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Physical Fitness Reduces Chronic Disease Risk

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Staying in shape may bolster the metabolic profiles of college students. In an epidemiological study, researchers found an association between physical fitness, body fat percentage and metabolic risk factors that are precursors to cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes.

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Researchers tracked four biomarkers of metabolic risk — high-density lipoprotein (HDL), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), triglycerides and blood glucose levels.

According to Eurekalert:
Physical fitness appeared to have a greater impact on certain metabolic risk factors than body fat. Being fit correlated with lower triglycerides and higher HDL … healthy cholesterol in women and lower blood glucose levels in men.”

Even though more Americans are exercising, rates of obesity and smoking have not changed.  A survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that obesity rates remained at around 28 percent of adults, the same as in 2008.

However, 34.7 percent claimed that they engaged in regular leisure physical activity, up from 31.9 percent in 2008.

Reuters reports:
“Health experts and the U.S. government both recommend getting daily exercise — about an hour a day of moderate exercise for most adults — to keep weight off and prevent heart disease, diabetes and cancer.”

Reources:
Eurekalert June 17, 2010
Reuters June 16, 2010
Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise June 2010; 42(6):1039-44

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Boil and Bubble, Rice is the Trouble

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Refined carbohydrates in white rice and white bread are more harmful than a fatty diet. Hari Pulakkat reports

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Cheese burgers are bad for health, nutritionists have always said. Cheese and red meat, according to conventional medical wisdom, are not the healthiest of foods. Current research supports this statement but with a twist. It now turns out that it’s not just the cheese or meat that is the cause of worry but also the bread.

Saturated fat has been implicated in cardiovascular disease for a long time now, and with good reason. Too much fat in the diet increases triglycerides and LDL (low-density lipoprotein or bad cholesterol), and both raise your chances of falling prey to a heart attack. A fatty diet also reduces HDL (high-density lipoprotein or good cholesterol) levels, and low HDL is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. But then if you cut saturated fat in your diet and substitute it with refined carbohydrates, you are actually worse off.

Many recent studies have shown that refined carbohydrates are some of the worst things you can eat. They can lead to type 2 diabetes if eaten consistently in large quantities. This applies not only to sugar but also staple items such as white rice and white bread. In fact, a recent study at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) showed that by just substituting white rice with brown rice, you can cut the risk of getting type 2 diabetes by 16 per cent. According to Qi Sun of the department of nutrition at the HSPH, “White rice is eaten in large quantities in many parts of Asia. It is not good for health.”

In white rice, the germ and bran of the grain are removed. What remains is the endosperm, the least nutritive part of rice. The bran and germ contain dietary fibre and magnesium, both important in controlling diabetes. They also contain vitamins and other important minerals. Lack of nutrition, however, is not the only reason why white rice is unhealthy.

“White rice has a high glycemic index and glycemic load,” says Sun. “High glycemic index foods are known to increase the risk for diabetes.” Glycemic index is a measure of how quickly the food raises glucose levels. White rice has a glycemic index of around 65 while it’s 55 in the case of brown rice.

It is well known that high glycemic index foods are bad, and the Harvard study showed just how bad. Eating just 150 grams of white rice per week increased your chances of getting type 2 diabetes by 17 per cent, while eating just two servings of brown rice a month lowered the same by 11 per cent. Introducing a variety of whole grains in the diet lowered the risk of diabetes by as much as 36 per cent.

The link between saturated fat and cardiovascular disease is more complex, but it is becoming clear that fat is not as bad as scientists once thought. Research findings in this regard, however, are somewhat contradictory. Several studies have shown no increase in risk for cardiovascular disease with moderate fat consumption, while some others show an increased risk. A recent meta-analysis by the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute in California found no link at all between fat consumption and heart disease.

A meta-analysis is an analysis of all large amounts of research in the field. The Oakland meta-analysis looked at the dietary habits of 3,50,000 people between five and 23 years, for which data was already published.

It found no evidence of increased cardiovascular risk with fat consumption, but it of course does not mean there was no risk. As the authors argued in a paper published recently in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, what is eaten with the fat was very important in how the diet influenced health.

The argument against fat was based on the fact that it raised total cholesterol levels. Total cholesterol level is not a useful indicator of cardiovascular health. Fat increases LDL and HDL levels at the same time, and one cancels the negative effect of the other. “More data are needed to elucidate whether cardiovascular disease risks are likely to be influenced by specific nutrients used to replace saturated fat,” the authors wrote in the paper. The authors also saw a publication bias against results that showed no link between fat and heart disease – that is, papers that showed fat was bad were more likely to get published in journals.

