Science Friday – Sweets at Breakfast may Help You Lose Weight March 9, 2012

I know I’ve been terrible about my Science Friday idea. I’m sorry. But today I came across a research brief that made me smile. I’m not saying I support it or deny it. I just think it’s interesting info. It makes me chuckle a little because eating has become so complicated!

Anyways, enjoy some light afternoon reading and maybe a piece of chocolate cake at breakfast tomorrow. =) Have a healthy weekend!

Adding sweets to breakfast may aid in weight loss

A study published in the journal Steriods shows that adding sweets to your morning breakfast may aid in weight loss.

February 14, 2012

A study published in the journal Steriods shows that adding sweets to your morning breakfast may aid in weight loss.

The researchers split 193 clinically obese, non-diabetic adults into two groups who consumed either a low-carb diet that included a 300-calorie breakfast or a balanced 600-calorie breakfast that included a chocolate cake dessert. Halfway through the 32-week study both groups had lost an average of 33 lbs per person. But in the second half of the study the low-carb group regained an average of 22 lbs per person, while the dessert gorgers lost another 15 lbs each. At the end of the study, those who had consumed a 600-calorie breakfast had lost an average of 40 lbs more per person than their peers.

Although both groups consumed the same daily total calories—1,600 calories/day for men and 1,400 calories/day for women—“the participants in the low-carbohydrate diet group had less satisfaction and felt that they were not full,” said Professor Daniela Jakubowicz. Their cravings for sugars and carbohydrates were more intense and eventually caused them to grab sweets later in the day.

The researchers hypothesize that since breakfast is the meal that most successfully regulates ghrelin, the hormone that increases hunger, a breakfast high in carbs would reduce diet-induced compensatory changes in hunger, cravings, and ghrelin suppression. Basing their study on this fact, the researchers hoped to determine whether meal time and composition impacted weight loss in the short and long term or if it was a simple matter of calorie count.

ABSTRACT available here

Science Friday – Ginger and Sweat January 13, 2012

Ginger has been on my mind and in my diet lately. I recommended a pregnant friend try making ginger tea every day to help with her nausea. I’ve been messing with Asian flavors for my upcoming noodles class at A. Chef’s Cooking Studio. Every morning I’m throwing a piece of fresh ginger into my smoothie. So when this interesting tidbit about ginger came through my email box, I was immediately intrigued. I sincerely apologize that I cannot remember where I got this from. Therefore, let me state, these are not my words but some smart person’s. I give you credit, wherever you are.

Enjoy some ginger and get your sweat on today!

Ginger can not only be warming on a cold day, but can help promote healthy sweating, which is often helpful during colds and flus. A good sweat may do a lot more than simply assist detoxification. German researchers have recently found that sweat contains a potent germ-fighting agent that may help fight off infections. Investigators have isolated the gene responsible for the compound and the protein it produces, which they have named dermicidin. Dermicidin is manufactured in the body’s sweat glands, secreted into the sweat, and transported to the skin’s surface where it provides protection against invading microorganisms, including bacteria such as E. coli andStaphylococcus aureus (a common cause of skin infections), and fungi, including Candida albicans.

Science Friday – Uh oh Multivitamins! November 18, 2011

Due to this article and other research coming to the forefront, my opinion on general multivitamins is changing. I still believe that you should know why you are taking supplements. Don’t just take something to take it. Look for supplements that have research conducted on them that show they are bioavailable and actually do something for your health. Whole food nutrition is always going to be your best and safest choice.

Read on and post your thoughts.

New study sees little need for vitamins, cites risks

(AFP) – Oct 10, 2011

WASHINGTON — There is no need for most people to take vitamin supplements and some may even be linked to a higher risk of dying in older women, according to a study published Monday in the United States.

Iron stood out among supplements as a particular concern, while calcium appeared to be linked to lower death risk, said the study in the Archives of Internal Medicine, a journal of the American Medical Association.

With about half of Americans taking vitamin pills of some kind, the study aimed to examine whether the $20 billion supplement industry was having any effect on extending lifespan in an already well-nourished population.

