Diet & Nutrition News and Research

Latest Diet & Nutrition News and Research

Sleep deprivation also has impact on national health

Work-related sleeping disorders have proliferated rapidly in recent years with increases in occupational stress and abnormal working hours.

16 Mar 2005

Q. What turns an obese person into a person with diabetes? - A. Leptin

Twin epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes are bearing down on the world's population, threatening the lives of hundreds of millions of people. But scientists are still trying to determine how the two conditions are linked, and what it takes to turn an obese person into a person with diabetes.

16 Mar 2005

Diabetes Busting Burgers!

Chemists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently presented a preliminary report to the 229th national meeting of the American Chemical Society, in which they say they have discovered a form of soluble cellulose that, if added to high-fat food. The new finding could soon benefit people who regularly eat fast-foods that are high in fat.

16 Mar 2005

Its not just the Americans - Europeans are getting fat too!

The United States is now being challenged in the obesity stakes by at least seven European countries. All across Europe, the proportion of overweight or obese men is higher than in the United States, experts said Tuesday in a major analysis of expanding girth on the European continent.

15 Mar 2005

No association between acrylamide intake in foods and risk of breast cancer

Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, have found no association between acrylamide intake in foods and risk of breast cancer among Swedish women. The findings appear in the March 16, 2005 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

15 Mar 2005

Aspirin use appears to reduce the incidence of colon polyps

The association between regular aspirin use and a reduced risk of precancerous colon polyps may be strongest in those with particular genetic variants.

15 Mar 2005

Fasting every other day, while cutting few calories, may reduce cancer risk

New research at the University of California, Berkeley, raises such a possibility. It shows that healthy mice given only 5 percent fewer calories than mice allowed to eat freely experienced a significant reduction in cell proliferation in several tissues, considered an indicator for cancer risk.

15 Mar 2005

Beneficial effects of Alpha-Linolenic acid in walnuts

The recently-announced USDA dietary guidelines stress the need for consumers to be more aware of the benefits of polyunsaturated essential omega-3 fatty acids in order to achieve a healthy diet. Many people look to fish, such as salmon, for omega-3s, but plant sources such as walnuts are also specifically noted in the USDA recommendations.

15 Mar 2005

Lesbian body image differs from that of women overall

Over three-quarters of lesbian adults (77%) describe their body weight as overweight while 67% of all female adults surveyed describe their body weight as overweight.

15 Mar 2005

Process behind cellular export of iron may help to explain human hemochromatosis

The first direct evidence that a single protein is critical in the cellular export of iron may help to explain human hemochromatosis, researchers report in the March issue of Cell Metabolism.

15 Mar 2005

Hungry men don't need outsized portions

Remember when advertisers asked, "How do you handle a hungry man?" and offered bigger, man-sized versions of the ever-popular TV dinner?

15 Mar 2005

New insight into key mechanism by which cells limit cholesterol

The finding suggests a novel approach to the development of cholesterol-lowering drugs that may boost the effect of statins, one of the most prescribed cholesterol inhibitors, according to researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

15 Mar 2005

Disparities in health care are pervasive in America

Disparities in health care are pervasive in America. These disparities adversely impact the cardiovascular health of Americans, especially African Americans, Hispanics, poor and uneducated people, according to a report in a special disparities themed issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

15 Mar 2005

Community care tops medical care at preventing heart disease in black Americans

Upgraded community health services, including checkups by phone or in person with a local nurse practitioner at a neighborhood clinic, and free charge cards for medications are almost nine times more likely to benefit black Americans at greater risk of heart disease than full-service physician care alone.

15 Mar 2005

Heart disease risk in older women identified by simple blood test

Postmenopausal women who are not identified by traditional cardiovascular risk factors, could benefit from a simple blood test to show their white blood cell (WBC) count which may predict cardiovascular events and risk of death.

15 Mar 2005

Simple blood test may help to predict cardiovascular risk in older women

White blood cell (WBC) count may predict cardiovascular events and risk of death in postmenopausal women who are not currently identified by traditional cardiovascular risk factors, according to an article in the March 14 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

14 Mar 2005

New study regarding Atkins nutritional approach and obese patients

A new study by Temple University School of Medicine researchers has shown why the pounds melt so quickly on low-carbohydrate diets, and it's not related to water, metabolism or boredom. The research was conducted in a group of obese patients with type 2 diabetes who followed the Atkins diet.

14 Mar 2005

European folic acid policies are not effective enough

The prevalence of neural tube defects in Europe has not declined substantially in the past decade, despite national policies of folic acid supplementation in half the countries, finds a study in this week's BMJ.

13 Mar 2005

Protein sequenced from 75,000 year old Iraqi

An international team led by researchers at the Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Liepzig, Germany and Washington University in St. Louis, has extracted and sequenced protein from a Neanderthal from Shanidar Cave, Iraq dating to approximately 75,000 years old.

9 Mar 2005

Efforts to improve the quality of post-heart attack care working better for men than for women

Efforts to improve the quality of post-heart attack care in hospitals are working - but they appear to be working better for men than for women, new research shows.

9 Mar 2005