she said. The study found, for instance, that the vegetarians among the participants generally were less likely to be overweight or obese.

"However, current vegetarians may be at increased risk for binge eating, while former vegetarians may be at increased risk for extreme unhealthful weight-control behaviors," she said. "Clinicians and nutrition professionals providing guidance to young vegetarians might consider the potential benefits associated with a healthful vegetarian diet, [but should] recognize the possibility of increased risk of disordered eating behaviors."

The researchers collected data on 2,516 teens and young adults who participated in a study called Project EAT-II: Eating Among Teens. They classified participants as current, former or never vegetarians and divided them into two age groups: teens (15 to 18) and young adults (19-23).

Each participant was questioned about binge eating, whether they felt a loss of control of their eating habits and whether they used any extreme weight-control behaviors.

About 21 percent of teens who had been vegetarians said they used unhealthy weight-control behaviors, compared with 10 percent of teens who had never been vegetarians. Among young adults, more former vegetarians (27 percent) had used such measures than current vegetarians (16 percent) or those who'd never been vegetarians (15 percent), the study found.

In addition, among teenagers, binge eating and loss of control over eating habits was reported by 21 percent of current and 16 percent of former vegetarians but only 4 percent of those who'd never followed a vegetarian diet. For young adults, more vegetarians (18 percent) said they engaged in binge eating with loss of control than did former vegetarians (9 percent) and those who were never vegetarians (5 percent), the study found.

Young adult vegetarians were less likely to be overweight or obese than were those who'd never been vegetarians. Among teens, the study found no statistically significant differences in weight.

"When guiding adolescent and young adult vegetarians in proper nutrition and meal planning, it is important to recognize the potential health benefits and risks associated with a vegetarian diet," Robinson-O'Brien said. "Furthermore, it may be beneficial to investigate an individual's motives for choosing a vegetarian diet and ask about their current and former vegetarian status when assessing risk for disordered eating behaviors."

Best Food for a Flat Belly

2009-04-01T08:57:00.000-07:00

from Yahoo news & SELF Magazine

By Lucy Danziger, SELF Editor-in-Chief - Posted on Mon, Mar 30, 2009, 12:03 pm PDT
Health Expert for Women's Health

What if someone told you that the way you eat could whittle your waistline? Sure, you'd think. Give up carbs and rely on rabbit food. Not true! I'm happy to tell you that there are other, yummier ways to go. Certain foods and styles of eating can indeed help flatten your belly (and everywhere else, for that matter). Try these tips and you'll uncover an amazing middle in no time.

Gimme a C: I love pink grapefruit and that's a good thing, since research has found that foods that are naturally rich in vitamin C—think citrus fruit, cantaloupe and red peppers—can help reduce fat absorption. In fact, skip it and you may see your middle expand, since diets low in vitamin C have been linked to bigger waistlines. Meet your daily goal of 75 milligrams by snacking on an orange or a cup of strawberries. See how these small changes can add up to big results.

Tea up: Women with the highest consumption of catechins, the plant-based antioxidants in tea that may boost fat burn, put on fewer pounds over 14 years than those who drank less tea, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reveals. Try to choose green or white varieties, which contain the most catechins. Learn how to maximize the benefits of tea and other superfoods.

Peel it off: Reach for a banana and you'll banish bloat faster than you can say Buddha belly. The fruit contains 422 mg of potassium, which controls the amount of puff-producing sodium in your system. Toss a banana in your bag for a fabulous ab-flattening snack. Try our Flat Abs Fast plan for more bloat-reducing tips and tricks.

Go low: Consuming just one meal of low-glycemic-index foods, those that your body digests slowly, can help you feel fuller all day so you're less likely to pack your tummy with treats, a study in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition reports. Low-GI foods include oatmeal and vegetables (sorry, not potatoes), as well as some fruit like grapefruit and blueberries. Oatmeal Meatballs are a tasty way to curb cravings.

Stroll away your sweet craving: Loco for cocoa? Me, too. A little dark chocolate is fine, but if you've already hit your limit, try lacing up your sneakers! Chocolate lovers who walked for 15 minutes reported reduced hankerings during the walk and even afterward, according to a study in the journal Appetite.

Ditch high-fructose corn syrup: Scan labels and you're likely to see high-fructose corn syrup on many ingredient lists...even on things like tomato sauce! When you do, put down that jar and look for something else. Why? High-fructose corn syrup can cause a surge in your blood sugar, and some research suggests it messes up your hunger and satiety signals, like leptin, leaving you less satisfied and causing you to eat more. When leptin responses fail, it's tougher to control appetite. The result: Extra calories get deposited as fat. To prevent this, trade packaged foods with high-fructose corn syrup for ones with healthy fats and fiber—think veggies, hummus, nuts or sunflower seeds.

Snap your snack: Taking a photo of your plateful of food can keep you slim. People who took pictures of everything they ate for five days reported consuming fewer snacks and being less likely to go back for seconds than during a week-long period in which they kept a written food diary, a study from the University of Wisconsin at Madison finds. Try capturing your meals for a week to help eyeball portion sizes as well as color variety—aim for more green, less white (unless it's cauliflower). See an example of this, and get ideas for healthy, photo-worthy meals of your own, at Eat Like Me.

National Nutrition Month and Registered Dietitian's Day

2009-03-11T11:08:00.000-07:00

Greeting Card to Registered Dietitians from ADA

March 11, 2009

To my fellow members of the American Dietetic Association:

Happy Registered Dietitian Day!

I have some outstanding news to share, and an invitation for you to watch a milestone in ADA’s history on TV and the Internet.

The American Dietetic Association has been invited –- representing all members of our Association -– to ring the Opening Bell for the NASDAQ stock exchange, the largest electronic equities exchange in the United States, on Thursday, March 12, in recognition of National Nutrition Month and Registered Dietitian Day. I will be joined by a number of ADA members who live in the New York area, and I will deliver some short remarks prior to officially starting the NASADAQ trading day.

I will say that, as a registered dietitian and ADA President, I am proud to represent nearly 70,000 members of our Association – men and women on the front lines who help people everywhere to eat right. I will talk about the great work our members do in health care, foodservice operations, worksite wellness programs, client and patient counseling, scientific research and more. I will highlight our members’ involvement in National Nutrition Month activities throughout the country; and I will promote Registered Dietitian Day, recognizing RDs’ contributions in workplaces and communities and your dedication to optimizing the nation’s health through food and nutrition.

The NASDAQ Opening Bell ceremony is broadcast live at 9:15 a.m. Eastern Time on CNBC and C-SPAN, and on NASDAQ’s Web site at:
http://www.nasdaq.com/about/marketsitetowervideo.asx
The ceremony is broadcast live and is not archived, so it is important to watch it in real time.

The ceremony is also broadcast on video screens in Times Square; ADA’s name and logo will be on NASDAQ’s Times Square tower all day Thursday with the message “The Stock Exchange Welcomes the American Dietetic Association.”

We are excited about this opportunity to promote the Association and the profession. Please be sure to tune in and share in this moment that truly belongs to every ADA member.

Sincerely,

Martin M. Yadrick, MS, MBA, RD, FADA
ADA President

The Key to Weight Loss!!!!

2009-02-28T07:59:00.000-08:00

I have a T-shirt left over from the Atkins craze of the past decade. On the front it says "It's the Calories, Stupid". Not very PC to wear it - but with this headline all over the news (I first heard it on Fox News playing in the Joint Base Balad Dining Facility the other night), it's very apropo. It's what Registered Dietitians have been saying for years. This includes both eating habits and activity. A lifestyle you can maintain after you lose the weight. I know, not very glamarous, no flare, no pop, but if the truth fits.....

Cutting calories key to weight loss: study
By AFP - Thu Feb 26, 8:42 AM PST

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Eating heart-healthy, low-calorie foods and exercising is the key to losing weight regardless of levels of protein, fat or carbohydrates, a new study has found.

The research, funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health, seems to argue against blanket use of diets that do not necessarily limit calories but call for eating certain foods such as vegetables or proteins, at the expense of others.

The NIH study of 811 volunteers, 38 percent of them men and 62 percent women, aged 30-70 and either overweight or obese, looked at diets that have been popular in the United States in recent years, even as the number of obese Americans has soared.

The "Preventing Overweight Using Novel Dietary Strategies (POUNDS LOST) study found similar weight loss after six months and two years among participants assigned to four diets that differed in their proportions of these three major nutrients," said researchers.

"The diets were low or high in total fat (20 or 40 percent of calories) with average or high protein (15 or 25 percent of calories). Carbohydrate content ranged from 35 to 65 percent of calories.

"The diets all used the same calorie reduction goals and were heart-healthy low in saturated fat and cholesterol while high in dietary fibre," said researchers, whose study is published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Participants lost an average 13 pounds (5.9 kilos) at six months and maintained a nine-pound (four-kilo) loss at two years.

"These results show that, as long as people follow a heart-healthy, reduced-calorie diet, there is more than one nutritional approach to achieving and maintaining a healthy weight," said Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, director at NHLBI.

"This provides people who need to lose weight with the flexibility to choose an approach that they're most likely to sustain: one that is most suited to their personal preferences and health needs," she stressed.

Sixty-six percent of US adults are overweight and of those, 32 percent are obese, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show.
----------------------

For more information on Weight Management, here are a few other great links:
National Weight Control Registry
Fitday.com and CalorieKing.com

From MREs to KFC, a big problem

2009-02-14T10:59:00.000-08:00

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske
July 09, 2007 in print edition A-7

When Spc. Matthew Curll left basic training for Iraq nearly a year ago, he traded a bland diet of MREs for burgers, pie and Fudgsicles.

“You go from a lot of MREs and crappy stuff at the mess hall to prime rib on Sundays,” said Curll, 21, of Lancaster, Mass., over a dinner of baked chicken followed by ice cream in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone.

“I wasn’t expecting it at all,” added Spc. Joe Reen, 23, of Norwood, Mass., finishing a turkey wrap and green salad. “You wanted to try everything.”

The two indulged at first, but said they learned to resist most of the fried food and extra desserts that dominate the menu at U.S. dining facilities in Iraq. Others are not so careful, they said, including a few officers ahead of them in the chow line.

“There were three colonels in front of me who got double scoops and extra toppings,” Reen said.

The Army has loaded the menu at the 70 chow halls, run by contractor KBR, with a buffet of fattening fare, from cheese steaks to tacos and Rocky Road ice cream. Many soldiers gain more than 15 pounds on a deployment, military dietitians say. They are also seeing soldiers return from Iraq with higher cholesterol, mostly due to their eating habits.

Lt. Col. Maggie Brandt, a surgeon at the 28th Combat Support Hospital who had just come from a swim, said she was dieting but couldn’t resist the pistachio ice cream.

“I’m on a ‘see food’ diet. If I see food, I eat it,” joked Brandt, 44, of Ypsilanti, Mich.

Soldiers are just as susceptible to overeating and packing on the pounds as anyone else, said Donald Williamson, a professor of nutrition at Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

“Iraq presents some added challenges people don’t face here – sitting around a lot, then going from boring to distressing in a matter of minutes,” he said.

In Iraq, it’s up to a handful of military dietitians to steer the troops away from that second piece of pie a la mode and to the salad bars. Most recognize the hold food has in a place where a taste of home brings comfort.

“There are three things that are absolutely crucial for morale: mail, food and showers,” said 1st Lt. Susan Stankorb, a licensed dietitian with the 28th Combat Support Hospital, a mobile unit that is currently based at Baghdad’s Ibn Sina Hospital. “You have to have your chicken nuggets and your ice cream now and again. For the soldiers, that helps.”

Counting the calories

But how many calories does the average soldier need?

