November and December 2014 Nutrition News!

Hello lovelies, and Happy New Years! Before it technically becomes 2015 here in CA, where I've been hunkered down for the holidays before returning to CO mid-Jan, I decided to stop procrastinating and actually post all the Nutrition News that I've been hearing for the last two months. This is one text-heavy post, but it's full of super cool food science stuff! Wooo-hooo!

Every month, I like to make a collection of news stories that revolve around the field of Food Science, Human Nutrition, Vegetarianism, and other Health News. These are studies or reports that are not only super interesting, but also really work to open my mind and remind me that these fields are constantly evolving and finding new information. Click on the links for more info! 

Yay for Potassium! A study done by Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, and published in the American Heart Association journal Stroke, found that women who had higher-potassium diets had a lower risk of stroke and death! The results are pretty major: 27% reduction in stroke risk, and 10% reduction in death. New Years Resolution: work some more of that into your diet?

 

Turns out that the attitude behind your weight loss matters... a lot! Brigham Young University reported that overweight teens who lost weight --and kept it off-- often had intrinsic motivation guiding them. Those who lost weight in order to be healthy and feel good, instead of doing it for others, were more successful! Another thing I love about this study: many of the teens talked about losing weight is a slow process, which is so true! One or two pounds a week is average, and much more sustainable than crash diets. 

 

Binge drinking is a pretty common phenomenon nowadays, particularly among the college crowd, but it has even more repercussions than originally thought. A researcher at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine has found that immune system activity is also greatly compromised by binge drinking in young adults. At first, the immune system activity increases (around 20 minutes after the drinks); however, two hours later, the opposite occurs.

Harvard School of Public Health has found, not surprisingly, that weight training and exercise combined are more beneficial for your waistline than just cardio! Even when comparing twenty minutes of weight training versus the same amount of cardio, those who did weight training had a smaller increase in age-related abdominal fat. 

A bit of controversy for the end of the year: vegan-ism and carbohydrates. The University of South Carolina has found that following a vegan diet led to greater weight loss in its participants, even when carbohydrates were included. The participants were "randomly assigned to one of five diets on the dietary spectrum: vegan which excludes all animal products, semi-vegetarian with occasional meat intake; pesco-vegetarian which excludes all meat except seafood; vegetarian which excludes all meat and seafood but includes animal products, and omnivorous, which excludes no foods." Among the groups, vegans saw the greatest improvement in weight, BMI, macro-nutrient levels, and fat levels. Furthermore, I find this encouraging in terms of stomping out the stigma against carbohydrates and weight gain. Carbs aren't the enemy, people! Even the vegans who ate carbs had fantastic results.

Boston University Medical Center has recently reported that there may be a relationship between lung health and memory in older adults. The study tested both younger and older participants; and while no association was found in the younger group, older adults who had higher cardiorespiratory levels (aka were more fit) performed as well as young adults and much better than the non-active in their age group. Just another great benefit of exercise when you are older!

 

I could kiss the European Society of Cardiology right now, because they have great news about Yoga! After reviewing 37 other studies (for a total of 2768 subjects), they have found that Yoga could reduce the risk factors of cardiovascular illness as much as brisk walking or biking. Not everyone can do intense exercise, so Yoga is a great alternative if you aren't able to lower these risk factors in traditional ways. Even if you do exercise, consider adding it on. Compared to now exercise, yoga had a beneficial impact on: body mass index, systolic blood pressure reduced, low-density (bad) lipoprotein cholesterol, and high-density (good) lipoprotein cholesterol. Yipee!