How many will you get right? (Answers appear below the quiz.)

1. Does having a pear-shaped body protect against disease?

A. Yes.

B. No.

2. Which type of cancer has the mango been found to prevent or stop in laboratory tests?

A. Breast.

B. Colon.

C. Lung.

D. Prostate.

E. All of the above.

3. If your doctor approves, how many pistachios should be added to your daily diet to potentially reduce the risk of lung cancer without increasing your body mass index significantly?

A. 1 ounce.

B. 2 ounces.

C. 3 ounces.

D. 3-1/2 ounces.

4. Depressed women are less successful with weight loss programs than women who aren’t depressed…

A. True.

B. False.

5. The more TV you watch, the greater your risk of…

A. Getting a divorce.

B. Having a baby.

C. Developing dementia.

D. Dying from heart disease.

Here are the answers…

1. A.

Yes, under certain circumstances.

Oxford University researchers found that having a pear-shaped body (with more fat stored on the hips, thighs, and buttocks) may actively protect you against heart disease and diabetes.

If you have more fat in the stomach or waist areas, you’ll have more fatty acids released into your body… which can then be deposited in muscles like the heart or organs like the liver… which ultimately leads to more heart disease and diabetes.

But significant weight gain can reduce or even eliminate the protective effect of having a pear-shaped body.

2. E.

Texas AgriLife Research food scientists tested mango polyphenol extracts in the lab. They found that the fruit most effectively targeted certain common breast and colon cancers. But it also affected leukemia, lung and prostate cancer cells, although to a lesser degree.

3. B.

According to a researcher from M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, 2 ounces per day of pistachios may be added to your diet to reduce lung cancer risk without significantly increasing your body mass index. But you should always check with your doctor before making any changes to your diet.

A form of vitamin E in pistachios may provide this protection.

4. B.

False.

Although researchers at the Group Health Research Institute expected depressed women to eat more, exercise less, lose less weight and attend fewer sessions in weight loss programs than women without depression, it didn’t happen.

5. D.

I have no idea whether A, B or C are true.

But Australian researchers found that each hour per day of sedentary behavior (like watching TV) was linked to an almost 20% greater risk of dying from heart disease, an almost 10% greater risk of dying from cancer, and an over 10% greater risk of dying from all causes.

So stop sitting, get up and move. It could save your life.

Technorati Tags: body fat, weight loss, fitness, nutrition, heart disease, cancer, pistachios, depression

Yes, willpower does matter.

But if a weight loss plan is difficult to follow, you’ll probably drop it sooner than if you’re using an easier diet plan.

A lot of this comes down to whether you perceive your diet to be hard to follow. So what seems easy to you may seem hard to someone else and vice versa.

The researchers believe that environment is a factor, too. Which is their way of saying you should keep your physical environment free of food temptations.

They suggest that you check the rules of different diet plans and see which ones are easy to remember and follow… for you.

I agree, to a point.

I mean if your diet consists of only one food… well, sure, that’s the easiest diet there is. But you’ll probably develop nutritional deficiencies or other health problems if you stick with it too long.

So I think it really comes down to choosing a weight loss plan that’s easy to live with for your personality and lifestyle.

Some people like to track everything they eat; others want prepared food delivered to them so they don’t have to think about anything.

Of course, the people who have food delivered may have more problems keeping their weight off once they have to prepare their own food again.

One thing I’ve noticed, though. The diet that’s most likely to work is the diet you choose when you’ve finally committed to lose the weight. When nothing is going to stop you from succeeding. Because you’ve just had enough of being overweight… for whatever reason.

Which is a little different than having willpower. It’s having motivation.

So yes, I agree that it’s better to choose an easy way to lose weight… but make sure you’re motivated to follow through with your diet. In my opinion, that’s the key to success.

Technorati Tags: easy way to lose weight, weight loss, diet plan, lose weight

How many will you get right? (Answers appear below the quiz.)

1. Can the stress of seeing your family for the holidays really kill you?

A. Yes. I’ve got to get away from these people, they’re killing me.

B. No. Sometimes, they drive me nuts, but they won’t kill me.

2. Can being overweight age your face more rapidly than if you are normal weight?

A. Yes. Sometimes, it can.

B. No. Being overweight stretches the skin and smoothes out wrinkles.

3. Should your New Year’s health resolutions (like those for weight loss and exercise) be focused on the long term or short term for better health benefits?

