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Ask an elite athlete how nutrition factors into her performance, and shell likely tell you that its just as important as her training plan. In many cases, she may even call it the most important factor. But the increased effort levels during training can make sticking to your diet tough since even healthy regimens often include eliminating classic performance foodslike lean proteins if youre vegetarianor carbs if youre paleo. If you fall into one of these camps, rest easy. A few small tweaks will give your body what it needs to crank at its full potential. We spoke with two sports dietitians who work with high-performing endurance athletesHeather Mangieri, spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and Barbara Lewin, sports dietitian for the U.S. Olympic Registryfor the details.

Keto dieters get about 75 to 85 percent of their calories from fat and eat very few carbohydrates (generally fewer than 50 grams a day). Although revered by many endurance athletes, the keto approach to healthful eating can backfire if you arent deliberate about finding your fuel elsewhere, getting adequately diverse nutrient intake, and tracking whether your body is adapting to fat burning.

Emphasize Diversity: You need a lot of vitamins, minerals, and natural antioxidants when youre training. Without a careful approach to keto, you risk micronutrient deficiency, Mangieri says. Make sure youre not eating the same rotation of foods. Instead, rely on easy swaps to ensure youre putting a variety of vitamins and minerals into your body without having to take a supplement.

Monitor Your Performance: Its been the silver bullet for many athletes, but the keto program doesnt have the same impact on every individual, so it remains debated. Many people can run a marathon or do a tri while following the keto rules of thumb, but science shows that increasing intensity typically requires carbohydrates, Lewin says. She recommends keeping a journal to monitor what youre eating and how youre performing in your training. Its key to see if youre falling off pace or exerting more effort to clock in at slower times without necessarily noticing it.

Gluten-free athletes avoid foods that most others consider essential to their training. Thankfully, eating gluten-free is a breeze these days with so many healthy choices, Lewin says. But there are still a few pitfalls to watch for.

Skip the Packaged Foods: A diet packed with gluten-free bread, crackers, and pastas isnt inherently healthy or useful for fueling hard training, since those foods often have added sugar or fat to make them more palatable. Instead, eat naturally gluten-free foods like quinoa and starchy vegetables like sweet potatoes or corn, Mangieri says.

Go for Variety: Gluten-free dieters often eat a lot of rice productsrice bread, rice crackers, rice pastaso they get a limited nutritional panel on repeat. Instead, switch up your alternative-carb products so you get a longer list of macros (and prevent stale taste buds). Try bean-based pastas, buckwheat pancake mixes, or corn tortillas instead of flour.

Plant-based diets have become the darlings of the health world and the hallmark of many exemplary endurance athletes, but its surprisingly easy to eat a very unhealthy diet even when cutting out animal products. Its less about what you arent eating and more about what you are eating, Mangieri says. To really perform your best, you need to be a well-rounded vegan or vegetarian. That means your pantry cant be filled solely with energy bars and protein powder.

Pay Attention to Protein: Get your protein from real plants. There is a lot of amino-rich produce out thereyou just have to be a little more conscious of making sure youre getting enough. It may be worth using a food-tracking app at the start to guarantee that youre getting the recommended 90 grams a day. Besides beans and legumeslauded as plant-based protein sourceschia seeds, wild rice, oatmeal, and even potatoes contain significant amounts of plant protein that can be easily incorporated into your meals throughout the day

Be Mindful of B12: Strict vegans need to be sure theyre getting enough vitamin B12, which is naturally found only in meat and is essential for red blood cell production. Try incorporating fortified cereals or alternative milks a few times a day. If youre really struggling to hit the mark, pop a B12 vitamin daily.

Time Your Fiber Wisely: I recommend that triathletes and runners reduce their fiber for two days prior to their race, eating fewer big salads and the like. This may actually reduce their weight by a few pounds and will reduce GI issues and the chance they have to find a restroom along the way, Lewin says. Thats tough for anyone who abstains from meat, but its important for being race-ready.

Athletes who fuel themselves on this ancestral diet eschew agricultural-era foods such as grains, legumes, dairy, and refined foods while focusing on meat, fish, fruits, and veggies. Its pretty easy to be a paleo athlete as long as you time the carbs you do eat for adequate fueling and recovery.

Enjoy Those Well-Timed Potatoes: The Paleo Diet for Athletes allows high-glycemic carbs like potatoes around your training and racing times to ensure you have adequate glycogen stores for high-intensity efforts and recovery.

Make Your Own Sports Drinks: Commercial sports drinks will be off-limits, but you can make your own from raw honey, sea salt, lemon juice, and water.

Some athletes believe this approach helps them stay lean and fast. There is good research that this pattern of eating can be beneficial. You just need to practice it wisely, Lewin says.

Eat Enough: For athletes, the goal of intermittent fasting isnt to go into starvation mode or to shed pounds quickly. Instead, its meant to increase your strength-to-weight ratio by triggering your body to burn fat stores. When you do eat, you want to make sure you consume enough to maintain muscle mass, restock your glycogen store, and stay fueled.

Time It Right: Schedule your high-intensity sessions close to your last meal so you have fuel on board. Avoid prolonged fasts of more than two to three days just before races so you dont go in with depleted glycogen stores.

