There’s good news for those of us who never could get into running. A newly published study has concluded that fast walking is just as good as running for decreasing three major risk factors of heart disease: blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes risk. The researchers collected information from over 33,000 runners and 16,000 walkers from ages 18-80.  Over a 6 year period both groups had similar reductions.

Specifically, the researcher found:

• Running reduced the risk of high blood pressure 4.2 percent and walking reduced the risk 7.2 percent.
• Running reduced the risk for high cholesterol 4.3 percent and walking lowered the risk 7 percent.
• Running lowered the risk for diabetes 12.1 percent and walking reduced the risk 12.3 percent.
• Running decreased the risk of heart disease 4.5 percent and walking reduced the risk 9.3 percent.

Source: Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology

http://atvb.ahajournals.org/content/early/2013/04/04/ATVBAHA.112.300878.abstract

People who eat yogurt a few times per week are less likely to develop high blood pressure than those who rarely eat it, according to Tufts research. Huifen Wang, a researcher in the nutritional epidemiology laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, and colleagues measured low-fat yogurt consumption and blood pressure in about 2,100 adults from the Framingham Heart study offspring cohort and followed them for more than 14 years. Although none of the participants started out with high blood pressure, 913 of them developed it over the course of the study.

Those who ate the most yogurt (at least one six-ounce cup of low-fat yogurt every three days) had about a 31-percent lower risk of developing hypertension than people who ate yogurt less than once a month. Specifically, the high-intake group had a smaller rise in their systolic blood pressure (the top number).

Although the study is only observational, and doesn’t show cause and effect, the researchers point out that yogurt is a good source of calcium, potassium and magnesium, which seem to play a role in regulating blood pressure and which most Americans need to eat more of anyway.
Source: http://www.nutrition.tufts.edu/sites/default/files/magazine/Tufts%20Nutrition_Winter%202013.pdf

A high intake of fruit and vegetables could be the key to living a calmer, happier, and more energetic life, according to new research. The study, published in the British Journal of Health Psychology, investigated the relationship between day-to-day emotions and food consumption, finding that people who eat more fruits and vegetables generally score themselves as happier, and more energetic than those who consume very little.

Led by Dr Tamlin Conner from the University of Otago, New Zealand, the research team followed almost 300 consumers, asking them to fill out daily food dairies in addition to rating how they felt. The results showed a strong day-to-day relationship between more positive mood and higher fruit and vegetable consumption. There were no associations found for other food groups, including an effect from intake of less healthy foods such biscuits or cakes. ”On days when people ate more fruits and vegetables, they reported feeling calmer, happier and more energetic than they normally did,” Connor said.

“After further analysis we demonstrated that young people would need to consume approximately seven to eight total servings of fruits and vegetables per day to notice a meaningful positive change,” she added, noting that her results also indicated that a high intake of fruit and vegetables one day is linked to improved mood the following day –and so suggesting a causative link.

A total of 281 young adults – with an average age of 20 years – completed an internet-based daily food diary for 21 consecutive days. Each day, the participants logged and rated how they felt using nine positive and nine negative adjectives, and were asked five questions about what they had eaten that day. Specifically, participants were asked to report the number of servings eaten of fruit (excluding fruit juice and dried fruit), vegetables (excluding juices), and several categories of unhealthy foods like biscuits/cookies, potato crisps, and cakes/muffins.

To understand which comes first – feeling positive or eating healthier foods – Conner and her team also ran additional analyses and found that eating fruits and vegetables predicted improvements in positive mood the next day, suggesting that healthy foods may improve mood. Connor said while this research shows a promising connection between healthy foods and healthy moods, more work is needed. The authors recommend the development of randomised control trials to evaluate the influence of high fruit and vegetable intake on mood and wellbeing.

http://www.nutraingredients.com/Research/High-fruit-and-veg-intake-helps-to-keep-the-blues-at-bay-say-researchers?utm_source=copyright&utm_medium=OnSite&utm_campaign=copyright

Older people who load their plates with carbohydrates have four times the risk of developing mild cognitive impairment — often a precursor to Alzheimer’s disease — a new study at Mayo Clinic indicates. The carb culprit appears to be the sugar that is created when carbohydrates are digested. The study is based on four years of data from 1,230 people ages 70 to 89.

While those who got most of their calories from pasta, rice, bread and other carbohydrates were associated with much higher risk, people loading up with protein such as chicken and fish lowered the risk by 21 percent. Those with high use of fats from nuts and oils dropped the risk by 42 percent.

That brain benefit came from all fats, not just unsaturated “good fats” like those from olive oil, nuts and avocados. ”This may be one of the benefits of growing older,” explained one of the lead researchers. “Cholesterol is bad for middle-aged hearts, and what’s bad for hearts generally is bad for brains. But with older people, that may not be so true. All fats seem to be good for the brain, and perhaps not as bad for the heart as when they were younger.”

Still, the lesson from the study is that you need a balanced diet of protein, fats and carbohydrates, perhaps one like the Mediterranean diet, which relies heavily on poultry, vegetables and healthy fats. Sugar fuels your brain, so you need some carbohydrates  But too much may stop the brain from using sugars effectively. Sugar also may affect blood vessels in the brain or spur development of amyloid plaques, protein fragments associated with Alzheimer’s disease that clog the spaces between brain nerve cells. Food with fats and protein slow the digestive process of converting carbs to sugars, and so do some complex carbohydrates like whole grains or some vegetables.

Summarized from http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/180883091.html?refer=y

A newly published study  examined the associations between walking (number of steps and minutes spent) and seven health indicators, including chronic health conditions, depressive symptoms, and blood pressure, among nonexercising people who did not regularly engage in any non-walking moderate-to-vigorous physical activity in Hong Kong.

