domingo, 23 de febrero de 2014

The foods that make you look tired

1. Salt

While some salt in your diet is necessary, foods with a high salt content tend to dehydrate you, drying out your skin and making you look much more tired than you actually are. Opt for a low sodium alternative, and look for foods that are flavored with other spices and herbs instead of salt.
 
2. Artificial Sweetener

Regular sugar promotes inflammation, but artificial sweetener can be just as bad, if not worse, when it comes to making you look puffy. Artificial sweeteners contain aspartame, which is an artificial sweetener associated with joint pain, and it can also make you crave more sugar. Sugar is a dangerous cycle to get into. Choose foods with natural sugars, like fruit, to avoid looking puffy.
 
3. Alcohol

Anything more than one glass of wine with dinner can seriously dehydrate you, making you look dried out and soaking up any glow that your skin may have had. If you can’t avoid alcohol altogether, try alternating drinks between an alcoholic beverage and water so that you don’t entirely dehydrate yourself.
 
4. Anything Fried

Onion rings, French fries and deep friend Oreos are your skin’s worst enemies. These foods are packed with oil and trans fats, meaning they’ll clog arteries and stiffen blood cells, making your skin look dull and tired. Plus, these foods tend to pack on the pounds and essentially destroy the inside of your body, so they really shouldn’t be in your diet at all.
 
5. Carbohydrates

We’re not saying you have to go on the Atkins, no-carb diet, but an excess of carbohydrates (which is common in many women’s diets) can damage the collagen in your skin. This means that your skin won’t look as plump and healthy, and in turn you’ll look much more tired. Plus, if you’re eating an overload of carbohydrates, you’ll not only look tired, but you’ll also feel tired. Switch out a sandwich for a salad twice a week, and add a double dose of vegetables to your dinner instead of making a carbohydrate side (like rice or bread).
 
6. Doughtnuts

Fried and sugary, doughnuts are a bad idea all around when it comes to healthy eating choices, especially if you’re eating them for breakfast. Switch out a donut for a plain yogurt flavored with natural honey and almonds to give your body a healthy start that will make you look much more awake.
 
7. Candy

Loads of sugar with no dietary benefits, the sugar in candy will give you an insulin spike, followed by a quick drop, which will make you super tired. Besides just making you feel tired, though, candy will also make you look tired, giving you puffy bags under your eyes. If you’re going to have candy, stick to a fun size package, and avoid the king size packages at all costs.
 
8. Red Meat

You don’t have to become a vegetarian, but eating red meat more than once a week has been linked to an increase in wrinkles, caused by the carnitine compound in red meat that hardens blood vessel walls. If you don’t want to cut out red meat entirely, try to stick to a rule of eating it no more than once a week.
 
9. Processed Cold Cuts

The preservatives in cold cut meats are known to cause inflammation in the skin, making you look sallow and tired. Opt for fresh cuts from the deli instead, and cut back on how many cold cuts you eat in general.
 
10. Spicy Foods

Good for the metabolism, not ideal for the skin, spicy foods can cause skin to be irritated, causing uneven skin tone and dilated blood vessels. This makes the skin less clear and a bit older, which will in turn make you look more tired. If a food comes in mild or spicy options, go for the mild choice whenever you can.

Read more: healthdigezt.com

lunes, 17 de febrero de 2014

Does obesity reshape our sense of taste?

Obesity may alter the way we taste at the most fundamental level: by changing how our tongues react to different foods.

In a Nov. 13 study in the journal PLOS ONE, University at Buffalo biologists report that being severely overweight impaired the ability of mice to detect sweets.

Compared with slimmer counterparts, the plump mice had fewer taste cells that responded to sweet stimuli. What’s more, the cells that did respond to sweetness reacted relatively weakly.

The findings peel back a new layer of the mystery of how obesity alters our relationship to food.

“Studies have shown that obesity can lead to alterations in the brain, as well as the nerves that control the peripheral taste system, but no one had ever looked at the cells on the tongue that make contact with food,” said lead scientist Kathryn Medler, PhD, UB associate professor of biological sciences.

“What we see is that even at this level — at the first step in the taste pathway — the taste receptor cells themselves are affected by obesity,” Medler said. “The obese mice have fewer taste cells that respond to sweet stimuli, and they don’t respond as well.”

The research matters because taste plays an important role in regulating appetite: what we eat, and how much we consume.

How an inability to detect sweetness might encourage weight gain is unclear, but past research has shown that obese people yearn for sweet and savory foods though they may not taste these flavors as well as thinner people.

Medler said it’s possible that trouble detecting sweetness may lead obese mice to eat more than their leaner counterparts to get the same payoff.

Learning more about the connection between taste, appetite and obesity is important, she said, because it could lead to new methods for encouraging healthy eating.

“If we understand how these taste cells are affected and how we can get these cells back to normal, it could lead to new treatments,” Medler said. “These cells are out on your tongue and are more accessible than cells in other parts of your body, like your brain.”

The new PLOS ONE study compared 25 normal mice to 25 of their littermates who were fed a high-fat diet and became obese.

To measure the animals' response to different tastes, the research team looked at a process called calcium signaling. When cells “recognize” a certain taste, there is a temporary increase in the calcium levels inside the cells, and the scientists measured this change.

The results: Taste cells from the obese mice responded more weakly not only to sweetness but, surprisingly, to bitterness as well. Taste cells from both groups of animals reacted similarly to umami, a flavor associated with savory and meaty foods.

