EATING LATE AND GAINING WEIGHT: just a myth

Putting on pounds in the festive period almost seems inevitable but to avoid unwanted weight gain it has been suggested that people avoid eating late at night.
The idea is that you cannot burn off the calories if you are asleep.
But this is not supported by the evidence.
A Swedish study found that obese women were more likely to eat at night, but they also ate more in general.
In another study of more than 2,500 patients, eating at night was not associated with weight gain but eating more than three meals a day was.
Ultimately, taking in more calories makes you gain weight whenever you eat them, the researchers said.

Circumcision Avoid AIDS and HPV

Three studies published on Wednesday add to evidence that circumcision can protect men from the deadly AIDS virus and the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer.

First, Dr. Bertran Auvert of the University of Versailles in France and colleagues in South Africa tested more than 1,200 men visiting a clinic in South Africa,
They found under 15 percent of the circumcised men and 22 percent of the uncircumcised men were infected with the human papilloma virus, or HPV, which is the main cause of cervical cancer and genital warts.
"This finding explains why women with circumcised partners are at a lower risk of cervical cancer than other women," they wrote in their report.
Second, Oregon Health & Science University study conclude that the circumcised men were about half as likely to have HPV as uncircumcised men, after adjustment for other differences between the two groups.
In the third report, Lee Warner of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and colleagues tested African-American men in Baltimore and found 10 percent of those at high risk of infection with HIV who were circumcised had the virus, compared to 22 percent of those who were not.
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USA people: the best informed about food and enjoy it the least

If you’re a well-informed, health-conscious New Yorker who has put on some unwanted pounds in the past year, it might not be entirely your fault. Here’s a possible alibi: The health halo made you do it.
I offer this alibi after an experiment on New Yorkers that I conducted with Pierre Chandon, a Frenchman who has been studying what researchers call the American obesity paradox. Why, as Americans have paid more and more attention to eating healthily, have we kept getting fatter and fatter?
Dr. Chandon’s answer, derived from laboratory experiments as well as field work at Subway and McDonald’s restaurants, is that Americans have been seduced into overeating by the so-called health halo associated with certain foods and restaurants. His research made me wonder if New Yorkers were particularly vulnerable to this problem, and I asked him to help me investigate.
Something which is interesting is the comment in the last paragraphs in the article:
More generally, Dr. Chandon advises American consumers, food companies and public officials to spend less time obsessing about “good” versus “bad” food.
“Being French, I don’t have any problem with people enjoying lots of foods,” he said.
“Europeans obsess less about nutrition but know what a reasonable portion size is and when they have had too much food, so they’re not as biased by food and diet fads and are healthier. Too many Americans believe that to lose weight, what you eat matters more than how much you eat. It’s the country where people are the best informed about food and enjoy it the least.”

Cost of Junk Food

The organization’s dieticians reviewed so-called value menus at five of the largest fast food chains in the nation, awarding points for such unhealthy characteristics as sodium, fat and low-fiber content.
Jack in the Box’s junior bacon cheeseburger topped the list as the worst offender. The burger costs just one dollar but is packed with 23 grams of fat, including 8 grams of saturated fat, 55 milligrams of cholesterol and 860 milligrams of sodium and just one gram of fiber.
The Cancer Project is affiliated with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which aggressively promotes a low-fat, vegetarian diet. The organization’s list was spurred in part by a concern that during tough economic times, more people will resort to eating inexpensive fast foods, said Krista Haynes, a dietitian with the project.
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Heart rates may show obesity and diabetes symptoms

High resting heart rates may be linked to the development of obesity and diabetes, a Japanese study shows.
Heart rate is regulated by the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), a network of neurons in the body operating without conscious thought. It is also believed to affect the large intestine, blood vessels, pupil dilation, perspiration and blood pressure.
In an article published in the American Journal of Hypertension, researchers in Japan said people with resting heart rates of over 80 beats per minute had higher odds of developing insulin resistance, diabetes and cardiovascular problems.
Compared to those with heart rates of under 60, those who had rates of more than 80 were 1.34 times more likely to be obese, 1.2 times more likely to develop insulin resistance and 4.39 times more likely to end up diabetic.
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Money is the god of motivation, also in diet

Losing weight is easier when there is money on the line, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.They said weight-loss programs that reward people with money -- and remind them of the cash they stand to lose if they fail -- provided a powerful incentive to lose weight compared with more conventional approaches.Everything is more effective if shown the money to it.