A few studies used in the analysis strongly reject a fat-heart disease link. One study two years ago, again from the HSPH and conducted on 322 individuals, was particularly striking. It looked at the lipid profiles of people on three different kinds of diet: a low-fat, low-calorie diet; an unrestricted diet; and a low-calorie but otherwise unrestricted diet. Those who were on the third regime had the healthiest lipid profile in their blood, although they ate the maximum fat. Of course, they ate the least amount of carbohydrates.

So, rice lovers, make that change. Be it a Sunday lunch or a family feast, keep that familiar mound of white off your plate.

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carbohydrates in rice

Source : The Telegraph ( Kolkata, India)

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Soda Consumption at an Early Age Indicator of Unhealthy Childhood Diet

Young girls who drink soda have less healthy diets through adolescence than their peers who do not drink soda, according to a Penn State study.
The ten-year study showed that girls who drank soda at age five had diets that were less likely to meet nutritional standards for the duration of the study, which ended at age 15.Girls who did not drink soda at age five did not meet certain nutritional requirements, but their diets were healthier.

The difference between the two groups in nutrient intake is “not just because of what they are consuming, but because of what they are not consuming,” said Laura Fiorito, postdoctoral fellow in Penn State’s Center for Child Obesity Research.

Milk intake differed greatly between the two groups — soda drinkers drank far less milk than non-soda drinkers — and milk has all of the nutrients that differed between the groups except fiber. At age five, non-soda drinkers consumed 10 to 11 ounces of milk daily, while soda drinkers had less than seven ounces.

“Adequate nutrient intake is important for optimal health and growth,” the researchers reported in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

For example, low calcium intake is associated with increased risk of bone fractures and higher added sugar is associated with dental problems and the development of several chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes.

The Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, recommends that girls between age 14 and 18 receive at least 65 milligrams of vitamin C daily. In this study, soda drinkers fell short at just 55 milligrams daily, while non-soda drinkers exceeded the recommendation at 70.5 milligrams daily.

Although soda drinkers had less healthy diets, both groups failed to meet recommendations for certain nutrients. The Institute recommends that girls age 14 to 18 receive at least 1,300 milligrams of calcium daily. At age 15, soda drinkers in the study averaged 767 milligrams a day, while non-soda drinkers had slightly higher intakes at 851 milligrams a day, but were still deficient.

The researchers also found that both groups increased their soda consumption by age 15. However, soda drinkers were consuming nearly twice as much soda at age 15 than their counterparts — 6.6 ounces a day versus 3.4 ounces a day.

Although the study has considerable implications on how beverages impact diet, Fiorito believes children may already have developed drinking preferences and patterns by age five.

“We think that the patterns develop when they are younger. Some studies show that children already drinking soda or carbonated beverages at age two,” said Fiorito.

The study followed 170 girls for 10 years, documenting meals three times every two years. Girls classified as “soda drinkers” — those who drank roughly four ounces of soda daily at age five — showed much lower intakes of fiber, protein, vitamin C, vitamin D, calcium, magnesium, phosphorous, and potassium throughout the study than “non-soda drinkers” — those who had no soda intake at age five. Also, the soda drinkers had much higher intake of added sugars. The study did not distinguish between diet and regular soda because the “soda drinkers” drank both types, but diet soda intake was very low at age five.

Parents of soda drinkers in the study had higher body mass indexes than non-soda drinkers’ parents. Fiorito believes this suggests that “parents model consumption patterns for their children,” and that the parents’ unhealthy eating habits not only contributed to an increased BMI, but influenced children.

There have been other studies on the effects of soda on dieting, but this is the first study to track the consumption of multiple beverages over a ten-year period. Included in the study were coffee/tea, soda, milk, 100 percent fruit juice, and fruit drinks – any fruit-flavored drinks with less than 100 percent fruit juice.

Other beverages have come under scrutiny in recent years for their possible negative health consequences. For example, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a formal statement in 2001 that recommended limits on children’s fruit juice intake. The Academy has not issued any formal statement on soda, but this study provides a clear link showing that soda can prevent people from maintaining a healthy diet.

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*Rye and Barley Facilitate Blood Glucose and Appetite Regulation
*Study Reveals the Anti-Inflammatory Properties of Virgin Olive Oil


Source:
Elements4Health :June8.2010

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Sweet remedy

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A protein, a by-product of natural insulin production, reduces heart complications in diabetics.  Reports on the outcome of a new study :-

Doctors have known for a long time that diabetes is one of the major risk factors for heart disease. If uncontrolled sugar levels persist for long, the blood vessels can become leaky. Such a condition allows cholesterol to seep in. And when cholesterol builds up inside the arterial blood vessels, they thicken from inside, reducing and eventually blocking the blood flow, leading to atherosclerosis.

Thanks to sustained campaigning over the years, most people now know that diabetes is also bad for the heart.

However, what many people do not know is that an inadvertent fallout of certain treatment methods can be detrimental to the heart’s functioning. A case in point is insulin therapy. One of the last resorts in diabetes management, the hormone insulin is administered either through a subcutaneous injection or by using a self-controlling pump attached to the body.