The researchers confirmed their theory — that supplements were not helping people ward off death. But the reasons for the link to higher risk of overall mortality, or the risk of dying for any reason, were less clear.

“Based on existing evidence, we see little justification for the general and widespread use of dietary supplements,” wrote the study authors from the University of Eastern Finland and the University of Minnesota.

“We found that several commonly used dietary vitamin and mineral supplements, including multivitamins, vitamins B6, and folic acid, as well as minerals iron, magnesium, zinc, and copper, were associated with a higher risk of total mortality.”

The US and Finnish researchers examined data from the Iowa Women’s Health Study, including surveys filled out by 38,772 women with an average age of 62.

Women self-reported their supplement use in 1986, 1997 and 2004, and data showed their use rose from 66 percent of survey-takers at the start to 85 percent by 2004.

Those who took supplements showed a range of healthy lifestyle factors, and were more likely than non-supplement users to be non-smokers, eat low-fat diets and exercise.

But in many cases they showed a higher risk of dying than their supplement-free counterparts.

“Of particular concern, supplemental iron was strongly and dose dependently associated with increased total mortality risk,” said the study.

On the other hand, “supplemental calcium was consistently inversely related to total mortality rate,” meaning that calcium-takers showed a lower death risk, though the same dosage relationship was not visible.

The authors said they could not rule out the possibility that the reason for the higher death rate in iron users could have been due to underlying conditions for which they were taking supplements, and more research is needed.

In the meantime, doctors urged patients to consider the risks of taking supplements unless they are needed to stave off deficiencies.

“We think the paradigm ‘the more the better’ is wrong,” wrote doctors Goran Bjelakovic of the University of Nis in Serbia and Christian Gluud of Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark in an accompanying commentary.

These findings “add to the growing evidence demonstrating that certain antioxidant supplements, such as vitamin E, vitamin A, and beta-carotene, can be harmful,” they said.

“We cannot recommend the use of vitamin and mineral supplements as a preventive measure, at least not in a well-nourished population.”

Bjelakovic and Gluud said the only supplement that may be beneficial to older women, and possibly older men, is vitamin D3, if they do not already get enough through their diet or from sun exposure.

“The issue of whether to use calcium supplements may require further study,” they added.

Copyright © 2011 AFP

Science Friday – Is Fast Food a Science Project? November 11, 2011

I just came across this article about the McRib sandwich. I am so curious to hear your thoughts on this. Its a very quick read. Make sure you click on the ingredients list link. Although many of the items are familiar to me, they still wouldn’t be included in my homemade version or at a slow food establishment.

On this Science Friday, please take a minute to think about what you are really putting in your body. Please post your reactions to this article.

Have a healthy weekend!

Science Friday – Do we have activity set points? October 21, 2011

Good morning! I think I’m going to follow NPR’s lead by starting “Science Friday.” I love nutrition/health/food science so I will now try to share a little piece of this with you each week.

I just came across this article in my inbox this morning and wanted to share it with you. It is a lengthy article but very interesting. You will be left scratching your head a little and just going “hmm.” In my line of work, I sit around the table with people who try to solve big health issues. This article offers a new perspective on exercise, physiology and the human psyche. It supports the ideas that we need to be as active as we possibly can, diet and exercise need each other, and that some people don’t lose weight easily with just exercise. It’s not a hard article to read. I hope you enjoy it!

