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Eating "gluten-free" when there's no medical need to do so won't boost your heart health -- and might even harm it, a new study warns.

Gluten-free diets have soared in popularity in recent years. But, shunning gluten has no heart benefits for people without celiac disease, and it may mean consuming a diet lacking heart-healthy whole grains, according to the quarter-century study.

"For the vast majority of people who can tolerate it, restricting gluten to improve your overall health is likely not to be a beneficial strategy," said study leader Dr. Andrew Chan.

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Gluten-free products are gaining in popularity. Nearly 30 percent of U.S. adults are avoiding gluten or have it completely removed their diets. M...

Gluten is a protein found in wheat, rye and barley. People with celiac disease -- less than 1 percent of the U.S. population -- have an immune system reaction when they eat gluten, triggering inflammation and intestinal damage. They also have an increased risk of heart disease, but that declines after they begin eating a gluten-free diet, according to background information in the study.

Recently, researchers have reported that some people may have what's known as non-celiac gluten sensitivity, a condition that's not totally understood.

"I don't want to dismiss the fact that there are people who have the sensitivity," said Chan, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

But, the rest of the population should not think that going gluten-free will help their health -- at least not their heart health, he said.

For the study, Chan and his colleagues analyzed data on nearly 65,000 women and more than 45,000 men, all U.S. health professionals without a history of heart disease when the study started. The study participants completed a detailed food questionnaire beginning in 1986 and updated it every four years until 2010.

The researchers looked at gluten intake, dividing participants into five groups from low to high, then calculated how likely they were to develop heart disease over roughly 26 years.

When the researchers compared the highest-intake gluten group with the lowest, the rates of heart disease were not very different.

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The Food and Drug Administration is proposing new guidelines for labeling a product as "gluten-free." For those with Celiac disease, even the tin...

However, people with restricted gluten intake often eat a diet low in fiber-rich whole grains -- which are tied to lower heart risk -- and higher in refined grains, Chan said.

So, the researchers then adjusted their findings for intake of refined grains. "It appeared that those individuals who consumed the lowest levels of dietary gluten had a 15 percent higher risk of heart disease," Chan said.

Because the study was observational, however, "we can't say with certainty that this is a cause-and-effect association," Chan said.

Dr. Ravi Dave is a cardiologist and professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles Geffen School of Medicine.

"Eating gluten-free is a big fad right now," said Dave, who wasn't involved in the study. "There is a lot of hype about how gluten produces inflammation and can lead to giving you diabetes, heart disease, dementia, a lot of things."

Although he finds this new study inconclusive, Dave agreed with the researchers: "We should not recommend people who don't have gluten sensitivity or celiac disease go on a gluten-free diet," he said.

Dave also said the study left some questions unanswered. For instance, it doesn't reveal what the people who avoided gluten substituted. "Were they picking a more unhealthy choice that put them at risk for heart disease?" he wondered.

For people who still want or need to steer clear of gluten, Chan said it's important to obtain adequate amounts of fiber. Oats and brown rice are good sources of gluten-free fiber, he noted.

The study had no food industry funding. It was published online May 2 inBMJ.

Read more here:
What a gluten-free diet may mean for your heart - CBS News

In a perfect world, the upcoming Wonder Woman movie would be a big-budget, 3-D opportunity to reaffirm the strength of womankind, appreciate and laud women for who they are and not just what they offer to men and celebrate the female form not as a subject of desire but a source of power.

This is, as you may have noticed,not a perfect world.

SinceHollywood, capitalism and, lets face it, life itself are just plain unfair, Warner Bros. has turned to the dietand wellness industry to promote the upcoming Wonder Woman film. Thanks to the brilliant feminist geeks over atThe Mary Sue, we sawthis: Gaze at the corporate synergy and sigh.

Yes, thats a retail stander with Gal Gadot fiercely defending every womans right to calorie-reduced cereal emblazoned with the lovingly problematicbrand name thinkThin. Further commentary isnt necessary.

If that werent enough (it never is), thinkThin conducteda related customersurvey,which found that universal agreement across all age groups that Wonder Woman does not need anyone to complete her . . . though maybe they havent met Steve Trevor! Trevor isthe character who luresWonder Woman out ofher idyllic Amazonian island homewith calls to duty and the lure of normativeromance. Just thought you should know.

