Whole Grain Grub

hi there

This week, the Journal of the American Dietetic Association published a study that aimed to determine the effectiveness of a 6-week beauty salon-based health intervention, Steps for New You, in improving, physical activity, and water consumption behaviors in Black woman.

The reasoning: African Americans, especially women, have low fruit and vegetable consumption, which is related to higher rates of obesity, morbidity, and mortality in comparison to whites. Community-based approaches are recommended to address this problem, including beauty salons, which are conducive environments for health information dissemination.

The intervention included scripted motivational sessions between the cosmetologist and clients, information packets, and a starter kit of sample items. Data were collected using pre- and posttest questionnaires.

The results: The mean intake of fruit and vegetables was significantly higher for those who were in the intervention group, compared to those who were not. These findings suggest that the intervention may have had a positive effect on fruit and vegetable consumption by treatment group participants. However, further work is needed to refine the methodology, especially strengthening the intervention to increase physical activity and water consumption.

Interesting. Whatever works. Would you be receptive to people pushing you to increase your fruit and veggie consumption while getting your hair done?

cheers

Fill her up bartender! I kid, I kid. But this is nice news. Although… I only really drink one to two glasses of wine a week (I always forget to buy some for the house). Good to know either way.

BTW, the study is not limited to wine. It also includes beer and liquor. Researchers from Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston discovered that women who drank the equivalent of a glass or two of wine a day gained less weight and had a lower risk of becoming overweight or obese than women who didn’t drink at all. The study was based on data that followed 19,000 women for 12.9 years.

This post has two parts.

Part One: The skinny on fats

I liked this analysis of what the latest research says about fat consumption. Here is the gist if you don’t feel like reading:

• Americans were told to avoid fat.
• Americans avoided fat.
• Americans are fatter than ever.
• There must be more to the story.
• Actually, refined carbs are the enemy.
• Some fats are good, some are bad (unsaturated fat and saturated/trans fat, respectively)
• Swapping saturated fats for polyunsaturated fats—the omega-3 fatty acids found in certain fish and the omega-6 fatty acids in vegetable oils such as safflower and soybean oils—helps the heart
• Want to reduce your risk of cardiac death? Consume more polyunsaturated fats.
• Based on the evidence, “polyunsaturated fats are the best…fat to be increasing in the diet,” says Dariush Mozaffarian (study author)
• Wait.
• Actually, polyunsaturated fats are not free of controversy because you need the RIGHT RATIO of omega 3 to omega 6 (Omega-3 fatty acids, found in albacore tuna, sardines, walnuts, and tofu, are linked to improvement in some measures of heart-disease risk; omega-6 fatty acids, found in eggs, certain fish, and safflower and soybean oils, may cause inflammation.)
• Don’t loose sleep over it, though. If you are eating “good fats” you will probably be okay.
• Ok. In terms of monounsaturated fats (olive oil, sesame oil, canola oil). They are still better than saturated fats; however, they don’t provide the same benefits as polyunsaturated fats.
• But we’ve always heard olive oil is good, right?
• Well, yes, but it may be the phytochemicals in olive oil that offer health benefits.
• Quantity over quality. Meaning, don’t over do it or you will reverse health benefits.

badabing badaboom?

Part Two: High Fat Breakfast healthiest way to start the day

This is another study that I found interesting. Basically, it argues that a high fat breakfast is actually a great way to jump start your metabolism AND it will result in more fat calories burned through the day. Who would have thunk it?

Apparently, and this is interesting, storing vitamins and supplements in the kitchen or bathroom is bad news. Why? The high humidity present in those areas could be degrading (even if the lids are tight).

Works for me! Garlic is one of my favorite ingredients.

According to research conducted at McMaster University, if you’re a woman who dines with a man, chances are you’ll be consuming less calories than if you were chowing down with a woman. And the more females a woman eats with, the more calories she is likely to consume. Meanwhile, men are neither substantially affected by the number of nor the gender of their dining companions. The bastards!

Researchers observed students in naturalistic settings in three large university cafeterias with a wide choice of food options and dining companions. The study found that women who ate with a male companion chose foods of significantly lower caloric value than did women who were observed eating with another woman. Mix gendered groups meant fewer calories for the women, and the higher the number of men in the group, the lower the number of calories consumed.

Confused? Let me break it down further.

For female diners:
Eating with women = more calories
More women = more calories
Eating with men = less calories
Less men = less calories

For male diners:
The same calories regardless of the company

“Eating is a social activity,” says Meredith Young, PhD candidate in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour. “In university cafeterias people select their food before they are seated and perhaps before they know with whom they will eat. Given the observed differences it seems likely that social groupings were anticipated at the time of food selection.”

The diet industry targets female consumers and product advertisements typically depict very slim models rather than average-sized or overweight female models, she says, so food choices appear to be weighed against how other perceive them. In other words, smaller, healthier portions are seen as more feminine, and women might believe that if they eat less they will be considered more attractive to men.

“It is possible that small food portions signal attractiveness, and women conform, whether consciously or unconsciously, to small meals in order to be seen as more attractive,” says Young.

I know, I know. What does being a psychopath have to do with food or nutrition? Not much. But I may have dated a psychopath in the past (although it has not been confirmed) and I’ve always been curious about how their brains work.