Raw-food practitioners, notably professional triathlete Brendan Brazier, fill themselves with foods that havent been cooked, believing that modern cooking deleteriously alters foods nutritional content. The foods you choose and how you prepare them can have a major impact on how well (or not) you do as you train.

Prioritize Protein: Its easy to feel satisfied on uncooked foods yet miss out on getting the protein you need. Raw, less-processed food fills your stomach faster even if it doesnt give you lasting energy. To combat this effect, eat a large variety of nuts, seeds, legumes, and vegetables, rather than just munching on raw crudits and trail mix, to get all your essential amino acids without filling up first.

Think About Fiber: Fiber hits harder with a raw-food diet because your body has to do all the work of digesting it without the help of cooking, which might ordinarily kick-start the breakdown process. A high fiber pre-workout or pre-race meal doesnt sit very well and usually doesnt provide adequate calories, Lewin says. The same is true for recovery. Eating a high-fiber recovery meal means that you miss the window of 20 to 30 minutes after your workout where the body is able to most efficiently restore muscle glycogen levels and rebuild muscle. Juicing some of your foods will help eliminate some of the fiber while still providing nutrition.

See the article here:
How to Ramp Up Training and Stay HealthyNo Matter Your Diet - Outside Magazine

Specific lifestyle behaviors such as sticking to a Mediterranean-like diet and not smoking may dictate a persons ability to live without a caregiver into their late 80s. Photo by Sondem/via Adobe

Want to stay out of a nursing home in your twilight years? Put down that hot dog.

A new study outlines which aspects of a healthy lifestyle predict independent living late in life. While physical activity and living with someone else can factor into reachingold age, specific behaviors such as sticking to a Mediterranean-like diet and not smoking may dictate a persons ability to live without a caregiver into their late 80s, according to research published Friday in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Experts told NewsHour such guidelines for keeping the elderly mobile are invaluable as the geriatric population continues to grow.

Preserved independence is highly valued by very old individuals, Kristin Franzon, a geriatrician and the studys lead author, told NewsHour via email. In the beginning, her team wanted to know if there was anything people could do to maintain independence as they age, or if dependence is an unavoidable part of getting old.

Her 16-year study at Uppsala University followed a cohort of Swedish men as they became octogenarians. Franzon started her investigation in 2011, but relied on data from the the Uppsala Longitudinal Study of Adult Men (ULSAM) an ongoing project begun in 1970, when its participants were 50 years old.

Approximately 1100 participants from ULSAM fit the bill for Franzons study, though some chose not to participate or didnt meet the benchmark for independent living at the start. Over the next 16 years, a portion of the men also passed away or dropped out due to severe illness. To qualify as independent, the men had to meet rigorous standards. The men had to be able to bathe, toilet and dress themselves, and walk alone outdoors until the age of 87. They also had to pass a mental state examination, could not be institutionalized or have dementia.

In the end, 369 men completed the final study 276 counted as independent agers, while 93 lived co-dependent lifestyles.

This cohort underwent a series of tests during medical checkups. The men were queried on their physical activity, education level, smoking habits and whether or not they lived alone. When they could make it to the clinic, nurses gave them a full physical, looking at health indicators like height, weight, waist circumference, blood pressure, blood glucose, insulin and cholesterol.

Participants also kept food diaries. Those records were scored based on how well their diets conformed to a modified Mediterranean diet meaning it was adapted for a typical Swede. Typically, a Mediterranean diet emphasizes fish, cereals, polyunsaturated fatty acids, fruits and vegetables. For the Swedes in the study, their diets did not contain a lot of olive oil or nuts, while potatoes counted as a grain.

Out of all this information came three traits associated with independent aging: never having smoked, a waistline under 40 inches and a high adherence to the Mediterranean-like diet.

As far as we know, this is the first study to show an association between high adherence to a Mediterranean-like diet and preserved independence at a very old age, Franzon said. Other traits, including physical activity and cohabitation, are only associated with longevity.

But these lifestyle recommendations may not translate for everyone. Given that the men are of similar age and ethnicity provides consistency, but at the same time, limits how applicable the findings are to a broader population.

The study is also only in men. Women have more difficulty than men with everyday tasks as they get older, said Anne Newman, an epidemiologist at the University of Pittsburgh and former geriatrician who was not involved in the study.

Newman also noted that some participants didnt complete every part of the survey some became too infirm to visit the clinics, for instance so its likely the results are slightly reflective of healthier individuals. Franzon acknowledges this limitation, too. Her teams report notes that its possible the trends they see would be stronger if there had been less bias toward a healthier population.

Even though the study is small, its unique in that it looks at how well seniors are living and not just how long, Newman said. Its also rare and remarkable, she added, for a study to start at a young age and then follow participants over such a long period of time.

As the geriatric population continues to grow,Newman stressed that more work is needed to understandwhat will keep peopleactive.

People are living longer, but not everyone has a family capable of the emotional and economic burdens of caregiving. For some of the elderly, nursing homes mean boredom and neglect, while other seniors view successful aging as maintaining independence.

Frazons research pinpoints the behaviors that might help. So, are you swapping that hot dog for veggies yet?

Continue reading here:
How to stay out of a nursing home and age independently - PBS NewsHour

The North American Free Trade Agreement may have dramatically changed the Canadian diet by boosting consumption of high-fructose corn syrup, a new study suggests.