In case youre interested, thinkThin PR is also asking social-media users to post a comment or photo on Twitter, Instagram or the official thinkThin Facebook page about thinkThin or Wonder Woman using the hashtags #thinkWonderWoman. Have fun with that.

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Wonder Woman's next mission? shilling diet cereal - Salon

Circadian clock changes can alter body's response to diet Science Daily Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have discovered that changing the circadian clock in mouse liver can alter how the body responds to diet and also change the microbes living in the digestive track. In this study, which appears online in the ... and more »

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Circadian clock changes can alter body's response to diet - Science Daily

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What gives.

The day the meals that were going to turn me into Tom Brady arrived, I carried the oversize Purple Carrot TB12 Performance Meals box into my buildings elevator. There was a dude in there. He noticed my box, clearly sensing the power of the gluten-free, 100 percent plant-based ingredients contained inside.

Whats Purple Carrot? he asked.

Its, like, a food-delivery service.

So, kinda like Blue Apron? he replied.

Yeah, sort of, if Blue Apron came straight from Tom Bradys kitchen and could help you throw a goddam country mile, I thought. A half-hearted I guess came out instead.

You see, as part of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Bradys TB12 Sports business, the handsome, five-time Super Bowl winner joined with plant-based food-delivery organization Purple Carrot to create a jacked-up meal-delivery kit. Its inspired by the strict nutritional regimen that helps him remain, at the NFL dinosaur age of 39, the greatest man to ever throw an oblong ball to other men for points. Theres no gluten, no nightshades (a vegetable family that includes eggplant and our beloved tomato), no sugar. It is not a diet that sounds like a lot of fun, but it is a diet that sounds like it might make your muscles just as pliable as Tom Brady wants them to be.

I was never expecting to enjoy the plan, but I did want to better understand who on Earth would do this. Who would take one of the extremely unsexy means by which Tom Brady achieves the very sexy end that is his life, and make that into an end itself? And also: Did anyone actually think it would work? Would it? If GQ agreed to pay for it, then I figured I might as well take three weeks and try to find out.

The meals are delivered every Tuesday in a giant red-and-white box decorated with the unfortunate slogan #eatlikeaGOAT and some other aspirational words (What we get out of our bodies is a direct result of what we put in. Food is fuel, and we believe that food can help you achieve and sustain your peak performance). For $78 a week, you receive ingredients for three meals, along with three detailed, step-by-step recipe cards. The finished dishes on these cards look like what Tom and Gisele look like in photos, which is to say: not at all realistic. Every ingredient, aside from whole vegetables, comes in a perfectly parceled-out portion size: Theres the little baggy of turmeric, the pat of vegan butter, the sac of cauliflower florets. Probably not super awesome for the environment, but convenient for me. The first box came with a letter from Tom, written in all-caps block letters.

I HOPE YOU ENJOY YOUR TB12 PERFORMANCE MEALS! I AM A BIG BELIEVER IN THE POWER OF PLANT-BASED NUTRITION, AND I AM EXCITED TO SHARE MEALS ILL BE EATING WITH YOU TOO. THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT AND HERES TO YOU ACHIEVING & SUSTAINING YOUR OWN PEAK PERFORMANCE!

[SIGNATURE OF TOM FAHCKIN BRADY!!!!!]

My enthusiasm did not match Tom Bradys enthusiasm, but maybe thats because Id been eating gluten.

Week 1 Okay, so I did not make the ramen bowl with gingered amaranth greens and watermelon radish. I did not make the crispy turnip cakes with quinoa tabouleh and Zaatar yogurt. I did not make the white lentil risotto with Meyer lemon and cashew gremolata. Things came up. Lesson number one: You can buy the raw ingredients for Tom Bradys meals, but you cannot buy his discipline. And by discipline, I mean: his chef.

