Weight Loss and Nutrition News

SARASOTA, Fla., Oct. 30 (UPI) -- A cinnamon extract reduces oxidative stress associated with the metabolic syndrome linked to diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, a U.S. study found.

The placebo-controlled, double-blind study was designed to determine both the antioxidant and insulin-like activity of a water-based cinnamon extract on people with impaired insulin function.

Twenty-four participants with impaired fasting glucose were given either a placebo or 250 mg of Cinnulin PF twice daily for 12 weeks. The Cinnulin PF group saw a significant increase in two measures that determine antioxidant activity, including ferric reducing ability of plasma and plasma SH. Additionally, the cinnamon group demonstrated a decrease in malondialdehde showing heart health protection. No changes were observed in the placebo group, according to study leader Dr. Anne-Marie Rousel.

ST. LOUIS, Oct. 30 (UPI) -- U.S. adults who recently ate at a casual dining restaurant said in a survey that they are eating less fried food and less red meat.

The online survey, conducted by Maritz Research, of nearly 1,900 Americans who recently ate at a casual dining restaurant found when given a choice between food that is grilled or fried, 87 percent said they preferred their food grilled.

The survey also revealed that 36 percent said they were eating less red meat compared to five years ago, while 8 percent said they were eating more red meat.

but any salmon is better than junk food.

Here's interesting research about the high level of toxic metals found in farmed salmon compared to wild salmon. It's unfortunate that the headlines are ablaze with this news, since eating salmon is such a healthy way to get Omega-3 fatty acids into your diet, but it's also worth pointing out that salmon raised in captivity are not the same as salmon raised in wild.

Winter squash, with colors that range from orange and green to yellow and white, certainly look festive. Along with close relative the pumpkin, squash remains a quintessential fall vegetable. But beyond gathering the bright-colored beauties in a seasonal display, what can you do with them?

One thing you have to do — if you want them for more than their good looks — is cook them.

Unlike their thin-skinned, summer squash cousins — zucchini, pattypan or yellow crookneck — most winter squash has a thick, tough rind that protects a firm, sweet, often brightly colored interior, one that must be seeded and cooked.

LAWRENCE, Kan. - It's hard to tell what's actually healthy for you to eat these days. As soon as there is evidence of something having health benefits, the media grabs hold of it and spins it out of control.

After researchers found that diets rich in whole grains reduced incidence of heart disease, diabetes, obesity and some forms of cancer, every food company came out with "whole grain" foods. There are now whole grain cookies, Goldfish, chips, cereals and more.

This all sounds great, but how healthy can they be?

NEW YORK - There are plenty of things in Kentucky Fried Chicken that are bad for your health — cholesterol, saturated fat and salt, to name a few. But only one has the potential to get the colonel’s recipe banned in New York City.

That ingredient is artificial trans fatty acids, which are so common that the average American eats 4.7 pounds a year, according to the Food and Drug Administration. City health officials say these so-called trans fats are so unhealthy they belong in the same category as food spoiled by rodent droppings.

On Monday, the Board of Health will hold its first public hearing on a proposal to make New York the first U.S. city to ban restaurants from serving food containing artificial trans fats.

Background: Islet transplantation offers the potential to improve glycemic control in a subgroup of patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus who are disabled by refractory hypoglycemia. We conducted an international, multicenter trial to explore the feasibility and reproducibility of islet transplantation with the use of a single common protocol (the Edmonton protocol).

Methods: We enrolled 36 subjects with type 1 diabetes mellitus, who underwent islet transplantation at nine international sites. Islets were prepared from pancreases of deceased donors and were transplanted within 2 hours after purification, without culture. The primary end point was defined as insulin independence with adequate glycemic control 1 year after the final transplantation.

Good health isn't just in the details, but small things can certainly add up.

Eat 100 calories extra a day and you could weigh 10 pounds more at the end of the year. Wearing the same shoes every day can strain your body. Regular exposure to subway noise can not only affect your hearing, but also raise your blood pressure and levels of stress hormones. A poorly organized workspace can result in back and neck discomfort that shouldn't be ignored.

"Those little aches and pains — that's your body telling you something isn't right," says Alan Hedge, Ph.D., professor of ergonomics at Cornell University.

“The driving force in our eating habits has always been convenience," said report author and NPD Vice President Harry Balzer. "The only surprise is how that will manifest in our behavior."

A brilliant article revealing the hidden motives of the FDA that caused 24 warning letter to small nutrition remedies and the following campaign against "small fish" on the nutrition market.

"The last victims were cherry farmers, terrorized for quoting solid science that cherries may help people reduce inflammation and pain without any side effects."

The FDA is trying to distract the public, portraying themselves as effective while they continue to this day to allow thousands of Americans to be injured and die in the name of profits for Bayer.

Read below the whole article.

