Nutrition Frenzy

The real trick is what you pick to help you stave off hunger and overeating

While eating all day long may seem like a dieting no-no, it can actually help you avoid weight-loss yo-yoing.

Savvy snacking really can help stave off hunger and overeating — the trick is what you pick. Smart snacking can be simple and still be delicious. Here are 5 stats and tips to inspire change on your next pit stop to the pantry.

Stop constant cravings
Did you know: 23 percent of snackers reach for cookies, pretzels, and chips to satisfy their constant cravings?

What to do: It’s OK to treat yourself to these snacks, as long as you set some ground rules: control your portions and practice moderation.

With over 80 100-calorie pack options on store shelves (Chips Ahoy, Oreos, and Sun Chips just to name a few), you can curb your sweet (or salty) craving without breaking the calorie bank. The bags don’t require refrigeration and come in small, individually wrapped packages, making them easy to carry wherever you go.

Another great option: fruit. Consider biting into a delicious apple or getting a serving of melon or berries to control that nasty afternoon need for some sugar.

Liquid calories
Did you know: 63 percent of Americans don’t count drinks as snacks? If you think a snack is simply something you crunch, you may be overlooking the calories in your cup. Unfortunately, liquid calories really do count too.

What to do: First, track your intake for a day. You may be surprised at how many calories you are sipping through a straw. Be certain to read the labels on bottles or check the menu board at your favorite Starbucks. (Laws in some states now require that fast-food chains list calories for customers.)

Next time you feel thirsty opt for water instead. Add a wedge of lime, kiwi or cucumber slices for added appeal. Still not satisfied? Stick with this rule: Go for a drink that has no more than 10 calories per 8-ounce serving.

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Premenopausal women who were overweight or obese participated in study
• Women on the Atkins diet lost an average of 10 pounds in one year
• Experts do not consider this a large loss of weight
Bottom Line: Atkins can help you lose weight, but few people are able to maintain meaningful long-term weight loss with it

From CNN Health: Overview
A Stanford University study, released in May 2007 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, compares the effectiveness of four popular diets — Atkins, LEARN (Lifestyle, Exercise, Attitudes, Relationships, and Nutrition), Ornish, and Zone — for women who are premenopausal and overweight or obese. Women on Atkins lost the most weight, although the average loss was only about 10 pounds for 12 months.

Questions and answers
What’s the best diet?

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN chief medical correspondent: It’s always difficult to know which diet is right for you. Researchers at Stanford University looked at four popular diets: Atkins, LEARN, Ornish, and the Zone diet. Three hundred overweight or obese premenopausal women were randomly assigned to these four diets, which they followed for a year. Women in the Atkins group lost the most weight — about 10 pounds in a year. It’s also interesting to note that more participants stayed on the Atkins diet for the entire year, compared with women on the other diets.

But even though these women lost weight, isn’t the whole issue about Atkins that it’s high in fats that can raise your cholesterol, which might eventually lead to heart problems?

Gupta: Researchers also looked at the good and bad cholesterol and blood pressure of each participant. Atkins patients had a few points higher number for their LDL or bad cholesterol, but overall there was no significant difference. And the Atkins patients had a higher blood pressure number but, again, not that much higher.

What about for the long term? Can they keep the weight off with Atkins?

Gupta: First off, although any doctor will tell you it’s good for most people to lose 10 pounds, 10 pounds is not a significant amount of weight to lose in one year. The study does not follow the patients after the year, so you don’t know whether they gained their weight back, or whether they lost more. Also, other nutritionists we talked to who have worked on this same type of research said that the only real difference in diets was between Atkins and the Zone. All the others had pretty much the same results. And they found while Atkins can be an effective way to lose weight, few people are able to maintain meaningful long-term weight loss on this diet.

Here’s a little trick for controlling your appetite. And, interestingly, it has nothing to do with what you eat. It’s about how you exercise.

Seems that the right combo of physical activity may have the power to make you eat less. The magic formula? Doing both cardio and strength training. Doing just one or the other doesn’t really curb your calorie intake as much, if at all.

Pump It Up, Run It Off . . . and Eat Less
When men in one small study combined aerobic exercise with weight training for 16 weeks, they ate significantly fewer calories compared with the men who did either aerobics or weight training alone or who did no exercise at all. The researchers suspect that the combo of cardio and strength exercises had the most favorable effect on blood levels of fats, glucose, amino acids, and satiety hormones — producing a powerful combination of hunger-controlling physiological changes.