Most MREs, or meals ready to eat, contain about 1,300 calories; three a day are recommended. Supplemented with energy bars and drinks, they give soldiers the 4,500 to 5,000 calories they need for an active day of patrols or on the front line.

But many of the 400,000 meals served daily at chow halls in Iraq are consumed by soldiers who spend most of their time on base or at desk jobs.

And dietary misconceptions abound. Some soldiers load up on high-calorie meat to avoid perceived protein deficiencies. They guzzle sugary sodas, energy drinks and fruit juice to avoid dehydration when they’re better off with water.

Many times soldiers don’t even realize how poorly they’re eating, Stankorb said. So she photographed some of their white plastic dinner plates of food and posted the pictures outside her office with cautionary calorie breakdowns under the headline: “The average soldier gains 10 pounds while deployed. Don’t let that happen to you!”

A sample meal of fried chicken, two cheese sandwiches, chili, cheesecake, Gatorade and orange soda racked up 2,395 calories. A more conservative meal of fried chicken, brown rice, peas and diet soda was only 716 calories, but still above the 500-calorie plate Stankorb recommends for those trying to lose or maintain their weight.

Of course, soldiers also snack between meals, on care packages full of cookies, candy from the post exchange, or fries, pizza and Frappuccinos (“liquid sugar” to military dietitians) from fast food purveyors. There are 73 such outlets on U.S. bases in Iraq, according to the Army & Air Force Exchange Service, which operates them. They include Burger King, Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

“For some of them, it’s their third or fourth deployment, and there’s only so many menu options you can offer,” Stankorb said. “They’re burnt out on the dining facilities and so they go for the Burger King or the Easy Mac their wife sends.”

Stankorb, who is petite and slender, also has boxes of Girl Scout cookies and macaroni and cheese in her office. And she had just ordered nacho fixings online: chips, salsa and Velveeta cheese.

“I get a little frustrated,” she said. “This is the third time this week I’ve had baked chicken.”

Battling bulge

Soldiers have their weight checked against a chart every six months. If they’re too heavy, a commander uses a tape measure around the waist, hips and other areas to gauge their body fat. If soldiers fail this “tape test” they won’t be promoted or receive awards until they lose the weight.

A Pentagon study released in January found the number of overweight service members had increased 20% in the last decade. Almost one-third of 18-year-olds who applied for military service in 2005 were overweight, according to a recent Army report.

Dietitians here say their main concern is that soldiers be fit to fight and don’t become a burden on their unit in the field.

“Our soldiers are like world-class athletes. They should train properly and they should eat properly because that can have a direct impact on the success of their missions,” said Lt. Col. John Ruibal, who saw soldiers eat cheesecake for dinner when he served as dietitian with 30th Medical Brigade in Baghdad last year. “If they don’t eat properly or drink properly the mission may suffer; one of their soldiers may be at risk.”

But with so many extended deployments to boost the U.S. military buildup, dietitians realize it may be too much to ask soldiers already under stress and far from home to diet.

“Sometimes, I’m not sure it’s appropriate to enforce the weight standards for soldiers in theater who are facing a lot of stress,” Stankorb said. “At the same time, when you pick someone up who’s 270 pounds on a litter, it’s a challenge. And it does create some health risks.”

So dietitians created a Weight Watchers-style program called “Operation Weight Loss,” posted cards in the chow halls that show the calories, fat and sodium for different foods and even mounted “Biggest Loser” weight loss competitions.

Brandt, the Michigan reservist, joined one weight loss competition six weeks ago. So far, she’s lost 8 pounds, and hopes to lose 45.

Navy Spc. Emmitt Hawks of Jacksonville, N.C., has dropped 65 pounds since October, down to 180 pounds, by eating healthier foods such as fresh panini at the U.S. Embassy.

But Hawks, 35, said eating healthily can be tough for soldiers in the field facing greater danger and fewer meal options. He said he couldn’t blame a friend of his who holed up with some junk food after seeing the trailer next to his hit by a mortar shell, killing the soldier inside.

“I’ve heard people say, ‘Today could be my last day,’ and they’ll eat,” Hawks said. “But I want to be where I can run as fast as I can to that bunker when I hear a duck-and-cover order.”

molly.hennessy-fiske @latimes.com

Movie Snacks

2009-02-14T01:53:00.000-08:00

What to Eat At the Movies
by Glamour Magazine, on Wed Jan 28, 2009

You want to see all the nominated films before the Oscars. Admirable goal. Just use our guide to find the smartest snacks at the Cineplex so you don’t gain 10 pounds doing it!

CANDY
Sweet ‘n’ sour stuff tends to be lower-fat than chocolate, but it’s still dessert. Size counts too!

Worst: Skittles (7.2 oz.) 826 calories, 9.7 grams fat
Better:Twizzlers (6 oz.) 606 calories, 3.8 grams fat
Best: Sour Patch Soft & Chewy Candy (3.5 oz.) 375 calories, 0 grams fat

POPCORN
Yes, it’s a whole grain, but a large has close to the number of calories many women need in a day!

Worst: Large buttered popcorn 1,640 calories, 126 grams fat (That’s almost two days’ worth of fat!)
Better: Small, no butter 400 calories, 27 grams fat
Best: Kid size, no butter 300 calories, 20 grams fat

COLD TREATS
Frozen fruit? Always a winner.

Worst: Toll House chocolate-chip cookie ice cream sandwich 490 calories, 23 grams fat
Better: Butterfinger Loaded ice cream bar 290 calories, 19 grams fat
Best: Edy’s strawberry iced-fruit bar 120 calories, 0 grams fat

CHOCOLATE
Unfortunately, most concession stands offer only one size (and who isn’t going to eat the whole box?). So go for something in a smaller package to keep portions in check.

Worst: Peanut M&M’s (5.3 oz.) 786 calories,39.3 grams fat
Better: Junior Mints (4.75 oz.) 595 calories,10.5 grams fat
Best: Milk Duds (3 oz.) 371 calories,13.1 grams fat

HOT SNACKS
In general, beware of anything with glow-in-the-dark cheese.

Worst: Nachos with cheese 894 calories, 52.5 grams fat
Better: Hot dog with ketchup 315 calories, 19 grams fat
Best: Soft pretzel 310 calories, 4 grams fat

In Kitchen, ‘Losers’ Start From Scratch

2009-02-05T08:30:00.000-08:00

By JULIA MOSKIN
Published: February 3, 2009

NOTHING is off-limits on “The Biggest Loser,” the reality show that pits morbidly obese people against one another to see who can lose weight the fastest and win the $250,000 prize.

Contestants endure tearful, grueling workouts and submit to public weigh-ins wearing only bike shorts (and for the women, sports bras). They cry. They vomit. They backstab.

The one thing they almost never do on camera is eat.

“The food that you’re used to, you can’t have, and the food you can have, you do not want,” said Vicky Vilcan, a 5-foot-6-inch finalist from Houma, La., who weighed 246 pounds at the beginning of the last season. Now at 145 pounds, she eats broccoli and spinach but says she was “repulsed” by most vegetables when she was on the show. “I wouldn’t eat a string bean that wasn’t smothered in bacon and onions.”

Watch an episode of “The Biggest Loser,” now in its seventh season on NBC, and see the pitfalls of the American diet written extra-large: cheap, high-calorie snacks everywhere, days spent in cars and cubicles and a near disappearance of home cooking.

The contestants are avatars for every slothful viewer on the sofa, waging the epic battle between willpower and waffle fries. While exercising 6 to 10 hours a day and fighting off the doughnuts and pizza that diabolical producers put in their paths may be difficult, the biggest challenge, and the one that will determine whether they remain thinner, is to permanently change their relationship with food.

First, they literally redevelop the sense of taste. “The food that got them to this point is salty, sweet, fatty, crunchy,” said Bob Harper, a trainer on the show since the first season in 2004, describing the fast food and snacks that are the steady diet of most contestants. “They lose their taste buds, they lose their hunger cues and they want what they want when they want it.”

Second, they learn fundamental cooking skills that they — like many Americans — have lost, or never had.

“Most of them do not have the basic ability to cook a meal at home and very little understanding of how much fat and salt is in restaurant food,” said Cheryl Forberg, the show’s nutritionist, “even on the supposedly healthy part of the menu.” While the show has been criticized as presenting a dangerous and unsustainable level of weight loss, recipes from it are sensible enough and have been collected in two cookbooks. Given the program’s popularity, it’s not surprising that both are in the top 10 on the Amazon best-seller list for cookbooks. Together, “The Biggest Loser Cookbook” and “The Biggest Loser Family Cookbook” have sold more than two million copies.

Contestants climb a steep and brutal learning curve in the kitchen, since they have to do all their own cooking.

“There’s no chef whipping up spa cuisine,” Ed Brantley, a contestant from last season, said glumly.

While on their “ranch” — a luxurious house outside Malibu, Calif., — in the four months of taping, contestants are given a calorie budget, recipes and a list of forbidden foods: no white flour, white sugar, butter, or anything that contains them. From there, they have to learn to feed themselves.

“It wasn’t pretty,” said Mr. Brantley’s wife, Heba Salama, who began the show as the heaviest woman ever to compete, at 294 pounds. “The kitchen was full of weird ingredients like quinoa and kale. It was the blind leading the blind.”

On a recent episode, the guest chef, Curtis Stone, gently guided Dave Lee, a 23-year-old contestant in Raleigh, N.C., who weighed 396 pounds when filming began, into the produce section of a supermarket. “I don’t see a lot of things that look familiar here,” Mr. Lee said. He cautiously accepted a taste of cilantro and brightened when he was able to identify it as “something in salsa.”

“This,” Mr. Stone said, handing Mr. Lee a spice rack, “is going to save your life.”

Even if home cooking is of the fried-chicken-and-mashed-potatoes variety, it rarely produces extreme obesity, said Barry Popkin, a nutritional epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “Almost any kind of cooking you can produce in a kitchen is healthier than fast food.” The decline of home cooking worldwide, he said, is an underlying cause of obesity.

“People are eating more, and more often,” Dr. Popkin said. “And the foods that they are consuming almost always replace meals cooked in a kitchen and eaten at a table.” It is difficult to quantify a decline in cooking skills, but many studies show that time in the kitchen has declined steeply since 1965, when American women spent a weekly average of 13 hours cooking. Last month the government of Britain, where obesity is spreading rapidly, passed a law requiring all secondary-school students to attend cooking classes.

Today, women in the United States report spending an average of 30 minutes a day preparing meals. The percentage of women who are overweight has risen to about 65 percent from about 30 percent in the 1960s. Cooking and eating well is much harder than just eating less, “Biggest Loser” contestants said.

“The first two weeks, you’re throwing up so much from working out, you’re so tired, the last thing you want to do is eat,” said Mr. Brantley, a chef in Raleigh, who in the last season lost 139 pounds (more than 40 percent of his body weight).

Next, Ms. Salama said, you become ravenous. “You want to eat everything you see,” she said.

But soon, food becomes the devil they love to control. Every contestant is required to eat a minimum number of calories each day and is supposed to keep a daily food journal to prove it. But many of them actually eat less.

“It gets so you crave that feeling of going to bed with hunger pains in your stomach,” said Erik Chopin, a Long Island deli owner who won the show in 2006, going to 193 pounds from 407. Mr. Chopin said the absence of the foods he loves helped. “It’s not like you can go in the kitchen and make yourself a bacon, egg and cheese on a roll,” he said. “More oatmeal wasn’t very tempting.”

The 24-hour surveillance helped, too. “You’re accountable to your team, you’re accountable to your trainer and you’re accountable to the American people for what you eat,” Mr. Chopin said. “How stupid would you feel to sit there stuffing your face on national television?”

Most contestants say it is surprisingly easy to resist food in the throes of competition. “You learn to get over being hungry, like you get over the pain of the workouts,” Ms. Salama said. “The first temptation, it’s very hard to think clearly when you smell all that sugar, but you learn that you can say no.”