Here is a little bit about me: I do not cook. I can cookjust not that well, because I never do it. My angel of a mothera truly tremendous cookbought me an All-Clad skillet and was so excited about it being an All-Clad that I figured it must be a good brand. I put it to use by cooking for a date once. She described the meal as pretty good. It was not pretty good. So asking me to make turnip cakeslet alone crispy ones with quinoa tabouleh and Zaatar yogurtcasually, on a weeknight, is like asking Bill Belichick to give expressive, eloquent soliloquies in response to reporters' press conference questions.

Week 2 My second week was only slightly more successful. The beluga lentil tacos with quick guacamole and radish slaw (610 calories, 20 grams of fat, 84 grams of carbs, and 26 grams of protein), which I forced myself to make the Thursday after they arrived, were easy enough to make and possessed a flavor profile I would describe as fineeven though the avocado was not quite ripe enough (maybe my fault since I left it in the fridge), leaving the guacamole chunky and weird. But it did not take thirty minutes to prepare, as the friendly card assured me. I got home at 8:17 that night, and was eating by 9:07. By that time, my night was already over. I had dishes to clean, and no supermodel wife to do them with as we lovingly sprayed water on each other, before tucking in our beautiful, glowing, nutrient-rich, gluten-free kids, and heading to our room where wed sleep under the watchful gaze of our five Super Bowl trophies.

The following Monday, my friends graciously invited me to join them for pizza, to which I had to say: No, I have to go home and makewhat did I have to make? It was a Monday, so I was forced to choose between six-day old saffron paella with walnut chorizo and fresh fava beans and six-day old creamy cauliflower Alfredo with radicchio and arugula salad. (Apparently Tom Brady only eats meals with three distinct componentsis that his real secret?) Easy choice, considering step four of the formers recipe begins In a food processor and if youll remember, I didnt know what All-Clad was, so no, I dont own a food processor. The assumption that I would tells you a lot about who Brady is writing his meals for. Alfredo it was, which was unfortunate since it called for chickpea pasta and nutritional yeast. (It also asked me to zest a lemon which I had only previously known as a noun.) The first instruction was to preheat my oven to 400. A strange instruction, considering I did not need to use the oven for the rest of the recipe.

The resulting pasta? Not good, though I will say: I did feel significantly less of the brick-in-the-stomach sensation I normally get post-pasta. Theres something to be said about a lightness that follows the consumption of the BradyMeals; I felt significantly less drained of energy. Unfortunately, that comes at a price: flavor. There is never a sauce or some overbearing ingredient that can help you save yourself from yourself if you botch the cookinga cooking ripcord, something flavorful, like marinara, that you can drown your food in if it comes out underwhelming. The taste of chickpea pasta was just as bland as the alfredo sauce (made of cauliflower, shallots, garlic, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, and almond milk) I doused it in. Not even salt could save it. But at least my oven was heated to 400 degrees.

Week 3 Meals Thursday of that same week, I opted to dive into the third week of meals that had arrived Tuesday (the day after I ate the pasta). The coconut tofu with mango fried cauliflower rice & spicy cucumbers was out again on account of my still not having a food processor, so I opted instead for mung bean dal with tamarind, popped sorghum, and flatbread. This recipe called for popping sorghum on the stove, which I tried, but did not ultimately do, even though the sorghum smoked out my apartment like it was really trying. But you know what? This dish was pretty good! I could not make out a single ingredient outside the salt and the lime and, yet, it was kind of pleasant? I actually saved the leftovers to eat later. (I did not eat them later.)

And then the next night, a Friday, a miracle. This was going to be my last Tom Brady meal: stuffed sweet potatoes with crispy garbanzos & muhammara vinaigrette. It might have been the best meal Ive ever made (admittedly, a low bar). It actually cooked in roughly the time it said it would (about 40 minutes). The sweet potatoes were delicious (credit to Tom, who probably picked them by hand). The muhammara vinaigrette was shockingly complex in its taste, and yet incredibly simplistic in its design (throw roasted red pepper, lemon juice, pomegranate molasses, aleppo pepper flakes, walnuts, cumin, chopped scallion, olive oil, and salt in a blender and push the button that blends). The crispy garbanzos were easy to crisp (with an oven that was heated and used). Of the four potatoes, I ate three, and saved one to eat later. (I did eat it later.)

