Weight Loss and Nutrition News

VEVEY, Switzerland -- Nestle SA, the world's largest food maker, may buy baby-food company Gerber Products along with a medical nutrition business from Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG for as much as $5 billion, according to a published report.

Novartis is already in negotiations to sell Nestle the medical-nutrition business, and Nestle executives are interested in trying to make the acquisition of Gerber Products Co. part of the deal, according to The Wall Street Journal, which cited people familiar with the matter.

Novartis spokesman John Gilardi said the company has no comment about the "market speculation." In the Journal interview, Novartis chief executive Daniel Vasella said his company wants to focus on its medicines business and Gerber is not part of this core business.

A Scottish obesity clinic has been named the best in Britain by a charity.

Glasgow Royal Infirmary's Weight Management Service (GWMS) was described as a gold standard service by a panel of members of the National Obesity Forum.

Funded by NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, the service was set up two years ago, and treats more than 1000 patients each year.

The clinic takes a holistic approach to health, with a team of experts including dietitians, psychologists, and physiotherapists. It takes referrals from GPs and hospital doctors. Patients, aged in their 20s to their 70s, are encouraged to examine their attitudes to food, what they eat and how to exercise.

It's now official. The simple act of fidgeting can mean the difference between lean and obese. It’s the natural weight loss diet.

My friend likes to relate a story from time to time about when he was just a lad. His grandfather called him "Worm", because he fidgeted so much. And between you and me, it can get rather annoying.

But he had the right idea, even if it wasn't intentional. He's 5'8" tall and weighs around 145 lbs.

LONDON, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Nutrition is not a core part of Novartis AG's (NOVN.VX) business and any sale depends on the emergence of keen buyers, the Swiss drugmaker's chief executive said on Tuesday.

"It depends on interested buyers popping up," Daniel Vasella told reporters in London before a research and development day for analysts.

Nestle (NESN.VX) was recently rumoured to be interested in acquiring the Novartis nutrition operations but Vasella declined to comment on specific potential buyers.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- Hands up -- who doesn't agree the best part of the Thanksgiving feast is the leftovers?

It's the suggestion of mild delinquency, like eating cold pizza for breakfast, that comes with tugging off with the fingers those crunchy bits of turkey that lie along the exposed carcass and layering them between more succulent slices with dollops of cranberry sauce and chunks of stuffing to build the perfect sandwich. And you probably eat it standing up, lounging back against a kitchen counter, swapping anecdotes with friends and family you haven't seen in a while.

But the best leftover of the lot, in my view, is the totally stripped-down carcass. It becomes the foundation of the best soup stock of the year.

Health Education: A planned, sequential, K-12 curriculum that addresses the physical, mental, emotional and social dimensions of health. The curriculum is designed to motivate and assist students to maintain and improve their health, prevent disease, and reduce health-related risk behaviors. It allows students to develop and demonstrate increasingly sophisticated health-related knowledge, attitudes, skills, and practices. The comprehensive health education curriculum includes a variety of topics such as personal health, family health, community health, consumer health, environmental health, sexuality education, mental and emotional health, injury prevention and safety, nutrition, prevention and control of disease, and substance use and abuse. Qualified, trained teachers provide health education.

Dieting in the future will be "weight loss to go," with more people getting customized advice on their cell phones, personal digital assistants and computers and more companies delivering diet foods directly to homes.

So says Thomas Wadden, one of the nation's top obesity researchers and president of the Obesity Society.

Currently, 66 percent of U.S. adults are overweight or obese (30 or more pounds over a healthy weight), which increases the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer and other medical issues.

Research suggests that dieters benefit from getting nutritionists' advice via e-mails, chat rooms and phone calls, says Wadden, 54, a psychologist and director of the Center for Weight and Eating Disorders at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia.

In a government survey conducted in 2004, just 25.9 percent of families said they ate dinner together every day, down from 36.5 percent in 1976, due to the growing tendency to eat out and the diversification of lifestyles, the white paper says.

A similar survey taken in 2000 found that almost one in five children in the fifth grade of primary school did not eat or rarely ate breakfast, while the figure for second-year middle students was 25.1 percent.

Overall, recent studies suggest that coffee (regular and decaffeinated) may offer a variety of health benefits against diseases such as cancer and diabetes. However, coffee may not deserve a place in the same category with other healthful foods like vegetables, fruits and whole grains.

Marie Fallaw says she lost 83 pounds in six months simply by "stapling" her ears.

The Mississippi entrepreneur, owner of Staple Lean LLC, has scheduled a return trip to Florida for ear stapling sessions with dozens of weight loss hopefuls.

The problem: ear stapling for weight loss is illegal in Florida. The state Board of Acupuncture banned the practice because of the threat of infections and other health problems.

Despite the prohibition, ear stapling practitioners from across the country target Florida. They promise miracle weight loss by stapling an acupuncture point on the ear.

ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Need to lose weight, but don't know the best way to start? If you're in your 50s, cardiovascular exercise may be your best option.

Diet and exercise are both effective ways to lose weight. But if you're over 50, you may want to hit the treadmill to help maintain muscle mass when you're dropping pounds. A new study reveals caloric restriction promotes weight loss, but it may result in loss of muscle and aerobic capacity.

"The systems responsible for moving the body, the musculature and the cardiovascular systems, are being used in exercise-induced weight loss, therefore the body preserves them," study author Edward Weiss, Ph.D., of Saint Louis University in St. Louis, told Ivanhoe. "In the case of caloric restriction or diet-induced weight loss, there are fewer demands put on these systems, so the body degrades the tissues responsible for delivering oxygen and producing muscular force."

