SHR

Nowadays, people love looking for their health solutions in the form of a pill and companies bank off isolating and selling functional components of foods as dietary supplements. But as Elizabeth Reverri and colleagues from the University of California Davis point out, “functional ingredients may not produce the same effects when delivered outside a whole food matrix.” These researchers were interested in understanding how the food matrix contributed to the health benefits of two compounds: antioxidants and fiber. And what better group of subjects to test potential health benefits than overweight-obese men and women with metabolic syndrome. This study was a randomized, controlled, crossover trial consisting of three study days, each separated by one week, in which the 12-hour overnight-fasted subjects consumed a black bean (BB), fiber-matched (FM), or antioxidant-matched (AM) breakfast meal made of commercially available Western-style foods and had blood draws before and for 5 hours postprandially. Meal composition...

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...

There is a growing body of research suggesting resistant starches (RS) to improve glycemic control and insulin sensitivity, increase microbial diversity and digestive health, and aid in weight management. Ironically, the “unhealthy” white rice is one such source of RS, at least after it has cooked and cooled. This is because the cooking and cooling process leads to retrograded amylose and starch that is resistant to our digestive enzymes. However, the actual RS content of rice displays wide genetic diversity, with some data reporting ranges of 2 to 6.7 % dry weight. This begs the question of whether eating rice with more RS is worth the effort to seek it out, and our answer comes from the work of Alison Zenel and Maria Stewart at the University of Hawaii. They recruited 18 young and healthy men and women from their university to consume three different rice cultivars on three different occasions...