I may not have given this an earnest try, and I may not be the most competent cook, but when I asked myself, after four out of nine BradyMeals, who would actually eat these, the only answer I could come up with is: Tom Brady. This plan makes sense for Tom Brady! Tom Brady doesnt have impromptu, mid-week happy hours with coworkers. Tom Bradys friends probably dont ask Tom Brady to get pizza. Tom Brady has discipline. Tom Brady has a chefand a food processor. Tom Bradys entire life is optimized to achieve and sustain peak performance. Tom Bradys diet is one prong of a multi-pronged, holistic approach to being the best quarterback in the world. Im just a dude whos trying to be mostly healthy and not die. And so I want to eat healthy, but theres healthy food thats accessible, and delicious, and doesnt require me to cut out nightshades and use vegan butter, or make me skip dinners with friends. Food fuels your body, true. And yet thinking of it purely as fuel turns cooking and eating into a means to something else and negates the possibility that they can be enjoyed in and of themselves.

But I guess thats why I didnt turn into Tom Brady.

More:
I Ate Tom Brady's Diet for Three Weeks and Gisele is Still Not My ... - GQ Magazine

A A

WOODLAND It was not just any regular root beer. It was draft root beer.

Julia Stepper figured she could enjoy it, just this once.

In a lapse of judgment, she ordered it during a Woodland team dinner the night before the Class 2A state track and field meet last spring.

The drink was delivered to her table, and it looked amazing. She reached for it with anticipation.

Only, one of her coaches got to it first, picked up the mug, and gave it to another person at the table.

Drank it right in front of me, Stepper said.

It got a little awkward.

Stepper was frustrated, miffed dare we say, ticked? at her coach. It was practically the end of the season. She had earned that root beer, that draft root beer. One soft drink could not possibly make a difference.

But deep down, Stepper knew her coach did the right thing. Deep down, Stepper did not want that drink after all.

While she is not perfect with her dietary goal she is entitled to have a few jelly beans around Easter, for example Stepper long ago gave up bad sugar, the stuff that can drag down an athlete.

That weekend you know the days right after the saga of the stolen root beer Julia Stepper earned medals in four events. She finished second in the 200 meters and second in the long jump. She took fourth in the 100. And she was part of the sixth-place 400-meter relay team.

Sure, that one drink might not have changed any result. But Stepper, now a senior, is convinced her diet has made positive changes in her life, and not just in athletics.

I dont get headaches. I feel healthier. I feel happier, Stepper said. I feel better about myself.

When I changed what I ate, I changed my mindset. It made me think differently, she continued. Im maturing. I feel like Im an adult. I dont have to rely on anyone. I can make decisions on my own.

Stepper absolutely loves sugar. She never figured she could walk past a candy jar without taking a little something. Never thought she could say no thanks to a friend handing out a chocolate bar.

This is definitely a big sacrifice for me, she said.

No pop. No candy. Instead of Skittles, it is granola bars, trail mix, or perhaps an apple. Yes, there is sugar in fruits but Stepper says there is a difference. She also enjoys honey sticks before a race.

She started learning better eating habits earlier in high school but did not yet fully commit herself to a change. While always a talented athlete she has made it to state all three years of high school and expects to return later this month she did not care for how she was performing by the end of her sophomore season.

She wanted more from herself.

Its made me more responsible, she said. I have to plan out what Im going to eat, how much, and when Im going to eat it. If I want to get better, I have to sacrifice.

To be fair, though, even before the diet change, Stepper was a fantastic athlete.

Woodland head coach Melanie Holmes noted the team has now won four consecutive league titles. She went back in the history books to see what happened the previous year. Not so many team points.

Why? Holmes wondered. Oh, that was Julias eighth-grade year. We didnt have her on the team yet.

Stepper now is ready to peak in her final weeks of high school sports. So close to first place in three events last year has her thinking about a big finish. But she is not putting too much pressure on herself.

As nice as it would be to get three first-place titles, if I get at least one, Ill be a happy camper, she said. If I get one Ill feel accomplished.

She already is accomplished, though. She will be attending Seattle Pacific University to continue with her education and athletics.