Summertime treats of tomorrow might include a chilled slice of gooseberry pie, made with a luscious new, dark-red gooseberry called "Jeanne." Scientists with the ARS National Clonal Germplasm Repository, Corvallis, Ore., made the berry available to other researchers and to plant nurseries for the first time this year, following more than 12 years of lab, greenhouse and outdoor tests.

Jeanne gooseberry plants each produce about 3 pounds of sweet, good-sized fruit every year—an impressive harvest that should please commercial growers and backyard gardeners alike.

Whether sold fresh or processed into frozen potato products, Blazer Russet potato is a top-quality tuber. The oblong, medium-to-large veggie weighs in at about seven to eight ounces and has the characteristic light netting, or russeting, on its brown-to-tan skin, with firm, cream-white or white flesh inside.

ARS scientists at Aberdeen, Idaho, and their University of Idaho, Washington State University and Oregon State University colleagues put the tuber through nearly two decades of rigorous laboratory, field and test-kitchen scrutiny before deciding in December 2005 to make this experimental potato a named variety.

Blazer Russet is ready to harvest at about the same time as the popular, early-maturing Shepody potato. But Blazer provides higher yields of premium, U.S. No. 1 potatoes.

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Besides adding their distinctive flavors and textures to salads, soups, burgers—and more—mushrooms also give us key nutrients like copper, potassium, folate and niacin. New nutrient data for seven different kinds of mushrooms—crimini, enoki, maitake, oyster, portabella, shiitake and white button—are now available on the World Wide Web at: www.ars.usda.gov/nutrientdata as part of the USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 19.

ARS scientists at the Beltsville (Md.) Human Nutrition Research Center led the mushroom-data-gathering project, which was funded in part by the Mushroom Council, Dublin, Calif.

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Experimental washes, also called antibrowning dips, for freshly sliced apples show promise for keeping the fruit safe to eat, while at the same time protecting its appealing textures, flavors and colors (Food Microbiology, volume 21, pages 319 to 326). Laboratory experiments by ARS researchers based in Beltsville, Md., showed these protective effects in tests with freshly cut apple slices.

Today's calcium-ascorbate-based washes forestall browning but apparently don't knock out as extensive a range of unwanted microbes, according to the Maryland scientists. The newer formulations, not only kept the apple slices from browning, but also killed unwanted microbes.

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You can't hear the fruits and veggies in your refrigerator breathe, but they do. They take in oxygen and give off carbon dioxide. Pairing your fresh produce with a wrapping, or film, best suited to the fruit or veggie's respiratory needs enhances the length of time it will stay fresh and appealing, new tests confirm.

The wraps, newer versions of the familiar, clear-plastic films already used widely in home and commercial kitchens, act as modified-atmosphere packaging that regulates the flow of oxygen and carbon dioxide to and from packages of produce.

More than 60 percent of the 1,444 telephone respondents, all of whom had made significant efforts to lose weight, mistakenly said that such supplements have been tested and are proven to be safe (65 percent) and effective (63 percent).

Over half (54 percent) wrongly stated that such supplements are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Watermelon, besides being fun to eat, is an excellent source of lycopene--a red-pigmented antioxidant thought to guard against heart disease and some cancers.

Now, an ARS researcher based in Lane, Okla., has developed a new technique that makes it easier to extract lycopene from watermelon flesh and juice.

Users can avoid damaging the fragile membranes of the tiny structures—organelles—that protect the lycopene. This gentle approach yields lycopene that is more stable and thus has a longer shelf life.

Sweet, chewy dates provide healthful antioxidants—mostly the kind known as phenolics. But the levels of these compounds vary according to what variety of date you're eating, ARS and University of California-Davis scientists have found.

Deglet Noor dates, the leading commercial variety in the United States, logged a higher antioxidant score than five other types of dates grown in California, the nation's leading producer of this exotic crop.

Fresh blackberries contain a compound that may interfere with genes associated with cancer-promoting agents. The purified compound, cyanidin-3-glucoside (C3G), inhibited growth and spread of skin and lung tumors in tests with laboratory mice (Journal of Biological Chemistry, volume 281, pages 17359 to 17368).

The number and size of skin tumors were significantly reduced among mice that had been supplemented with C3G, when compared to those that had not, the scientists found. In another study, the growth of lung tumors and spread of the cancer to other organs were significantly reduced in immune-system-suppressed mice fed the C3G compound.

Scientists with ARS at Beltsville, Md., and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Morgantown, W.Va., collaborated in the research.

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Blueberries and strawberries may help slow the decline in learning and memory that often occurs as we age. That's according to new findings from tests with 60 laboratory rats, studied for about three months.

Rats in either of three groups of 20 each ate either a standard feed or feed with blueberry extract equal to that of a daily one-cup portion for humans, or feed with strawberry extract equal to a daily one-pint bowlful.