Medler’s co-authors on the study were former UB graduate student Amanda Maliphol and former UB undergraduate Deborah Garth.

Read more: buffalo.edu

domingo, 16 de febrero de 2014

Should Sugary Drinks Come With a Warning Label?

If one California lawmaker has his way, the following warning label will accompany sodas and sugary drinks sold in the state:

"STATE OF CALIFORNIA SAFETY WARNING: Drinking beverages with added sugar(s) contributes to obesity, diabetes, and tooth decay".

 State Sen. William Monning (D) announced the proposal on Thursday, arguing that the warning should be on any drinks with added sweeteners that have 75 or more calories in every 12 ounces.

Check out more on the proposal at FoxNews.com.

On Happening Now this afternoon, Sunday Housecall host Dr. David Samadi said he is totally in favor of the warning label. He argued that labels on cigarettes and heightened awareness efforts have helped people to stop smoking.

Samadi said he's not sure if these warning labels will have the same effect, but called it a "good step." He argues that "something's gotta give" in the United States, pointing out that an addiction to sugar is fueling the obesity problem.

foxnewsinsider.com


jueves, 13 de febrero de 2014

Diet soda = diabetes soda

If you’re fueling up on french fries and spending a lot of time parked on the couch, don’t expect diet soda to save you. Downing calorie-free pop could have the unappetizing consequence of increasing your risk of developing diabetes, according to a new study published in the journal Diabetes Care.

THE DETAILS: Researchers looked at people’s diet soda consumption between the years 2000 and 2002, and then screened them for type 2 diabetes between 2002 and 2007, as part of the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, or MESA, an investigation involving more than 6,800 people between 45 and 84 years old. People who drank at least one diet soda a day at the beginning of the study had a 67 percent higher relative risk of type 2 diabetes compared with the people who drank none. Zero-calorie soda also increased the risk of metabolic syndrome—a group of risk factors linked to obesity that increase your chances of heart disease, diabetes, and stroke—by 36 percent.

WHAT IT MEANS: Sipping diet soda to avoid calories sounds like a good idea, but in the real world it tends to come along with other behaviors that may endanger your health. This study didn’t look at the possible cause between the association of diabetes and diet soda, but the lead author has a pretty good idea why this happens. “Although our data did not clearly support this theory, I suspect that persons drinking diet soda are likely eating other foods that elevate risk of metabolic disorders,” says lead study author Jennifer Nettleton, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology at The University of Texas School of Public Health, in Houston. “People drinking diet soda are likely to miscalculate the amount of caloric savings, thus over-consuming other foods, resulting in greater overall energy consumption.”

Here’s how to avoid health problems that come in a calorie-free can:

• Water yourself! Hands down, the best thing you can drink is water. Although this study didn’t find a link between sugar-sweetened soda and diabetes as many other studies have, Nettleton says that’s not a reason for diet drinkers to go back to sugar-swamped beverages. Water should be your drink of choice. Beyond that, check the Beverage Guidance Panel’s tiered system to help you make the healthiest choices.

• Look at the whole picture. If diabetes is a real threat to you, chances are your entire problem isn’t coming from a soda can or bottle, but rather a slew of factors. To keep your blood sugar steady, eat a balanced diet with as little refined sugar as possible (replace processed foods with whole, organic vegetables and fruits), cut out soda and sweetened juices containing little real fruit juice, and get more active, even if that means walking in 10-minute spurts several times a day. Make lots of small changes you can stick to, rather than a single dramatic one. “Lifestyle changes must be moderate and sustainable, and focus on all aspects of diet—not just single food and beverage entities—and include physical activity and stress management,” says Nettleton. “Too many marketing gimmicks exist that suggest there is a single ‘panacea’ to prevent obesity and its related morbidities. This simply isn’t the case.”

rodalenews.com

martes, 11 de febrero de 2014

TVs, Computers, and Cars May Be Spreading Obesity in Developing Nations

The increasing number of people in developing nations who own televisions, computers and cars might explain rising rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes in those countries, a new study suggests.

The researchers analyzed data from more than 150,000 adults in nearly 110,000 households in 17 countries where people had high, medium and low incomes.

High-income nations included Canada, Sweden and the United Arab Emirates; upper-middle-income countries included Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Malaysia, Poland, South Africa and Turkey; lower-middle-income countries included China, Colombia, and Iran; and low-income countries included Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Zimbabwe.

Seventy-eight percent of households had at least one TV, 34 percent had a computer and 32 percent had a car, according to the study, which was published Feb. 10 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

In low-income nations, people in homes with all three items did 31 percent less physical activity and 21 percent more sitting compared with those who owned none of the devices. They also had larger waist sizes.

In high-income countries, there was no link between owning these items and obesity and diabetes rates. The association, however, was strong in low-income nations, where the obesity rate was 14.5 percent in homes with all three devices and 3.4 percent in homes with none. The diabetes rate was 11.7 percent in homes with all three items and 4.7 percent in homes with none.

“Although we found a significant positive association between owning household devices and obesity or diabetes in low-income countries, we were unable to detect a relationship in the high-income [countries],” study author Dr. Scott Lear, of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia, said in a journal news release.

It’s likely that the negative health impacts of these three consumer products have already occurred in richer countries, and this is reflected in their already high rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes, Lear said.

Although the study linked owning televisions, computers and cars to higher obesity and diabetes rates, it did not establish a cause-and-effect relationship.

More information: health.com