Not bad for someone who rebuffed the sport when she was first approached by a coach. That was in the fifth grade, when Stepper thought track and field was completely boring without giving it a shot.

Years later, in eighth grade, she did give it a shot.

This is fun, she recalled thinking. You get statistics. You can see how you are improving.

She loves how the sport demands accountability. Who is at fault for a bad performance?

You cant blame the blocks. You cant blame the officials. I just didnt run fast enough, she said.

Holmes said the program will obviously miss Stepper but she does not anticipate a huge drop-off in production because the program has been able to build throughout Steppers career. It is easy to attract athletes to a successful program.

Plus, Stepper enjoys recruiting for the sport, as well.

Anyone, she said, can try track and field. There are so many options. There is a coach for anyone. And a new-to-track athlete has months to find a niche.

You dont need skills to come out there. You learn the skills once you are out there, Stepper said.

The very best also figure out how to give themselves an edge. Julia Stepper chose a better diet, and became a healthier, happier athlete.

See the rest here:
Sugar-free diet is only a part of the recipe for success for Woodland's Julia Stepper - The Columbian

The type of food we choose to eat determines a large part of our personal carbon footprint. With a long shelf life, pasta helps reduce the amount of food that is thrown away by serving as a base for vegetables and other leftover foods that might otherwise go to waste. When combined with pulses, a highly nutritious and climate-friendly crop, these two common ingredient groups can contribute largely to a sustainable diet.

According to the2015 Passion for Pasta Food Waste & Sustainability Consumer Omnibus Survey, 78 percent of respondents always had pasta in their home, while 74 percent of respondents never have to throw pasta away. Dry pasta can store fortwoyearsand doesnt have to be refrigerated, cutting down on household energy use and associated greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, pasta has alower carbon footprint and lower water footprintthan both red meat and poultry.

Often cooked in family-sized quantities,pasta and pulses are a symbol of the social importance of food and conviviality. Where pasta has been adopted around the world, it has taken on the unique flavors of the region and becomes a canvas for serving traditional and local foods.

Traditional semolina pasta is a staple of traditional Italian cuisine. Other nutritious grains such as quinoa and brown rice, which are also gluten free, are increasingly popular in North America and Europe. Asian noodles are often made with rice, yam, or mung bean, as well.

One serving of pasta contains plant-based protein and is an excellent source of folate, a good source of iron and provides a variety of B vitamins. Whole-grain pasta is an excellent source of fiber, and both traditional and whole-grain pasta can be fortified with additional protein and Omega 3s to improve their nutritional profiles even further. A common add-in to pasta dishes, pulsessuch as common beans, chickpeas, fava bean, dried peas, and lentilsare highly nutritious, rich in protein and essential micronutrients, and have a tiny carbon footprint.

Pulses are able to directly draw nitrogen from the atmosphere, converting it into nutrients vital for plant growth, meaning they dont require nitrogen fertilizers which use fossil fuel. Growing pulses makes fertile soil, which in turn reduces the need for fertilizer in other crops. Additionally, pulses are a highlywater efficient source of protein.

Dietary guidelines around the world are beginning to include sustainability considerations when making recommendations for nutritional health. Swedenhas taken the leadon sustainability research within the context of dietary choices and has formed the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations, which include environmental impact assessments. In Germany, a consumer guide for dietary choices includes asustainable shopping basket. In the United States, the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) was the first to include areview of sustainable dietsin their scientific report, which informs the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recommends that a quarter of the platebedevoted to grains such as pasta at every mealand that half of those should be whole grains.

When making pasta dishes at home, the used cooking water can be cooled and used to water plants. The starchy water gives plants nutrients to help them grow. (Be sure to not use water that has been salted or seasoned, though.)