Keep At It
We all know that eating fewer calories than we burn is a major key to long-term weight loss. Besides balancing your physical activities, try these other helpful tips for turning the dial down on hunger:

Understand why you eat.

Crank up your fat-burning furnace.

Crank up your fat-burning furnace. Instead, make a permanent life change.

Controlling the Chemistry of Emotional Eating

Learning the science behind cravings is the first step toward controlling them

Our ancestors ate to survive. They ate because they were hungry, or maybe to celebrate a victory over a warring tribe. Us? We eat because we’re angry, bored, stressed, frustrated, depressed, watching a movie, too busy, not busy enough, getting together with friends, or ticked off because the Lions lost.

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Many Americans are failing to meet the minimum recommendations for exercise, although confusing guidelines are making it difficult to assess, researchers reported on Thursday.

Depending on which federal exercise recommendations are used, either about half or about two-thirds of Americans meet minimum goals, the team at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.

“Additional efforts are needed to further increase physical activity,” they concluded in the CDC’s weekly report on death and disease.

“Approximately one third of U.S. adults did not report meeting minimum levels of aerobic physical activity as defined by the 2008 Guidelines.”

Under guidelines released by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department in October, the minimum recommended aerobic physical activity is 150 minutes — two and a half hours — a week of moderate activity such as brisk walking, or 75 minutes a week of vigorous activity such as running.

Just under 65 percent of adults reached that goal, the CDC said.

The government’s Healthy People 2010 objectives call for at least 30 minutes of moderate activity five days a week, or 20 minutes of vigorous activity three days per week. Only 49 percent of those surveyed met these goals.

For the study the CDC used a telephone survey of 399,000 U.S. adults.

The CDC said it is easier to meet overall goals of minutes of exercise per week.

“Existing scientific evidence cannot determine whether the health benefits of 30 minutes of activity, 5 days per week, are any different from the benefits of 50 minutes, 3 days per week,” the report reads.

It may be less confusing to advise people to get exercise when they can, the CDC said.

The Institute of Medicine has stronger guidelines. A 2002 report from that group said people should exercise at least an hour a day to maintain health and weight.

About a third of Americans are obese and another one-third are overweight, the CDC says, and they are at higher than acceptable risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

There’s nothing like
a little competition to get you motivated—even if it’s only with yourself. That’s the principle behind a whole new array of digital tools that help you get fit, keep fit, or track exactly how you’re doing—whether it’s calorie intake or energy output. The simplest tools, like a pedometer, are always popular. But just tracking the number of steps might become passé if fitness trends continue. Now there are ways to not only count the steps you take daily or hourly, but to compare those numbers over time and share them with others. And that’s just the start. Here are some of the best gadgets in a whole new wave of digital fitness products that use computer games, iPods and social networking applications to help you in your quest for a healthier physique:

1. Upping the Fun Factor. More fitness-centric videogames are cropping up in addition to blockbusters like Wii Fit and Dance Dance Revolution. My Weight Loss Coach from Ubisoft, for the Nintendo DS, allows users to plug a pedometer directly into the DS and upload information about their weight to access daily fitness advice and objectives, as well as diet tips and health-related trivia games.

2. Connectivity Counts. The FitBit, due out this holiday season, will be able to measure daily exercise and sleep quality, then remotely transmit the information to a computer so users can keep track of their progress online. And there’s a community aspect—users will be able to share their information and goals with family and friends. This, says the manufacturer, is the first generation of health devices that are connected to the Internet in a meaningful way.

3. New Ways to Compete. Stationary-bicycle manufacturer Expresso Fitness has sold about 4,000 bikes equipped with television screens that allow users to ride challenges on different digital terrains and chase a dragon through the sky. Users can also keep track of their workouts on the Web, setting goals for themselves and gaining digital awards for achieving certain distance milestones. Concept2, which manufactures rowing machines, has a model that allows up to eight users to wirelessly race each other.

4. Real-Time Tracking. Weight Watchers recently launched an application that allows members to monitor their daily points wherever they are using their BlackBerry or iPhone. However, Weight Watchers Mobile and WeightWatchers.com, which tally everything from your water intake to the points you earn by exercising, are meant as supplements to the in-person Weight Watchers program. The company says those who use all three ought to see the best results.