A. Long term. You win the race like the tortoise, not the hare.

B. Short term. Quick action is what produces better results.

4. Is it hormones or your sense of smell that causes you to eat a high-calorie dessert when you’re already full from lunch?

A. Hormones. Yeah, sure, we’ll blame that.

B. Your sense of smell. One whiff of a high-calorie dessert and you’re a goner.

5. Is food addiction real or imagined as a cause for continuing obesity?

A. Real. Some people suffer food addiction just like others suffer from drinking or drug addictions.

B. Imagined. Obese people have only themselves to blame for eating too much.

Here are the answers…

1. A.

Yes. Researchers at the University of Connecticut Health Center have found more evidence that stressful situations make autoimmune diseases worse and can cause latent infections to reemerge. So if seeing your family during the holidays is stressful for you… good luck.

2. A.

Yes, under certain circumstances.

According to the Archives of Dermatology, there’s an association between sun damage and the aging of your face with 4 other characteristics… being overweight, smoking, a history of skin cancer, and not using sunscreen.

3. A.

The long term. Some Kansas State University researchers discovered that people who choose bigger rewards that come later (as opposed to quick rewards in the present) are more likely to lose weight, exercise, and smoke and drink less.

4. A.

Actually, it is hormones… well, one hormone called ghrelin.

This hormone not only causes us to eat when hungry, but it may also be responsible for causing us to eat pleasurable and “rewarding” foods like desserts when we’re already full. So says UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers.

5. A.

This is a controversial topic because many people like to blame obese people for their chronic overeating.

But according to obesity researchers at McMaster University, food addiction is a reality for some obese individuals. It can mimic other addictions by causing food-addicted individuals to need more food to reach a level of satisfaction and by causing withdrawal symptoms such as mood changes during dieting.

Even so, the researchers are quick to point out that obese individuals still have the free will to make the choice to lose weight.

Technorati Tags: obesity, ghrelin, food addiction, overweight, weight loss, exercise

What is it?

It’s an electronic lock-out system for your TV. Seriously.

Many of the latest weight loss methods revolve around making small behaviorial changes. That way, it’s easier to lose and keep off excess weight.

Researchers at the University of Vermont studied 36 adults with BMIs between 25 and 50 who watched 3 or more hours of television each day.

After observing their TV habits for 3 weeks, 20 of the participants got electronic lock-out systems for their TVs. This limited them to half their normal viewing time per week.

The other 16 people were the control group.

After measuring everyone’s physical activity for 3 weeks, the researchers discovered that the 20 people with TV lock-out devices burned almost 120 calories MORE per day than during the original observation period.

Meanwhile, the control group burned almost 100 calories LESS each day than during the original observation period.

The researchers believe that reducing your calories by just 100 a day could stop the gradual weight gain that happens to most people over time.

So think about getting your TV locked if you want a new and easy way to lose weight.

Technorati Tags: easy way to lose weight, weight loss, calories

Specifically, your body mass index (BMI) will vary depending on how much sleep you get.

Researchers studied 1800 twins with an average age of 37. Sixty-eight percent were female, 32% male, and 88% of the total were Caucasian.

The twins who slept between 7 and 9 hours per night had a lower BMI than those who slept more than 9 hours or fewer than 7 hours.

Previous studies by other researchers have shown that lack of sleep or interrupted sleep may cause weight gain by interfering with your hormone production.

If you don’t sleep long enough, your levels of a hormone called leptin fall. This means you won’t feel as satisfied after you eat.

At the same time, your levels of a hormone called ghrelin rise. This will stimulate your appetite so that you want to eat more.

According to these studies, you should get enough sleep — not too much and not too little — to help to control your eating. So getting the right amount of sleep just may be an easy way to lose weight.

Technorati Tags: weight gain, overeating, sleep, ghrelin, leptin

1. Lack of Vitamin D Is Linked to Asthma Severity

Researchers at Harvard Medical School discovered that children with lower vitamin D levels were much more likely to be hospitalized for asthma, have hyperreactive airways, use inhaled corticosteroids, and have allergies.

Vitamin D is the sunshine vitamin. So an easy way to increase vitamin D levels is to get outside in the sun.