That boost arrested a years-long decline in total sugar consumption. And it shifted Canadians away from liquid sweeteners such as maltose and molasses toward high-fructose corn syrup, a sweetener that has been linked to the obesity epidemic.

The peer-reviewed study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, found that as tariffs on high-fructose corn syrup dropped over a four-year period, consumption grew: from 21.2 calories of corn syrup per day in 1994, to 62.9 calories per day by 1998.

NAFTA may thus have contributed to growing obesity and diabetes rates over that time, its authors say.

There are free-trade deals being negotiated all over the world, and NAFTA has been used as a blueprint for many of them, Pepita Barlow, a doctoral student at Oxford University and the lead researcher on the paper, said. In some ways, this is an opportunity to think about who benefits from these deals and who loses and how we can craft them to better promote health and wellness.

The connection between free-trade agreements and health has not been well-studied, Barlow said. To date, most research on globalization and nutrition has examined the effects of foreign direct investment: how consumption patterns change when multinational food companies, such as Coca-Cola or the global snack food maker Mondelez, begin producing and advertising in new markets.

Joseph Glauber, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute and the former chief economist at the USDA, said he would expect that sort of investment to have a larger impact on consumption, relative trade. But the research, he acknowledged, is in its early days.

This connection between trade and nutrition is getting to be a very big question, Glauber said. I think the effect is probably pretty minor, on the tariff side. But theres a huge issue with foreign direct investment and advertising, which has become very aggressive. And thats all a part of trade liberalization.

Tariff reductions do make food ingredients cheaper, irrespective of their nutritional qualities. Lower prices encourage manufacturers to use more of those ingredients.

Before NAFTA was adopted in 1994, Canada had a tariff of 5 percent on high-fructose corn syrup. Under NAFTA, Canada agreed to phase out that tariff, while maintaining protections on sugar- and beet-based syrups such as fructose, maltose, glucose and molasses.

As a result, researchers found, consumption stayed flat on those protected sweeteners, but spiked for high-fructose corn syrup. Countries that are economically similar to Canada, but that did not join NAFTA such as Australia and the U.K. did not see a similar effect.

At the same time, obesity rates increased from 13.4 percent in 1994 to 14.8 percent in 1998. According to Canadas national statistics agency, 14.2 million people roughly 38 percent of all Canadians are obese.

This cannot be credited entirely, or even predominanty, to NAFTA, Barlow cautioned: Obesity rates were trending up anyway. And obesity has continued to climb, even as Canadian consumption of soft drinks (a major source of high-fructose corn syrup) has decreased.

But Barlow and her co-authors believe the correlation is strong enough to suggest that the trade agreement did likely contribute to obesity by increasing access at a critical time to a sweetener that some researchers consider uniquely likely to cause weight gain.

In a commentary accompanying the paper, epidemiologists Ashley Schram and Ronald Labonte, who study public health and trade at the University of Ottawa, argue that the paper should give trade negotiators pause as they work on future agreements.

Corn refiners vehemently deny that assertion as well as any suggestion that HFCS may have contributed to Canadian obesity rates.

John White, a nutritional biochemist who consults for the Corn Refiners Association, disputed Barlows claim that HFCS is somehow riskier or more fattening than sugar, citing studies that show it is nutritionally similar to sugar and challenged her to prove the growth of HFCS during the 90s was not caused by something besides NAFTA.

U.S. soda-makers began transitioning from liquid sugar to high-fructose corn syrup in the early 80s, and its possible that the Canadian industry took some time to catch up.

White also argued that the study fails to account for Canadians reduction in sweetener consumption throughout the aughts although obesity continued to climb during that time.

This paper may best be considered a historical study with limited contemporary relevance, given the aged nature of the data set and the significant reduction in sweetener consumption in the intervening years, he said. This is nothing more than a theory based on 17-year-old data and biased references.

However, there is growing evidence that people consume more junk food after their countries ink free-trade agreements, particularly with the U.S.

The U.S. is a major producer of processed foods and their ingredients. Exports of prepared foods, beverages and processed fruits, vegetables and dairy have all grown significantly since NAFTAs adoption, according to the Department of Agriculture.

Thats largely because, as previous analyses of trade data have shown, the foods most affected by liberalization are those that are most protected: among them, high-value, high-margin products, such as soft drinks, frozen french fries and snacks.

In Mexico, soda consumption increased by 37 percent between 1998 and 1999, the years NAFTA was negotiated and put into effect.

In Peru, sales of juice, sports and energy drinks surged in the 10 years since the 2006 free trade agreement with the U.S. an effect not seen in neighboring Bolivia, which has not inked an agreement.

One global study, which analyzed food, tobacco and alcohol habits in 80 countries after they joined U.S. free trade agreements, found that those which had signed deals sold 63.4 percent more soft drinks per capita than those which had not, even after correcting for GDP and other economic factors.

Some, like the tiny Pacific nation of Vanuatu, have announced plans to address the problem by banning imported foods all together.

At the moment we have an infiltration of junk food from overseas, a community leader in Vanuatu recently told The Guardian.

Its unclear if Vanuatu, or any member country of the World Trade Organization, can pass such a ban without being sanctioned. Glauber and Barlow are in favor of solutions that dont necessarily disrupt trade. Glauber advocates for excise taxes to discourage consumption, rather than tariffs a tax on soda instead of a tariff on imported HFCS, for instance.