After two months on the regimens, half of the rats in each group were treated to induce aging. Compared to the aged rats on nonsupplemented feed, the aged-but-supplemented rats performed better in a test of their ability to find, and in some cases remember, a particular feature in their environment.

Already shown in some studies to reduce "bad" (LDL) cholesterol, walnuts may have yet another way of enhancing your cardiovascular health.

Tests on 100 laboratory hamsters that ate feed containing ground walnuts for a half-year showed they had significantly lower levels of a protein called endothelin in their arteries. This protein helps regulate blood pressure. But, it also causes inflammation of arteries and growth of sticky deposits, called plaque, in blood vessels. These two conditions contribute to heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States.

Diabetes is a fact of life for millions. According to figures from the American Diabetes Association, more than 17 million Americans are living with diabetes, and 16 million of them have type 2 (formerly known as adult onset diabetes).

Diabetes can cause health problems throughout the body, but those who have type 2 can do a lot about improving their own health by keeping a careful watch on their nutrition.

People with diabetes can live long, healthy lives if they take good care of themselves – particularly by controlling blood glucose levels through good nutrition.

BOSTON, Oct. 25 (UPI) -- Studies presented at a meeting of the Obesity Society in Boston have suggested that water helps weight loss and low-fat foods may hinder it.

The first study, which analyzed data from 240 overweight women, aged 25 to 50 and using popular carbohydrate-limiting diet plans, found that dieters who replaced all the sugary drinks in their diets with water lost an average of 5 pounds more a year than dieters who continued to consume the beverages, USA Today reported Wednesday.

By Madelyn Fernstrom, Ph.D., CNS

My column earlier this week on dieters who take prescription medications that aren’t approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for weight-loss purposes, “Quick-fix diet drugs: Effective or harmful?,” prompted many “Today” readers to ask if there are any diet aids that could make it easier for them to lose some extra pounds more manageable. Losing weight is really hard, and we’re all looking for ways to make it easier. Here are some of your thoughts and queries that I hope will help you add effective tools to what I called your “weight-loss toolbox.”

- study shows

There is more evidence that the American love affair with coffee is helping to reduce the risk of diabetes.

Drinking caffeinated coffee was found to reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by as much as 60% in a newly published study that included people at high risk for the disease.

Even those who used to drink coffee but quit were less likely to develop diabetes than those who never drank it.

The government is considering introducing a traffic-light colour coded system on packaging to indicate if a food is healthy.

The proposal was debated at a meeting of the Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council in Sydney, which was chaired by Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing, Christopher Pyne.

The council, which includes ministers responsible for food issues in Australia and New Zealand, is considering a plan to introduce nutrition labelling on the front of packs.

A new book makes the potentially controversial claim that Food is Better Medicine Than Drugs. Katie Baldwin met one of the authors

It's no secret that our diet can have a dramatic effect on our health. In recent years the trickle of health advice relating to food has become an inescapable flood.

We need to eat less fatty foods, more fruit and vegetables and less salt, more oily fish and less red meat. A new book goes one step further though. Food is Better Medicine Than Drugs by nutrition expert Patrick Holford and medical journalist Jerome Burne claims just that.

When the time comes that you want to start a workout routine you need to keep one thing in mind if you want results in weight loss and muscle tone: you need to have proper nutrition.

Nutrition is the key element to success for getting into shape. By adopting a proper daily meal plan and measuring the correct amount of each food group into your eating routine you will make your results come quicker and easier.

Gwen Stefani (No Doubt) is urging new mothers to eat healthily as they battle to lose their post-baby weight, after she successfully slimmed down following the birth of her son, Kingston.

The singer avoided drastic crash diets taken by many celebrity mothers and lost weight gradually after Kingston's birth in May.

PHOENIX, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- "A diet has gone too far when the restrictive calorie level or limited foods on the diet lead to episodes of binge eating; a diet has gone too far when a person purges calories by self-induced vomiting," said Juliet Zuercher, registered dietitian and the director of nutrition services at Remuda Ranch in Phoenix.

"If these binging and purging behaviors increase to multiple times per week, for three months or more, that's considered a full-blown eating disorder." Remuda Ranch Programs for Eating Disorders is an inpatient treatment center for women and girls with anorexia and bulimia.

New report from MoH shows alarming trends in nutrition

A new report showing that the average Kiwi household spends more on confectionary every week than on fresh fruit underlines just how challenging it will be to improve the nutrition of New Zealand families, Health Minister Pete Hodgson said today.

The Food and Nutrition Monitoring Report 2006 – released by the Minister today – includes the latest information on food supply and purchasing patterns, food and nutrient intake, nutritional status and factors influencing dietary intake.

The milk ads want you to believe that milk drinkers weigh less, but if they are indeed lighter, it's not because of the calcium in the