SHR

Obesity, screen time, and sedentariness predict lower academic achievement in children Antonio Garcia-Hermoso and Raquel Marina recently recruited 395 seventh-grade boys and girls from seven schools to estimate the relationship between weight, physical activity, screen time, and academic achievement. After adjusting for several confounding variables, they found that boys and girls with obesity had worse grades than their leaner peers and that kids who had more than 2-hours of screen time daily had worse grades independent of weight status and physical activity. These associations only became stronger when variables were combined. Both boys and girls who were obese, with low–medium physical activity and exceeded recommended screen time were less likely to earn high academic achievements than their counterparts who were non-obese, with high physical activity and met screen time recommendations, independent of potential confounders. Have you ever wondered what infants in the U.S. eat? To say good nutrition during infancy is...

The American Diabetes Association (ADA) recommends that individuals with type-2 diabetes (T2D) limit their cholesterol intake to less than 300 mg per day. A single large egg contains about 200 mg. Their rationale is that there is limited research regarding optimal dietary cholesterol intake, and go on to reference the Nurses' Health Study that found a 37% increase in cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in women for every 200 mg of cholesterol per 1000 kcal consumed. Two meta-analyses appear to support this recommendation; one showed that individuals with T2D who ate eggs more than once per day were 69% more likely to develop CVD comorbidity than those who ate eggs less than once per week, while the other showed that, for each 4/week increment in egg intake, the risk of CVD increased by 40%. Pretty scary stuff, isn’t it? At the same time, oatmeal is recognized as a “heart-healthy” food and has...

Every day new research is published and the unfortunate truth is that it would be impossible for me to write an article on everything I come across. Plus, in all fairness, not every study deserves a full article. Therefore, I decided to write a weekly Super Human Roundup series that briefly touches on some of the research I can’t or don’t want to address in length. This way you don’t miss out on anything that may interest you. Sahni et al. from Harvard Medical School was interested in understanding the role of dietary protein on muscle mass and strength in older adults. They looked at data on over 2600 men and women from the Framingham Offspring Study who had valid dietary assessments and measurements of quadriceps strength and body composition (DXA). The subjects averaged 60 years of age and statistical adjustments were made for age, height, total energy intake, physical activity,...