Friday, August 13, 2010

Write Off Weight

Keeping a journal has a hidden health benefit: A recent study indicates that keeping track of your eating habits in a diary or journal can help to double your weight loss. The study, published in the August 2008 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine followed almost 1,700 overweight or obese men and women with an average weight of 212 pounds.

After 20 weeks of study participation (which included weekly group meetings, recommended daily reduction of 500 calories, 30 or more minutes of daily moderate intensity exercise, and daily journal entries of food intake and exercise minutes) the total average loss was about 13 pounds. But the more that the participants wrote in their journals, the more weight they lost - on average, about twice as much as those who did not maintain records.
By keeping a simple food diary, you can more objectively determine how much you are eating and become accountable for your food intake. Try to enter the portions eaten after each meal, and use whatever method works best for you - pen and paper, a smartphone application (such as the iPhone's "Notes"), or a spreadsheet on a personal computer - to help keep the process consistent.

Omega 3s Essential for Mental Health

Omega-3s and Mental Health: A Report from ISSFAL 2010
By Joyce A. Nettleton, D.Sc.
 
Folklore has long held that fish is brain food … a belief increasingly bolstered by scientific evidence.
 
Three years ago, experts appointed by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) found the evidence that omega-3s support mental health quite compelling, albeit inconclusive. [Editor’s note: See “Top Psych Panel Says Omega-3s Deter Depression, Bipolar Disorder”.]
 
The APA’s expert panel concluded that abundant intake of omega-3s from seafood (DHA and EPA) helps support mental health ... and that the evidence warrants urgent research designed to better define omega-3s’ potential to prevent or treat specific mental problems.
 
Their positive position was based on what’s already known about key brain structures and functions – which rely heavily on omega-3 DHA – and an emerging body of evidence concerning omega-3s and mental conditions.
 
Our brains are mostly fat, and more than half of that heady stuff is omega-3 DHA.
 
We must have omega-3 DHA and EPA to survive or thrive, and can only obtain them in two ways:
Easily and abundantly from fish (especially fatty fish like sardines, tuna, and salmon).
Make small amount in our bodies from plant-form omega-3 ALA, in a very inefficient conversion process that’s hindered further by the flood of competing omega-6 fats, which Americans consume in unhealthful excess. (ALA is most abundant in walnuts, flax or hemp seed, leafy greens, beans, and grass-fed livestock.)
The APA panel also relied on the evidence existing then (in 2007). This included cell and animal studies, some preliminary clinical trials … and a larger number of epidemiological studies, in which scientists survey or follow groups of people, looking for any associations between health and diet.
 
Large, well-controlled clinical trials are the evidentiary gold standard, but because omega-3s are practically un-patentable products, therefore holding little profit potential, they rarely get funded by drug firms.
 
And costly clinical trials won’t get government funding without a persuasive body of lab and epidemiological evidence … a tipping point the APA panel thought we’d passed three years ago.
 
Here’s my summary of new and recent evidence concerning omega-3s and three major mental conditions (depression, suicide, and schizophrenia) … including papers presented at ISSFAL by the researchers themselves.
 
Depression
Some, but not all, studies have detected significant symptomatic improvements in people diagnosed with major depression who consumed modest amounts of omega-3s from fish (EPA and DHA) … with or without medication.
 
There is some evidence suggesting that omega-3 EPA may be more effective than omega-3 DHA or both together, but this possibility requires additional research.
 
Last summer, French researchers reported the results of a clinical trial involving 432 patients with depression, half of whom also had anxiety disorder.
[Editor’s note: We covered this report in a prior issue of Vital Choices; see “Fish Oil Rivals Antidepressants in Clinical Trial”.]
 
The patients were given about 1 gram per day of EPA or placebo for 8 weeks (St-André E et al., 2010; Lesperance F et al. 2010).
 
At the end of the treatment there were no differences in assessment scores between the two groups.
 
However, when the analysis excluded patients with anxiety disorder, EPA was associated with a significant improvement in depressive symptoms.
 
And in a study of pregnant women diagnosed with anxiety and depression, researchers observed that having higher levels of anxiety, but not depression, was associated with lower blood levels of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids (Bartke N et al. 2010).
 
Women with lower blood levels of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids and anxiety or depression also had shorter gestation times, attributable in part to their low omega-3 and omega-6 status.
 
Suicide
One of the most intriguing ISSFAL presentations noted that suicide deaths in the US military now outnumber the deaths from combat in current US engagements. The military suicide rate overall recently exceeded the civilian rate, for the first time since records have been kept.
 