2. The Moderately Obese Can Benefit From Bariatric Weight Loss Surgery

Until recently, doctors only considered severely obese people, meaning those with a body mass index (BMI) more than 40, for weight loss surgery.

But new studies have shown that people with BMIs of 30 to 40 can benefit from bariatric surgery if they have high blood pressure or Type 2 diabetes.

Of course, only your doctor can determine whether surgery is right for you.

3. Walnuts May Prevent Breast Cancer

New research suggests that eating walnuts may prevent breast cancer, although the study was done only on mice, not humans. So more research needs to be done.

But it’s believed that the omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, and phytosterols in walnuts are responsible for this effect.

These tests showed that eating walnuts reduced the incidents of breast tumors, the number of glands with tumors, and the size of the tumors.

4. Obese People Have A Higher Risk Of Urinary Tract Infections

This was seen most often in morbidly obese patients.

5. Junk Food Makes Kids Fatter… And Happier

A recent study found that kids who drank soft drinks and ate fast food were more likely to be fat… and happy. So the researchers suggest that we need to find other ways to keep kids happy when trying to change their eating habits.

6. Poor Sleep May Increase Eating And Diabetes Risk

More evidence is emerging that poor sleep patterns may increase the risk of obesity and Type 2 diabetes.

That’s because poor sleep disturbs neuroendocrine appetite control. This can cause overeating, reduce insulin, and/or raise insulin resistance.

7. Belly Fat Negative Effects Can Be Counteracted By Moderate Exercise

According to a recent University of Illinois study, modest exercise (without dietary changes) can decrease the inflammation in belly fat that’s associated with metabolic syndrome.

Metabolic syndrome is a group of conditions such as high blood pressure and high insulin levels that increases your risk of stroke, heart disease, and diabetes.

Technorati Tags: weight loss, diet, belly fat, bariatric surgery, vitamin D, asthma, overeating

1. Chew Gum Before Eating An Afternoon Snack…

This will help you to feel more full as well as reduce your hunger and food cravings.

But be careful not to chew too much sugar-free gum because large amounts of sorbitol, a common sweetener, can cause chronic diarrhea.

2. Add Oatmeal To Your Diet…

Oatmeal is supposed to lower your risk of weight gain as well as reduce your cholesterol.

3. Find Easy Calorie-Burning Alternatives To Sitting…

If you don’t have time to go to the gym, you can make small changes to your lifestyle to trim your waistline.

When you sit for long periods of time, your fat-burning enzymes can shut down. So to get your metabolism going again and burn twice the calories, you can stand (instead of sitting) while reading, watching TV, talking on the phone, or using your computer.

4. Eat Chile Peppers…

According to an earlier study, eating hot peppers will boost your metabolism for a little while and cause you to burn extra calories. The effect is temporary, though.

5. Move The Candy Dish Off Your Desk At Work…

Studies have shown that secretaries will eat a lot less candy if they have to walk to a candy dish that is 5 or 10 feet away from their desk.

Of course, this works for everyone… so move that candy dish to a galaxy far, far away.

6. Walk With A Pedometer…

Even if you don’t go on a diet, you could lose up to 5 pounds a year just by walking about 2,000 steps a day. If you walk for 30 minutes a day, you may also notice blood pressure and cholesterol benefits.

7. Substitute Mushrooms For Meat…

Scientists have found that we eat more calories when we eat meat.

So if you exchange your 4-ounce hamburger for a 4-ounce Portabella mushroom each time you would normally eat the burger, you may lose up to 5 pounds in one year.

8. Split Your Exercise Session With A Rest Period…

Japanese researchers found that people who took a rest period instead of exercising in one longer session burned more fat.

In their study, the greatest amount of fat breakdown occurred with two 30-minute exercise sessions that had a 20-minute rest period in between and a 60-minute recovery period following the second session.

9 & 10. Eat Slowly And Eat Appropriate Portion Sizes Instead Of Eating Until Full…

Researchers have concluded that these 2 small changes alone will reduce your risk of being overweight by about 3 times.

So even if you haven’t started a full-blown diet and exercise program, these are 10 simple and easy ways to lose weight.

[tags]easy ways to lose weight, weight loss, lose weight, easy way to lose weight[/tag]

According to a new study published in Nature Genetics by a team of authors from over 60 institutions, 6 new genetic variants are now linked to a higher body mass index (BMI), which is a measurement that’s often used to determine obesity.

