Avocado, Lutein, Attention, Obesity

A March 2020 study by University of Illinois of eating an avocado each day found

• "Previous work has shown that individuals with overweight and obesity are at higher risk for cognitive decline and dementia in older age … We are interested in whether dietary approaches may have benefits for cognitive health, especially in midlife."

• "It could be that nutrients in avocados have a specific action in the brain that supports the ability to do this task in particular, or they could be more beneficial for certain cognitive abilities over others."

• "It's also possible that with a longer study or different tests, we could see other effects. Other studies have found broader effects in other populations, so it is interesting to see a more specific benefit for this population."

• "Avocados also are high in fiber and monounsaturated fats. It is possible that these other nutrients may have played a role in the cognitive effects we saw, but we focused on the lutein in our analyses."

• "Future analyses may focus on other nutrients found in avocados, or avocado consumption's impact on other measures such as weight status, inflammation and potential changes in the microbiome."

• "Our mission is to give people options. There are multiple ways people can eat to optimize brain health."

• "What we're learning is that avocados may be one of those fruits that may be neuroprotective in certain ways. This work provides some evidence behind one option people have from a plethora of healthful foods that we can consume."

Mealtimes, Technology and Food Intake

A March 2020 study by the University of Illinois found a significant decrease in the amount of food eaten whilst using technology. They said,

• "It's fairly simple but distracting enough that you have to really be watching [the game] to make sure that you don't miss a number and are mentally keeping track."

• "That was a big question for us going into this - how do you ensure that the participant is distracted? And [the game] was a good solution for that."

• "It really seemed to matter whether they were in that distracted eating group first … Something about being distracted on their initial visit really seemed to change the amount they consumed during the nondistracted meal. There may be a potent carryover effect between the mechanism of distraction and the novelty of the food served.”

olive and other oils, animal fats, and heart disease

A March 2020 study by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health said,

• "Previous studies have linked high consumption of olive oil with better cardiovascular health, particularly in Mediterranean countries where olive oil intake is much higher than in the United States."

• "Our aim was to investigate whether higher olive oil consumption was beneficial to heart health in the U.S. population."

• "One interesting thing our study shows is that although olive oil was better than most animal fats and margarine, it was not superior to vegetable oils in this study population."

• "This means that replacing any type of animal fat with vegetable oils, including olive oil but also others, could be a good strategy to improve cardiovascular health."

Nutrition and Anxiety

A February 2020 study by the University of Toronto and the University of Edmonton said,

• "For those who consumed less than 3 sources of fruits and vegetables daily, there was at least at 24% higher odds of anxiety disorder diagnosis."

• "This may also partly explain the findings associated with body composition measures. As levels of total body fat increased beyond 36%, the likelihood of anxiety disorder was increased by more than 70%."

• "Increased body fat may be linked to greater inflammation. Emerging research suggests that some anxiety disorders can be linked to inflammation.”

• "Our findings are in keeping with previous research which has also indicated that women are more vulnerable to anxiety disorders than men."

• "We were not surprised to find that those in poverty had such a high prevalence of anxiety disorders; struggling to afford basics such as food and housing causes relentless stress and is inherently anxiety inducing."

• "Chronic pain and multiple health conditions make life very unpredictable and can be anxiety producing. One never knows whether health problems will interfere with work or family responsibilities and many activities become more challenging and time consuming."

• "Immigrants may face a myriad of challenges associated with resettling in a new country, including language barriers, poverty, difficulties in getting qualifications recognized, and limited social support, so it seems counter-intuitive that they should have a lower likelihood of anxiety disorders than those born in Canada. It may be that potential immigrants with anxiety disorders would find the challenges of relocation too anxiety-inducing and would therefore not choose to immigrate, so there is a 'self-selection' for those with lower anxiety."

• "It is estimated that 10% of the global population will suffer from anxiety disorders which are a leading cause of disability … Our findings suggest that comprehensive approaches that target health behaviors, including diet, as well as social factors, such as economic status, may help to minimize the burden of anxiety disorders among middle-aged and older adults, including immigrants."

Big Breakfasts Good

A February 2020 study by University of Lübeck found, “that a meal eaten for breakfast, regardless of the amount of calories it contains, creates twice as high diet-induced thermogenesis as the same meal consumed for dinner,"

"This finding is significant for all people as it underlines the value of eating enough at breakfast."

"We recommend that patients with obesity as well as healthy people eat a large breakfast rather than a large dinner to reduce body weight and prevent metabolic diseases."

