Archive For The “Health” Category
Walnuts have 21 percent fewer calories than what is currently assigned to it by the USDA, according to a recent study.
One serving (1 ounce) of walnuts contains 146 calories, which is 39 calories less than the 185 calories assigned to the product, the USDA reports. Since late 19th century, the calorie value for the walnuts has been derived from the Atwater system that calculates the metabolisable energy of many foods.
The recent research discovered that the metabolisable energy of walnuts was 21 percent less than that established by the Atwater general factor system.
For the study, the USDA studied 18 healthy adults. Each participant was assigned randomly to follow two diet regimens: a controlled diet without walnuts, and a controlled diet with 1.5 servings (42g) of walnuts, each followed for a 3-week period.
Assigned diets to each participant, walnuts, fecal and urine samples were collected and calories were measured and this measurement was used to calculate the metabolisable energy of the walnuts.
“Our results could help explain why consumers of walnuts do not typically gain weight. And given the numerous potential health benefits of consuming walnuts, including reduced risk for cancer, cardiovascular and cognitive diseases, our results could potentially help alleviate any calorie-related concerns consumers might have with incorporating them into their everyday diet,” the USDA reported.
In earlier research too, it has been established that walnut provides benefits to health. Recently a study by researchers from the Life Sciences Research Organisation in the US showed that consuming two handfuls of walnuts daily could help stave off cardiovascular disease.
The study claimed that intake of about 60 grams of this tree nut everyday lowers total cholesterol levels in the body, thus cuts a person’s risk of heart attack.
Touted as the world’s healthiest food, walnut is a rich source of numerous important nutrients such as omega-3s, fibres, vitamins, protein and minerals as well as the heart-healthy monounsaturated fats.
Research has shown a rhubarb-based drug could help fight against cancer. According to this research, an orange-coloured chemical in rhubarb, parietin, has powerful anti-cancer properties.
Parietin can zap cells in leukaemia as well as lung, head and neck tumours, however healthy cells will remain untouched. This is significant as many of the debilitating side-effects of chemotherapy, from nausea to hair loss, are caused by healthy cells suffering collateral damage.
Scientists in the US found parietin after searching for chemicals that would block a protein called 6PGD which helps cancers grow. Scientists carried out an experiment which showed that parietin killed diseased cells taken from a patient with the blood cancer acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. Half of the cancerous cells were destroyed within 48 hours.
Scientists from Emory University in Atlanta have shown it is possible to alter the chemistry of parietin to make an even more powerful compound. This drug slowed the growth of tumours that were growing on mice but were made up of human cells, but more work and tests are needed to confirm that the rhubarb-based drugs are free of side-effects.
Even though rhubarb is only just being discovered in Western medicine, the plant has been a staple of Chinese traditional medicine for centuries. It is claimed it can aid everything from digestion and acne to burns and appetite.
Dietary Guidelines for Americans that include fruits and vegetables at the top of the list for a healthy diet have been released for 2015 to 2020.
Issued every five years, the guidelines not only provide the latest scientifically supported dietary advice, they often shape government policies on a range of food issues. The USDA department of Health & Human Services released the recommendations along with an updated MyPlate MyWins program.
The document recommends a diet based on a variety of nutritious foods like vegetables, fruits, grains, low-fat and fat-free dairy, lean meats and other protein foods and oils, while limiting saturated fats, trans fats, added sugars and sodium.
Americans are urged to eat a variety of vegetables, including dark green, red and orange, legumes and starchy vegetables. The recommended amount of vegetables in the Healthy U.S.-Style Eating Pattern at the 2,000-calorie level is two-and-a-half cup-equivalents per day. For fruits, it’s two cup-equivalents per day, with at least half coming from whole fruits.
“The Dietary Guidelines provide science-based recommendations on food and nutrition so people can make decisions that may help keep their weight under control, and prevent chronic conditions, like Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease,” said HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell.
by Jon Reidel, University of Vermont
One of the first studies to measure food consumption in schools before and after the implementation of a controversial mandate by the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirms what school lunch officials initially feared and subsequently witnessed: students putting fruits and vegetables into the trash instead of their mouths.
The study, published online in Public Health Reports on Aug. 25, shows that although students selected more fruits and vegetables under the new mandate requiring them to take either a fruit or vegetable, they actually consumed slightly less of each. Through the use of digital imaging to capture students’ lunch trays before and after they exited the lunch line, researchers also found an increase in waste of approximately 56 percent.