During scheduled “temptations,” contestants are bribed to eat junk food with prizes like cash and calls home, sometimes while locked in a dark room with mountains of candy. “We want to simulate the real world in there,” said Dave Broome, a co-creator of the show. “At home, there’s a McDonald’s on every corner, there’s a birthday cake at the office every afternoon, there are friends who will encourage them to eat.”

When the contestants return home to live like the rest of us, without personal trainers and cash prizes, how do they adjust to eating in the real world? Like Oprah Winfrey, who recently acknowledged that she once again weighs more than 200 pounds, the contestants say that the slide backward can be slow, but for some of them it may be inevitable.

Although Mr. Chopin sold his deli after his victory (“I was worried that the quality control alone would make me fat”), he has gained back more than 100 pounds. Most contestants say they did not expect to maintain their entire weight loss once at home. Many have gained back 50 pounds or more, some have continued to drop and all say they have abandoned the fasting, asparagus binges (asparagus, a mild diuretic, temporarily reduces weight) and all-coffee strategies they used while on the show.

What lessons can be learned from the blood, sweat and tears that pour freely on the ranch? Simple: count your calories, exercise and learn to cook.

“Twenty minutes in the kitchen will save you three hours on the StairMaster” said Devin Alexander, a chef in Los Angeles who developed the recipes for the cookbooks. “You can’t trust restaurant food to be low fat.”

Mr. Brantley says that after six days of salad, grilled chicken and air-popped popcorn, he allows himself one day to eat real ice cream, blue-cheese dressing and other foods he loves.

“There’s no such thing as low-fat foie gras,” he said.

Top chefs push Obama to improve food policy

2009-01-24T09:15:00.000-08:00

By MARY CLARE JALONICK, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Visiting one of his favorite Chicago restaurants in November, Barack Obama was asked by an excited waitress if he wanted the restaurant's special margarita made with the finest ingredients, straight up and shaken at the table.

"You know that's the way I roll," Obama replied jokingly.

Rick Bayless, the chef of that restaurant, Topolobampo, says Obama's comfortable demeanor at the table — slumped contentedly in his chair, clearly there to enjoy himself — bodes well for the nation's food policy. While former President George W. Bush rarely visited restaurants and didn't often talk about what he ate, Obama dines out frequently and enjoys exploring different foods.

"He's the kind of diner who wants to taste all sorts of things," Bayless says. "What I'm hoping is that he's going to recognize that we need to do what we can in our country to encourage real food for everyone."

Phrases like "real food" and "farm-to-table" may sound like elitist jargon tossed around at upscale restaurants. But the country's top chefs, several of whom traveled to Washington for Obama's inauguration this week, hope that Obama's flair for good food will encourage people to expand their horizons when it comes to what they eat.

These chefs tout locally grown, environmentally friendly and — most importantly — nutritious food. They urge diners, even those who may never be able to afford to eat at their restaurants, to grow their own vegetables, shop at farmer's markets and pay attention to where their food comes from.

Dan Barber, chef at New York's popular Blue Hill restaurant and a frequent critic of the country's food policy, says a few small gestures from the president and first lady Michelle Obama could accomplish what many of the chefs have been working toward for years.

"I recognize that I'm an elitist guy," says Barber, who cooked a $500-a-plate meal for incoming Obama aides and other guests at a small charity fundraiser the night before the inauguration.

"Increasingly raise awareness, but don't do it through chefs like me. ... My advice would be more of a symbolic nature, and to not underestimate what can be done through the White House."
Barber said good food needs more publicity, and he hopes Obama and his wife will advertise what they are eating and what they are feeding their children, 10-year-old Malia and 7-year-old Sasha.

Many high-end chefs like Barber believe that most food in the United States is over-processed, over-subsidized and grown with no regard to the environment, making it harder for small farms to make a profit selling more natural, nutritious food.

Barber cooks with food grown at his farm, the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, N.Y. At the pre-inauguration fundraiser, organized along with several other dinners by food guru Alice Waters, passed hors d'oeuvres included carrots, lettuce and cauliflower — untarnished and raw, delicious in their natural form. Sweet beets had been recently chiseled from Stone Barns' frozen ground, and hog snouts left over from slaughter were used as a garnish on a plate of Maine sea scallops.

Most of the chefs say they realize food policy and government support for larger corporate farms won't change any time soon. Congress, with Obama's support, overwhelmingly enacted a $290 billion farm bill last year that directs many subsidies to the largest agricultural players.
But Obama has already given chefs like Barber a small reason to hope. At his confirmation hearing, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack made an overture to the growing number of food groups and experts who have criticized government subsidies for large corporate farms, saying he will seek to work "with those who seek programs and practices that lead to more nutritious food produced in a sustainable way."

"There's a lot of work that can be done in this area," Vilsack said after he was sworn in.

Other chefs in town for the inauguration and Waters' dinners had many suggestions to improve food policy. Daniel Boulud, the veteran New York chef of the restaurant Daniel who has cooked for at least five former presidents, said he thinks the Department of Agriculture should form an agency that exclusively oversees small farms. Lidia Bastianich, a New York-based Italian chef who has starred in several cooking shows on public television, says the government needs to encourage regulations and incentives to small farmers to give them the opportunity to compete against the "big giants."

Chef Tom Colicchio, the lead judge on the popular cable television series "Top Chef," agrees. He says foods that are genetically engineered should be labeled as such and fewer subsidies should go to corporate farms.

But despite loftier goals, Bayless, the Chicago chef, says the Obamas could make a world of difference if they just publish what they are eating every day.

"Everyone's going to want to be like the Obamas," he said.

Only A Dietitian Would See the Irony

2009-01-23T09:53:00.000-08:00

I said in another blog that I would rather eat 3 Thin Mints than 5 Sugar Free Chocolate Chip Cookies (before I even read the label). Looks like I was right! The Thin Mints have fewer calories per serving!

Headlines: 2 get death in China milk scandal; furor continues

2009-01-22T09:36:00.000-08:00

By Barbara Demick
7:56 AM PST, January 22, 2009
Reporting from Beijing -- A court sentenced two men to death today and handed out stiff sentences to others, but the sentencing seemed unlikely to quell the public furor in China's largest food-tampering scandal.

Parents of babies sickened by the formula vowed to continue a legal fight over compensation.

The sentences were given by a court in Shijiazhuang, in the Hebei province, to 21 people who stood trial last month. Those sentenced to death were Zhang Yujun and Geng Jinping, found guilty of endangering public security and selling poisonous foods. Another man was given a suspended death sentence, which effectively means life in prison.

The court gave a life sentence to Tian Wenhua, the 66-year-old chairwoman of Sanlu Group, the manufacturer of the baby formula involved in many of the deaths. Tian, a former Communist party official, was the highest ranking of those who stood trial.

Nearly 300,000 Chinese babies were sickened and six died after drinking a formula that had been spiked with melamine, an additive that allows watered-down milk to pass quality tests. It was widely sold under the name "protein powder" in Hebei province, a center of the dairy industry, despite the fact that it was known to cause kidney disease.

Teng Biao, a lawyer for some of the parents, said that the men given the death sentence were scapegoats in a failed product-safety system.

"This involved the whole political and social system. There were politicians and bureaucrats who should have taken more responsibility as well," Teng said today. .

Although footage from the trials was aired on Chinese state television, all but a few hand-picked journalists were banned from attending the trials. Parents also were kept out, and at least two were detained today in Beijing in an apparent attempt to prevent them from traveling to Shijiazhuang for the sentencing. Many parents also are unhappy about a compensation settlement that they say the Chinese government has forced them to accept.

Chen Li, a mother of one of the sickened babies, said today she hoped the death penalty sentencings would deter others from similar crimes.

"People have to pay for the evil things they have done," Chen said. "They have to execute at least one to warn the others. Otherwise, it will be a vicious cycle and things will never get better."

barbara.demick@latimes.com

Nicole Liu of the Beijing bureau contributed to this report.

Headlines: FDA: 125-plus products recalled in peanut outbreak

2009-01-22T09:01:00.000-08:00

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press Writer Ricardo Alonso-zaldivar, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jan 21, 5:57 pm ET

WASHINGTON – More than 125 products have been recalled in a salmonella-and-peanuts investigation that keeps getting bigger, federal health officials said Wednesday.

The list ranges from goodies like cookies and ice cream to energy bars. Even food for pooches may not be entirely safe, with a national company recalling some of its dog treats.

On Tuesday, PetSmart recalled seven kinds of its Grreat Choice dog biscuits. On Wednesday, the weight loss company NutriSystem issued a recall for peanut butter granola bars. And some Asian foods made with peanut sauces are starting to turn up on the recalls list.

To help consumers, the Food and Drug Administration has set up on its Web site a searchable database of recalled peanut products. "We expect (the) number to continue to increase," said Stephen Sundlof, head of the FDA's food safety program. No major brands of peanut butter sold in jars are implicated.

Peanut butter is not normally thought of as a high-risk product for salmonella. The bacteria, a frequent source of food poisoning, is supposed to be killed off in the roasting process.

In this investigation, the common denominator is that all the products contain peanut paste or peanut butter made at a Peanut Corp. of America plant in Blakely, Ga.

Originally the problem appeared limited to peanut butter shipped in big tubs to institutional customers like nursing homes. But then peanut paste was implicated. Made from ground roasted peanuts, it is used as an ingredient in dozens of other products sold directly to consumers.

Last week, Kellogg recalled some of its Austin and Keebler brand peanut butter crackers. Salmonella was later confirmed in a package of Austin crackers.

At least 486 people in more than 40 states have gotten sick since the outbreak began in the fall. Six have died.

Investigators found salmonella contamination at the PCA plant, which has suspended production. In one of the curious twists in the investigation, the salmonella strain at the plant is not an exact match to the one that has gotten people sick, the FDA said. However, the outbreak strain has been positively identified in a sample from an unopened jar of peanut produced at the Georgia plant.

Sundlof suggested it doesn't much matter whether health authorities get a perfect match at the plant. "Having salmonella in the plant is not supposed to happen," he said. "Regardless of whether it's the outbreak strain or not, that represents a violation."

Salmonella has been found in a floor crack and on the floor near a wall where pallets are stored, he said.

The manufacturer said it is cooperating with the investigation, but has received nothing in writing from health investigators to document their findings. "We trust that at some point they will share this with us and PCA will respond accordingly," said a company statement.

Although PCA is a small company, it lists more than 70 food companies as its customers. "Peanut paste is used in a huge variety of other foods," said Dr. Robert Tauxe, who is directing the investigation for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A noted food safety scientist said manufacturers have to be careful that peanuts don't get contaminated after roasting. That's partly because peanut butter itself can't be heated to kill the bacteria without making it unpalatable to eat.

"Once the salmonella gets into the peanut butter, you are not going to kill it," said Michael Doyle, head of the University of Georgia's food safety center. "What the processor has to rely on is the roasting process. That's a critical control point."

After roasting, peanuts can be contaminated if they somehow come into contact with tainted water, or if birds or rodents get into the plant. They can also be cross-contaminated by equipment that is used to handle raw ingredients. Raw peanuts can harbor salmonella, just like other agricultural products.

"If there are fork lifts in the raw ingredient area, they can't go into the other part of the plant, because they could be bringing in untreated material," Doyle said. Federal and state officials would not discuss details of the investigation at the Georgia plant.

The FDA's Sundlof said it's rare for dogs to get salmonella illness, but that their owners can pick up the bacteria by handling tainted biscuits. If people don't wash their hands after feeding the dog, they can transfer the bacteria to human foods.