Barlow, the Oxford researcher, would like to see more public health groups involved in negotiating trade deals.

Its an important issue to think about, she said. A large number of free-trade agreements are currently being negotiated around the world. We need to know how those actually impact peoples daily lives their well-being and health.

For now, however, such collaboration may be a long way off. The Canadian Medical Association, whose journal published Barlows study, said it had no plans to add trade policy to its advocacy work. The Canadian Health Coalition, another leading public health group, said that while it has concerns about public healthcare and the NAFTA renegotiation, nutrition isnt one of them.

Everyone recognizes that diets are changing because of globalization, Glauber said. [But] its still hard to address this.

More here:
Canadian study suggests link between NAFTA, more sugar in nation's diets - Bangor Daily News

July 11, 2017 Lipo and a team of researchers analyzed human, faunal and botanical remains from the archaeological sites Anakena and Ahu Tepeu on Rapa Nui, dating from c. 1400 AD to the historic period, and modern reference material. Credit: Jonathan Cohen, Binghamton University Photographer

Analysis of remains found on Rapa Nui, Chile (Easter Island) provides evidence contrary to the widely-held belief that the ancient civilization recklessly destroyed its environment, according to new research co-conducted by faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York.

"The traditional story is that over time the people of Rapa Nui used up their resources and started to run out of food," said Binghamton University Professor of Anthropology Carl Lipo. "One of the resources that they supposedly used up was trees that were growing on the island. Those trees provided canoes and, as a result of the lack of canoes, they could no longer fish. So they started to rely more and more on land food. As they relied on land food, productivity went down because of soil erosion, which led to crop failures...Painting the picture of this sort of catastrophe. That's the traditional narrative."

Lipo and a team of researchers analyzed human, faunal and botanical remains from the archaeological sites Anakena and Ahu Tepeu on Rapa Nui, dating from c. 1400 AD to the historic period, and modern reference material. The team used bulk carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses and amino acid compound specific isotope analyses of collagen isolated from prehistoric human and faunal bone, to assess the use of marine versus terrestrial resources and to investigate the underlying baseline values. Similar isotope analyses of archaeological and modern botanical and marine samples were used to characterize the local environment. Results of carbon and nitrogen analyses independently show that around half the protein in diets from the humans measured came from marine sources; markedly higher than previous estimates. These findings point to concerted efforts to manipulate agricultural soils, and suggest the prehistoric Rapa Nui population had extensive knowledge of how to overcome poor soil fertility, improve environmental conditions, and create a sustainable food supply. These activities demonstrate considerable adaptation and resilience to environmental challengesa finding that is inconsistent with an 'ecocide' narrative.

"We found that there's a fairly significant marine diet, over time, throughout history and that people were eating marine resources, and it wasn't as though they only had food from terrestrial resources," said Lipo. "We also learned that what they did get from terrestrial resources came from very modified soils, that they were enriching the soils in order to grow the crops. That supports the argument we've made in our previous work, that these people came up with am ingenious strategy in enriching the soils by adding bedrock to the surface and inside the soil to crate, essentially, fertilizer to support their populations, and that forest loss really isn't a catastrophe as previously described."

Lipo said that these new findings continue to support the idea that the story of Easter Island is more interesting and complex than assumed.

"The Rapa Nui people were, not surprisingly, smart about how they used their resources," he said. "And all the misunderstanding comes from our preconceptions about what subsistence should look like, basically European farmers thinking, 'Well, what should a farm look like?' And it didn't look like what they thought, so they assumed something bad had happened, when in fact it was a perfectly smart thing to do. It continues to support the new narrative that we've been finding for the past ten years."

The paper, "Diet of the prehistoric population of Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile) shows environmental adaptation and resilience," was published in "American Journal of Physical Anthropology."

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It's kinda funny how theories in science, especially the soft 'sciences', often mirror the political and social concerns of the times.

It's not really funny how people who want to make badly disguised insults to science don't even read the articles they're citing that don't mirror their own projections:

"the misunderstanding comes from our preconceptions about what subsistence should look like, basically European farmers thinking, 'Well, what should a farm look like?' And it didn't look like what they thought, so they assumed something bad had happened, when in fact it was a perfectly smart thing to do. It continues to support the new narrative that we've been finding for the past ten years."

European farmers were not scientists. Traditional narratives are not science.

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Easter Island not victim of 'ecocide', analysis of remains shows - Phys.Org

This article originally appeared on AlterNet

Its tempting to think that, by rearranging your entire diet, you could quickly lose weight and keep it off. All you need to do is eat right for your blood type, or give up carbs, or eat like a Paleolithic human, or eat only raw foods, and so on, and you will be thin before you know it. At least, thats what fad diets promise.

Melinda Hemmelgarn, a Registered Dietitian and investigative nutritionist, who hosts Food Sleuth Radio, distinguishes between fad diets and what she calls popular diets. A fad diet generally promises quick and easy weight loss but comes up short on quality. They may lack certain nutrients, and could even be dangerous. She adds that they are notoriously difficult to follow.

She specifies that the Mediterranean and DASH diets are not fads. They are both popular but they are also effective for maintaining health for the general population and relatively easy to follow if you have access to healthy foods. The Mediterranean diet calls for eating like people who live in the Mediterranean high in vegetables and olive oil and only moderate in animal protein, and the DASH diet stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. It calls for a low sodium diet with plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables and low fat dairy plus moderate amounts of whole grains, fish, poultry, and nuts.

