Vegetarianism, Eating Disorder Study Reveals Worrisome Relationship Among Women
“I can’t eat that, sorry.”
If you’re a vegetarian, that’s a refrain you’re probably familiar with. Food abounds — at work, at social gatherings — but you don’t partake because of your dietary restrictions. That mystery hors d’oeuvre or greasy teriyaki stick? Thanks but no thanks.
There are many valid reasons to be a vegetarian (see: the environment, your health, and the dismal state of the meat industry, for starters). But what if you go vegetarian to help disguise and aid an eating disorder?
New research suggests a large percentage of women with eating disorders may be doing just that.
Women suffering from eating disorders are four times more likely to be vegetarian than women without eating disorders, according to a recent study published in theJournal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
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Iron, vitamins could affect physical fitness in adolescents
Adolescence is an important time not only for growing but for acquiring healthy habits that will last a lifetime, such as choosing foods rich in vitamins and minerals, and adopting a regular exercise regimen. Unfortunately, several studies have shown that adolescents’ intake of important nutrients, as well as their performance on standard physical fitness tests, has fallen in recent years. Because nutrition and fitness are intertwined—for example, iron forms part of hemoglobin, which carries oxygen to muscles, and antioxidants such as vitamin C aid in rebuilding damage after intense training—these two findings could be related. In a new study, researchers have found that adolescents’ blood levels of various micronutrients are correlated with how well they performed in certain physical fitness tests. Though these results don’t prove causality, they suggest a new relationship between different measures of adolescent health.
The article is entitled “Iron and Vitamin Status Biomarkers and its Association with Physical Fitness in Adolescents. The HELENA Study.” and is online at http://bit.ly/Q2j6lJ. It appears in the online edition of the Journal of Applied Physiology, a publication of the American Physiological Society.
Mixed vitamin E may support blood vessel health in healthy adults
Short-term supplementation with vitamin E may support the function of cells lining blood cells from potential damage during the increase in blood sugar levels after eating, says a new study.
Five days of supplementation with a gamma-tocopherol-rich mixture of tocopherols maintained vascular endothelial function the function of the cells lining blood vessels, according to findings published in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry .
The vitamin E supplement was also associated with supporting blood flow in the arteries and a reduction in increases of malondialdehyde (MDA – a reactive carbonyl compound and a well-established marker of oxidative stress).
This study demonstrates that short-term gamma-tocopherol-rich mixture of tocopherols supplementation in healthy men maintains vascular endothelial function that is otherwise impaired by postprandial hyperglycemia likely by decreasing lipid peroxidation without affecting inflammatory responses,” report researchers from the University of Connecticut (USA) and Changwon National University (South Korea).
Lack of sleep reduces vaccine effectiveness
A wide body of research suggests that those who don’t get enough sleep — fewer than six or seven hours a night — are more likely to develop a chronic disease such as diabetes or respiratory infections. Now a new study from the University of Pittsburgh suggests that those who are sleep-deprived also don’t get the full immune response from vaccinations, which could leave them susceptible to diseases that they’re vaccinated against.
The study published this week in the journal Sleep examined the immune responses in 125 adults ages 40 to 60 who received a vaccine against hepatitis B and found that those who slept fewer than six hours a night around the time they received the vaccine had a higher risk — 11.5 times higher — of remaining unprotected from the virus six months later than those who slept seven or more hours a night.
Nearly 15 percent of the study participants failed to obtain protection from the vaccine six months after they received all three injections in the series.
Eating grapes may help protect heart health in men with metabolic syndrome
Consuming grapes may help protect heart health in people with metabolic syndrome, according to new research published in the Journal of Nutrition. Researchers observed a reduction in key risk factors for heart disease in men with metabolic syndrome: reduced blood pressure, improved blood flow and reduced inflammation. Natural components found in grapes, known as polyphenols, are thought to be responsible for these beneficial effects.
The randomized, placebo-controlled, crossover study, led by principal investigator Dr. Maria Luz Fernandez and Jacqueline Barona, a PhD student in Dr. Fernandez’ lab at the Department of Nutritional Sciences of the University of Connecticut, recruited men between 30 and 70 years of age with metabolic syndrome. The study is believed to be the first to look at the impact of grapes on metabolic syndrome.
Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of conditions that occur together – increased blood pressure, a high blood sugar level, excess body fat around the waist or low HDL (the good cholesterol) and increased blood triglycerides – significantly increasing the risk for heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Metabolic syndrome is a major public health concern, and is on the rise in the U.S.
Harvard Study Finds Fluoride Lowers IQ
A review of brain studies involving the use of fluoride has concluded that one of the adverse effects of fluoride exposure on children is damage to their neurological development.1 According to the Harvard researchers, children who lived in high-fluoride areas had “significantly lower IQ than those in low fluoride areas,” with the authors noting:
“The results support the possibility of an adverse effect of high fluoride exposure on children’s neurodevelopment.“
This just adds to the growing number of animal and human studies demonstrating the damage fluoride inflicts on your brain, including your pineal gland. The results of one study looking at children’s intelligence in two towns – one with fluoridated water and one without – were particularly revealing, with about 28 percent of the children in the low-fluoride area scoring as “bright, normal or higher intelligence” compared to only 8 percent in the high-fluoride area.2
Further, 15 percent of children in the high-fluoride city had signs of mental retardation, compared with only 6 percent in the low-fluoride city. And the study even accounted for other potential variables, such as lead exposure, iodine deficiency or a history of brain disease or head injury. There have been over 23 human studies and 100 animal studies linking fluoride to brain damage.
Food can reset disturbed sleeping cycles
What and when we eat can alter our circadian clock system“ or sleeping cycle“ and boost health, prevent obesity and increase life expectancy, researchers have found.
Writing in the British Journal of Nutrition, the researchers from the University of Southampton also noted a reverse effect in that a disrupted sleeping cycle could lead to, attenuated circadian feeding rhythms, along with, hyperphagia, GI pathologies, metabolic disease and reduced life expectancy.
As food components and feeding time have the ability to reset biological rhythms, it is of paramount importance to understand the relationship between food, feeding and the circadian clock system, they wrote.
In so doing, we may be able to use food or feeding times as a therapeutic intervention to reset or re-entrain the circadian clock system for better functionality of physiological systems, preventing obesity, promoting well-being and extending lifespan.
The researchers suggested oscillations in the gene and protein components in the endogenous molecular clock network modulate circadian rhythms in physiological and metabolic outputs.