FDA peanut products database

"WORST" DIET PROMOTIONS OF 2008

2008-12-21T22:04:00.000-08:00

20th ANNUAL SLIM CHANCE AWARDS

HETTINGER, ND - Healthy Weight Network released its 20th annual Slim Chance
Awards today, highlighting both the hidden dangers of diets and the merely
ridiculous. Here are the "worst" weight loss promotions of 2008.

MOST OUTRAGEOUS CLAIM: Kevin Trudeau infomercials. Fined over $7 million for
deceptive infomercials on his weight loss book, Kevin Trudeau is banned for
three years from making infomercials.

WORST GIMMICK: Skineez jeans ($139). In the fight against cellulite,
Skineez jeans are impregnated with a so-called "medication" of retinol and
chitosan. Supposedly the substance is released through friction and absorbed
in the skin to reduce fat layers.

WORST CLAIM: AbGONE. Full-page ads in daily newspapers tout AbGONE as
"proven to promote pot belly loss." Drug-like claims are that it increases
"fat metabolism" and calorie burn, promotes appetite suppression and
inhibits future abdominal fat deposits.

WORST PRODUCT - Kimkins diet. Heidi "Kimmer" Diaz charged users access to
her Internet diet, claiming they could lose up to 5 percent of weight in 10
days safely and permanently. Essentially it is a starvation diet, and
members complained of chest pains, hair loss, heart palpitations and
menstrual irregularities. Eleven are now suing Diaz.

"Today's economic downturn can remind us how foolish it is to waste money on
unsafe, ineffective and energy-draining weight loss efforts," said Francie
M. Berg, a licensed nutritionist and adjunct professor at the University of
North Dakota School of Medicine, whose organization Healthy Weight Network
started the Slim Chance Awards 20 years ago.

With the New Year upon us, resolutions freshly on our minds, Berg is
advising people of all sizes to skip dieting and move ahead with healthy
habits. "Resolve to follow a healthy diet-free lifestyle through 2009. You
can get your life back on track, improve your health and move on with what's
really important to you." (Guidelines available at
www.healthyweight. net/handouts. htm.)

The National Council Against Health Fraud and Healthy Weight Network
co-sponsor the awards, which are part of the lead-up to Healthy Weight Week,
which falls from January 18 to 24 in 2009.

###

For more information see www.healthyweight.net/hww.htm

Xmas Carol for Dieters (HUMOR)

2008-12-07T15:22:00.001-08:00

*Twas the night before Christmas and all round my hips*
*were Fannie May candies that sneaked past my lips.*
*Fudge brownies were stored in the freezer with care*
*In hopes that my thighs would forget they were there.*

*While Mama in her my girdle and I in chin straps*
*Had just settled down to sugar-borne naps.*
*When out in the pantry there arose such a clatter*
*I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.*

*Away to the kitchen I flew like a flash*
*Tore open the icebox then threw up the sash.*
*The marshmallow look of the new-fallen snow*
*Sent thoughts of a binge to my body below.*

*When what to my wandering eyes should appear:*
*A marzipan Santa with eight chocolate reindeer!*
*That huge chunk of candy so luscious and slick*
*I knew in a second that I'd wind up sick.*

*The sweet-coated santa, those sugared reindeer*
*I closed my eyes tightly but still I could hear;*
*On Pritzker, on Stillman, on weak one, on TOPS*
*A Weight Watcher dropout from sugar detox.*

*>From the top of the scales to the top of the hall*
*Now dash away pounds now dash away all.*
*Dressed up in Lane Bryant from my head to nightdress*
*My clothes were all bulging from too much excess.*

*My droll little mouth and my round little belly*
*They shook when I laughed like a bowl full of jelly.*
*I spoke not a word but went straight to my work*
*Ate all of the candy then turned with a jerk.*

*And laying a finger beside my heartburn*
*I gave a quick nod toward the bedroom I turned.*
*I eased into bed, to the heavens I cry*
*If temptation's removed I'll get thin by and by.*

*And I mumbled again as I turned for the night*
*In the morning I'll starve... 'til I take that first bite!*

Americans Eating More Processed Sugar, Study Finds

2008-08-13T06:33:00.000-07:00

The other day I was "interviewed" for a magazine article. The author emailed me questions. Most of them were asking about my opinion of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and childhood obesity. One can usually tell the slant of the author by the wording of the questions. This author seemed bent on getting a nutrition expert to blame HFCS for the rising weight of American children/teens.

In my opinion, the problem isn't HFCS. If you look at the big picture, American kids are eating more CALORIES overall (and a lot of them from fried foods as well as sugar-sweetened beverages & processed baked sweets) and using less CALORIES with increasingly sedentary lifestyles (more tv/video/computer and less physical activity). Intake of sugar-sweetened beverages is ridiculously high (soda, sport drinks, energy drinks and juice). Yes, even juice! I've always considered juice to be "soda without the bubbles" since it is just sugar & water - only very little micronutrients (vitamins/minerals/phytonutrients) compared to EATING the fruit. But the popularity of sport & energy drinks is growing. Add to this the newest sugared beverage, the "nutrient waters" and what lessons are children getting from parents & the media? Apparently there is something wrong with drinking regular, plain, natural water.

This press release from Emory University shows another affect of increased soda/processed food consumption - high fructose consumption in 'empty' calories from these beverages is contributing to more than American waistlines:
-------------------------------------

Americans are getting more than 10 percent of their daily calories from fructose, used mainly in sugar-sweetened beverages and processed foods, a new study finds.
The study, analyzing the amount and sources of dietary fructose consumption among U.S. children and adults from 1988 to 1994, was published in the July 9, 2008 issue of The Medscape Journal of Medicine.

Fructose occurs naturally in fruits and vegetables, however, it is added to many processed foods as table sugar (sucrose) and high-fructose corn syrup.

"Measurement of fructose consumption is important because growing evidence suggests that it may play a role in health outcomes," says lead study author Miriam Vos, MD, MSPH, assistant professor of pediatrics, Emory University School of Medicine.

Vos and colleagues examined fructose consumption patterns by sex, age group, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status and body mass index for 21,483 U.S. children and adults. They used a single 24-hour dietary recall administered in the third National Health and Examination Survey (NHANES), the only nationally representative survey in the past 20 years to include fructose content as a reported variable.

The study found that U.S. children and adults consumed 54.7 grams of fructose per day, an almost 50 percent increase from a national study sample conducted in 1977-1978, which estimated mean consumption of fructose at 37 grams per day.

Fructose consumption was highest among adolescents ages 12 to18 at 72.8 grams per day. Among racial and ethnic groups, non-Hispanic blacks consumed the most fructose at 57.7 grams per day, or 11 percent of total calories. Normal-weight participants (56.2 grams) consumed more fructose than obese persons (51.1 grams). And those in the highest-income category consumed less of their total calories from fructose than those in the lowest-income category.

The largest source of fructose was sugar-sweetened beverages (30.1 percent), followed by grains, which include processed foods such as cakes, pies and snacks, breads and cereals (21.5 percent), and fruit or fruit juices (19.4 percent).

"Short-term studies have shown that fructose can elevate plasma triglycerides," says Vos. "Further surveillance and research are needed to assess trends in fructose consumption and to develop a better understanding of the health impact of this common additive in the food supply."

In addition to Vos, study authors were Jean Welsh, MPH, RN, of the Graduate Division of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Nutrition and Health Science Program, Emory University; and Joel Kimmons, PhD, Cathleen Gillespie, MS, and Heidi Blanck, PhD, all of the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Vos was supported by the Joseph W. Crooks Faculty Development Award.

Reference: The Medscape Journal of Medicine, eJournal, Clinical Nutrition & Obesity, July 9, 2008

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A follow up Systemic Reviews issue of the Medscape Journal of Medicine on 8/12/2008 asked the question "Soft Drinks and Weight Gain: How Strong Is the Link?" It's free to register at Medscape to read the article, here is the abstract:
---------------------------------------

Emily Wolff, MPH; Michael L. Dansinger, MD, MS

Context: Soft drink consumption in the United States has tripled in recent decades, paralleling the dramatic increases in obesity prevalence. The purpose of this clinical review is to evaluate the extent to which current scientific evidence supports a causal link between sugar-sweetened soft drink consumption and weight gain.
Evidence acquisition: MEDLINE search of articles published in all languages between 1966 and December 2006 containing key words or medical subheadings, such as "soft drinks" and "weight." Additional articles were obtained by reviewing references of retrieved articles, including a recent systematic review. All reports with cross-sectional, prospective cohort, or clinical trial data in humans were considered.
Evidence synthesis: Six of 15 cross-sectional and 6 of 10 prospective cohort studies identified statistically significant associations between soft drink consumption and increased body weight. There were 5 clinical trials; the two that involved adolescents indicated that efforts to reduce sugar-sweetened soft drinks slowed weight gain. In adults, 3 small experimental studies suggested that consumption of sugar-sweetened soft drinks caused weight gain; however, no trial in adults was longer than 10 weeks or included more than 41 participants. No trial reported the effects on lipids.
Conclusions: Although observational studies support the hypothesis that sugar-sweetened soft drinks cause weight gain, a paucity of hypothesis-confirming clinical trial data has left the issue open to debate. Given the magnitude of the public health concern, larger and longer intervention trials should be considered to clarify the specific effects of sugar-sweetened soft drinks on body weight and other cardiovascular risk factors.

Exerpt from the article:

Mechanisms by Which Soft Drinks May Promote Obesity and Related Diseases

There are 4 main mechanisms by which soft drinks may promote obesity and cardiovascular risk factors: direct caloric increases, appetite stimulation, adverse metabolic effects of high-fructose corn syrup consumption, and replacement of milk and other beneficial dietary intake.

Sugar-sweetened soft drinks typically contain 140-150 calories per 12-oz serving. If normal dietary intake decreased by an equivalent amount of calories per serving, then weight change would not be expected. However, as noted above, DiMeglio and Mattes[6] found that there was no decrease in usual dietary intake in response to 450 calories per day from sucrose-sweetened soda. (The daily caloric intake was equal to baseline intake plus the caloric intake attributed to the soda.) In the same study subjects, a solid sucrose supplement in the form of jelly beans was associated with a caloric reduction from baseline dietary intake that perfectly compensated for the caloric load provided by the jelly beans, such that the daily caloric intake remained unchanged. Others have reported similar findings.[38,39] Hypothetically, sugar solutions may fail to trigger satiety in the same way that solid preparations do; however, the physiologic mechanisms have not been fully determined.