Still, money is the god of motivation., because the study says that it is highly effective at producing short-term weight loss, but when the money stopped flowing, the weight begin to creep back on

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The benefit of cabbage

Cabbage is a very economical vegetable that is easy to find in any supermarket and it gives you a huge nutritional bang for your buck. This humble food has always been a mainstay for the poor and in cold climates people of all classes have relied on it to feed themselves through many a winter.

Cabbage is “the most important [vegetable] in the world from the point of view of nutritional benefits and cancer-fighting ability.” Cabbage possesses phytochemicals including sulforaphane, which studies suggest protects the body against cancer-causing free radicals, and indoles, which help metabolize estrogens. It’s also an excellent source of vitamins K and C, and a very good source of dietary fiber, vitamin B6, folate, manganese and Omega 3 fatty acids.

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Sodium Diet: Not only salty foods

We have to give more attention to our sodium diet. We may have reduced our salty foods, but, according to an analysis of supermarket products by a consumer group, some sweet snacks, breakfast foods and low-fat foods contain high levels of sodium even though they may not taste salty.
Salt increases the risk of developing high blood pressure and related cardiovascular problems, and federal dietary guidelines recommend limiting salt intake to 2,300 milligrams a day. The average American consumes 2,900 to 4,300 milligrams of natrium/sodium a day. It has been too much, actually.
The American Medical Association has estimated that 150,000 lives could be saved each year if Americans cut their salt intake in half, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer watchdog group, has petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to regulate salt in foods.
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Only 65% Americans do sufficient aerobic activities

Many Americans are failing to meet the minimum recommendations for exercise, although confusing guidelines are making it difficult to assess, researchers reported on Thursday.
"Additional efforts are needed to further increase physical activity," they concluded in the CDC's weekly report on death and disease.
Under guidelines released by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department in October, the minimum recommended aerobic physical activity is 150 minutes -- two and a half hours -- a week of moderate activity such as brisk walking, or 75 minutes a week of vigorous activity such as running.
Just under 65 percent of adults reached that goal, the CDC said.
I don't know about European and Asian countries. In developing country, if it is only 150 hrs a week, may be the people do more.
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Sick of your job? Health Study: It's common

Sick of your job? Or you think your work makes you unheathy? You're not alone. It's common, actually.

The online survey, by global recruitment firm Kelly Services, polled about 115,000 people in 33 countries in Europe, Asia and the Pacific and North America this year.

On average, 19 percent of respondents globally said their job was adversely affecting their health, with an additional 13 percent saying their work was so stressful it was making it hard for them to sleep at night.
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Study: Junk Foods Lead to Alzheimer?

A study show how a diet rich in fat, sugar and cholesterol could increase the risk of the most common type of alzheimer.
They come from a series of published papers by a researcher at Sweden's Karolinska Institutet, which show that mice fed junk food for nine months showed signs of developing the abnormal brain tangles strongly associated with Alzheimer's disease, a Swedish researcher said on Friday.
It is now suspected that a high intake of fat and cholesterol in combination with genetic factors ... can adversely affect several brain substances, which can be a contributory factor in the development of Alzheimer's.

Alzheimer's disease is incurable and is the most common form of dementia among older people. It affects the regions of the brain involving thought, memory and language.
While the most advanced drugs have focused on removing clumps of beta amyloid protein that forms plaques in the brain, researchers are also now looking at therapies to address the toxic tangles caused by an abnormal build-up of the protein tau.
"All in all, the results give some indication of how Alzheimer's can be prevented, but more research in this field needs to be done before proper advice can be passed on to the general public," she said.

Acupuncture works better than chronic headaches drugs

Acupuncture works better than drugs like aspirin to reduce the severity and frequency of chronic headaches, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.
A review of studies involving nearly 4,000 patients with migraine, tension headache and other forms of chronic headache showed that that 62 percent of the acupuncture patients reported headache relief compared to 45 percent of people taking medications, the team at Duke University found.
Writing in Anesthesia and Analgesia, they said 53 percent of patients given true acupuncture were helped, compared to 45 percent receiving sham therapy involving needles inserted in non-medical positions.
Other studies have shown that acupuncture helped alleviate pain in patients who had surgery for head and neck cancer, can relieve hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms and can reduce chemotherapy-induced nausea.

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