Five of these genes act on your brain and are believed to affect behavior like appetite and satiety, instead of body chemistry like metabolism.

The research was done on over 90,000 people. Further studies in twins have shown that genetics may be responsible for up to 70% of the variations in BMI.

A part of the brain called the hypothalamus controls body temperature, hunger, and thirst. That’s where these genes are believed to be active and where they may be causing your predisposition to gain weight if you’re overweight.

But this isn’t even close to the entire answer to the obesity problem. Even the researchers admit that if you carry all these genetic variants, you’ll only be about 3 to 5 pounds heavier than the average person.

But the scientists think there are more genetic variants to uncover. So this may be only the tip of the iceberg that explains how obesity may be hardwired into your brain.

Technorati Tags: obesity, gene variant, overweight, overeating, body mass index, BMI, hypothalamus, hunger

According to a new study from Tufts University, dieters do worse on memory-based tasks when they take carbohydrates out of their diets.

But put the carbohydrates back in and your thinking skills should return to normal.

The researchers believe this happens because your brain can’t store glucose. But glucose from carbohydrates is its main fuel, so the brain uses the energy from carbohydrates immediately.

If you don’t eat carbohydrates, then your brain loses a key source of energy.

The researchers studied 19 women from 22 to 55 years old. Ten women chose a low-calorie, balanced diet. Nine chose a low-carb diet.

Each woman was given 5 tests. They measured attention, short- and long-term memory, visual attention, and spatial memory.

The 1st test occurred before the women began dieting. The 2nd and 3rd tests happened during week 1 of the diets (which was also the week when the low-carb dieters eliminated all carbohydrates).

The 4th test and the 5th test happened in week 2 and week 3 of the diets, respectively. By that time, the low-carb dieters were eating some carbohydrates in their diets again.

The researchers found that low-carb diets harmed thinking, learning, and memory when carbohydrates were eliminated or severely restricted.

When compared to the low-calorie dieters, the women on the low-carb diet showed a decline on memory-related tasks, slower reaction time, and worse visuospatial skills.

Visuospatial skills are those skills that involve moving spatial information around in your brain. For example, they’re used when you read a map, do a jigsaw puzzle, play chess, or drive in traffic.

Surprisingly, low-carb dieters showed better attention skills than the low-calorie dieters. Prior research has shown that high-protein or high-fat diets can improve your attention in the short term.

Levels of hunger were the same between the 2 groups of dieters. But low-calorie dieters did show more confusion than the low-carb dieters during the middle of the study.

So this research suggests that your choice of diet can affect not only your weight, but also your thinking, your ability to learn, and your memory… especially if you deprive your brain of glucose with a low-carb diet.

Technorati Tags: diet, dieting, low-carb diet, low-calorie diet, memory, thinking, learning, cognition, attention, carbohydrates

That means you’ll crave fewer sweet, fatty, and salty foods with dark chocolate according to some new research from the Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Copenhagen.

So if you want to eat chocolate over the holidays, dark chocolate may be the way to go.

Here’s how the researchers came to their conclusion…

They took 16 healthy young men with normal weights and tested their responses to dark chocolate and milk chocolate in 2 separate sessions.

For the first session, the men fasted for 12 hours before being given 100g of dark chocolate. They did the same for the second session with milk chocolate.

Both types of chocolate had roughly the same number of calories.

Following each session, the men recorded their appetite levels every 30 minutes for five hours. They specifically noted their hunger level, satiety, how much they enjoyed the chocolate, and any cravings they had for certain foods.

After consuming the chocolate, the men were offered pizza 2-1/2 hours later. They ate until they were comfortably full. Then the number of calories they ate was recorded.

When they ate dark chocolate first, they ate 15% fewer pizza calories as compared to when they ate milk chocolate first.

The men also said the dark chocolate caused them to want less sweet, fatty or salty foods, too.

So if you want to keep your weight down, especially during the holiday season, eating some dark chocolate a couple of hours before meals may be the way to go.

Technorati Tags: dark chocolate, milk chocolate, weight control, calories

Here’s how we know that’s true…

Catholic University researchers in Leuven, Belgium, created a sequence of studies where they put study participants in situations with tempting foods.