Appetite stimulation associated with rapidly changing glucose and/or insulin levels may be caused by rapidly absorbed, high glycemic carbohydrates, including those found in sugar-sweetened soft drinks. A rapidly falling serum glucose level is a well-known appetite stimulant, and carefully conducted human studies have attributed increased hunger and caloric intake to differences in glycemic index or glycemic load intake, and associated differences in glucose and insulin levels.[40,41] The DiMeglio data described above may not support this hypothesis because the glycemic load of the jelly beans vs the soda was probably similar.[6]

Fructose, found in similar amounts in both sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup, may hypothetically promote obesity more than an equivalent amount of glucose. A study by Elliott and coworkers[42] examined the relationship between fructose, weight gain, and the insulin resistance syndrome and found that fructose, compared with glucose, is preferentially metabolized to lipid in the liver. In animal studies, fructose consumption induces insulin resistance, impaired glucose tolerance, hyperinsulinemia, hypertriacylglycerolemia, and hypertension, although data in humans are less clear.[42] Because fructose has limited insulin-stimulating effects, the consumption of foods and beverages that contain fructose produce smaller amounts of insulin than glucose-containing carbohydrates. In addition, because leptin production is regulated by insulin responses to meals, circulating leptin concentrations are reduced by the consumption of fructose. Bray and coworkers[13] have also found that the digestion, absorption, and metabolism of fructose differ from those of glucose, noting that when large amounts of fructose are ingested, the fructose provides a relatively unregulated source of carbon precursors for hepatic lipogenesis. Furthermore, a recent study conducted in mice suggested that the consumption of fructose-sweetened beverages increases adiposity more than the consumption of either sucrose-sweetened or artificially sweetened beverages.[43]

The consumption of milk has greatly decreased over the past few decades, whereas sugar-sweetened soft drink consumption has greatly increased. Energy intake from milk decreased by 38% between 1977 and 2001.[12] It has been shown that this trade-off between sweetened drinks and milk has led to a lower daily intake of protein, calcium, phosphorous, magnesium, zinc, and vitamin A at the highest level of sweetened drink consumption (> 2 glasses or 12 oz/day).[44] Harnack and colleagues[45] found similar results in children and adolescents, particularly at high levels of soft drink consumption. French and coworkers[4] also noted that soft drinks may affect the dietary quality of youth by displacing milk consumption, which can reduce calcium intake among children and increase their risk for osteoporosis and bone fracture. Nielsen and Popkin[12] have hypothesized that because dairy products may have a favorable effect on weight, reducing milk intake may be associated with increased weight gain, especially if the milk is being replaced with drinks of a higher caloric value. Popkin and colleagues,[46] however, citing the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, noted that there was no sufficient evidence that milk consumption reduced, or prevented, weight gain.

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Healthy Fast Food?

2008-08-01T14:08:00.000-07:00

If you sell it, will people buy it?

Many "fast food" chains tried those options a few years ago (when you are a Registered Dietitian, you get samples at the annual Food Expo every year) but the public wasn't ready. Do you remember McDonald Salad Shakers? Not a big seller. Even I didn't like the McLean (honestly, I haven't eaten a McD's burger in 10 years, but that's another story).

A few years later, Wendy's closed their in-restaurant salad bar (yes, they used to have a real salad bar) and just premade them and WOW! They were a hit! The timing was right for salad-to-go. And the rest jump aboard.

Warning: Many of these salads pack just as much fat & calories as the burgers. However, if you choose the grilled chicken and the fat-free dressing, take off half the cheese & bacon, you've got a decent meal.

Men's Health published a great article about the newest trend in fast food: Healthy options. If you are a patron of fast food, I hope this helps you make better choices. And lets hope that the public increases their purchase of these items so the chains will keep them on the menu. Remember, the companies aren't trying to help us be healthier, they are trying to make $$$. If it doesn't sell, they will stop serving it.

Eat This Not That: America's Best - and Worst - Restaurants

Posted Thu, Jul 31, 2008, 3:29 pm PDT

Eating out invariably raises a number of tricky questions: sit-down or drive-thru? Burgers or pizza? Thin or stuffed crust? And if you're dining with your family, add the biggest question of all: Will the food we eat today bring a fatter tomorrow for our kids? And fewer tomorrows for the rest of us?

So the choice between McDonald’s and Burger King shouldn’t be based solely on whether you're more terrified by the scary clown Ronald McDonald or that creepy masked Burger King. Choosing one over the other could be the difference of hundreds of calories in a meal, more than 10 unnecessary pounds over the course of a year, and countless health woes over the course of a lifetime.

During more than a year of research, my coauthor and I discovered vast dietary discrepancies between many of the places Americans love to eat most. So to help you separate the commendable from the deplorable, we put 43 major chain restaurants under the nutritional microscope — both for your benefit, and that of your family.

How did we judge the restaurants? We started by calculating the average number of calories per kid entrée, then rewarded restaurants for having healthy adult options that would appeal to the young palette, and for providing healthy vegetable sides and non-soda drink options. Finally, we docked points for those restaurants still harboring nasty trans fats.

The result is a Restaurant Report Card that holds each eating establishment fully accountable for the fare they’re serving up to all of us — moms, dads, kids, teens, and twentysomethings — along with a survival strategy for making it through any meal unscathed.

Did your favorite restaurant make the grade?

A Chick-fil-A
Chick-fil-A excels in every category we tested for. With a slew of low-calorie sandwiches, the country’s “healthiest” chicken nugget, a variety of solid sides like fresh fruit and soup that can be substituted into any meal, and nutritional brochures readily available for perusing at each location, Chick-fil-A earns the award for America’s Healthiest Chain Restaurant (for kids, for the adults who drive them there, plus anybody else wise enough to make it their fast food choice).

Your Survival Strategy: Even the smartest kid in the class can still fail a test, so be on your toes at all times, even at Chik-fil-A. Skip salads with ranch or Caesar dressings, any sandwich with bacon, and avoid milkshakes at all costs.

A- Subway
A menu based on lean protein and vegetables is always going to score well in our book. With more than half a dozen sandwiches under 300 calories, plus a slew of soups and healthy sides to boot, Subway can satisfy even the pickiest eater without breaking the caloric bank.

But, despite what Jared may want you to believe, Subway is not nutritionally infallible: Those rosy calorie counts posted on the menu boards include neither cheese nor mayo (add 160 calories per 6-inch sub) and some of the toasted subs, like the Meatball Marinara, contain hefty doses of calories, saturated fat, and sodium.

Your Survival Strategy: Cornell researchers have discovered a “health halo” at Subway, which refers to the tendency to reward yourself or your kid with chips, cookies, and large soft drinks because the entrée is healthy. Avoid the halo, and all will be well.

B+ Boston Market
With more than a dozen healthy vegetable sides and lean meats like turkey and roast sirloin on the menu, the low-cal, high-nutrient possibilities at Boston Market are endless. But with nearly a dozen calorie-packed sides and fatty meats like dark meat chicken and meat loaf, it’s almost as easy to construct a lousy meal.

Your Survival Strategy: There are three simple steps to nutritional salvation: 1) Start with turkey, sirloin, or rotisserie chicken. 2) Add two noncreamy, nonstarchy vegetable sides. 3) Ignore all special items, such as pot pie and nearly all of the sandwiches.

B McDonald’s
Though not blessed with an abundance of healthy options, Mickey D’s isn’t burdened with any major calorie bombs, either. Kid standards like McNuggets and cheeseburgers are both in the acceptable 300-calorie range.

Your Survival Strategy: Apple Dippers and 2% milk with a small entrée makes for a pretty decent meal-on-the-go. McDonald’s quintessential Happy Meal® makes this possible — just beware the usual French fries and soda pitfalls. Adults should go for a Quarter Pounder without cheese.

C+ Domino’s
Domino’s suffers the same pitfalls of any other pizza purveyor: too much cheese, bread, and greasy toppings. If you don’t order carefully, you might bag your child a pizza with more than 350 calories per slice. To its credit, Domino’s does keep the trans fat off the pizza, and it also offers the lowest-calorie thin crust option out there.

Your Survival Strategy: Stick with the Crunchy Thin Crust pizzas sans sausage and pepperoni. If your must order meat, make sure it's ham. And whenever possible, try to sneak on a vegetable or two per pie.

C Burger King
BK has only four legitimate kids’ entrées on the menu, and none of them — French Toast Sticks, hamburger, mac and cheese, chicken tenders — are particularly healthy. And while the recent addition of Apple Fries provides a much-needed healthy side alternative for kids, the menu is still sullied with trans fats.

BK pledged to follow in the wake of nearly every other chain restaurant and remove trans fats from the menu by the end of 2008, but so far, we’ve seen little action.

Your Survival Strategy: Adults can sign on for the Whopper Junior and a Garden Salad, and escape with only 365 calories. The best kids’ meal? A 4-piece Chicken Tenders®, applesauce or Apple Fries, and water or milk. Beyond that, there is little hope of escaping unscathed.

D Chipotle
We applaud Chipotle’s commitment to high-quality produce and fresh meats, but even the most pristine ingredients can’t dampen the damage wrought by the massive portion sizes served up here. The lack of options for kids means young eaters are forced to tussle with one of Chipotle’s massive burritos or taco platters, which can easily top 1,000 calories.

Your Survival Strategy: Stick to the crispy tacos or burrito bowls, or saw a burrito in half.

F Applebee’s, IHOP, Olive Garden, Outback, Red Lobster, T.G.I. Friday’s
These titans of the restaurant industry are among the last national chains to not provide nutritional information on their dishes. Even after years of communication with their representatives, we still here the same old excuses: it’s too pricey, it’s too time-consuming, it’s impossible to do accurately because their food is so fresh. Our response is simple: If every other chain restaurant in the country can do it, then why can’t they?

Your Survival Strategy: Write letters, make phone calls, beg, scream, and plead for these restaurants to provide nutritional information on all of their products. Here are the phone numbers for each of the restaurants that refuse to tell us the truth!

Applebees: email, 888-59APPLE; IHOP: email, 888-240-6055 (press 1 for Guest Visit issues); Olive Garden: email, 800-331-2729; Outback: email, 757-493-7662; Red Lobster: email, 800-LOBSTER.

For a comprehensive A-to-F breakdown from Men's Health on 30 other chain restaurants, see the complete Eat This, Not That! For Kids Restaurant Report Card. Or check out the adult versions of the Restaurant Report Cards here.

Will Calories on the Menu Change Your Eating Habits?

2008-07-16T19:19:00.000-07:00

First New York City passed a law requiring fast food places to post calories of their foods on the menu....then it was amended to include ANY chain restaurants with 15 or more locations.
Most of these places have had nutrition information available in pamphlets for years, and subsequently posted online. For example:
Blimpie
McDonald's
Panda Express
Starbucks Beveragesand Food
Now other cities are thinking about following the example of NYC. Why? Because obesity is fast becoming the nation's number ONE health problem (now that smoking has been banned in most all public places).

Today MSNBC posted an interesting article about the effect of calorie information on the menu? Will it open up some eyes and show the public WHY we're getting heavier? It's not the "carbs", it's not the "fat", it's not the "high fructose corn syrup"; IT'S THE CALORIES!!!!

New Yorkers try to swallow calorie sticker shock
600 calorie muffins? The first city to adopt law faces unappetizing surprises
By Roni Caryn Rabin, MSNBC contributor, Wed July 16, 2008

Nora Cara was flabbergasted.

She was about to order her usual morning coffee and muffin at Dunkin’ Donuts when she saw the new calorie labels. The chocolate chip muffin she had her eye on was 630 calories.

“I was blown away,” said Cara, a 27-year-old homemaker from Forest Hills in New York City. “I’m not a no-carb type of person, and I usually don’t even think about it. But you pick up a little muffin with your coffee, and it has 630 calories in it? That’s a bit extreme!”

New Yorkers have been in the throes of sticker shock since this spring when the Big Apple became the first city in the country to implement a law forcing chain restaurants to post the calorie count of each food in the same size and font as the price.

Restaurants have not exhausted their legal challenges, but the city will start fining violators up to $2,000 beginning Friday, say officials with the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

While some sit-down chains and fast-food eateries are waiting until the last minute, coffee shops like Starbucks — home of the 470 calorie raspberry scone and 610 calorie cookie — have been replacing their menu boards and adding calorie tags to pastries in recent weeks. The result: Do a little eavesdropping in a New York City restaurant, and you may think you’ve stumbled into an Overeaters Anonymous meeting.

At T.G.I. Friday’s, one of the few sit-down chain restaurants to have already added calorie counts to menus, a group of young women gasped as they studied the menu, barely able to find a meal under 1,000 calories, never mind an appetizer or dessert. Both Stephanie Fowler and Lindsay Green asked about the suddenly popular Classic Sirloin — at 290 calories, it was one of the lowest calorie items on the menu — but learned the restaurant ran out by the time the dinner rush started.

Outside the Forest Hills’ Dunkin’ Donuts, Juan Restrepo, the 45-year-old owner of a construction company, said he was quitting corn muffins — 510 calories! — this time for good.