When U.S. News and World Reports asked health experts to rank 38 different diets overall, DASH and Mediterranean came in first and second, respectively. The experts considered whether they were easy to follow, nutritious, safe, effective for weight loss and protective against diabetes and heart disease.

A number of well known fad diets fared poorly in the rankings: Slim Fast (#20), South Beach (#24), Glycemic Index Diet (#25), The Zone (#25), Medifast (#29), Raw Food (#32), Atkins (#35), and Paleo (#36).

While a few of those that did poorly overall actually ranked well for promoting weight loss (raw food ranked fifth and Atkins came in twelfth), the Paleo diet came in dead last for weight loss. If that isnt enough bad news about the Paleo diet, archaeological scientist Christina Warinner, says that the foods called for by the diet are not even what ancient human ancestors actually ate.

Hemmelgarn adds that some diets can be clinically indicated for certain patients but may be fad diets if others adopt them. She includes gluten-free in this category. For many, eschewing gluten is no fad. If you have celiac disease, an autoimmune disease in which you become ill from eating even the smallest amount of gluten, a protein found in wheat and some other grains, going gluten-free is an important matter of staying healthy. But if your body tolerates gluten just fine and you decide to give it up, that can be a fad.

The same can be said for the ketogenic diet, a low carb diet that calls for eating whole foods and avoiding processed foods. The name ketogenic refers to ketosis. Normally, your body gets its fuel by turning the carbohydrates you eat into glycogen and using glycogen as its energy source. If you do not eat carbs, then your body must turn elsewhere for fuel. It turns fat into molecules called ketones and the ketones serve as the bodys fuel. When your body does this, it is in ketosis.

By avoiding carbohydrates in the diet, people on the ketogenic diet cause their bodies to go into ketosis. While this sounds like a weight loss scheme, the ketogenic diet is actually often recommended to epilepsy patients to help manage their epilepsy. According to Hemmelgarn, ketogenic diets should be followed under the guidance of a Registered Dietitian who is proficient in working with them. They are hard to follow. They are generally effective in weight loss, but most people who follow these kinds of diets generally gain the weight back once they start eating higher carbohydrate levels.

Registered Dietitian Nutritionist Amanda Bullat adds that while shed support any patient following a ketogenic diet for clinically indicated reasons, research is not conclusive about whether it is a good diet if your only goal is weight loss. In particular, she worries that a high protein, high fat diet could be taxing to the kidneys and liver.

Both the ketogenic and the paleo diets call for eliminating all grains and legumes from the diet. Bullat comments on this, saying, for myself and my clients, when we cut a carbohydrate coming from whole grains and legumes pretty significantly, we start having some mood issues and start being kind of lethargic. Its not to say that I think people should necessarily eat as much bread and pasta as they want, she qualifies. Having small amounts of whole grains, having small amounts of legumes, youre getting your nutrients from those whole foods and then youre not having to be on a B complex vitamin.

While some followers of diets that eliminate whole grains and legumes point out that these foods contain anti-nutrients (chemicals that interfere with the absorption of nutrients), Bullat recommends soaking, sprouting, or fermenting as methods of eliminating the anti-nutrients from grains and legumes.

But Bullat takes an even larger perspective of fad diets. Rather than nitpicking the particular details of each individual diet, she questions the idea of going on a diet in the first place. Bullat approaches nutrition from a Health At Every Size perspective. That means turning the idea of diets on its head. If youve tried ten diets to lose weight and you have not lost weight, you might say, I failed. The Health At Every Size approach says that the dieter did not fail; the diets failed.

Bullat explains, saying The science shows that across the board, no matter what diet people are put on in the study, in the long term, that way of eating will not help them promote weight loss. If you try a diet and fail to lose weight, or lose weight and then gain it back, the studies show that youre not the only one. Therefore that shows that the physiology aspect of the diet shows that its not possible to lose the weight off of that diet.

Using this approach, analyzing individual fad diets becomes more or less meaningless. Bullat coaches patients to be intuitive eaters who can listen to their bodies cues so that they eat when they are hungry and stop when they are full, and by eating foods that make their bodies feel healthy. This is basically the exact opposite of following a complicated diet plan that promises weight loss while attempting to ignore your bodys own signals.

In other words, no matter how much we might wish it, theres no magic bullet to quickly and easily lose weight and keep it off but there are ways to adopt new long term dietary habits to promote health and weight loss, whether it is through intuitive eating or a more prescriptive diet plan such as the Mediterranean diet.

More:
Have you ever tried a fad diet to lose weight? Here's why it didn't work - Salon

July 10, 2017 by Pete Barnao Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Exercise in early life counteracts some of the damaging programming effects of a high-fat diet, a new Auckland study shows.

The researchers, from the Liggins Institute at the University of Auckland, found that bone retains a "memory" of exercise's effects long after the exercise is ceased, and this bone memory continues to change the way bodies metabolise a high-fat diet.

The research team compared the bone health and metabolism of rats across different diet and exercise conditions, zeroing in on messenger molecules that signal the activity of genes in bone marrow. Rats were either given a high-fat diet and a wheel for extra exercise in their cage, a high-fat diet but no wheel, or a regular diet and no wheel.