For example, they discovered that if you’re in the presence of M&M chocolate candies (rather than just looking at pictures of them or smelling the chocolate), then you’ll have more self-control.

They used 3 studies to show that the most important component of self-control was the prior opportunity to eat the tempting food. In other words, if you had the option to eat the tempting food before and didn’t, you’ll carry over your willpower to the next tempting situation.

In previous studies by other researchers, only the picture or smell of a tempting food was presented to the study participants. But this new study shows that the important part is to make the temptation real.

According to this study at least, seeing pictures of food on TV or in magazines might lead you to eat more the next time you have the chance. It seems that you’re better off to have a lot of candy at home to help you control your eating.

So that’s how being in the presence of tempting foods can help you to control how much you eat in future situations.

Technorati Tags: diet, dieting, lose weight, weight loss, willpower, self-control, food, treat

No deaths were reported with either technique among the 50 morbidly obese participants.

But there were some complications and some patients had to undergo more operations during the 4 years after the initial surgery.

According to the British Journal of Surgery, with both techniques, obese patients lost as much as 31% of their body mass index (BMI) after 4 years. The number of cases of high blood pressure decreased by over 75%, diabetes by 90%, and abnormal concentrations of lipids or lipoproteins in the blood by over 75%.

The difference between the 2 techniques comes down to the length of the “alimentary limb.” That’s an upper portion of the small intestine through which food passes.

The alimentary limb was 150cm in proximal surgery patients and 200cm to 400cm in distal surgery patients.

Here are some of the different outcomes of the 2 techniques…

1. During the 4 years after surgery, 11 proximal patients and 16 distal patients had complications. Of those, 4 proximal and 8 distal patients had to undergo surgery again.

2. Eight patients in each group had complications in the first 30 days after surgery. Half of them were wound infections. Three had to be operated on again.

3. There were 13 late complications 4 years after surgery, including 7 internal hernias. There was also 1 case of severe malnutrition in a distal patient.

4. The average time in surgery was much longer for distal patients (242 minutes) vs. proximal patients (170 minutes). Distal patients also stayed in the hospital one day longer.

The doctors were especially concerned with the one case of severe protein malnutrition because that can cause a lot of complications after surgery.

So they operated again to change the distal to a proximal bypass.

After looking at the results, the doctors now consider proximal gastric bypass surgery to be the preferred technique in morbidly obese patients.

Technorati Tags: obesity, lose weight, weight loss, weight loss surgery, gastric bypass, proximal technique, distal technique

Surprisingly, the answer may lie in an activity that’s popular with the younger set: text messaging.

According to a study from the University of North Caroline at Chapel Hill, text messaging can help children to monitor and change their eating and exercise behaviors immediately.

Usually, adults use paper diaries to track their weight, their calories consumed, and their calories burned off with exercise. It can be a very effective strategy.

But the researchers believed that children weren’t likely to use paper diaries consistently. So they modified the concept to let kids use cell phone text messaging to report their results and to receive feedback messages.

Here’s How The Study Worked…

It contained 31 families with 58 children from 5 to 13 years old and their parents. They were given educational sessions over a 3-week period to instruct them to get more exercise, reduce their time spent watching TV, and decrease their consumption of sugary beverages.

Each kid was given a pedometer to measure the steps they took everyday. They also had goals for the number of steps they took as well as the minutes of TV viewing and number of sugary drinks consumed each day.

The families were divided into 3 groups who:

1. Self-monitored by cell phone text messaging…

2. Self-monitored via a paper diary…

3. Didn’t monitor at all (the control group)…

The first 2 groups were required to answer these 3 questions everyday:

1. How many steps were recorded on your pedometer today?

2. How many sugary drinks did you consume today?

3. How many minutes of TV did you watch today?

Each family in the text messaging group was given a cell phone. They were told to send one message from the child and one from the parent each day to relay their answers to the 3 questions.

For every message sent, an immediate automatic feedback message was returned based on what the original sender said.

Here Are The Results…

Only 28% of the kids in the text messaging group left the study. But 61% of the paper diary group and 50% of the control group left the study.

In addition, the text messaging group adhered to self-monitoring by 43% versus only 19% for the paper diary group.

So it seems that if kids like to do something like text messaging and they get immediate feedback and encouragement, they’re more likely to adopt behaviors to lose weight and reduce their risk of obesity.