Destructive thoughts can wreck your workout efforts, experts say

Playing mind games
The key, Dutton says, is to remember that “a thought is just a thought. It doesn’t mean it’s reality.” In other words, just because you think you hate everything about exercise doesn’t mean you can’t find some activities that are more tolerable than others. Likewise, just because you think you absolutely have to eat that piece of pumpkin cheesecake (easily canceling out the calorie burn of your workout) doesn’t mean that you really do.

It can be tough for beginners to master the skills necessary to adhere to an exercise plan, but give it time, advises Diane Whaley, an associate professor of sport and exercise psychology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, and a spokesperson for the Association for Applied Sport Psychology. “If you can stick it out for six months, it starts to become a part of who you are versus what you do,” she says. “You have more of an identity as an exerciser.”

Plus, you’ll probably see some positive results that can motivate you to keep at it. Among them: better muscle tone, feeling stronger and more fit, weight loss, improved mood and better sleep.

Ready to change your bad exercise thoughts to better thoughts? Try these mind games:

Bad thought: “I hate exercise. I just don’t like anything about it.”
Better thought: “There must be some type of physical activity that I can find at least tolerable, and maybe even enjoy. Besides, exercise is important for my health and wellness, and to allow me to keep up with my kids/grandchildren.”

Bad thought: “There’s no way I can find the time to exercise.”
Better thought: “Is there any evidence to the contrary? How have I managed to fit in exercise in the past? Maybe I can’t spend 30 straight minutes a day on exercise at a gym, but surely I can fit in 10-minute chunks of physical activity here and there.”

Can’t fit in your full exercise routine? Try squeezing in mini workoutsReady to shop, stuff yourself and stress about weight gain? No doubt, all the hustle and bustle of the holiday season can leave little time for working out.

But even if you can’t fit in your full exercise routine, squeezing in a mini workout that burns just 100 calories can help counter those holiday cookies and cocktails, says Fabio Comana, an exercise physiologist at the American Council on Exercise in San Diego.

To lose a pound of fat through exercise, you have to burn 3,500 calories. “So if you can burn 100 calories consistently every day, in a period of five weeks, that’s a pound,” Comana says. And over a year, that’s 10 pounds.

Take a lap around the mall
If you’ve been looking for a good reason to spend more time at the mall, here you go: Walking for 25 minutes burns about 100 calories. And when it’s cold outside and you don’t belong to a gym, what better place to walk than the mall?

Of course, we’re talking about brisk walking, not strolling along as you window shop. However, you could stop and shop and get the same calorie burn by breaking up the 25 total minutes into two chunks of exercise — walking briskly for 13 minutes, stopping to shop for awhile, then taking another walk for 12 minutes.

Savor sex
A five-minute quickie that leaves you breathless may seem like it burned up 250 calories, but 25 is more like it, notes Tommy Boone, author of “Sex Before Athletic Competition” and chair of the department of exercise physiology at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minn.

If you stretch sex out more, however, you could get a bigger calorie burn (among other possible benefits). On average, you’ll burn one to two calories a minute (depending on how vigorous sex is), or up to 100 calories for under an hour of lovemaking.

Say ‘om’
Yoga can be a gift to your mind and body, especially during the holidays. Not only can it help ease some of the stress of the season, it’ll fight fat, too.

About half an hour of hatha yoga burns 100 calories, says exercise physiologist Gerald Endress, fitness director of the Duke University Diet and Fitness Center.

If you’re too busy to go to a yoga studio, buy a DVD for home.

A new exercise machine sent to space station functions like a weight machine

Prepping for the long journey to Mars is the focus of a nutritional study

Being in space is like being Superman every day, says Clay Anderson, a NASA astronaut from Omaha, Nebraska. At the international space station, where he spent five months last year, he flew to breakfast, work and the bathroom.

But floating around in zero-G can have some serious consequences for the human body, NASA’s experts have learned, including the weakening of bones. In fact, studies have shown that space travelers can lose 1 to 2 percent of their bone mass each month on average, according to NASA.

One way that astronauts have been fighting bone loss is through strength training. And they’re getting some help with a new machine delivered this week by the shuttle Endeavour, which docked with the international space station on Sunday.