“My daughter warned me about them,” he lamented. “I just didn’t listen.”

Preventing diabetes
Putting the brakes on thoughtlessly inhaling calories is exactly the effect New York City health officials hoped the law would have. They say calorie labels could reduce the number of obese New Yorkers by 150,000 over the next five years, and prevent 30,000 cases of diabetes.

New York is not the only city pushing calorie labels. New laws in Seattle and California’s Santa Clara and San Francisco are scheduled to go into effect later this year, including some more stringent than New York’s, requiring restaurants to post information about sodium, carbs, fats and cholesterol in addition to calories.

Such laws have faced stiff opposition and legal challenges from the restaurant industry. A judge struck down New York City’s first calorie labeling law, which would only have applied to fast food restaurants that were already making calorie information available on Web sites or posters. The law was then revised to apply to all chain restaurants with 15 or more outlets nationwide.

“We’re still in court, but the ruling is in effect,” said New York City health department spokeswoman Jessica Scaperotti. Fines for the restaurants who haven't posted calorie counts by Friday will range from $200 to $2,000 depending on the violation, she said.

Scaperotti said she didn't know what impact the calorie labels have made on consumer choices or sales. But, she said, “We know nutritional information is effective. If you go to the Starbucks near our office in lower Manhattan, the little cookies that are 80 calories each — they’re the first ones to go.”

1,360 calorie salad
Many New Yorkers are finding that even the foods they thought were lower calorie really aren’t. Vicki Freedman, who lives in Manhattan, watches her weight and always tries to choose a light option when eating out. But the 26 year old just discovered that the Friday’s pecan-crusted chicken salad, served with mandarin oranges, dried cranberries and celery, has 1,360 calories.

“That surprised me the most because they market it as a healthy option,” she said. “It’s like false advertising. You think it’s better than the burger and the fries. It’s misleading.” (The cheeseburger served with fries is, indeed, 1,290 calories.)

Meals ordered at sit-down chain restaurants may have more calories than typical takeout fast-food, nutritionists say, because the portions are often larger and an entrée can be served on a plate smothered with French fries. In a takeout restaurant, the fries have to fit into a container, which limits the portion size.

Managers at some restaurants, including an Upper East Side Johnny Rocket’s and Outback Steakhouse, said new menus including calorie counts would be on tables by Friday, or shortly thereafter.

“We’re concerned,” acknowledged Eric Hagy, proprietor of Outback Steakhouse on Third Avenue in Manhattan. “I don’t know what effect it will have, but it will bring people’s attention to certain items that are high in calories, like the Bloomin’ Onion appetizer. It has over 2,000 calories, but it’s meant to be shared between two or three people.”

At a Starbucks on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, barista Bishoy Ayoub, 18, said he’s noticed many customers switching to smaller drinks or reduced-fat drinks since calorie labels were posted several months ago.

‘Take off the labels’
“Some people actually tell us we should take off the labels, because it discourages them from ordering what they want,” he said. “But I think honesty is the best policy.”

At a Wendy’s nearby, where calorie counts were just posted next to prices on the menu-boards behind the counter, customers didn’t flinch. “I figure I’ve got 1,350 calories here on my tray,” said Tristan Rowe, 26, who lives in Brooklyn, pointing to his lunch of a chicken club sandwich, junior bacon-cheeseburger, large fries and a large Coke (which actually added up to 1,680 calories). “It’s not going to change what I order — I’m not watching my waistline. I have a very active lifestyle.”

Despite the eye-opening revelations, whether New Yorkers will switch to lower calorie meals remains to be seen. They may just switch menus.

That’s what Fowler, the woman who was dining recently with her friends at T.G.I. Friday's, decided to do.

“I’m so upset,” she said, noting some entrees — like the Jack Daniels ribs and shrimp dinner — contain almost 2,000 calories, and the desserts were more of the same (the brownie obsession is 1,500 calories). “I wish they wouldn’t have done this.”

But then Fowler noticed that the waiter had handed her friend an old menu, which didn’t have calorie counts on it.

“You got a menu without anything on it?” she asked her friend. “Can I have yours?”

Roni Caryn Rabin is a health writer who lives in New York City.

© 2008 MSNBC Interactive
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25464987/

Food Records = Weight Loss Success

2008-07-08T07:49:00.000-07:00

Myself and many other nutrition experts have been saying this for years - keeping a food journal helps people lose weight. Anne Fletcher, MS RD LD wrote about this tool in "Thin for Life" back in 1994. I've often recommended her books for people working on weight management.

Here's the Reuters article published on Yahoo News this morning. When the actual research article is available, I'll link it.

Study shows value of food diary in losing weight

By Will Dunham
Tue Jul 8, 3:25 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Keeping a food diary -- a detailed account of what you eat and drink and the calories it packs -- is a powerful tool in helping people lose weight, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

The study involving 1,685 middle-aged men and women over six months found those who kept such a diary just about every day lost about twice as much weight as those who did not.

The findings buttressed earlier research that endorsed the value of food diaries in helping people lose weight. Companies including Weight Watchers International Inc use food diaries in their weight-loss programs.

"For those who are working on weight loss, just writing down everything you eat is a pretty powerful technique," Victor Stevens of Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research in Portland said in a telephone interview.

"It helps the participants see where the extra calories are coming from, and then develop more specific plans to deal with those situations," said Stevens, who helped lead the study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

The technique also helps hold dieters accountable for what they are eating, Stevens said.

The study involved people from four U.S. cities: Portland, Oregon; Baltimore, Maryland; Durham, North Carolina; and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Their average weight loss was about 13 pounds (6 kg). But those keeping food diaries six or seven days a week lost about 18 pounds (8 kg) compared to 9 pounds (4 kg) for those not regularly keeping a food diary.

The average age of people in the study was 55.

They were asked to eat less fat, more vegetables, fruit and whole grains, exercise 180 minutes a week mostly by walking, attend group meetings, and keep a detailed food diary.

Blacks made up 44 percent of the people in the study. The researchers noted that blacks Americans have a higher risk than whites for conditions linked to obesity including type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

"Keeping a food diary doesn't have to be a formal thing. Just the act of scribbling down what you eat on a Post-It note, sending yourself e-mails tallying each meal or sending yourself a text message will suffice," Dr. Keith Bachman, another Kaiser Permanente expert, said in a statement.

Japan, Seeking Trim Waists, Measures Millions

2008-06-13T12:56:00.000-07:00

From the NY Times June 13, 2008
By NORIMITSU ONISHI

AMAGASAKI, Japan — Japan, a country not known for its overweight people, has undertaken one of the most ambitious campaigns ever by a nation to slim down its citizenry.

Summoned by the city of Amagasaki one recent morning, Minoru Nogiri, 45, a flower shop owner, found himself lining up to have his waistline measured. With no visible paunch, he seemed to run little risk of being classified as overweight, or metabo, the preferred word in Japan these days.

But because the new state-prescribed limit for male waistlines is a strict 33.5 inches, he had anxiously measured himself at home a couple of days earlier. “I’m on the border,” he said.

Under a national law that came into effect two months ago, companies and local governments must now measure the waistlines of Japanese people between the ages of 40 and 74 as part of their annual checkups. That represents more than 56 million waistlines, or about 44 percent of the entire population.

Those exceeding government limits — 33.5 inches for men and 35.4 inches for women, which are identical to thresholds established in 2005 for Japan by the International Diabetes Federation as an easy guideline for identifying health risks — and having a weight-related ailment will be given dieting guidance if after three months they do not lose weight. If necessary, those people will be steered toward further re-education after six more months.

To reach its goals of shrinking the overweight population by 10 percent over the next four years and 25 percent over the next seven years, the government will impose financial penalties on companies and local governments that fail to meet specific targets. The country’s Ministry of Health argues that the campaign will keep the spread of diseases like diabetes and strokes in check.

The ministry also says that curbing widening waistlines will rein in a rapidly aging society’s ballooning health care costs, one of the most serious and politically delicate problems facing Japan today. Most Japanese are covered under public health care or through their work. Anger over a plan that would make those 75 and older pay more for health care brought a parliamentary censure motion Wednesday against Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, the first against a prime minister in the country’s postwar history.

But critics say that the government guidelines — especially the one about male waistlines — are simply too strict and that more than half of all men will be considered overweight. The effect, they say, will be to encourage overmedication and ultimately raise health care costs.

Yoichi Ogushi, a professor at Tokai University’s School of Medicine near Tokyo and an expert on public health, said that there was “no need at all” for the Japanese to lose weight.

“I don’t think the campaign will have any positive effect. Now if you did this in the United States, there would be benefits, since there are many Americans who weigh more than 100 kilograms,” or about 220 pounds, Mr. Ogushi said. “But the Japanese are so slender that they can’t afford to lose weight.”

Mr. Ogushi was actually a little harder on Americans than they deserved. A survey by the National Center for Health Statistics found that the average waist size for Caucasian American men was 39 inches, a full inch lower than the 40-inch threshold established by the International Diabetes Federation. American women did not fare as well, with an average waist size of 36.5 inches, about two inches above their threshold of 34.6 inches. The differences in thresholds reflected variations in height and body type from Japanese men and women.

Comparable figures for the Japanese are sketchy since waistlines have not been measured officially in the past. But private research on thousands of Japanese indicates that the average male waistline falls just below the new government limit.

That fact, widely reported in the media, has heightened the anxiety in the nation’s health clinics.

In Amagasaki, a city in western Japan, officials have moved aggressively to measure waistlines in what the government calls special checkups. The city had to measure at least 65 percent of the 40- to 74-year-olds covered by public health insurance, an “extremely difficult” goal, acknowledged Midori Noguchi, a city official.

When his turn came, Mr. Nogiri, the flower shop owner, entered a booth where he bared his midriff, exposing a flat stomach with barely discernible love handles. A nurse wrapped a tape measure around his waist across his belly button: 33.6 inches, or 0.1 inch over the limit.

“Strikeout,” he said, defeat spreading across his face.

The campaign started a couple of years ago when the Health Ministry began beating the drums for a medical condition that few Japanese had ever heard of — metabolic syndrome — a collection of factors that heighten the risk of developing vascular disease and diabetes. Those include abdominal obesity, high blood pressure and high levels of blood glucose and cholesterol. In no time, the scary-sounding condition was popularly shortened to the funny-sounding metabo, and it has become the nation’s shorthand for overweight.

The mayor of one town in Mie, a prefecture near here, became so wrapped up in the anti-metabo campaign that he and six other town officials formed a weight-loss group called “The Seven Metabo Samurai.” That campaign ended abruptly after a 47-year-old member with a 39-inch waistline died of a heart attack while jogging.

Still, at a city gym in Amagasaki recently, dozens of residents — few of whom appeared overweight — danced to the city’s anti-metabo song, which warned against trouser buttons popping and flying away, “pyun-pyun-pyun!”

“Goodbye, metabolic. Let’s get our checkups together. Go! Go! Go!

Goodbye, metabolic. Don’t wait till you get sick. No! No! No!”

The word metabo has made it easier for health care providers to urge their patients to lose weight, said Dr. Yoshikuni Sakamoto, a physician in the employee health insurance union at Matsushita, which makes Panasonic products.

“Before we had to broach the issue with the word obesity, which definitely has a negative image,” Dr. Sakamoto said. “But metabo sounds much more inclusive.”

Even before Tokyo’s directives, Matsushita had focused on its employees’ weight during annual checkups. Last summer, Akio Inoue, 30, an engineer carrying 238 pounds on a 5-foot-7 frame, was told by a company doctor to lose weight or take medication for his high blood pressure. After dieting, he was down to 182 pounds, but his waistline was still more than one inch over the state-approved limit.