Technorati Tags: obesity, lose weight, weight loss, exercise

Fenfluramine was half of the fen/phen combo of drugs used to fight obesity in years past.

Researchers from Central Utah Clinic studied the heart conditions of over 5700 people who used to take fenfluramine. Valve problems were common, especially in women.

The longer the exposure to fenfluramine, the more likely that blood would back-flow to the heart, which means it’s going in the wrong direction.

That condition is called regurgitation. If it’s bad enough, it can cause congestive heart failure or the need for heart valve surgery.

According to the researchers, their study showed a 7 times higher risk for valve surgery among former fenfluramine users. But they think that number is probably too low.

In fact, they cite another study that shows anywhere from a 17 to 34 times higher risk of valve disease in patients who used fenfluramines for at least 4 months.

More details of the latest study are available in the journal, BMC Medicine.

But if you’ve ever used the fenfluramine obesity drug, you may want to consult your doctor to see if there have been any long-term effects, including heart valve damage.

Technorati Tags: obesity, heart damage, heart valves, fenfluramine, fen/phen, appetite suppressant

In fact, if you do these 2 things wrong, you triple your risk of being overweight.

In a study of over 3,000 Japanese adults from 30 to 69 years old, researchers studied the effect of eating until full and the speed of eating on weight gain.

Using a diet history questionnaire, a little over half of the participants said they ate until they were full. But under half of them said they ate quickly.

The people who both ate until full and ate quickly had a higher BMI (body mass index) than those who didn’t. In fact, these men and women were 3 times more likely to be overweight than the other study participants.

From this, the researchers concluded that eating until full AND eating quickly has “a supra-additive effective on overweight.”

So what does this mean for you?

By making 2 easy changes to your eating habits, you can reduce your risk of being overweight by 3 times.

No diet pills, no counting calories, no strange diet foods.

Just remember to eat slowly and eat appropriate portion sizes rather than eating until full.

It doesn’t get any easier than that.

Technorati Tags: overweight, weight control, diet, dieting, weight loss

You see, researchers at Duke Children’s Hospital asked obese girls from 9 to 13 years old to read a certain novel to see if it would help them with weight loss.

The novel, Lake Rescue, was appropriate for their ages. But most importantly, it was written with the aid of pediatric experts to send positive messages about weight management and healthy lifestyles.

The girls were already enrolled in a weight loss program before reading this novel. So the Duke researchers were curious to see if the novel would have a positive impact on the girls.

Here’s what they found after six months…

The 31 young girls who read Lake Rescue reduced their body-mass index (BMI) by .71%, but the 14 girls who didn’t read the book increased their BMI by .05%.

With childhood obesity currently about 3 times what it was in 1980, researchers are continuing to search for effective ways to help these children with weight loss.

Most lifestyle changes don’t work well with children, while medications and surgical procedures can have dangerous side effects.

So even though the decrease in BMI was small for the girls who read the book, the researchers were excited by the findings because it was a safe, easy way for the kids to lose weight and adopt a healthy lifestyle.

Technorati Tags: easy way to lose weight, Lake Rescue, childhood obesity, BMI, body mass index

Here’s the theory…

… if you do intellectual work, you eat a lot more calories.

And worse yet, you eat a lot more calories than you burn doing your intellectual work.

So the more educated we get, the more intellectual work we do, and the fatter we get.

Which might explain the obesity epidemic.

Or so suggests a new study published in Psychosomatic Medicine.

The researchers studied how much 14 students ate after completing each of 3 activities:

1. Sitting in a relaxing position (the rest period)…

2. Reading and making a summary of written material…

3. Doing a series of attention, memory, and awareness tests on a computer…

After doing each activity for 45 minutes, the students were told they could eat as much food as they wanted from a buffet.

The scientists showed that the intellectual activities (#2 and #3 above) required the students to burn just 3 more calories than sitting in a relaxing position (#1).

But…

Compared with what they ate after the rest period (activity #1), the students ate 203 extra calories after activity #2 and 253 extra calories after activity #3.

That’s 24% and 29% more calories consumed with the intellectual activities. Even though the students burned just 3 extra calories from intellectual activities.

No wonder we’re getting fatter.

But there may be a physical basis for what’s happening.