The number of steps per day and minutes spent walking were measured using an accelerometer. 2400 participants whose only form of physical activity was walking were included in the analysis.

Three indicators of walking (number of steps, minutes spent walking at moderate intensity, and minutes spent walking at light intensity) were measured by accelerometer.

The number of steps per day was significantly associated with improvements in hypertension, cancer risk, stroke risk, depressive symptoms, health-related quality-of-life, and pulse rate. By contrast, time spent walking as measured by accelerometer was associated only with a single health indicator: hypertension.

The researchers concluded that among non-exercising people, accumulating number of steps appears to be related to fewer health problems and should be promoted as an accessible form of exercise, especially for those who lack the time or ability to engage in physical activity of at least moderate intensity.

J Sci Med Sport. 2012 Nov 12. pii: S1440-2440(12)00207-1. doi: 10.1016/j.jsams.2012.10.005. [Epub ahead of print]

If you’ve been following the news recently, I’m sure you’ve heard about NYC limiting the size of sodas sold in restaurants to 16 ounces. And a new study released on 9/21 in the New England Journal of Medicine indicates this may be a good thing. The study suggests that drinking high calorie beverages may turn on genetic switches that incline our bodies to become fat.

In one arm of the study researchers looked at 2 groups of kids who were similar in most ways except some were randomly selected to drink a sugary beverage each day and some were given a no-calorie drink flavored with a non-nutritive sweetener. For kids aged 5-12 those who drank 8 ounces of the sugary drink daily for 18 months gained more than 2 lbs and accumulated more fat than their peers.

Nineth and tenth graders who were overweight or obese were supplied with diet drinks and water and after one year, they were 4 lbs lighter that their peers. Latino teens had the highest benefit: they were 14 lbs lighter than their peers after one year and 20 lbs lighter after 2 years!

Researchers checked for 32 gene variants tied to weight and for every 10 risk genes someone had, the risk of obesity rose in proportion to how many sweet drinks they regularly consumed. This means sodas are especially harmful to people with genes that predispose them to gain weight. And avoiding these drinks can minimize the effect of obesity genes.

Take away message: since most of us have at least some of these genes and there are no redeeming qualities of soda, most of the time choose water, coffee, tea, or skim milk instead of sugary drinks.

Some people, in an effort to reduce their carb intake, mistakenly eliminate fruit from their diet. It’s the added sugars and refined carbs we want to decrease, not whole fruits, which provide a wide variety of nutrients and phytochemicals to keep us healthy. In a new study, Texas A&M research suggests compounds in stone fruits (plums, nectarines, peaches and apricots) may fight metabolic syndrome. Scientists found four major types of antioxidant phenols in the fruits that attack the syndrome on “different fronts,” including via fat cells, arterial health and inflammation. Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of symptoms such as obesity and hypertension that predisposes people to heart disease and diabetes. “Each of these stone fruits contain similar phenolic groups but in differing proportions, so all of them are a good source of health-promoting compounds and may complement each other,” scientists added. The findings will be presented at the American Chemical Society meeting in August.

To eat right tomorrow, get a good night’s sleep tonight. Two studies presented at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies report that sleep-deprived subjects show brain changes that affect their decision-making and predispose them to poor dietary choices. Both were crossover studies, in which 23 and 25 healthy subjects were tested after being shorted on sleep and after sleeping normally; both used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study brain activity. The first study compared sleeping normally with staying up all night, with snacks at 2:30 a.m. and breakfast at 8:30 a.m. Participants were then quizzed about food desires and given fMRI scans. When subjects were well-rested, the scans showed greater frontal-lobe activity in areas indicative of decision making. The second study compared 6 days of sleep deprivation with normal sleep. When sleep deprived, subjects responded to fatty, sugary foods with brain activity much like that in studies of the obese. Source: Tufts Health and Nutrition Update 6.29.12

Researchers continue the quest for factors driving the obesity epidemic. In a fascinating new study published online in the journal Cell Metabolism, one piece of the puzzle may have been uncovered. Biologists at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, CA put groups of mice on different eating patterns for 100 days. Two groups dined on high fat high calorie chow while a control group ate regular food. Half of the high fat eaters ate whenever they wanted, nibbling at will day and night. The other high fat group only had access to food for 8 hours at night when they are most active.

The difference in weight gain and health of the groups was astonishing. Even though they ate a high fat diet, the mice who only ate for 8 hours a day and were forced to fast for 16 hours were almost as lean as the control group. But the mice who ate around the clock became obese–even though they consumed the same amount of fat and calories as the time-restricted eaters.

The obese mice also developed high cholesterol, high blood sugar, fatty liver disease, and metabolic problems. The mice who ate the high fat diet but were forced to fast showed little signs of inflammation or liver disease and their cholesterol and blood sugars were indistinguishable from the mice who ate regular chow. And interestingly, when put on an exercise wheel, they showed the most endurance and best motor control of all the animals.

This research suggests the body’s digestive machinery and metabolic systems may need a break from managing incoming fuel. Our constant access to food including endless workdays, late night snacking, and 24 hour drive through windows may be contributing to a state of metabolic exhaustion.

More research is needed to understand the implications for humans. But in the meantime, closing the kitchen after supper is a simple dietary adjustment!

Occasional treats may be fine but they could pose a problem for those gobbling them on a regular basis. In a recent study published in the journal Public Health Nutrition Spanish scientists report that people consuming the most fast food and commercial baked goods were 37% more likely to develop depression over 6 years than those consuming the least. The study followed 8,964 people who had never previously been diagnosed with depression or taken antidepressants. Both fast food, such as hamburgers, hot dogs and pizza, and bakery items such as cakes and croissants were positively associated with a greater likelihood of developing depression. Moreover, the study found a dose-response relationship: As fast food and baked goods intake increased, so did the risk of depression.