In the rats given a high-fat diet and an exercise wheel, the early extra physical activity caused inflammation-linked genes to be turned down.

High-fat diets early in life are known to turn up, or increase the activity of other genes that cause inflammation. Inflammation is the body's natural self-protective response to acute infection or injury, but the ongoing, low-grade inflammation linked to high-fat diets can harm cells and tissues and raise the risk of obesity, heart disease, cancer and other diseases.

Exercise also altered the way the rats' bones metabolised energy from food, changing energy pathways that disrupt the body's response to a high-calorie diet.

"What was remarkable was that these changes lasted long after the rats stopped doing that extra exercise into their mid-life," says Dr Justin O'Sullivan, a molecular geneticist at the Institute.

"The bone marrow carried a 'memory' of the effects of exercise. This is the first demonstration of a long-lasting effect of exercise past puberty.

"The rats still got fat, but that early extra exercise basically set them up so that even though they put on weight they didn't have the same profile of negative effects that is common with a high fat diet."

Dr O'Sullivan says this may help scientists understand why, even though obesity and diabetes are often linked, some people with obesity do not develop diabetes.

"It also strongly emphasises the health benefits of exercise for children."

Dr' O'Sullivan's co-investigators were PhD student Dharani Sontam, Professor Mark Vickers, and Professor Elwyn Firth, all from the Liggins Institute.

With rising rates of overweight and obesity in children, it is important to understand the effects of these conditions on bone health, says Professor Vickers, an obesity specialist.

"Obesity is governed by many genes. This work highlights the utility of small animal models in teasing out gene-environment interactions in health and disease."

Professor Firth, who studies bone development, explains that childhood and adolescence are periods of rapid bone growth.

"If you reach optimal bone mass early in life, you're less likely to suffer from broken bones or other bone-related problems as an adult. Load-bearing from exercise and higher bodyweight is good for growing bones, but this and other evidence shows that if the extra weight comes from higher body fat mass, bone development may be subnormal," he says.

"Bone metabolism strongly influences energy metabolism in the body, and metabolism - what you do with energy from diet is the central crux of why some children and adults become obese."

The team hopes to repeat the experiment to see if the changes persist into old age, and if varying the exercise when it begins, how much the rats do, and how long they do it for could alter other genes, affecting other aspects of fat metabolism beneficially.

Explore further: Even your bones can get fat, mouse study suggests

Obesity and Type 2 diabetes have been linked to several health issues, including an increased risk of bone fractures. In a new animal study, University of Missouri researchers examined how the development of obesity and insulin ...

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Exercise in early life has long-lasting benefits - Medical Xpress

From VOA Learning English, this is the Health & Lifestyle report.

The health value of a Mediterranean diet is widely known. Fruits, vegetables and fish are main foods in this diet.

Extra-virgin olive oil is also a major part of the Mediterranean diet. And new research shows that it may protect the brain from losing its ability to work properly.

Researchers at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania say extra-virgin olive oil "protects memory and learning ability." Extra-virgin olive oil, also called EVOO, can reduce the formation of poisons in the brain that are signs of Alzheimer's disease.

But how does it do it?

Researchers say olive oil reduces inflammation in the brain. It also activates a cleaning process. This process is called autophagy.

Autophagy is when cells break down waste and poisons found between cells and remove them from the body.

There are two substances in the brain most closely linked to memory loss in Alzheimer's patients: amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary, or tau tangles.

What are amyloid plaques and tau tangles?

For definitions of both amyloid plaque and tau tangle, we go to experts at New Jerseys Rutgers University and the U.S.-based Alzheimer's Organization.

Amyloid is a protein normally found throughout the body.

However, the experts say when amyloid grows abnormally it creates a sticky build-up called plaque outside the nerve cells, or neurons. This abnormal amyloid plaque slowly kills the cells.

Tau proteins are common in the central nervous system.

Tangles form inside dying neurons. Tangles are twisted fibers of tau protein.

Experts from both organizations explain that, normally, every neuron contains long fibers made of protein. These proteins hold the neuron in its proper shape. They also help to transport nutrients within the neuron.

However, in brains with Alzheimer's disease, these fibers begin to tangle. This causes the neuron to lose its shape. The neuron also becomes unable to transport nutrients. Over time, it dies.

The recent Temple University study

Domenico Pratic is the lead researcher of the Temple University study.

He says, "brain cells from mice fed diets enriched with extra-virgin olive oil had higher levels of autophagy" and lower levels of the poisons -- the amyloid plaques and tau tangles.

For their study, the researchers looked at mice that had three traits of Alzheimer's: memory loss, amyloid plaques, and tau tangles.

They put the mice into two groups. Researchers gave one group a diet with extra-virgin olive oil. They gave the other group a diet without EVOO.

The olive oil was given to the mice when they were only six months old. This was before any symptoms of Alzheimer's had set in. At age 9 months and 12 months, the mice in the olive oil group performed considerably better on tasks that tested the mice's memory and learning ability.

And, the scientists reported differences in the brain tissues of the two groups.

The brains of the olive oil group showed a great increase in nerve-cell autophagy. This cell-cleaning process is responsible for the lower levels of the poisons we talked about earlier -- the amyloid plaques and tau tangles.

Pratic says that "one thing that stood out immediately was" the strength of the synapses.