By taking blood samples from the students before, during, and after each activity, the researchers found that intellectual pursuits cause larger fluctuations in insulin and glucose levels than happen with sitting in a relaxing position.

Maybe it’s because intellectual activities are more stressful or maybe it’s another type of biological response. But the scientists suggest that your body may try to restore its glucose level to normal by triggering your need to eat after intellectual activity.

So between the extra calories you eat and the less physical activity you get, you may be at greater risk for obesity from doing intellectual work.

Technorati Tags: calorie, calories, obesity

That’s because chronic dieters often overeat when consuming those 100-calorie packages.

A new study shows that dieters, or what they call “restrained eaters,” believe the mini-packs contain a lot of food, but they also think of them as “diet food.” You know, an easy way to lose weight while indulging your sweet tooth.

Using 100-calorie packs of M&Ms in their research, the scientists found that restrained eaters (dieters) ate more calories from mini-packs than unrestrained eaters (non-dieters).

So it may become easier to overeat with mini-packs and gain weight.

I think a lot of us look to 100-calorie snacks to give ourselves a little indulgence without gaining a lot of weight. But sometimes, there’s not a lot of heft to a sweet snack with only 100 calories.

So I think we start out to eat 100 calories, but then indulge more to satisfy our sweet tooth. That’s why it may be better to either eat bulkier sweet fruits that add up to 100 calories or put a sweet treat in your diet with enough calories to actually satisfy you.

It seems that the 100-calorie snack packs may be a little too tough on our willpower. And they turn out to be anything but an easy way to lose weight.

Technorati Tags: easy way to lose weight, calorie, calories, 100-calorie foods, lose weight, weight loss, diet, dieting, dieter

But a recent study says that certain types of meals cause more damage to these cells than others.

According to researchers at Monash University, the more sugars and carbs you eat, the more these cells degenerate. So if your appetite-control cells become useless, your brain won’t get the message to stop eating.

You’ll eat more and gain weight because you can’t judge when your hunger is satisfied.

Adults from 25 to 50 years old are believed to suffer the most risk of having these important cells die off over time.

The researchers believe this could explain why adult-onset obesity occurs.

I don’t know if that’s true or not.

But I do know that when I gain the most weight, it usually has nothing to do with hunger. I overeat most often when I’m tired and trying to stay awake. I know a lot of people who eat when they’re bored or when they’re emotionally upset.

From my own experience, I’m fully aware that I’m not hungry when I’m overeating. In fact, a lot of times, it’s physically uncomfortable to keep eating. And I’m just talking about a few hundred extra calories.

So I think there’s more to adult-onset obesity than damage to  appetite-suppression cells. It could be a contributing factor. But then again, so could lying on the sofa all weekend watching TV instead of getting some exercise.

It’s interesting to see how many theories and studies are presented as a way to “explain” obesity instead of looking at the obvious: too many of us eat too much and exercise too little.

It may not be politically correct to say that, but it’s often true.

Technorati Tags: overweight, obesity, appetite, appetite suppression cells

That’s because ear infections and tonsillectomies can cause damage to taste nerves which appears to affect eating habits.

According to scientific studies, here’s what happens:

Even though otitis media, or chronic middle ear infection, usually occurs during childhood, you can have localized taste damage which then causes an increased preference for high-fat foods.

That raises your risk of being overweight as a child and as an adult.

According to one study of almost 6600 people, a history of moderate to severe otitis media increased the risk of obesity by 62%.

Other studies have found that:

• Middle-aged women with taste nerve damage preferred more fatty and sweet foods and usually had larger waists…

• Preschoolers who suffered repeated severe ear infections ate more sweets, fewer vegetables, and were more likely to be overweight…

• Toddlers whose ear infections were treated with tubes had a higher body mass index (BMI) than those who weren’t treated with tubes…

Another link was found between tonsillectomies, eating habits, and a higher likelihood of being overweight. The reason may be that tonsillectomies were a common treatment for chronic ear infections during the 1960s when the tonsillectomy survey was taken.

Here are the results:

• Children between 6 and 17 years old who had their tonsils removed were more likely to be overweight…

• Teenage girls who had tonsillectomies had a 30% increased risk of being overweight…

Getting ear infections under control before they cause damage to taste nerves could be one more way to combat the obesity epidemic for children and adults.

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