Mediterranean diet, gut bacteria and healthy ageing

A February 2020 study said, “The interplay of diet, microbiome and host health is a complex phenomenon influenced by several factors … While the results of this study [how the Mediterranean diet affects gut bacteria and ageing] shed light on some of the rules of this three-way interplay, several factors such as age, body mass index, disease status and initial dietary patterns may play a key role in determining the extent of success of these interactions," 

Healthy Eating Kitchens

A February 2020 paper by Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center, Puget Sound Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and University of Washington, Seattle, said, "Healthy Teaching Kitchens [a teaching environment] not only focus on participants' knowledge, but also on supporting practical skills such as kitchen setup, meal experience, grocery shopping, label reading, meal planning, and budgeting."

Gluten, Casein, and Autism

A small (N=60) non-double bind study February 2020 study by the University of Granada (UGR) found that the behaviour of autistic children was not affected by Gluten-free and casein-free diets over a period of a few months.

Tibb: Beef

As-Suyuti said, “Beef inclines to coldness and dryness and is hard to digest. It generates spleen. It is better eaten as veal. From Suhi'b comes the statement: You must drink cows’ milk, for it is a cure. The fat of beef is a medicine. It is best eaten with pepper and cinnamon.” Al-Qayyum classified this as a weak hadith.

Walnuts Might Slow Cognitive Decline for Ageing At Risk Population

A January 2020 study by Loma Linda University said, “Further investigation is definitely warranted based on our findings, especially for disadvantaged populations, who may have the most to gain from incorporating walnuts and other nuts into their diet." 

Alternating Keto Diet – “Starving-Not Starving”

A January 2020 study (on mice) by Yale University found mixed results by following a ketogenic diet.  Short term health benefits were followed by some negative effects.  There appears to be some benefit in lowering inflammation and reducing the risk of diabetes. Researchers said, “Obesity and type 2 diabetes are lifestyle diseases … Diet allows people a way to be in control … Our findings highlight the interplay between metabolism and the immune system, and how it coordinates maintenance of healthy tissue function,"

Bread Products – the Glycemic Index (GI)

This is a way of measuring how the food that you eat affects the amount of sugar in your blood.  This is important for a number of reasons.

A food with a GI value of 55 or less is labelled “Low GI”.  The food will have a slower, longer impact on you, energy-wise.  High GI foods (those with a GI above 70) will be used by your body before any stored energy like body fat. And this may make weight loss more difficult.

French Baguette - 95

Bagel - 72

White Bread - 71

Croissant - 67

Wholemeal Rye - 62

Hamburger Bun - 61

Pitta - 57

__________________________

Sourdough Wheat - 54

Whole Wheat - 49

Sourdough Rye - 48

Pumpernickel - 46

Heavy Mixed Grain - 45

Soya and Linseed - 36

Source

http://www.the-gi-diet.org/lowgifoods/

Glycemic Index - a Resource

We like this resource:

http://www.the-gi-diet.org/lowgifoods/

Weight Loss Using Different Diets and Fasting

A January 2020 study by the University of Otago found that for some, certain types of diet and fasting can be, “healthful, beneficial ways to eat". The researchers said, “This work supports the idea that there isn't a single 'right' diet - there are a range of options that may suit different people and be effective. In this study, people were given dietary guidelines at the start and then continued with their diets in the real world while living normally. About half of the participants were still following their diets after a year and had experienced improvements in markers of health.”

"Like the Mediterranean diet, intermittent fasting and paleo diets can also be valid healthy eating approaches - the best diet is the one that includes healthy foods and suits the individual."

“Our participants could follow the [Mediterranean] diet's guidelines more closely than the fasting and paleo diets and were more likely to stay with it after the year, as our retention rates showed."

Walnuts and Gut Health

A January 2020 study by Penn State University found that,

• "Replacing your usual snack -- especially if it's an unhealthy snack -- with walnuts is a small change you can make to improve your diet,"

• "Substantial evidence shows that small improvements in diet greatly benefit health. Eating two to three ounces of walnuts a day as part of a healthy diet could be a good way to improve gut health and reduce the risk of heart disease."

• "There's a lot of work being done on gut health and how it affects overall health … So, in addition to looking at factors like lipids and lipoproteins, we wanted to look at gut health. We also wanted to see if changes in gut health with walnut consumption were related to improvements in risk factors for heart disease."

• "The walnut diet enriched a number of gut bacteria that have been associated with health benefits in the past … One of those is Roseburia, which has been associated with protection of the gut lining. We also saw enrichment in Eubacteria eligens and Butyricicoccus."