A synapse is the connection between neurons. It is how they communicate. The synapses in the mice on the EVOO diet were stronger than those in the other group.

What's next for these researchers?

The researchers say their next step is to see what happens to mice who are given olive oil at 12 months. At that time, they will have already begun to show signs of dementia.

Pratic says that patients usually have dementia when they visit a doctor to investigate signs of the disease. He says the researchers "want to know whether olive oil added at a later time in the diet can stop or reverse the disease."

The researchers published their findings online in the Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology.

And thats the Health & Lifestyle report.

Im Anna Matteo.

_____________________________________________________________

Now, test your understanding by taking this short quiz.

______________________________________________________________

inflammation n. a condition in which a part of your body becomes red, swollen, and painful

autophagy n. digestion of cellular constituents by enzymes of the same cell

symptom n. a change in the body or mind which indicates that a disease is present

enriched v. to improve the quality of (something) : to make (something) better

trait n. a quality that makes one person or thing different from another

fiber n. a long, thin piece of material that forms a type of tissue in your body

tangle n. a twisted knot of hair, thread, etc.

stood out phrasal verb : to be easily seen or noticed

dementia n. medical : a mental illness that causes someone to be unable to think clearly or to understand what is real and what is not real

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Olive Oil May Protect Our Brain - Voice of America

Skin damage due to UV exposure from the sun is a widely known cause of skin aging and increased risk of skin cancer. In a recent study, the authors investigate whether diet can influence the damage caused by UV exposure.

Exposure to UV rays from sunlight causes the skin to generate greater amounts of free radicals that lead to cell damage and increase the risk of skin cancer. Although avoiding sunlight is the best way to prevent visible aging and cancer due to damaging UV rays, another factor contributing to the risk of skin cancer is diet. In a recent study published in the Journal of American Medical Association Facial Plastic Surgery, the authors investigate how normal, calorie-restricted and obesity diets affect the response of skin to UV irradiation in a hairless mouse model.

Three test groups were established: a control group with a healthy diet; a calorie-rich (obesity) diet group; and a calorie-restricted diet group. Half of the mice in each group were exposed to a controlled amount of UV radiation 3 times a week for 10 weeks. After 10 weeks, all test groups were humanely sacrificed and skin samples were collected. Analysis of the skin samples looked for specific immune responses, skin thickness, collagen health, elasticity and even changes in the number of wrinkles.

As expected, the results showed that with a calorie-restricted diet, mice had a modest decrease in body weight after UV exposure, which contrasted with the calorie-rich diet that resulted in increased body weight. Interestingly, UV exposure with a calorie-rich diet also resulted in the thickening of the skin, increased formation of wrinkles, enlargement of elastic fibers, and increased immune responses. Most notably, a calorie-rich diet was associated with UV-related skin thickening, indicating that increasing calories may lead to increased cell reproduction too much of which can lead to cancerous growths. Alternatively, calorie-restricted mice were less prone to the production of wrinkles. Not all UV-induced skin changes were related to diet, however. For example, the amount of collagen produced between all groups was similar regardless of diet.

The authors conclude that a calorie-restricted diet in the mice helped contribute to cellular factors that lessened the effects of UV radiation. However, since this work was done in a mouse model, it is unknown if the results are transferable to humans. In any case, it appears that in the mice an opulent diet had negative consequences.

Written By:Harin Lee, BSc

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Counting Calories May Help Mitigate Skin Damage From Sun Exposure - Medical News Bulletin

Swimsuit season sparks discussion about these restrictive diets.

Detox diets. Every year, people start asking questions about them, especially when swimsuit season nears.

Detoxification is the process of removing toxic substances from a living organism or environment.

Detox diets typically involve a period of fasting, followed by a strict diet of raw vegetables, fruit and fruit juices, and water. Some include supplements and herbs; others call for colon cleanses.

Methods include chelation therapy, colon hydrotherapy, dietary supplements, special diets and liquid fasts.

Popular detox diets for weight loss include the One Pound a Day Detox, the 10-Day Green Smoothie Cleanse and The Master Cleanse. Each promotes rapid weight loss, is very restrictive in calories, and claims to remove toxins from the body.

While research shows there are indeed toxins in human bodies and that there can be negative health effects from these toxins, there is no scientific evidence that detox diets actually remove toxins from the body. Medical disclaimers state the diets are based on the opinions and ideas of the author and that anyone attempting these diets should consult with a physician beforehand.

So why do so many people claim to feel better after detoxification? It may be due in part to the fact that a detox diet eliminates highly processed foods that have solid fats and added sugar.

When used for weight loss, these diets are very restrictive, expensive, unrealistic, and hard to follow. While there may be some weight loss for those who manage to successfully stick to the plan, most will have difficulty keeping the weight off once the diet has ended.

For those who insist on trying a detox diet, it is highly recommended that you consult a physician before starting it.

This may not be the advice people want to hear especially during the aforementioned swimsuit season but slow and steady wins the race. It is far better to adopt a healthy, balanced diet that enables you to lose weight gradually over time and keep it off.

Abby Eberly is a registered dietitian at Saint Vincent Hospital.

