SHR

Three weeks ago I wrote about a study comparing a whey-based ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) to a soy-based RUTF in the treatment of moderate malnutrition. The results showed a clear advantage to the whey-based RUTF, with a significantly greater 3.4% recovery rate, despite a markedly lower amount of calories (-8%) and protein (-33%). What’s more, this study showed that this superior product was similarly affordable, costing a mere $1.36 more per child who recovers from malnutrition. Not everyone agrees that this price is affordable. In a recent study by Bahwere et al, it was argued that “the high milk content of this formulation makes it very expensive for sustainable use in resource-poor settings and increases the proportion of ingredients that have to be imported into developing countries.” Accordingly, they conducted a study comparing the efficacy of a RUTF made from soy, maize, and sorghum (SMS-RUTF) to the efficacy of a peanut...

How would you define “junk food?” I have spent a bit of time pondering this question and my best definition is a highly palatable food high in salt, sugar, and/or fat. Clearly this doesn’t cover everything, but I would argue it encompasses most things people agree shouldn’t be dietary staples. Given my definition above, I was both surprised and joyful that Bolhuis et al from Deakin University recently published a study investigating what impact fat and salt, alone and in combination, have on appetite, food and energy intake, and food palatability. In a randomized crossover design, 48 healthy adults (16 men) completed 4 experimental trials in which they consumed a standardized breakfast followed by an all-you-can-eat lunch. The lunch consisted of elbow macaroni and tomato sauce made with 100% tomato passata (low-fat; LF) or 60% tomato passata, 30% canola oil, and 10% heavy cream (high-fat; HF). The sauce had no added...

Since their recognition as part of some plant foods like soy and flax seeds phytoestrogens have been called into question for their potential to mimic the effects of real estrogens. Phytoestrogens in plants are known as isoflavones. In some cases this is a critical question. Take for instance a woman who is on estrogen blockade therapy for an estrogen dependent breast cancer. Estrogen can stimulate the progression of this and other forms of cancer and as such ridding the body of all estrogen is key to survival. Food manufacturers have said that phytoestrogens don’t convey the same biological effects as real estrogen citing a weaker affinity to the estrogen receptor and strength of estrogenicity. But then industry funded research shows that these isoflavones may protect against osteoporosis, menopausal symptoms, diabetes and obesity.. Hmmm just like real estrogen replacement therapy.  Let’s face it, they don’t want women to stop drinking soy milk!...

When an obese individual loses weight, there is a good chance that maintaining weight loss will be a lifelong battle. Nonetheless, certain behaviors can influence weight maintenance success. For instance, drinking diet soda has been shown to be more effective than drinking water at not only promoting weight loss, but at keeping the weight off over one year. By contrast, the speed at which one loses weight does not appear to influence weight loss maintenance. Another possible tool for dieters is mindfulness-based approaches to increase awareness in the moment and promote adaptive self-regulation. There is support for its use in improving maladaptive eating behaviors, such as binge eating and emotional eating, that can no doubt impede weight loss or cause weight gain. However, whether mindfulness can aid weight loss and weight loss maintenance was only recently investigated by Daubenmier et al from the University of California, San Francisco. Being Mindful… This...

If your goal is to lose weight, then you need to create a caloric deficit. This can be done by reducing eating less calories or by increasing caloric expenditure via exercise (ignoring the complexities of the body and nutrition such as reducing caloric intake by replacing added fats with nuts). Of course, for weight loss to be successful, the intervention must be sustainable. This led Cameron et al to investigate how dieting alone or aerobic exercise alone differently affects appetite and appetite-related hormones, food hedonics and food reward, and olfaction. Ten young, healthy male volunteers were recruited to undergo three 3-day interventions (with a 2-week washout between each) in which each participant first completed a control condition, followed by a diet or exercise conditions (in random order, so some started with diet and others started with exercise). Thus, this was a crossover study with the sequence of testing being either CON-DIET-EX...