“The basic question we wanted to explore was if under these 2012 USDA guidelines, does requiring a child to select a fruit or vegetable correspond with consumption,” says Sarah Amin, a researcher in Nutrition and Food Sciences at the University of Vermont and lead author of the study. “It was heartbreaking to see so many students toss fruits like apples into the trash right after exiting the lunch line.”
As a new year begins, it’s time to look at the trends that dietitians believe consumers will be following. So-called “clean” eating appears to be the biggest food trend for 2016.
“Clean” Eating
“Clean” eating r refers to a diet that is primarily made up of fresh fruit and vegetables. It avoids processed food, and is seen as being among 2016’s biggest food trends, according to Today’s Dietitian and Pollock Communications.
Seeds
Likewise, seeds should be a bigger part of consumers’ diets in 2016 with 55 percent of registered dietitians believing seeds have superfood nutrition, displacing kale as a trendy food source. Avocados are expected to be nearly as popular, along with ancient grains.
“Free” of…
Consumers will continue to express a strong preference for “free” of certain things, like genetically modified organisms (GMO), gluten, and antibiotics.
Spiralizing
Vgetable spiralizers are trending up while pasta sales decline (6 percent in the U.S., a whopping 25 percent in Italy).
“Ancient Foods”
The move toward ancient foods such as grains and superfoods can now become personalized with DNA testing. The foods are also easier to source because ethnic foods and seasonings are becoming very popular, especially those from Africa and the Middle East.
Alternet.com also published a list of 7 food trends to watch for 2016, featuring more plant eating, a rejection of GMOs, eating ugly foods and locavorism, which is the practice of eating locally produced foods.
by National Fruit & Vegetable Alliance
Hockessin, Del. – A new report card evaluates critical policies and programs impacting our food choices and their contributions to our nation’s health over the past 10 years.
Overall, the positive impact has been minimal despite proven scientific data continuously showing that a diet high in fruits and vegetables helps maintain a healthy weight and reduces the risk of several serious, chronic diseases that are the leading causes of death. In 2005, the National Fruit & Vegetable Alliance (NFVA) – led by the Produce for Better Health Foundation (PBH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – developed a National Action Plan, providing a new and comprehensive approach for improved public health through increased fruit and vegetable consumption.
10 years later, the Alliance has released a second Report Card to evaluate progress made by schools, restaurants, supermarkets, and federal and state governments in its 2015 National Action Plan (NAP). Similar to the first Report Card released in 2010, the 2015 NAP Report Card utilizing survey data finds that the average American’s fruit and vegetable consumption remains far below recommended levels, with a 5 percent decline during the past five years.
The decline is largely driven by a decrease in 100 percent juice consumption, especially at breakfast, and a decline in the dinner side dish for vegetables. There were differences in consumption by age, with positive increases in fruit consumption among all children and vegetable consumption among teens.
In contrast, consumers over age 45, who typically eat the most fruits and vegetables, are trending downward in their consumption of both over time. Overall, only 4percent of individuals achieve their recommended target for vegetables and only 8 percent achieve their recommended target for fruit in an average day.
The Report Card assigned an ‘A’ grade to schools, given the doubling of fruits and vegetables in school meals as a result of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. An ‘A’ grade was also offered to the Healthy Incentive Pilot program that demonstrated strong positive results at increasing fruit and vegetable consumption among SNAP households, which helped justify the new USDA Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive (FINI) Program to test other methods of incentivizing SNAP participants to purchase fruits and vegetables.
An ‘A’ grade was also offered, once again, to the WIC Fruit and Vegetable Vouchers program, which was introduced in 2009 as part of a special supplemental program for Women, Infants and Children. Restaurants and cafeterias received a ‘B-‘ for providing greater availability and variety in fruit and vegetable choices on menus. Supermarkets and fruit and vegetable suppliers received a ‘C’ grade for some progress over the past five years at making fruits and vegetables more accessible and convenient.
A ‘D’ grade was given on the alignment of agricultural policy and research with nutrition policy. Last, a failing grade was once again assigned to the food marketing category given its continued low level of fruit and vegetable marketing (<1%) relative to all food marketing.
Capsaicin, the compound responsible for chilis’ heat, is used in creams sold to relieve pain, and recent research shows that in high doses, it kills prostate cancer cells. Now researchers are finding clues that help explain how the substance works. Their conclusions suggest that one day it could come in a new, therapeutic form. Their study appears in ACS’ The Journal of Physical Chemistry B.
About 10 years ago, researchers reported that capsaicin can kill prostate cancer cells in mice while leaving healthy cells unharmed. But translating that dose to humans would require them to eat a huge number of chili peppers per day.