With the new law, Matsushita has to measure the waistlines of not only its employees but also of their families and retirees. As part of its intensifying efforts, the company has started giving its employees “metabo check” towels that double as tape measures.

“Nobody will want to be singled out as metabo,” Kimiko Shigeno, a company nurse, said of the campaign. “It’ll have the same effect as non-smoking campaigns where smokers are now looked at disapprovingly.”

Companies like Matsushita must measure the waistlines of at least 80 percent of their employees. Furthermore, they must get 10 percent of those deemed metabolic to lose weight by 2012, and 25 percent of them to lose weight by 2015.

NEC, Japan’s largest maker of personal computers, said that if it failed to meet its targets, it could incur as much as $19 million in penalties. The company has decided to nip metabo in the bud by starting to measure the waistlines of all its employees over 30 years old and by sponsoring metabo education days for the employees’ families.

Some experts say the government’s guidelines on everything from waistlines to blood pressure are so strict that meeting, or exceeding, those targets will be impossible. They say that the government’s real goal is to shift health care costs onto the private sector.

Dr. Minoru Yamakado, an official at the Japan Society of Ningen Dock, an association of doctors who administer physical exams, said he endorsed the government’s campaign and its focus on preventive medicine.

But he said that the government’s real priority should be to reduce smoking rates, which remain among the highest among advanced nations, in large part because of Japan’s powerful tobacco lobby.

“Smoking is even one of the causes of metabolic syndrome,” he said. “So if you’re worried about metabo, stopping people from smoking should be your top priority.”

Despite misgivings, though, Japan is pushing ahead.

Kizashi Ohama, an official in Matsuyama, a city that has also acted aggressively against metabo, said he would leave the debate over the campaign’s merits to experts and health officials in Tokyo.

At Matsuyama’s public health clinic, Kinichiro Ichikawa, 62, said the government-approved 33.5-inch male waistline was “severe.” He is 5-foot-4, weighs only 134 pounds and knows no one who is overweight.

“Japan shouldn’t be making such a fuss about this,” he said before going off to have his waistline measured.

But on a shopping strip here, Kenzo Nagata, 73, a toy store owner, said he had ignored a letter summoning him to a so-called special checkup. His waistline was no one’s business but his own, he said, though he volunteered that, at 32.7 inches, it fell safely below the limit. He planned to disregard the second notice that the city was scheduled to mail to the recalcitrant.

“I’m not going,” he said. “I don’t think that concerns me.”

Is soda bad for bones?

2008-06-03T06:31:00.000-07:00

by EatingWell Magazine, on Wed May 28, 2008 7:26am PDT

Research shows you might want to think before you drink.
By Joyce Hendley, EatingWell May/June 2008

1. There’s research that links drinking certain types of soda with weaker bones—but carbonation doesn’t seem to be the problem.

2. Nutrition experts once believed caffeine could be the culprit. In a 2001 study out of Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, people lost measurable amounts of calcium after drinking caffeinated sodas. Drinking decaffeinated sodas didn’t appear to have the same effect. As it turned out, though, people tended to make up for the losses by excreting less calcium later in the day. The researchers concluded that if sodas harm bones it’s probably because people drink them in place of milk. (Make sure you’re getting enough calcium with these delicious calcium-rich recipes.)

3. But another study, reported in 2006 by researchers at Tufts University in Boston, suggests that colas, specifically, might be problematic. Among the 1,413 women whose dietary records and bone-density scans they reviewed, those who drank a diet or regular cola at least three times a week over five years had significantly lower bone densities than those who sipped cola once a month or less. No such effect occurred with other carbonated drinks, even after researchers factored in intake of calcium from foods.

The likely cause? Phosphoric acid, which is unique to colas, says Katherine Tucker, Ph.D., lead author of the study. When the body breaks down this compound, the acidity (or concentration of free hydrogen ions) of the blood increases. To neutralize acidity, hydrogen ions bind with minerals, including calcium and magnesium. If they’re not available in the blood, says Tucker, “the body draws calcium from bones.” The occasional cola drinker probably needn’t worry. “The real risk is for those who drink cola every day,” says Tucker.

Bottom line: There are plenty of good reasons to quit a regular soda habit; carbonation isn’t one of them. In fact, sparkling mineral waters sometimes contain a little calcium and magnesium, says Tucker, “so they might even benefit bones.”

Here's a refreshing and low-calorie alternative to sugar-laden sodas:

Raspberry Spritzer
Makes 2 servings

2 cups seltzer
2/3 cup frozen raspberries
2 sprigs fresh mint
3 ounces raspberry-flavored syrup or Chambord
Ice cubes

Click here for More Healthy Summer Drinks from EatingWell Magazine

Top Foods for Men & Women

2008-03-23T19:48:00.000-07:00

Last month I was approached by a local news affiliate to do a food segment on a weekend morning. Tired of same advice about “eating more fruits and vegetables” or “low fat foods”, the news anchor asked me to come up with my top 5 foods for men & women. She wanted specific, and she wanted sexy.

So, in no particular order, I present my list and a brief explanation for these choices. Remember, I could have done a Top 10 or even Top 20. Individual dietary needs vary – this list is a very general recommendation. Please check with your own health care provider before making any drastic changes in your own diet.

For Women:

Yogurt

For your bones and your gut - definitely a great source of dietary calcium – which has been positively linked to increased metabolism as well as increased bone mineral density.

The presence of pro-biotics (live active cultures) help repopulated the gut with human friendly bacteria – especially important after a course of antibiotics.

For more information, "The Benefits of Yogurt" MedicineNet.com (c) 2008 WebMD.

Walnuts

A great source of fiber, protein and monounsaturated fats. Walnuts are the only nut that has a significant source of omega 3 fatty acids that are good for cardiovascular health. A small portion (1/4 cup) with fruit makes a great snack with a low glycemic index (slower to raise blood sugars).
For more information, “Walnuts & Heart Health” Walnut Marketing Board.

Green Apples

For lowering your cholesterol and for shrinking your waistline - While it might just be a fad, eating a green apple before a meal will help quell appetite. It couldn’t hurt. One small apple is about 60 calories. Maybe it’s the smell. A preliminary study done by Alan R. Hirsch, MD found that sniffing apple-, bananas-, or mint-scents throughout the day produced an average weight loss of 35 lbs over six months. Or maybe it’s the fiber (which also helps lower cholesterol) filling you up so there is less room for other foods.

For more information, “Outwitting Your Appetite” ConsumerReports.org Sep 2004

Edamame (Soy Beans)

For heart health the wonderful soy bean. A half cup is only 100 calories, has 8 g protein and 4 g dietary fiber. It is also a great source of essential fatty acids and isoflavones. They can be eaten hot or cold, and make a great snack. The soluble fiber helps lower cholesterol.

For more information, FDA Consumer Magazine May-June 2000

Dark Chocolate

For your heart, your brain, and your taste buds - the cocoa bean contains the same antioxidants and flavonoids found in green tea, blueberries, and red wine. Many small short term studies have noted improved cardiovascular fitness and lower blood pressure in subjects given 1-3 oz dark chocolate per day. Remember, that is about 150-500 calories.

Look for chocolate that is at least 40% cocoa solids. Darker versions (55, 65 and even 70%) are now available in the US. If you are more familiar with eating milk chocolate (usually only 10-25% cocoa solids) you will taste more of the bitter chocolate essence in the darker versions.

For more information, “Dark Chocolate is Healthy Chocolate” from WebMD Aug 27, 2003.

For Men:

Salmon

Cold water fish is an excellent source of Omega 3 fatty acids. Salmon is also a good source of protein without the high saturated fat content of beef or pork. Touted for years by the American Heart Association, including sources of omega 3 fatty acids in the diet appear to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease.

For more information, “Omega-3 in fish: How eating fish helps your heart” MayoClinic.com Jan 2007

Tomato Sauce

Lycopene (a chemical that acts like an antioxidant and gives tomatoes, grapefruit and other fruits their red color) may be the secret to lowering the risk of prostate cancer. A study (published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Dec. 19, 2001) from the University of Illinois at Chicago found that a daily dish of pasta & tomato sauce significant lowered the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level in 32 men in just three weeks.

For more information, “Men, Go Heavy on the (Tomato) Sauce” HealthAtoZ.com June 2007

Blueberries

Blueberries are a great source of antioxidents like Vitamin C and resveratrol (also found in red wine and grapes), fiber, and even cholesterol lowering compounds. When fresh fruit is not available locally, try the frozen berries. Pour a ½ cup over your cereal, layer with yogurt in a dessert parfait or mix into a fruit smoothie.

For more information, “Inside blueberries, a cholesterol buster” MSNBC Aug 2004

Oatmeal

It’s long been known that the soluble fiber found in oats help lower cholesterol. The FDA approved a heart-health claim for oatmeal back in 1997. Now we see that there are antioxidants in oats that have anti-inflammatory properties and the whole grains may decrease blood pressure, and the lower glycemic index in the slow cooked oats is a good choice for diabetics.

For more information, “Heartier Benefits Seen From Oatmeal” WebMD Jan 2008

Pumpkin Pie

Dr Alan Hirsh’s research on scent and mood supported the theory that the smell of baked cinnamon buns or pumpkin pie boosted penile blood flow. The studies done at the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago were first published in 1998.

Pumpkin is low in calories and a good source of beta-carotene and fiber.

For more information, “Aphrodisiac Food” MedicineNet.com Jan 2005
and “Pumpkin Nutrition” University of Illinois Extension

French Fries are not Real Food

2007-12-23T08:42:00.000-08:00

First, a little background for fried potatoes, aka "chips" by our friends in the UK.

Here in the US, most of our fried potato strips are from a few large scale potato farmers, are processed in a central location, flash fried and then chilled, bagged, and shipped to the fast food restaurant of your choice.
In-and-Out Burger cuts their own potatoes fresh and fries them up on demand in their various locations. You can definately taste the difference.

Nutritionally, fried potato strips are a poor choice. High in calories & fat, low in other nutrients. As a comparison, the potato itself (before cut & deep fat fried) is a powerhouse of complex carbohydrate, vitamin C, and fiber.

As for preference in flavor (a combination of the taste of salt, sweet, sour & bitter - cause you can't taste the fat) and the aroma (fat carries all the smells - remember way back when McD's cooked in beef tallow???? you could smell those fries a mile away); I like the steak fries (thicker cut) and used to enjoy Fatburger's version (before I made a valient attempt to give up fries completely this year).

So, how has my attempt to give up this non-nutrative food gone this year? Not too bad. I think in the past 9 months I have had an order of fries 4 times (I had a really bad week at work and fell into some old habits in the Wendy's drive-thru).

How to Cheat on a Diet [HUMOR]

2007-11-15T17:46:00.000-08:00

1. If you eat something and no one sees you eat it, it has no calories.

2. If you drink a diet soda with a candy bar, the calories in the candy bar are cancelled out by the diet soda.

3. When you eat with someone else, calories don't count if you don't eat more than they do.

4. Food used for medicinal purposes NEVER count, such as hot chocolate, brandy, toast and Sara Lee Cheesecake.

5. If you fatten up everyone else around you, then you look thinner.

6. Movie related foods (Milk Duds, Buttered Popcorn, Junior Mints, Red Hots, Tootsie Rolls, etc.) do not have additional calories because they are part of the entertainment package and not part of one's personal fuel.

7. Broken cookie pieces contain no fat-- the process of breaking causes fat leakage.

8. Things licked off knives and spoons have no calories if you are in the process of preparing something. Examples are peanut butter on a knife making a sandwich and ice cream on a spoon making a sundae.

9. Foods that have the same color have the same number of calories. Examples are: spinach and pistachio ice cream; mushrooms and white chocolate. NOTE: Chocolate is a universal color and may be substituted for any other food color.