But this externally supplied insulin, for reasons not yet known, causes some cells in the blood vessels to grow more than they should, leading to a narrowing of their passageway to the heart.

A consequence of this, as some studies have shown, is that diabetics on insulin who have undergone bypass surgery are likely to have their newly grafted veins blocked earlier than non-diabetic heart patients.

But now a team of vascular biologists at the University of Leeds in the UK has found that a small protein, which was long thought to have been a useless by-product of natural insulin production in the pancreas, can ameliorate this undesirable side effect of insulin treatment.

Led by Karen Porter of the Leeds Institute of Genetics, Health and Therapeutics (Light), the researchers found that C-peptide, a natural by-product of insulin production, has a role to play in nature’s scheme of things and hence is not as “useless” as it is made out to be.

When C-peptide was given along with insulin, as happens in normal people who are not diabetic, the excessive growth and movement of cells was completely stopped, they report in the latest issue of the journal Diabetologia. “We found that administering insulin with C-peptide — which is released naturally in partnership with insulin in healthy people — appears to protect blood vessels from this damage,” says Porter.

Though insulin has been in use as medication since the 1930s, research till very recently failed to ascribe any role to C-peptide, insulin’s natural “partner”.

As a result, it was never incorporated in externally supplied insulin. In the 1970s though, some scientists briefly wondered if diabetics might be suffering from a lack of C-peptide. Subsequent studies, however, didn’t help much as they failed to ascertain any beneficial effect.

For instance, a study in 1993 by Julio Santiago of the Washington University who injected diabetic patients with low levels of the protein — just enough to match normal levels — saw no effect.

“Patients with diabetes are known to have higher cardiovascular risk and some will require coronary artery bypass grafting, using a vein from the leg. Patients donated these veins, left over after their operations, for research and we found that insulin on its own caused the cells lining these veins to go into an overdrive, with increased growth and movement that we know contribute to blockages. We were really surprised as to how powerful C-peptide was — it completely took away this insulin effect,” explains Porter.

“The study shows us a new path, wherein thickening of arteries — which is sometimes induced by insulin itself — could be decreased by giving C-peptide. This has huge relevance for the treatment of heart disease in patients with diabetes,” says Anoop Misra, head of internal medicine at New Delhi’s Fortis Hospital.

However, Nihal Thomas, an endocrinologist at the Christian Medical College, Vellore, says the idea that an additional peptide may augment the action of insulin is not entirely new. Previous studies with peptides such as IGF1 (insulin-like growth factor-1) and GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide- type 1) have shown similar benefits.

Moreover, the mechanism works at a cellular level in laboratory studies. “It needs to be established over a period of time through extensive human clinical trials to assess its clinical viability,” he adds.

But if the trials were to become successful in the next few years, a large number of diabetics all over the world will benefit from it.

It will be especially welcome in India, which is home to more than 40 million Type 2 diabetic patients.

This more common form of diabetes, associated with obesity and a sedentary lifestyle, results in the pancreas overworking and eventually failing. These patients will require insulin therapy over time. For instance, some 5 per cent of Indian diabetics are on insulin. Those suffering from Type 1 diabetes need insulin therapy at a much earlier stage.

“The number of people affected by diabetes each year indicates the problem is here to stay. Patients can generally learn to manage and live with their diabetes but heart disease is a complication that kills,” says Porter.

As has been shown by the Light researchers, a combination of insulin and C-peptide may provide a more effective treatment than insulin alone in controlling some of the cardiovascular complications associated with diabetes.

Source:
The Telegraph ( Kolkata, India)

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Study Links Birth Weight Gene To Diabetes

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Mothers who give birth to babies with low birth weight may want to monitor their child’s health as they grow, as a new study is suggesting that babies that are born at a low weight have a stronger chance of developing type 2 diabetes.

According to a report published in the journal, Nature Genetics, researchers have discovered two genetic regions that influence birth weight, one of which is also associated with the development of type 2 diabetes.

Researchers analyzed more than 38,000 patients from 19 different studies and found that the gene ADCY5, a factor in causing low birth weight, is also associated with type 2 diabetes. It was found that individuals who had this gene variant had a 25 percent higher risk of developing the condition later in their lifetime.

“It was a surprise to see such strong genetic effects for a characteristic, such as birth weight, which is subject to powerful influences from so many environmental factors,” said researcher Mark McCarthy. “These discoveries provide important clues to the mechanisms responsible for the control of growth in early life and may lead us to a better understanding of how to manage growth problems during pregnancy.”

Individuals who suffer from the condition can take diabetes natural remedies to treat their symptoms without worrying about the side effects that comes with some prescription medication.

Source:
Better Health Research; 8th April.2010

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