SHR

In a previous article I discussed a study showing that skipping breakfast does indeed lead to greater food and calorie intake during lunch, but not nearly enough to compensate for the calories not consumed at breakfast.  The researchers were able to show this outcome because they allowed for ad libitum food intake at lunch, meaning that the study participants could eat as much food as they wanted. This makes perfect sense considering the entire point of these studies is to compare how breakfast consumption or omission affects subsequent food intake, but it leaves an incomplete picture of the metabolic and hormonal effects breakfast may or may not have. What if eating as much food as you wanted at lunch wasn’t an option? What if you exercised later in the day? Many individuals who decide to skip breakfast do so in order to aid weight loss, and many may choose to monitor...

The current worldwide obesity problem has gotten to the point that government bodies have considered, and in some cases implemented, taxes on “unhealthy” foods. Although unhealthy is defined differently for everyone, most can agree that sugar-sweetened beverages such as soda would fall under that category, and not without good reason. Certainly Kelly Brownell from the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, Yale University would agree, as he was the first to propose that a penny-per-ounce excise tax could reduce consumption of sugared beverages by more than 10%.  This begs the question, what type of taxation would be most effective? There are essentially two types of taxes: inclusive and exclusive. The former means that the tax is included in the list price so that a $1.00 item with a 10% tax would show $1.10 on the price tag, while the latter is the standard sales tax whereby the tax amount is...

Vegetarian? You might have an eating disorder. At least, that’s the takeaway from the latest work of Kelly Zuromski et al. published in Eating Behaviors that examined the prevalence of vegetarianism within three female samples with varying severity of eating disorder symptoms (i.e., nonclinical, subclinical, clinical). All participants came from locations in the southeastern U.S., and were included in the nonclinical group if they denied any lifetime eating pathology and were included in the subclinical group if they endorsed any eating pathology (i.e., fasting, binge eating, self-induced vomiting, laxative use, and excessive exercise) in the past month. The clinical group was women recruited from an eating disorder treatment center. Generally, the nonclinical group ate a wider variety of foods compared to the other groups. The prevalence of self-identified, lifetime vegetarianism was lowest in the nonclinical group (6.80%), and highest in the clinical group (34.80%), with the subclinical group falling in between (17.60%). Additionally,...

Metabolically healthy obese – key protective factors Obesity is commonly accompanied by numerous comorbidities (metabolic syndrome) that involve insulin resistance (IR), type-2 diabetes (T2D), hypertension, dyslipidemia, cardiovascular diseases, and a systemic inflammatory state. However, not all obese adults have these conditions and there are in fact obese individuals who have less visceral fat and adverse health complications than would be expected, a condition that has been termed metabolically healthy obesity (MHO). Why are these people different? That is the central question answered by Goncalves et al, who reviewed the protective metabolic, genetic, and etiological factors of MHO that represent between 10% and 45% of the adult obese population. It turns out that everything is traceable to one seminal factor – lower visceral fat, which is what ultimately causes IR and the detrimental inflammatory and hormonal profile that contributes to increased risk for cardiovascular disease. Whether some individuals carry genetic predisposition to MHO,...

Plating is the art of making food look good. Obviously the organoleptic properties play a fundamental role in determining how much we like eating something, but our food experiences are also influenced by the visual and structural arrangement of the plate. Now, new research published in Flavour by researchers from the University of Oxford extends this influence to the cutlery we use to eat. The goal of the researchers was simple: invade an international conference being held at the Sheraton Grand hotel in Edinburgh and determine how minute changes to the appetizer, main course, and desert influenced the attendees’ perceived liking of the dish. How did they do this? They put a pink or green score sheet on each table and gave orders to the wait staff to set the tables and serve dishes a certain way. Aside from that, all food eaten by the attendees was exactly the same. AppetizerPloughmans, ham...

Imagine you are eating a meal; what do you eat first? Whether you are at a buffet, a nice sit-down restaurant, or cooking at home, meals typically have a combination of foods that can be roughly divided into proteins, fats, starchy carbohydrates, and fibrous vegetables. There is little to no debate that early treatment or prevention of postprandial hyperglycemia is important for health, especially in those with type-2 diabetes (T2D). Recently, researchers publishing in Diabetes Care asked whether the order in which a meal was consumed would influence the metabolic response to it in 11 T2D men and women. After a 12-h overnight fast, subjects consumed an isocaloric meal (628 kcal: 55 g protein, 68 g carbohydrate, and 16 g fat) with the same composition on 2 separate days, 1 week apart. During the first visit, the food order was carbohydrate (ciabatta bread and orange juice), followed 15 min later by...

Is Exercise Really Medicine? An Evolutionary Perspective Daniel Lieberman from the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University recently published an editorial in Current Sports Medicine Reports asking several questions: Why do so many people fail to act in their own best self-interest, at least in terms of promoting good health? Why is exercise actually necessary for health? And what explains the exercise paradox: most people avoid exercise even though physical activity is vital for health? To answer these questions, Lieberman adopts an evolutionary perspective, asking first what types of exercise humans are adapted for and then why exercise may be considered medicine. Obviously all animals are adapted for some type of physical activity, but humans are unique among the primates in that we evolved to run; we became bipedal, started sweating, and developed big butts. In short, the demands of hunting and gathering account for a wide range of novel...

Olive oil protective against type-2 diabetes in women That’s the conclusion of a recent paper by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health who analyzed data of over 145,000 women from the Nurses’ Health Study I and II. After a 22-year follow-up, it was found that each additional 8 gram intake of olive oil was associated with a 6% reduced risk of developing type-2 diabetes, regardless of whether it was consumed as a salad dressing or added to food or bread. Additionally, replacing 8 grams of stick margarine, butter, or mayonnaise with 8 grams of olive oil was associated with a 5, 8, & 15 % predicted lower risk of T2D, respectively. Is soluble fiber protective against type-1 diabetes? A low-fiber diet has been associated with other inflammatory or autoimmune diseases such as colon cancer and irritable bowel syndrome, so why not type-1 diabetes as well? Soluble fibers may be...

If there is one thing that research into eating behaviors has told us, it is that we are some gullible humans. Seriously, our perceptions about eating are influenced by numerous things in the environment such as the colors, ambiance, and food presentation. It’s not entirely our fault though, as most of the environmental effects are incredibly subtle and appeal to our subconscious. Who considers the size of a plate or presence of a food label when eating? Yet they have power. Interestingly, many of the ways through which the environment acts depends upon us. Drinking coffee from a white mug, for example, does not cause the coffee to taste bitterer because of some variable the white mug imparts onto the coffee but rather because the white color contrasts the coffee color and influenced the perceived “brownness” of the coffee that implies a stronger brew. Similarly, perceiving a food to be “healthy”...