10. Foods that are frozen have no calories because calories are units of heat. Examples are ice cream, frozen pies, and Popsicles.

11. Foods eaten while watching a major event on television do not count. Major events include: Superbowl, Hockey Finals, Indy 500, Jerry Springer show.

12. Powerbars and other type energy bars make you thinner. In all my years of exercising (at least three times a year) I have only seen thin people eating energy bars. Ergo (therefore) they must make you thin.

13. Snickers is the same as an energy bar (see #12)

14. Tasting other people's food does not add to your calorie count.

15. Containers of food that list the number of servings as greater one are lying. Every container includes one serving. Half gallon of ice cream, box of cereal, bottle of soda, bag of chips are all one serving.

Found on numerous websites and posted on various office walls all over the place. These steps are not to be considered medical or nutritional advice. When starting any diet plan, please check with your personal physician for safety, and check with your personal dietitian for efficacy & appropriateness.

10 Ways to Lose Weight Without Dieting

2007-08-15T09:51:00.000-07:00

This entry adapted from the following article:
Simple changes to your lifestyle can help you lose weight and keep it off.
By Kathleen M. Zelman, MPH, RD, LD WebMD Weight Loss Clinic-Feature

"Sure, you can lose weight quickly. There are plenty of fad diets that work to shed pounds rapidly -- while leaving you feeling hungry and deprived. But what good is losing weight only to regain it? To keep pounds off permanently, it's best to lose weight slowly. And many experts say you can do that without going on a "diet." Instead, the key is making simple tweaks to your lifestyle."

Kathleen listed 10 key tips. Here are my ideas for each. Read the article for her recommendations.

Eat Breakfast Every Day. Most important meal of the day - gets your metabolism rolling so you are burning more calories throughout the day. Make it balanced - include a small amount of lean protein.
Close the Kitchen at Night. Least important time to eat - think about all those calories you are adding that won't get used (your metabolism is at it's lowest while you are sleeping).
Choose Liquid Calories Wisely. A 12 oz soda = 150 calories (for some of us that is 10% of our total daily needs). And juice? I call it "soda pop without the bubbles" (it's really not much more than sugar & water). Even "natural" or those made with your own "juicer" don't include the pulp & fiber.
Eat More Produce. Fruits & vegetables are nature's low fat, high fiber, low calorie, high micronutrients (the benefits go on and on) food. Eating your fruits & vegetables is much healthier than drinking (unless you use a blender so the entire piece of produce is included in your smoothie). Your goal? Start with 5 a day (usually 1/2 cup = 1 serving) and aim for 10!
Go for the Grain. Whole grains, that is. High fiber, complex carbohydrate (i.e. ENERGY) foods with vitamins & minerals. When looking at labels, the magic word is not "wheat", it's "WHOLE" grain. Try something new like quinoa or barley.
Control Your Environments. If it isn't in your house, then it's less likely to be tempting you late at night. And if you find yourself driving through the fast food place on your way home? Change the route you drive to avoid it.
Trim Portions. Serve your meals on smaller plates. Dig out those measuring cups and check yourself against the recommendations from the National Institutes of Health. Take the NHLBI Portion Distortion Quiz.
Add More Steps. Have you tried a pedometer to check how many steps you walk in a day - we should all strive for 10,000 every day. For more information, check out Shape Up America.
Have Protein at Every Meal and Snack. But you don't need a lot. Look at your hand. That is all the average person (about 6-8 oz) needs in the whole day! Adding a lean protein source to your meals & snacks help delay stomach emptying & slow down the postfood rise in blood glucose; giving you more steady energy and keeping you feeling full longer (satiety). Ideas? You get the equivalent of 1 oz protein in 1 egg, 1 Tbsp peanut butter, 1 lite cheese stick, 1 oz almonds, 1 oz lean deli meat, 1 small skinless chicken leg, 6-8 oz lite yogurt, etc.
Switch to Lighter Alternatives. Lower fat options like skim or 1% milk. Lower fat salad dressings. Skipping the cheese on the sandwich. Even a few calories saved can add up.

How Much Caffeine Are You Drinking?

2007-08-14T07:39:00.000-07:00

Seen on FOX News this morning: Overdose drama of girl who had 14 cups of espresso.

Yeoz drinks 14 shots daily. But he's a big guy.

Some information about caffeine:

http://health.howstuffworks.com/caffeine.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine

http://www.stanford.edu/~johnbrks/theCafe/substance/caffeine.html

2007-06-11T18:16:00.000-07:00

Keeping Your Fruits & Vegetables Safe

June 11, 2007 02:06 PM PDT

Food safety scares have become all too common. But there are some things you can do to make sure your produce is safe to eat. The Healthline 3 Team is watching out for you with tips on how to clean fruits and vegetables. Some of the information may surprise you.

A lot of people don't wash melon before cutting into it. But dietitian Holly Brewer says you should. "You know it's an interesting thing. A lot of people think because they're going to peel their melon they don't need to wash it. But there's a lot of dirt and there can be other things that can be on the outside of the rind and when you go to slice through it, whatever is on the outside is going to get on the inside."

Actually, Holly recommends that people wash all of their produce. And the FDA agrees. That means you should even wash bananas. "People think, 'I'm peeling the banana, I'm not touching it with my mouth, I don't need to wash it.' But your hands are touching the outside of the banana and you don't know where that banana's been."

But what about bagged lettuce that's labeled ready to eat? Holly says to be safe, you should wash that too. Along with peeled carrots. There are products available, to help you clean your produce. Or there's a cheaper alternative.

You can make your own rinse with ordinary dishwashing liquid. Use one teaspoon of soap for every gallon of lukewarm water you put in the sink. Or you can just use plain water. Then use a brush. Holly recommends using a soft brush on produce with a thin skin. And a brush with harder bristles on things like melon.

Holly tells us you should even clean produce that you're going to cook because heat doesn't kill all of the germs.

There is another safety tip for produce that's kept in the refrigerator. The FDA recommends that you keep the temperature in your fridge at 40 degrees or below.

Is "The Biggest Loser" the Answer?

2007-06-08T22:22:00.001-07:00

Published in Time Magazine May 31, 2007

Life as the Biggest Loser
Thursday, May. 31, 2007 By JULIE RAWE

"Forget Survivor and The Amazing Race and all the other reality shows that feature generally good-looking, generally physically fit people running around doing generally silly things. In our nation of overstuffed couch potatoes, The Biggest Loser hits closer to real reality by combining the TV genre's outlandishness and greed with the more mundane goal of shedding unwanted pounds. With its $250,000 grand prize and dramatic stories of weight loss, the show is a natural for the nation's chubby, if not huddled, masses yearning to breathe free without having to unbutton their pants after a meal. More than 100,000 people applied to be on the show's fourth season, now in production, and more than 5 million have had their diets assessed on the show's biggestloserclub.com

But while the message of the show is inspiring, it is also unrealistic. The Biggest Loser achieves rapid transformations--contestants often drop more than 20 lbs. in a week--through calorie restriction, endless exercise and no small amount of dehydration that occurs behind the scenes. Ryan Benson, 38, an actor who works for a DVD distributor in Los Angeles, lost 122 lbs. to win the first season in January 2005 but says he regained 32 lbs. within five days simply by drinking water. Matt Hoover, 31, a motivational speaker based in Seattle, had a 15-lb. rebound within a day of winning Season 2. Last season's runner-up, Kai Hibbard, 28, an aerobics instructor in Alaska who says she spent the night before her final weigh-in hopping in and out of a sauna for six hours, consumed only sugar-free Jell-O for several days and wolfed down asparagus, which is a natural diuretic. "It's amazing the things you learn in a weight-loss competition," she says.
The show tries to prevent unhealthy behavior by making contestants keep food journals (to make sure they're not starving themselves) and threatening penalties if tests show they are too dehydrated (although an executive producer says no violations have been uncovered yet). But like the $55 billion U.S. diet industry, The Biggest Loser places the bulk of its emphasis on shedding pounds rather than maintaining the loss. After all, a show called The Biggest Maintainer wouldn't have nearly the same zing. Contestants learn how to make healthy choices, but total-immersion exercise accounts for most of the weight loss. And it's not as hard to work out for four or more hours a day when urged on by professional trainers. It's also easier to resist high-calorie temptations when the cameras are rolling. Two and a half years after Benson's final weigh-in at 208 lbs., the new dad has slipped out of the spotlight and into old habits. "No one sees me get an apple pie in the drive-through," says Benson, whose weight now hovers at around 300 lbs.

Still, by keeping those last 30 lbs. off for more than a year, he's something of a rarity. The National Weight Control Registry, which tracks the habits of some 5,000 successful maintainers, cites a study showing only a fifth of dieters with a history of obesity sustain a loss of 10% of their body weight for a year or more. "The best predictor of the ones who are not going to regain are the ones who are doing the most physical activity," says Dr. Holly Wyatt, an obesity expert at the University of Colorado. She says most registrants exercise, on average, at least an hour a day.

Who has time for that? Kelly Minner, for one. The first-season runner-up dropped from 242 lbs. to 163 lbs. by the finale and now weighs 140 lbs. A school administrator in Bethlehem, Pa., Minner, 31, says she works out from one to four hours a day, six days a week. She exercises while watching TV--and did so throughout our phone interview. For motivation, she keeps a souvenir from the show in her office: a life-size photo of her old fat self. Other winners share this strategy. Hoover, who has gained 53 lbs. since November 2005, sees his cardboard cutout every day in his garage. Last season's winner, Erik Chopin, 37, who owns a deli in North Babylon, N.Y., and since December has put on 22 of the 214 lbs. he lost, keeps a photo on his fridge taken when he weighed 407 lbs.

The Biggest Loser added a more realistic component last season when 36 of its 50 contestants competed from home sans trainer. "They really got none of the bells and whistles," says the show's physician, Dr. Robert Huizenga. Well, almost none: they were still eligible to be tapped for the main show, and the at-home winner got $50,000. If the producers proceed with plans for a reunion episode this fall, it will be interesting to see how the contestants have fared since they went off camera and stopped racing for a cash reward.
----------------------------------

Reality TV shows are not real life. The key to lifetime wellness is healthy food choices and regular exercise (cardiovascular workouts, resistence training, and stretching) along with stress reduction activities. Make your life one of more movement and less sitting. More fruits & vegetables and less non-nutritional junk foods. More quiet time and less noisy pollution filled time.

Additional Links:

National Weight Control Registry
Kelly Minner's Story (on Jillian Michael's site)
NBC The Biggest Loser
10,000 Steps a Day to Your Optimal Weight
James O. Hill, PhD (Director, Center for Human Nutrition, University of Colorado at Denver)

2007-05-03T21:15:00.000-07:00

What Happened To Ariel?

2007-05-03T19:43:00.000-07:00

This story aired on Dateline (NBC), Sunday January 29, 2006.

Here is a transcript - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11092139/

This hits close to home since I am a certified diabetes educator. We teach "If your child vomits, doesn't matter what you think the cause, you check for ketones. If moderate to large, you call the doctor".

Doesn't matter how much insulin is in the home, if it isn't used, it doesn't work. And it is only good for 1 month after the bottle is opened. So open bottles around the home doesn't mean that it's being used (they could be "old").

Yes, you can "cheat" (sneaking candy and eating/drinking excessive carbs) enough to keep blood glucose elevated. But if you are checking blood glucose and providing the appropriate coverage, then you can keep out of ketoacidosis. And we teach families how to give extra insulin when blood glucose level is higher than target, or when someone wants to eat extra carbs.

Children with diabetes shouldn't die from diabetic ketoacidosis if their family is monitoring blood glucose and providing insulin.

For more information:

www.diabetes.org

www.childrenwithdiabetes.com

www.jdrf.org

www.diabetesnv.org

http://www.dlife.com/