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Abby Eberly: Do detox diets work? - GoErie.com

I like to do silly things. If you read my article on attempting to run 100 miles in 24 hours with nothing but strength training behind me, then this statement wont surprise you. While that particular endeavor was a glorious failure in the sense that I came up short by 38 miles, I learned so much about how my body works in those 24 hours that has since made me a better athlete today. So when my training partner told me that he was going to get in shape for a bodybuilding show by sticking almost entirely to CrossFit training, I was interested enough to follow him around with a camera and track his progression.

CrossFit Kroys Head Coach, Ricky T, before and after

Honestly I expected Rickys attempt to go about as well as my run, but I was wrong. Eight weeks out from the competition, Rick had lost 10kgs, looked more muscular, was moving better, and was actually a little bit stronger. Which I suppose shouldnt be surprising given that in recent years CrossFit has become a bit of a go to for the average guy or girl on the street who wants to lose a little fat and gain a little muscle. And for good reason, too: big compound movements, hard work, and good diet is a potent combination that works. It was working wonders for people long before it was neatly packaged and trademarked, back then though it was just thought of as lifting and conditioning.

In those early days, bodybuilders and strength athletes were for the most part one and the same, with many bodybuilding shows being split into two parts, the first being the typical posing routine and the second a strength element typically a weightlifting competition. As such the strong had to look good and the jacked had to be strong.

And whether we admit it or not thats what most of us want, to not only be strong and athletic but to look as well. With that in mind there are a few things strength and functional fitness athletes can learn from the bodybuilding world.

One of the great things about bodybuilding is that it forces you to honestly assess the state of your body. When you get on that stage you cant hide behind flattering clothes, good lighting, or that filter that makes you look jacked; youre laid bare. In prep for his competition the first thing Ricky did was strip down and take a load of relaxed photos in neutral lighting (outside) to give him an honest starting point. The results were as expected; he was softer than hed thought.

Abs that were fully visible under the overhead lights of the gym werent popping anymore, and muscles that look great flexed appeared flat. While modern day strength sports dont require an aesthetic component, keeping track of your body fat levels is still important, not only for performance but for health as well. You could argue that extra body fat might help you better fit a suit but aside from geared lifting that excess body fat wont make you a better athlete, it will however put your health at risk.

Chances are if you take this whole competitive fitness lark seriously youll be doing a lot right already. Just look at the CrossFit Games athletes and you will see just what incredible shape that style of training can get you in, with most of the competitors looking like they are only a water cut away from being able to step on a natural bodybuilding stage (a rabbit hole we wont go down today). So if youre not as lean as youd like to be, chances are that its your diet thats holding you back.

Take stock of what you are eating; do you really need to go 1000 calories over maintenance just to fuel todays 40 minute session? For that matter, do you even know how many calories youre eating? If not try for a week plugging everything you eat into an app like myFitnessPal, this will not only make you aware of each food choice but also provide reliable feedback on the total calories and breakdown of the macros.

The other thing you notice when you get some brutally honest photos taken is that often you are not the perfectly proportioned greek god you thought you were. Dont worry, you are not alone; years of jerking anything heavier than 80kg over head has left me with zero shoulders, Ricky struggled with hamstrings being relatively smaller than his quads, and everyone else has their weaknesses, too. Sadly, just doing more of the big lifts probably isnt going to make the situation any better and might even just make it worse.

In big compound lifts your body will work out the most effective way to move the weight, favoring the stronger muscles and protecting the weaker ones. To counter this you need to target those weak muscles and those weak muscles alone. This wont just make you prettier but will also help you add kilos to your compound movements. Something I was skeptical to believe for a long time until I saw Rickys deadlift shoot up at a lower body weight, the only difference a tonne of hamstring isolation work.

For the general population Paleo is fantastic, anything that cuts out the refined foods that litter the vast majority of diets can only be considered a good thing. However, just like BMI is good for the general populace but terrible for athletes, Paleo too can fall short for those pushing the limits in training. If you are training hard at least 7 times a week while adhering to a strict Paleo diet, you could be missing out on a lot. Mainly enough carbohydrates to recover fully between sessions.

And if you are eating Paleo for fat loss and are seeing progress slow down, you might want to start looking at packaged food again. Packaged food comes weighed and measured, while natural food does not. Something I only truly appreciated while watching Ricky whittle a jacket potato down to 100g before cooking it. As the weeks went on and motivation waned, this just became an unnecessary drain and more and more of his carb sources came from packaged products like grits: Foods that were tamper proof, so that he couldnt accidentally add a little more here and there when he was hungry. Those grams and calories add up.

At 8 weeks out Ricky was stronger than ever and flying through WODS; at four weeks out he was struggling mentally but still able to hit 90% of his 1RMs on most lifts and was still coherent enough for skills like double-unders. With ten days to go though, that all fell apart. It was like talking to a dead man, a dead man who does nothing but slowly pedal an Assault Bike and curl. On 800 calories a day you cant do much else.

If you want to be a strength athlete, you can learn a lot from bodybuilders. No sport requires more total dedication and disregard for your own misery but dont let it go too far. Keep yourself lean, train accessories and dont be dogmatic in your eating. But if you do go down the bodybuilding rabbit hole, dont worry; fueled by a weeks worth of pizza, he was doing a fitness comp a few days later.

Editors note: This article is an op-ed. The views expressed herein and in the video are the authors and dont necessarily reflect the views of BarBend. Claims, assertions, opinions, and quotes have been sourced exclusively by the author.

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What CrossFitters Can Learn from Bodybuilding - BarBend (blog)

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