Price was found to be the most important factor influencing Northern Ireland consumers (41 per cent) while health and nutrition (37 per cent) was the most influential reason in the Republic.

Collaboration over food and nutritional policy between European countries is particularly pertinent at the present time, with several key piece of EU legislation set to come into force in the near future – such as the nutrition and health claims and food fortification regulations.

by Valerie de Armas, Best Weight-loss

What do you think of the hundreds of weight loss supplements out there on the shelves today? Are they worth the money? Will they actually help you lose weight?

How do you know which ones are going to work for you? Is there any proof that these products work?

I've taken some time and researched some of the most popular product to try to find the answers for you. The truth is, most products won't help you lose anything but money.

There are a few, however, with some research behind them that prove that they actually work.

National Bioscience Corporation has received a weight loss patent for its phyto-ingredient Aralox, which opens up possibilities for exclusive marketing in the booming weight loss segment.

The company announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has awarded it a new patent entitled “Novel composition for the treatment of obesity and effective fat loss promotion”. Two of the main plant compounds in Aralox are derived from soft grape leaves and Siberian birch tree leaves.

The market for slimming products in the US is the world's largest by far, and while competition may be stiff, ingredient innovation brings new hope for formulators.

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AFX) - Nestle AG announced a five-year research agreement between the Nestle Research Center (NRC) and the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology EPFL, aiming to investigate the relationship between nutrition and the brain.

Under the agreement, Nestle will contribute 5 mln sfr per year to research at EPFL's Brain Mind Institute, where two Nestle Chairs will be established. The research will extend from studying the role nutrition plays in children's brain development to identifying ways of slowing down brain decline in older age and preventing diseases such as Alzheimer's, the food company said.

The agreement will also include research into taste perception and flavour enhancement, it added.

source AFX News 

“These results suggest that protein and fiber enrichment of bread with lupin kernel flour has the potential to influence appetite and reduce energy intake, at least in the short term,” Dr. Ya P. Lee of the University of Western Australia in Perth and colleagues write.

Lupin is the name for a family of plants that includes the Texas bluebonnet. In the current study, Lee and others investigated bread enriched with lupin kernel flour (LKF), which contains up to 45 percent protein and 30 percent fiber, with little sugar and starch.

Italian researchers found that people whose diets are rich in onions, garlic, and other alliums have a much lower risk of several types of cancer than those who avoid the pungent herbs.

Researcher Carlotta Galeone, of the Istituto di Ricerche Farmocologiche "Mario Negri" in Milan, and colleagues say the health benefits of onion and garlic have been touted for centuries, but few studies have been able to prove the benefits.

Somehow I fail to believe this study. And you, do you believe CDC?  

CDC - A study of about half a million people, published in 2006, compared people who drank aspartame-containing beverages with those who did not. Results of the study showed that increasing levels of consumption were not associated with any risk of lymphomas, leukemias, or brain cancers in men or women. (Question 2)

Researchers examined the relationship between aspartame intake and 1,888 lymphomas or leukemias and 315 malignant brain cancers among the participants of the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study from 1995 until 2000. Development of these cancers was not associated with estimated aspartame consumption, refuting a recent animal study with positive findings for lymphomas and leukemias and also contradicting claims regarding brain cancer risk. (Questions 3 and 8)

Cranberries are full of antioxidants, which protects cells from damage by unstable molecules called free radicals.

The National Institutes of Health is funding research on the cranberry’s effects on heart disease, yeast infections and other conditions, and other researchers are investigating its potential against cancer, stroke and viral infections.

Is the food industry playing games with our children? You bet it is. A recent report from the Kaiser Family Foundation, "It's Child's Play: Advergaming and the Online Marketing of Food to Children,^[1]" provides a comprehensive look at this increasingly popular type of advertising.

Advergaming is the use of online video games with embedded brand messages to engage a target audience. It is specifically designed to blur the boundary between advertising and entertainment.

The food industry uses advergaming that targets children and adolescents as a low-cost supplement to television advertising. Like the higher profile TV ads that have attracted so much attention from critics,^[2] the advergaming onslaught is largely aimed at promoting energy-dense foods, such as sweet cereals, candies, and high-calorie snacks. These foods are the raw fuel for childhood obesity.

ATHENS, Ga., Nov. 20 (UPI) -- Many try to forget about calories on Thanksgiving; others are obsessed with counting them, but a U.S. expert says few know why food is measured in calories.

"We all teach this unit, (the calorie) and nobody knows where it came from, not even the historians of nutrition," said James L. Hargrove, associate professor of foods and nutrition in the University of Georgia's College of Family and Consumer Science.

Formally, a calorie is a measure of the amount of energy required to heat 1 kilogram of water 1 degree Celsius. It was first used in engineering and physics, but eventually found its niche in nutrition, where it is used to measure the amount of energy food contains, according to Hargrove.

One day in September a surgeon cut Andre Corbeil from hip to hip and removed seven kilograms of skin.

It wasn’t a tummy tuck. It was a post-bariatric panniculectomy, a procedure to remove folds of excess skin and flabby tissue Corbeil was left with after he lost half his weight following bariatric, or “stomach-stapling”, surgery.

Bariatric surgery may be life transforming, but it transforms people only halfway. Once the weight comes off, people are left with drooping, deflated bellies, chests, breasts, legs, thighs, arms, faces, necks and buttocks.