Lower testosterone levels linked to low-fat diets

A January 2020 study by Department of Surgery, University of Chicago Medicine and colleagues from the Department of Urology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and the Department of Surgery, NorthShore University Health System found that, "…men who adhered to a fat restrictive diet had lower serum testosterone than men on a nonrestrictive diet," but that, “… the clinical significance of small differences in serum T across diets is unclear."

In passing … some good foods for testosterone are oysters, egg yolk, shellfish, tuna, low-fat milk, fortified cereals, beans and beef.

The Benefits of Drinking Tea

A June 2019 study, “Habitual tea drinking modulates brain efficiency: evidence from brain connectivity evaluation” found that,

“The majority of tea studies have relied on neuropsychological measures, and much fewer on neuroimaging measures, especially for interregional connections. To date, there has been no exploration of the effect of tea on system-level brain networks.

“We recruited healthy older participants to two groups according to their history of tea drinking frequency and investigated both functional and structural networks to reveal the role of tea drinking on brain organization.

“The results showed that tea drinking gave rise to the more efficient structural organization, but had no significant beneficial effect on the global functional organization. The suppression of hemispheric asymmetry in the structural connectivity network was observed as a result of tea drinking.

“We did not observe any significant effects of tea drinking on the hemispheric asymmetry of the functional connectivity network. In addition, functional connectivity strength within the default mode network (DMN) was greater for the tea-drinking group, and coexistence of increasing and decreasing connective strengths was observed in the structural connectivity of the DMN.

“Our study offers the first evidence of the positive contribution of tea drinking to brain structure and suggests a protective effect on age-related decline in brain organisation.”

Citation

Li J, Romero-Garcia R, Suckling J, Feng L. Habitual tea drinking modulates brain efficiency: evidence from brain connectivity evaluation. Aging (Albany NY). 2019; 11:3876-3890. https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.102023

Authors

Junhua Li, Rafael Romero-Garcia, John Suckling, and Lei Feng

• Laboratory for Brain-Bionic Intelligence and Computational Neuroscience, Wuyi University, Jiangmen, China

• Centre for Life Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore

• School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, University of Essex, Colchester, United Kingdom

• Brain Mapping Unit, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Herchel Smith for Brain and Mind Sciences, Cambridge, United Kingdom

• Department of Psychological Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore

To Encourage Health Eating – Focus on Taste and Flavour

A September 2019 study by Stanford University looked at strategies for encouraging healthy eating. The noted that, "Most strategies to date have focused on getting people to avoid unhealthy foods, in the hope that the promise of health motivates them to eat better …The problem is, that doesn't actually motivate most people to approach healthy foods."

Focusing on taste and flavour is a “…radically different from our current cultural approach to healthy eating which, by focusing on health to the neglect of taste, inadvertently instils the mindset that healthy eating is tasteless and depriving … And yet in retrospect it's like, of course, why haven't we been focusing on making healthy foods more delicious and indulgent all along?"

"This taste-forward approach isn't a trick … It's about leveraging the fundamental insight that our experiences with vegetables and other healthy foods are not objective or fixed but can transformed by changing how they are prepared and how they are described."

Protein Drinks and Muscle Recovery

A September 2019 study by the University of Lincoln found, “neither whey-protein based shakes nor milk-based formulas enhanced the rate of muscle recovery following resistance training when compared to a carbohydrate-only drink.”

"While proteins and carbohydrates are essential for the effective repair of muscle fibres following intensive strength training, our research suggests that varying the form of protein immediately following training does not strongly influence the recovery response or reduce muscle pain.

"We would hypothesise that well balanced daily nutrition practices would influence recovery from delayed onset muscle soreness to a greater extent."

Social Facilitation – Eating with Others

A September 2019 study by the University of Birmingham found,

"People want to convey positive impressions to strangers. Selecting small portions may provide a means of doing so and this may be why the social facilitation of eating is less pronounced amongst groups of strangers.

"Findings from previous research suggest that we often choose what (and how much) to eat based on the type of impression that we want to convey about ourselves. Evidence suggests that this may be particularly pronounced for women eating with men they wish to impress and for people with obesity who wish to avoid being judged for overeating."

"A solution to this tension may be to eat at least as much as others in the group - individual members match their behaviour to others, promoting a larger meal than might otherwise be eaten in the absence of this social competition."

"What we describe as 'social facilitation' can be seen as a natural by-product of social food sharing - a strategy that would have served a critical function in our ancestral environments. This also explains why it is more likely to occur in groups with individuals who are familiar with each other."