OCTOBER 19, 2011, 12:01 AM Do We Have a Set Point for Exercise? By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS Mike Tittel/Getty Images Does exercising at one point during the day make you less active the rest of the time? The question of whether humans have an innate set point for movement, a so-called activitystat, is of increasing interest and controversy among scientists. One of them is Dr. Terence J. Wilkin, a professor of endocrinology at the Peninsula Medical School in Plymouth, England, who asked himself that question a few years ago while hoping to learn more about the interplay of activity and childhood obesity. Dr. Wilkin had outfitted about 70 children at three wildly different English elementary schools with an accelerometer, an electronic device that records almost all movement. One of the schools, a private college-preparatory academy with acres of playing fields, required an average of 9.2 hours of physical education classes each week. Another was a village public school, equipped with outdoor facilities and an established sports tradition, but requiring only 2.2 hours of P.E. each week. And the final was an urban school with limited playground options and 1.6 hours a week of P.E. The children wore the devices full time for a week on four separate occasions during the school year. Dr. Wilkin had expected that the children at the prep school, who spent about 65 percent more time exercising at school than the other students, would be much more active over all. But they weren’t. In fact, when he collated the data, the weekly activity levels of the students from all three schools were remarkably similar. Students who exercised more at school were less active afterward. In a study published this month in The International Journal of Obesity, Dr. Wilkin and his co-authors conclude that, at least in these 8- to 10-year-olds, “activity at one time is met with less activity at another.” The findings, they say, may help to explain why so many children remain overweight, despite programs designed to get them moving. Related More Phys Ed columns Faster, Higher, Stronger Fitness and Nutrition News A similar mechanism may hold for adults. In another notable experiment published this month in the journal Menopause, a group of postmenopausal women completed a 13-week walking program while wearing accelerometers to measure their full daily activity. During that time, some of the women were more active over all than they had been at the start. But almost half had reduced their spontaneous physical activity when they weren’t exercising. The reductions weren’t intentional: The women hadn’t consciously set out to move less. But, as a result, they were no more active, on a daily basis, than they had been before starting the exercise regimen. Their bodies had compensated for the walking and kept their overall energy expenditure about the same. The implications of such findings are broad and worrisome. “The evidence to date shows that physical activity interventions have not” been able to significantly reduce childhood obesity, Dr. Wilkin says, “and our data suggest that part of the reason” may be that children who exercise at school expend less energy the rest of the time. The same dynamic could be impeding adults’ efforts to use exercise to trim away flab. In animal studies, rodents bred over generations to voluntarily run for hours will, if deprived of their wheels, race around their cages until they’ve fulfilled their bodies’ seeming imperative for motion, while animals bred to be languorous and avoid activity will, if forced to swim or run, subsequently lie on their cage floors and not move for hours. They are not merely tired, Dr. Wilkin says, but obeying some inner physiological command. The animals seem to have a “genetically determined level of preferred energy expenditure,” he says, to which their bodies default. But other researchers are not convinced. “Twin studies show that the environment, defined broadly as the physical and cultural environment, has a massive influence on the level of physical activity,” at least in children, says John J. Reilly, a professor of pediatric energy metabolism at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland and the author of a commentary accompanying Dr. Wilkin’s study. Children’s physical activity is determined largely by their living conditions — in other words, not their biology. In confirmation of that idea, a study of 9- to 12-year-old British twins published last year determined that, while the children’s fidgetiness and enjoyment of activity were dependent on heredity, their actual levels of movement were almost wholly determined by their environment, and in particular by the actions and attitudes of their teachers and parents. An equally powerful argument against the existence of an activitystat may derive from the findings of studies that reduce people’s habitual activity for a period of time. Presumably, if the body has a preset, preferred amount of energy expenditure, those people should become more active afterward. But in general, they do not. A representative recent study of schoolchildren found that, on days when they were denied recess, they “did not compensate” by running around more after school. They simply expended less energy that day. Still, almost all researchers agree that science is not close to fully understanding the complex interplay of biology, volition, laziness and modern living conditions in determining how active each of us will be. “Far more work is needed,” Dr. Wilkin says, especially long-term studies. He suspects, he says, that many studies that dispute the idea of an activitystat use time frames that are too short to capture the body’s subtle workings. “Compensation may be happening over the course of weeks or months,” he says, “not hours or days.” Most important, though, he adds, even if people have a set point for exercise, its existence would not provide carte blanche for us to give up on exercise, or cancel P.E. classes at schools. “Exercise is extremely good for the health of young people, as it is for all of us,” he says. “It improves metabolic profiles and cardiorespiratory fitness. Our results should not be interpreted to mean that exercise is not worthwhile,” he says, only to suggest that how, why and whether we move may be more complicated issues than any of us might wish.