Try it out with one of Food Tanks favorite pasta recipes:

Credit:Chef Lorenzo Boni

Warm Rigatoni with Asparagus and Bottarga Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Follow this link:
Eat Pasta and Pulses as Part of a Sustainable Diet - Food Tank (blog)

PEOPLE.com

Gisele Bndchen Says Her Kids Eat a (Mostly!) Plant-Based Diet: It's 'Good for Our Health' and 'the Planet' PEOPLE.com Talking to PEOPLE for this week's issue, the legendary supermodel who recently stepped out alongside Brady for a glamorous date night at Monday's Met Gala says her family has been eating a more plant-based diet for years. We all love it. It's ... Gisele Bunchden & Tom Brady's Kids Eat A "Plant-Based" Diet, But You Shouldn't Judge Them For itRomper all 92 news articles »

Read more:
Gisele Bndchen Says Her Kids Eat a (Mostly!) Plant-Based Diet: It's 'Good for Our Health' and 'the Planet' - PEOPLE.com

If youre intrigued by the 5:2 diet or other forms of intermittent fasting, you probably want to know if these diets work in the long term. Until recently, we didnt have much data. Now, we have a little bit: fasting every other day turns out to deliver the same results as regular dieting.

The study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, followed people through six months of trying to lose weight and six months of a maintenance diet. During the first six months, one third of the 100 subjects could eat whatever they wanted; one third had three meals a day provided, making up 75 percent of their calorie needs (so, 1500 calories a day if they would normally eat 2000); and the fasting group alternated between a 25 percent (500 calories) day and a 125 percent (2500 calories) day.

By the end, both groups kept off the same amount of weight (just 5-6 percent, which is 10-12 pounds for a 200-pound person) and had similar numbers for blood pressure, heart rate, cholesterol, insulin resistance, fasting glucose, and more.

The biggest difference between groups? The dropout rate. The fasting group lost 13 out of 34 people (38 percent), with five of those saying they were quitting because they hated the diet. The group on the steady diet only saw 29 percent of their members leave, and none of those cited the diet as the reason. The control group lost 26 percent of people. Remember, these folks all had to keep in touch with the researchers for a year, and the dropout numbers include people who just plain flaked out. The averages above, like the 10-12 pounds lost, include the people who dropped out. So that means weight loss may have worked a little better for the intermittent fasters who stuck with it.

The diets ended up being more similar than intended. People ended up eating more than just the provided food, and they ate too much on fast days and too little on feast days. Thats another way in which this diet was hard for people to stick to.

So does this study prove intermittent fasting is nothing special? Yes and no. The subjects were metabolically healthy obese women, while proponents of IF often say its value is in fixing a broken metabolism. And the food they ate was pretty standard, carb-heavy fare: 55 percent carbs, 30 percent fat, 15 percent protein. Many intermittent fasters combine the regimen with lower carb food, relying on protein, fat, and fiber to provide most of their calories.

Finally, its just one type of fasting. The 5:2 diet gives you a little more time between fasts. Another common way to fast is to go 18 hours of each day without eating: basically, skip breakfast and eat nothing between yesterdays dinner and todays lunch. We dont know if these other formats would be better or worse than alternate-day fasting, but you can always try them and see.

Bottom line, intermittent fasting isnt good enough to blow traditional dieting out of the water. But its worth a try, if you think it might work for you.

See the original post here:
We Finally Have Long-Term Data on an Intermittent Fasting Diet - Lifehacker Australia

Gluten-free diets are popular these days, but a new study finds that avoiding gluten won't lower your risk of heart disease.

In fact, the researchers say thatgluten-free dietscould pose health concerns because people who go gluten free tend to lower their intake of whole grains an ingredient that is linked with a lower risk of heart disease.

For this reason, "the promotion of gluten-free diets among people without celiac disease should not be encouraged," the researchers concluded in their article, published today (May 2) in the medical journal BMJ.Celiac diseaseis an autoimmune condition that makes people sick if they eat gluten.

Still, for people who have gluten-sensitivity meaning they don't have celiac disease, but they experience abdominal pain or other problems when they eat gluten it is reasonable to restrict gluten intake, with some precautions, said study researcher Dr. Andrew T. Chan, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston. "It is important to make sure that this [gluten restriction] is balanced with the intake of non-gluten containingwhole grains, since these are associated with a lower risk of heart disease," Chan told Live Science. [7 Tips for Moving Toward a More Plant-Based Diet]

Gluten is a protein found in wheat, rye and barley. In people with celiac disease, the protein triggers an immune reaction that damages the lining of the small intestine.

