Category: Health/Nutrition

Overweight individuals who ate a low-calorie, low-carbohydrate diet high in plant-based proteins for four weeks lost weight and experienced improvements in blood cholesterol levels and other heart disease risk factors.

Overweight individuals who ate a low-calorie, low-carbohydrate diet high in plant-based proteins for four weeks lost weight and experienced improvements in blood cholesterol levels and other heart disease risk factors, according to a report in the June 8 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. A high-carbohydrate, low-fat vegetarian diet also resulted in weight loss but without the additional cardiovascular benefits.

The major polyphenol found in turmeric, an ingredient used in curry, appears to reduce weight gain and suppress the growth of fat tissue in mice.

Curcumin, the major polyphenol found in turmeric, appears to reduce weight gain in mice and suppress the growth of fat tissue in mice and cell models. Researchers at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University (USDA HNRCA) studied mice fed high fat diets supplemented with curcumin and cell cultures incubated with curcumin.

Salad dressing aside, a pile of spinach has more nutritional value than a wedge of iceberg lettuce. That's because darker colors in leafy vegetables are often signs of antioxidants that are thought to have a variety of health benefits. Now a team of plant physiologists has developed a way to make lettuce darker and redder - and therefore healthier - using ultraviolet light-emitting diodes.

The dark red tinges on a leaf of red leaf lettuce are the plant kingdom's equivalent of suntan lotion. When bombarded with ultraviolet rays from the sun, the lettuce leaf creates UV-absorbing polyphenolic compounds in its outer layer of cells. Some of these compounds are red and belong to the same family that gives color to berries and apple skin. They help block ultraviolet radiation, which can mutate plant DNA and damage the photosynthesis that allows a plant to make its food.

Eating salmon or other fatty fish just once a week helped reduce men’s risk of heart failure, adding to growing evidence that omega-3 fatty acids are of benefit to cardiac health.

Eating salmon or other fatty fish just once a week helped reduce men’s risk of heart failure, adding to growing evidence that omega-3 fatty acids are of benefit to cardiac health. Led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and reported in Wednesday’s on-line issue of the European Heart Journal, the findings represent one of the largest studies to investigate the association.

Walnut's may provide the body with essential omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants and phytosterols that reduce the risk of breast cancer, according to a study presented at the American Association for Cancer Research 100th Annual Meeting 2009.

Walnut consumption may provide the body with essential omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants and phytosterols that reduce the risk of breast cancer, according to a study presented at the American Association for Cancer Research 100th Annual Meeting 2009. Elaine Hardman, Ph.D., associate professor of medicine at Marshall University School of Medicine, said that while her study was done with laboratory animals rather than humans, people should heed the recommendation to eat more walnuts.

A new study shows that, depending on the vegetable, cooking on a flat metal surface with no oil (griddling) and microwave cooking maintains the highest antioxidant levels in cooked vegetables.

Some vegetable cooking methods may be better than others when it comes to maintaining beneficial antioxidant levels, according to a new study in the Journal of Food Science, published by the Institute of Food Technologists. Results showed that, depending on the vegetable, cooking on a flat metal surface with no oil (griddling) and microwave cooking maintained the highest antioxidant levels.

A sane - and science-based - departure from conventional thinking about nutrition. In this book, author and nutritional therapist, Nora Gedgaudas outlines the basic principles of how our bodies and brains function-- and the role that diet plays in physical and emotional health.

In her newly released book, Primal Body-Primal Mind: Empower Your Total Health The Way Evolution Intended (...And Didn't), nutrition expert Nora Gedgaudas takes on the sacred cows of the health care and food industries to provide readers with a streamlined, simple approach to total health. Gedgaudas outlines how our brains and bodies work, based on fundamental human physiology and the selective pressures that have shaped it over time. The message of Primal Body-Primal Mind is positive and empowering: it is possible to re-engineer our bodies to optimal health - by remembering where we came from.

New research from South Dakota State University gives evidence that including flax in the diet may help prevent colorectal tumors or keep tumors from growing as quickly when they do form.

Chandradhar Dwivedi, head of South Dakota State University’s Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, directed a study that found dietary flax may help prevent colorectal tumors. "The study was conducted in a special strain of mice that develop spontaneous intestinal tumors due to mutation in a gene," Dwivedi said. "This model is developed to investigate the effects of cancer preventive agents on genetically predisposed individuals. Results indicated that mice on diets supplemented with flaxseed meal and flaxseed oil had, on average, 45 percent fewer tumors in the small intestine and the colon compared to the control group."

There are pitfalls to everything, even being a vegetarian. Evidently, vegetarians are more prone to binge eating...and can suffer from a host of eating disorders if the quit the no-meat diet.

While vegetarians tend to eat healthier diets and are less likely than non-vegetarians to be overweight or obese, they may be at increased risk for binge eating with loss of control, and former vegetarians may be at increased risk for extreme unhealthful weight-control behaviors, according to researchers at University of Minnesota, University of Texas and St. John’s University.

Asian-American women who ate higher amounts of soy during childhood had a 58 percent reduced risk of breast cancer.

According to a study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, Asian-American women who ate higher amounts of soy during childhood had a 58 percent reduced risk of breast cancer.

“Historically, breast cancer incidence rates have been four to seven times higher among white women in the U.S. than in women in China or Japan. However, when Asian women migrate to the U.S., their breast cancer risk rises over several generations and reaches that of U.S. white women, suggesting that modifiable factors, rather than genetics, are responsible for the international differences. These lifestyle or environmental factors remain elusive; our study was designed to identify them,” said Regina Ziegler, Ph.D., M.P.H., a senior investigator in the NCI Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics (DCEG).