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Exercise Fights Fatty Liver Disease

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Counseling patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease on how to increase physical activity leads to health benefits that are independent of changes in weight.

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Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is the most common form of chronic liver disease in developed countries. It is associated with obesity, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, and is characterized by elevated liver enzymes.

Currently, patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease are encouraged to alter their lifestyles, but the focus has been on weight loss through dietary changes. But when patients were encouraged to be active for at least 150 minutes per week, they showed improvements in liver enzymes and other metabolic indices, which were not connected to weight loss.

Resources:
Eurekalert July 1, 2009
Hepatology July 2009 Volume 50 Issue 1, Pages 68-76

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A Grapefruit Pill to Fight Obesity

Tart and tangy with an underlying sweetness, grapefruit has a juiciness which rivals that of the ever popular orange and sparkles with many  of the same health promoting benefits.And, now researchers are on track to develop a pill from a chemical compound in grapefruit, which they claim would help obese people shed the flab and diabetics control their blood sugar levels.

Researchers at University of Western Ontario have found that naringenin, the chemical compound that gives grapefruit its bitter taste, has revolutionary effect on the liver making it burn fat instead of storing it after a meal.

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According to them, this means that without having to change diets or cut out particular foods, a dose of naringenin could prevent weight gain and even help to lose it as well as help those having diabetes to control blood sugar levels.

Lead researcher Murray Huff said: “The study shows naringenin, through its insulin-like properties, corrects many of the metabolic disturbances linked to insulin resistance and represents a promising approach for metabolic syndrome.”

They have based their findings on an analysis of tests which were carried out on mice — two groups of rodents were both fed the equivalent of a Western diet to speed up their “metabolic syndrome”, the process leading to Type 2 diabetes.

Source:    The Times Of India

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Vitamin E, C Supplements Reduce Exercise Benefits

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A new study suggests that some vitamin supplements may reduce some of the beneficial effects of exercise.

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Michael Ristow, of the University of Jena in Germany, has shown that antioxidant supplements like vitamin C or E can interfere with the benefits of exercising.

Previous studies have also revealed that taking antioxidants may hasten death through an unknown mechanism.

One possibility, according to the researcher, is that they interfere with the beneficial effects of exercise, as there are hints that free radicals might be used by the body to prevent cellular damage after exercise.

During the study, the researchers recruited 40 volunteers. Half of them were asked to take 1000 milligrams of vitamin C and 400 international units of vitamin E per day – equivalent to amounts in some vitamin supplements.

The volunteers were also asked to exercise for 85 minutes a day, five days a week, for four weeks.

The researchers found that muscle biopsies showed a two-fold increase in a marker of free radicals called TBARS (thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances) in those volunteers who didn’t take antioxidants

However, they found no increase in those who did take the supplements – suggesting that they were indeed mopping them up.

Ristow pointed out that exercise is well known to have a beneficial effect on insulin resistance – a precursor condition to type 2 diabetes.

However, when the team measured the effects of exercise on insulin sensitivity, they found no increase in those volunteers taking antioxidants, but a significant increase in those who didn’t take the supplements.

“These data are fully in accord with recent work on the actions of reactive oxygen species in cells, although clearly at odds with the popular concept that dietary antioxidants are inevitably beneficial,” New Scientist magazine quoted Malcolm Jackson at the University of Liverpool, UK, who was not involved in the research as saying.

In fact, in this case, “antioxidants are preventing the health effects of exercise,” said Ristow,

He, however, cautions that not all vitamin supplements contain such high doses of vitamin C and E.

The study appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Exercise Cuts Negative Effects Of Belly Fat

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Moderate exercise can reduce the negative effects of belly fat, which is linked to metabolic syndrome, says a new study. Metabolic  syndrome increases the risk of developing cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes.

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“The benefits of exercise were apparent, even without a change in diet. We saw improvements in insulin sensitivity, less fat in the liver, and less inflammation in belly fat,” said Jeffrey Woods, a professor at the University of Illinois (U-I) who led the study.

Inflammation is the response of body tissues to injury or irritation; characterized by pain, swelling, redness and heat. Kinesiology is the science of human movement and it focuses on how the body functions and moves.

Belly fat is particularly dangerous because it produces inflammatory molecules that enter the bloodstream and increase the risk of heart disease and diabetes, he said.

Woods and his colleagues examined the effects of diet and exercise on the inflammation of visceral or belly fat tissue in mice. A high-fat diet was first used to induce obesity in the animals.

After six weeks, mice were assigned to either a sedentary group, an exercise group, a low-fat diet group, or a group that combined a low-fat diet with exercise for six or twelve weeks so the scientists could compare the effects in both the short and long term, said an Illinois release.

“The surprise was that the combination of diet and exercise didn’t yield dramatically different and better results than diet or exercise alone,” said Vicki Vieira, study co-author.

Woods said that it is a promising finding. “The benefits of exercise were apparent even if the animals were still eating a high-fat diet. That tells me that exercise could decrease or prevent these life-threatening diseases by reducing inflammation even when obesity is still present.”

“The good news is that this was a very modest exercise programme. The mice ran on a treadmill only about one-fourth of a mile five days a week. For humans, that would probably translate into walking 30 to 45 minutes a day five days a week,” he noted.

Sources: The Times Of India

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Myths About Sugar and Health

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Replacing sugar with other sources of carbohydrates does not necessarily make you lose weight, according to a scientific review study.

Busting such misconceptions about the impact of sugars on health, the study observes that what appears more important is the total amount of energy intake, the energy density of the foods and the quality of the diet.

The evidence shows that added sugars do not necessarily compromise a person’s intake of micronutrients. The “micronutrient dilution” myth that eating added sugars dilutes the nutrient density of a person’s diet appears mostly due to misreporting and methodological constraints.

Finally, although sugar consumption has traditionally been associated with poor dental health, the experts pointed to the importance of the frequency, more than the amount, of consumption of all sugars and fermentable carbohydrates.

Nowadays, for the prevention of tooth decay, the widespread use of fluoridated toothpaste and good oral hygiene play a more important role.

“The results provide a much needed update of the overall scientific evidence on sugars and suggest that new randomised controlled intervention studies of sufficient size and duration are required,” said Andreu Palou, who chaired the expert workshop that looked at the current available scientific evidence.

The combined impact of many dietary and lifestyle factors such as physical activity, excessive calorie intake and weight gain, and their interactions, have to be taken into account.

Obesity and low physical activity are causally related to the development of insulin resistance and its progression towards type 2 diabetes.

There is convincing evidence from randomised controlled trials (RCT) that weight loss and moderate physical activity are beneficial in improving insulin sensitivity and preventing type 2 diabetes, said a Comité Européen des Fabricants de Sucre (CEFS) release. CEFS represents all European sugar manufacturers and refiners among European Institutions.

Sources: The Times Of India

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