So it turns out that Professor Declan Murphy, along with colleagues Dr Michael Craig and Dr Marco Catani from the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London, have found differences in the brain which may provide a biological explanation for psychopathy. The research investigated the brain biology of criminal psychopaths using powerful imaging technique (DT-MRI).

Here are some of the interesting points:

While psychopathy is strongly associated with serious criminal behaviour (eg rape and murder) and repeat offending, the biological basis of psychopathy remains poorly understood. Also some investigators stress mainly social reasons to explain antisocial behaviours. To date, nobody has investigated the ‘connectivity’ between the specific brain regions implicated in psychopathy.

Earlier studies had suggested that dysfunction of specific brain regions might underpin psychopathy. Such areas of the brain were identified as the amygdale, ie the area associated with emotions, fear and aggression, and the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), the region which deals with decision making. There is a white matter tract that connects the amygdala and OFC, which is called the uncinate fasciculus (UF). However, nobody had ever studied the UF in psychopaths. The team from King’s used an imaging method called in vivo diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DT-MRI) tractography to analyse the UF in psychopaths.

They found a significant reduction in the integrity of the small particles that make up the structure of the UF of psychopaths, compared to control groups of people with the same age and IQ. Also, the degree of abnormality was significantly related to the degree of psychopathy. These results suggest that psychopaths have biological differences in the brain which may help to explain their offending behaviours.

Dr Craig added: ‘This study is part of an ongoing programme of research into the biological basis of criminal psychopathy. It highlights that exciting developments in brain imaging such as DT-MRI now offer neuroscientists the potential to move towards a more coherent understanding of the possible brain networks that underlie psychopathy, and potentially towards treatments for this mental disorder.’

Read more about the research here.

You’re looking at the critical pair of enzymes that scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have identified as working together to determine the health benefits of diet restriction. Since many experiments  in mice and other animals confirm that diet restriction (including diets on the brink of starvation) expand lifespans, isolating the enzymes that are responsible for longevity can help researchers design drugs that can lead to new treatment for age related diseases.

All signs point to YES. According to NEWSWEEK, data shows that in the past year, the number of Americans considered obese has jumped by 1.7 percent—or almost 5.5 million people—and that the obese report a much lower quality of life than those who are at healthier weights. Such a shame.

The data from Gallup indicates that the number of individuals who have a Body Mass Index over 30 and are thereby classified as “obese,” has risen from 25.1 percent of the population surveyed to 26.8 percent between the first quarter of this year and last. (BMI is the ratio of height to weight.) This number may not sound like much, but a trend like this is significant—especially because between 2003 and 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention measured no real growth in American obesity levels. “A 2 percent increase in BMI is not trivial at the population level,” says Frank Hu, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard University. “This level of increase can have important public-health implications for health outcomes such as diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.”

I recently interviewed Barbara Mendez, President of Lifestyle Nutrients, a nutrition consulting company, for an article I wrote. She had some comments on the topic: “When people are struggling financially, their diet often suffers, not so much because of the cost of decent food – because a meal made of rice, beans and a vegetable can be pennies – but because stress levels and anxiety levels are so high that [people self medicate] with foods such as take-out and snacks high in sugars.”

We all know that Fast-food restaurants have reported profits in the face of the recession, with their dollar menus providing attractive options for people looking to save money. But like Mendez said, healthy choices don’t have to break the budget. It’s all about education and learning how to get food with the best nutritional value for your buck.

Check out the full article here.

Newsflash: If you think becoming a vegetarian is going to help you lose weight, think again. The logic is simple, really. New vegetarians only eat carbs. I was ALWAYS tired during my first 10 years as a vegetarian because I only ate bread and pasta (Cheesecake Factory was the kick-it spot for real). It wasn’t until college, when I started reading more about health and nutrition, that I realized I had to make a conscious effort to get protein into my diet. Instead of eating the usual bagel for breakfast, I began to eat eggs and oatmeal. A couple hours after breakfast, I would eat a snack (or breakfast 2, as I like to call it) that consisted of a carb and protein. (Examples: fruit and low fat string cheese or nuts and yogurt). I lost a couple of pounds (although I was probably just shedding the freshman 15) and discovered that when I ate that way – 6 smaller well balanced meals a day – I had so much more energy.

Come to my house for breakfast 1, breakfast 2, lunch 1, lunch 2, dinner 1 or dinner 2 and you will never catch me cooking a meal that doesn’t have a carb, protein and a veggie. It becomes second nature. What I eat when I don’t have time to cook, on the other hand, is another story….

Which leads me to my point (sorry got a little sidetracked there). Recently the Journal of the American Dietetic Association released a study that puts adolescent and young adult vegetarians risk leaping into the life of a binge eater.

The Participants: 2,516 males and females, ages 15-23 years.

The Analysis: Tested for significant differences between current, former, and never vegetarians within the younger and older cohort.

The Results: Adolescent and young adult current vegetarians were more likely to report binge eating with loss of control when compared to nonvegetarians. Among adolescents, former vegetarians were more likely than never vegetarians to engage in extreme unhealthful weight-control behaviors. Among young adults, former vegetarians were more likely than current and never vegetarians to engage in extreme unhealthful weight-control behaviors.