Figuring out how capsaicin works could help researchers transform it into an effective drug in the form of an injection or pill. Researchers have figured out that the molecule binds to a cell’s surface and affects the membrane, which surrounds and protects the cell. That finding prompted Ashok Kumar Mishra and Jitendriya Swain to try to gain a deeper understanding of capsaicin’s effects so it might be harnessed in the future for new medicines.
The scientists were able to detect how the compound interacts with cell membranes by monitoring its natural fluorescence. The study showed that capsaicin lodges in the membranes near the surface. Add enough of it, and the capsaicin essentially causes the membranes to come apart. With additional research, this insight could help lead to novel tools against cancer or other conditions.
As we grow older, we lose strength and muscle mass. However, the cause of age-related muscle weakness and atrophy has remained a mystery.
Scientists at the University of Iowa have discovered the first example of a protein that causes muscle weakness and loss during aging. The protein, ATF4, is a transcription factor that alters gene expression in skeletal muscle, causing reduction of muscle protein synthesis, strength, and mass. The UI study also identifies two natural compounds, one found in apples and one found in green tomatoes, which reduce ATF4 activity in aged skeletal muscle. The findings were published online recently in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, could lead to new therapies for age-related muscle weakness and atrophy.
“Many of us know from our own experiences that muscle weakness and atrophy are big problems as we become older,” says Christopher Adams, M.D., Ph.D., professor of internal medicine in the UI Carver College of Medicine, and senior study author. “These problems have a major impact on our quality of life and health.”
Previously, Adams and his team had identified ursolic acid, which is found in apple peel, and tomatidine, which comes from green tomatoes, as small molecules that can prevent acute muscle wasting caused by starvation and inactivity. Those studies set the stage for testing whether ursolic acid and tomatidine might be effective in blocking the largest cause of muscle weakness and atrophy: aging.
In their latest study, Adams’ team found that ursolic acid and tomatidine dramatically reduce age-related muscle weakness and atrophy in mice. Elderly mice with age-related muscle weakness and atrophy were fed diets lacking or containing either 0.27 percent ursolic acid, or 0.05 percent tomatidine for two months. The scientists found that both compounds increased muscle mass by 10 percent, and more importantly, increased muscle quality, or strength, by 30 percent. The sizes of these effects suggest that the compounds largely restored muscle mass and strength to young adult levels.
Looking for patterns in food consumption among elementary school children, researchers at Texas A&M University found something interesting about when and why kids choose to eat their vegetables. After analyzing plate waste data from nearly 8,500 students, it appears there is at least one variable tending to affect whether kids eat their broccoli, spinach or green beans more than anything: what else is on the plate.
In short, kids, are much more likely to eat their vegetable portion when it’s paired with a food that isn’t so delicious it gets all the attention. When chicken nuggets and burgers, the most popular items among schoolchildren, are on the menu, for instance, vegetable waste tends to rise significantly. When other less-beloved foods, like deli sliders or baked potatoes, are served, the opposite seems to happen.
The problem has been blamed, at least in part, for the deteriorating diets of American youth. It has also been on clear display ever since the government updated, in 2013, its nutrition standards for the National School Lunch Program. Children, suddenly confronted with vegetables on every plate (as required as part of the change), have responded not by eating them, but by leaving them on their plates — untouched.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says nine out of 10 children still don’t eat enough vegetables.
Americans’ vegetable habits lean towards french fries and ketchup, and proof of that is in new data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Nearly 50 percent of vegetables and legumes available in the U.S. in 2013 were either tomatoes or potatoes. Lettuce came in third as the most available vegetable.
The USDA’s dietary guidelines recommend that adults consume 2.5 to 3 cups of vegetables a day, but the agency’s researchers found only 1.7 cups per person are available.
The federal dietary guidelines do not recommend relying primarily on potatoes, tomatoes and lettuce for most of our vegetable needs. They prescribe a varied mix that includes dark leafy greens, orange and yellow vegetables, and beans—along with those potatoes and tomatoes. The USDA wants us to eat them because they help reduce the risk for heart disease, stroke and some cancers as well as help keep a healthy weight.
So the vegetables that are available don’t really match what we’re supposed to be eating. What about what we are actually eating?
Some 87 percent of adults failed to meet the vegetable intake recommendations during 2007-2010. Recent survey data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found a lot of variation state to state — with 5.5 percent of people in Mississippi getting enough vegetables to 13 percent in California meeting the recommendations.
Most people are likely to be eating tomatoes and potatoes, but as the USDA points out we often get them in the not-so-nutritious forms of french fries and pizza. About one-third of potatoes, and two-thirds of tomatoes, were bound for processing via items ranging from chips, to sweetened pizza sauce and ketchup.