A team of investigators that included renowned research psychiatrist Joseph Hibbeln, M.D., – from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism – proposed that low omega-3 status might increase the risk of depression and suicide in the US military. [Editor’s note: For more about Dr. Hibbeln’s work, see “‘Captain of the Happier Meal’ Gets a Salute”.]
 
To test this idea, they measured the long-chain omega-3s in the blood of 800 active duty suicide individuals and matched their leading characteristics to 800 controls (Hibbeln J et al., 2010).
 
The team’s analysis indicated that those with the highest levels of DHA were significantly less likely to die by suicide than those with the lowest levels.
 
An important contributing factor to suicide was the experience of seeing a soldier wounded or killed.
 
These observations suggest that low DHA status may be a risk factor for suicide, but might be overturned by dietary intervention … a possibility these investigators hope to test.
 
Schizophrenia
The ISSFAL presentations included a report of research in Tunisian schizophrenics, which supported the prior observation that individuals with schizophrenia have significantly lower levels of omega-6 ARA and omega-3 DHA in their red blood cells compared with non-schizophrenic individuals (Feki M et al. 2010).
 
Both of these fatty acids are essential to brain function, and blood levels fell as the severity of the symptoms increased … adding yet more evidence that deficits in long-chain omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids occur in schizophrenic patients, and that disease severity increases as blood levels drop.
 
The Tunisian findings fit with a University of Cincinnati study, which showed that DHA levels in the orbito-frontal cortex brain region are lower in people with schizophrenia, compared with normal individuals (McNamara RK et al., 2007).
 
And evidence is growing that different psychiatric disorders may be related to DHA deficits in different regions of the brain.
 
For example, when researchers from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism measured omega-3 levels in the brain’s hippocampus region, they found no significant differences between mentally healthy people and patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder (Hamazaki H et al., 2010).
 
We may lack irrefutable proof that dietary omega-3s provide significant preventive or therapeutic benefits for the major mental health conditions.
 
But the scientists at ISSFAL certainly recommend urgent research into the effects of dietary fats on mental health … especially omega-3s and America’s badly skewed omega-3/omega-6 intake balance.
 

Thursday, August 12, 2010

How to Feel Full with Smaller Portions

How full would you feel if you thought you were eating a big portion, but the actual amount of food was smaller than it seemed? Or if you thought you were eating a small portion, but really received a large one? Research from England suggests that feeling satisfied depends on the amount you think you're eating, and not necessarily the amount you actually consume. In an experiment, half the participants were shown a small portion of fruit to be used for a smoothie while the other half was shown a large portion. Both groups were asked how satisfying they expected the smoothie to be. Three hours later, they were asked to rate how full they felt. Those who were shown the large portion reported feeling more full, even though the smoothies they received were actually made with the smaller amount of fruit. In another test, researchers rigged up a soup bowl so that the amount of soup could be increased or decreased without the eater's awareness. Afterward, "fullness" ratings proved to be related to the remembered amount of soup in the bowl, not the actual amount consumed. The research was reported at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior.

My take? Large portions - the "supersize" factor - play a central role in the current obesity epidemic. Other studies have shown how easily people fall into the habit of consuming oversized portions. In one clinical trial, researchers tracked the food consumption of nearly two dozen adults for 11 days. First, they gave their volunteers standard sized servings. Then they gave them portions that were 50 percent larger. The participants consistently ate more when they were provided with more to eat. In general, research has shown that people eat more when given large portions. We've got to get into the habit of cutting back on portion sizes, particularly in restaurants, where you can safely assume that the portions are too big (half is plenty).

Friday, August 6, 2010

Standard American Diet Linked to ADHD

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the subject of considerable controversy. Many observers decry the now-routine use of stimulant drugs like Ritalin to control symptoms. Meanwhile, others say that ADHD diagnoses represent the "medicalization" of behaviors that fall at one end of the normal scale ... which may be signs of an unusally creative, intelligent mind.

Claims that ADHD is an imaginary disease were undermined by a recent UC Davis study showing that two brain areas failed to connect when children with ADHD attempted a task that measures attention (Mazaheri A et al. 2010).

Now, a new study from Australia lends support to the idea that nutritionally inferior diets may play a role in elicting the disorder. The term “standard American diet” is used by nutrition researchers to describe the most common eating pattern in this country. And that semi-official appellation yields an acronym – SAD – that’s all too fitting in light of the clearly adverse health impacts of the nation’s dominant eating pattern.