Some people without the condition adopt the diet in the belief that gluten-free diets are generally healthier. But no long term studies have examined whether gluten affects the risk of chronic conditions such ascoronary heart disease, in people without celiac disease, the researchers said.

In the new study, researchers analyzed information from a long-running study of more than 110,000 U.S. health professionals. The participants periodically answered questions, over a 26-year period, about the types of food they consumed. Based on these questionnaires, the researchers estimated how much gluten participants' consumed in their diet. The researchers also collected data on whether participants experienced aheart attackduring the study, which was considered a proxy for the development of coronary heart disease.

When the researchers divided participants into five groups based on the amount of gluten they ate, they found those in the group that ate the most gluten were at no greater risk for a heart attack than those in the group that ate the least gluten.

The researchers also found that gluten intake actually initially appeared to be linked with a lower risk of heart attack. But this link wasn't due to gluten consumption itself, rather, it was due to the consumption of whole grains associated with gluten intake.

"These findings do not support the promotion of a gluten-restricted diet with a goal of reducing coronary heart disease risk," the researcherswrote in their paper.

The researchers noted that they did not specifically ask participants whether they followed a gluten-free diet, but rather, calculated their gluten consumption based on the estimated proportion of gluten in wheat, rye and barley. The researchers also noted that they were not able to determine whether trace amounts of gluten were present in certain foods, such as soy sauce, but this would likely have only a very small effect on people's overall gluten consumption, they said.

Original article onLive Science.

Go here to read the rest:
A gluten-free diet may raise your risk of heart disease - Fox News

High blood pressure affects one in 4 adults have high blood pressure, or hypertension, which is a major risk factor for stroke and heart disease. If you have high blood pressure, visit your health care provider regularly and take medication as prescribed. If your blood pressure returns to normal levels, this indicates that the medication is working so keep taking it.

Research shows that increased sodium consumption can increase blood pressure. Ninety percent of the sodium in our diets come from salt. On average, American adults consume twice the American Heart Associations recommended sodium intake of 1500 mg daily. Changing your dietary habits can help to reduce sodium consumption. The majority of the sodium consumed is from processed foods and not salt that is added in cooking or at the table. Learning to read food labels and recognize foods that are high in sodium is the first step. Six common foods, loaded with excess sodium, include breads and rolls; cold cuts and cured meats; pizza; poultry; soup and sandwiches. Follow these simple steps to lower your sodium intake in three weeks.

Week 1: Focus on grains, cold cuts and cured meats. Cured meats include bacon, sausage, ham and hot dogs. Use food labels to identify lower-sodium choices in these foods. When you start tracking your sodium consumption, with the help of food labels, you might be surprised how much sodium you are truly eating. Write down how much sodium you have reduced in your diet in just one week by reading food labels and making healthier choices.

Week 2: Focus on pizza and poultry. You do not have to give up pizza; just make a few changes in the toppings. Cut back on the cheese and meats, which have more sodium, and add more veggies such as onions, green peppers and mushrooms. When eating poultry, select fresh poultry instead of fried, canned or processed that has more sodium. Keep logging how much sodium you are reducing in your diet.

Week 3: Focus on soups and sandwiches. Canned soups are loaded with sodium. For example, one serving (1 cup) of chicken noodle soup can have as much as 940 mg of sodium. Each can of soup has two servings so double that amount if you eat the whole can in one sitting.

There are many lower sodium canned soups available so read the labels carefully. It is best to make your soup from scratch to reduce even more sodium.

When making sandwiches, use lower sodium meats, cheeses and condiments. You might be surprised how the sodium adds up from these foods. Add plenty of low-sodium vegetables such as lettuce, tomatoes, spinach and onions to your sandwich.

After a few weeks, your taste buds will adjust and you will start to enjoy the real flavor of food without the salt. In fact, you will wonder how you ever ate food that was so salt. Decreasing the sodium in your diet is a heart healthy step to lower your risk for heart disease and stroke.

Lisa McCoy is a family and consumer-sciences educator with University of Maryland Extension in Washington County.

Read the rest here:
Three weeks to lower the sodium in your diet - Herald-Mail Media

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