The standard American diet is high in sugars, refined starches (white flour products), pro-inflammatory omega-6 fats, saturated fats, and sodium … but low in fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and fish. As it happens, the standard Australian diet closely resembles the standard American diet, and has equally adverse health effects. So Americans should be concerned by new research that links the standard Australian diet to increased risk of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) among adolescents.

The new findings suggests that risk of ADHD in Australian adolescents could be linked to Western diets, which tend to be high in total fat, saturated fat, refined sugar, and sodium.

Before we examine the Aussie study, let’s quickly review the evidence concerning diet and food additives as an ADHD risk factor.

ADHD risk factors: A look at the evidence
Some studies have found links between food additives and ADHD, but the evidence is mixed and points to greater susceptibility in some children than others.

Evidence of a link between sugar alone and higher ADHD risk or transitory behavior problems is considerably weaker.

On the prevention side, some research suggests a potential role for omega-3 fatty acids in reducing the risks of ADHD and improving behavior and learning among children with ADHD. And last year, a Spanish scientific team that reviewed all of the available evidence noted the factors most closely linked to ADHD risk or prevention, including a possible role of the omega-3/omega-6 fat intake imbalance characteristic of Western diets. “[ADHD] has been related to many factors such as diet, additives, toxic substances from the environment, low protein diets with a high carbohydrate content, unbalanced minerals intake, deficits in intake of essential fatty acids, phospholipids, and amino acids, thyroid disorders, and vitamin B complex disorders ...One of the changes that we want to emphasize is related to the omega-6-rich vegetable oils that dominate human consumption and the reduction in fatty acids from the omega-3 family. The effect of an omega-3 intake deficit is even worse when the amount of dietary omega-6 fat increases ...”

Eaten in excess, omega-6 fatty acids tend to promote inflammation and are associated with higher risk of depression and cancer, while omega-3s tend to have opposite effects.

Omega-6 fats compete with dietary omega-3s for absorption, and omega-6s abound in processed and prepared foods and the cheap vegetable oils most commonly used in them and in American kitchens (corn, soy, safflower, cottonseed, and sunflower).

The authors of the new study analyzed the dietary patterns of 1,799 adolescents and classified their diets as “Healthy” or “Western” (Howard AL et al. 2010).
The teens were participants in the Raine Study from Perth, Australia. Researchers have been tracking this group of children since their birth in 1989.

Young teens were defined as eating a “Healthy” diet pattern if they consumed relatively high amounts of fresh fruit and vegetables, whole grains, and fish. This diet pattern also tended to deliver more omega-3 fatty acids, folate (a B vitamin involved in brain health), and fiber.

The “Western” diet pattern was defined as one in which teens tended to eat more takeout foods, sweets, pastries, and processed, fried, or refined foods. This diet pattern delivered less omega-3s but more total fat, saturated fat, omega-6 fats, refined sugar, and sodium.

A team led by child nutrition specialist Wendy Oddy, Ph.D., compared the teens’ diet patterns to their health records, looking for any diagnoses of ADHD by the age of 14 years. Out of the total of 1,799 teens, 115 (91 boys and 24 girls) had been diagnosed with ADHD by age 14.

After adjusting the results to account for various known social and family influences on ADHD risk, the Aussie team found that, compared with kids eating the “Healthy” diet, the kids who ate a “Western” style diet were more than twice as likely to have received an ADHD diagnosis.

When they looked at specific foods, an ADHD diagnosis was associated with diets especially high in takeout foods, processed meats, red meat, high-fat dairy products, sweets, and pastries.

Scientists attribute some of “Healthy” diet’s protection to omega-3s
Professor Oddy attributed some of the risk reduction of the Health diet pattern to fish fats: “We suggest that a Western dietary pattern may indicate the adolescent has a less optimal fatty acid profile, whereas a diet higher in omega-3 fatty acids is thought to hold benefits for mental health and optimal brain function.” (TICHR 2010)

She also proposed that the Western dietary pattern doesn’t provide enough of certain other essential micronutrients needed for optimal attention and concentration.

The Aussies did not deny the possible influence of artificial additives, nor the possibility that kids susceptible to ADHD tend to make bad, impulsive eating choices: “… we cannot be sure whether a poor diet leads to ADHD or whether ADHD leads to poor dietary choices and cravings.” (TICHR 2010)

Needless to say, we need more studies to confirm the link seen in this study, and to pinpoint the food choices most responsible for raising the risk of ADHD.

Sources
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