The advanced Resistive Exercise Device, aRED for short, functions like a weight machine in a gym on Earth, except it has no conventional weights. Instead, it has vacuum cylinders — canisters with air that have had a vacuum applied — that provide concentric workloads up to 600 pounds, NASA says.

The device works somewhat like a bicycle pump, only in reverse, said Mark Guilliams, a NASA trainer. For example, if you are squatting, the vacuum gets pulled out as you stand up, and when you squat back down, the vacuum pulls the bar back to the normal position.

Between the vacuum cans and the bar, there are small flywheels that spin in opposite directions, creating an artificial gravity when someone lifts the bar.

Astronauts can do upper and lower-body exercises, such as squats, dead lift, heel raises, bicep curls and bench press on the device, NASA said.

“In the movie, the ‘Transformers,’ it looks like one of those things that unfolds into some kind of big monster,” Anderson said. “It’s huge.”

The existing exercise device on the space station has a mechanism that more closely resembles a rubber band. The farther you pull the rubber band, the more force you generate, Guilliams said. The limitations of this device made it somewhat boring, Anderson said.

The new device will allow astronauts do many more kinds of exercises than the old one. The tradeoff is its larger size, Anderson said. It will be in use almost constantly during the day, assuming astronauts work out about two hours a day each, he said.

The international space station also is equipped with a treadmill and a bicycle, Guilliams said.

Don’t judge a food by its glycemic index. A guide to good and bad carbs

Here’s a riddle: What do a Twix candy bar, a Pizza Hut supreme pizza, and a Betty Crocker chocolate cake have in common?

Answer: They’re all “low glycemic” foods. And according to many nutrition experts, that qualifies them not only as healthy but also as great diet fare. For example, NutriSystem has pegged its marketing campaign on the science of the “glycemic advantage,” which the company claims is the key to losing weight while allowing you to eat the foods you love.

What is all this glycemic science?

A bit of background: The glycemic index (GI) ranks foods based on the impact they have on your blood sugar. So the higher a food’s glycemic index, the higher it elevates the amount of glucose coursing through your veins. The idea is that this overload of glucose leads to wild swings in blood sugar (it goes up, then comes crashing down), which ultimately causes you to crave more carbs.

The fitness factor
Another surprise: The glycemic index of a food isn’t a set number. University of Toronto scientists found that the value can vary by 23 percent to 54 percent from person to person. What’s more, it can also differ within the same person. Scientists at Syracuse University discovered that a single weight-training session reduces the effect of a high-sugar drink on blood glucose by 15 percent for 12 hours after an intense workout.

Exercise uses the glucose stored in your muscles. And to replenish those stores after a workout, your body starts shuttling more of the glucose from your bloodstream to your muscles where it’s packed away for future use. This helps reduce blood-glucose levels quickly, even after a high-sugar meal. Consider it another reason to lift weights: That extra muscle gives you a larger storage area for glucose.

Complex carbohydrates
The definition for these is simple: Any carbohydrate that’s composed of more than two sugar molecules.

Starch: This is a bundle of glucose molecules held together by a weak chemical bond. As a result, it’s broken down easily into pure glucose and absorbed quickly.

Fiber: Like starch, fiber is a bundle of sugar molecules. However, human digestive enzymes can’t break the bonds that hold them together, preventing absorption.

Glycemic load: A better number?
Even experts who promote the glycemic index realize it’s not perfect. But is their solution really an improvement?

To address the flaws in the glycemic index (GI), Harvard University scientists came up with another number to base food choices on. It’s called the glycemic load, and it takes into account a food’s portion size as well as its GI. You can calculate a food’s glycemic load by dividing its GI by 100 and then multiplying that by its grams of digestible carbohydrates (total carbs minus fiber).

Make your usual workout burn more calories — without working a stitch harder — with this simple switch: Do cardio before you strength train.

Doing cardio first — brisk walking, cycling, swing dancing,
whatever — can help you do your full workout, and thus burn more calories, instead of pooping out halfway (not ’cause you have to poop, but because your legs feel exhausted). And finishing your workout with weights helps boost postworkout metabolism — the rate at which your body burns calories after you’re done. The result is an overall higher calorie burn. Plus, muscle burns more calories than fat, upping the total even more.

That said, if you can do only one, do strength training. But don’t make the choice. We don’t. Both of us think physical activity is SO important that we both make it a priority on our schedules.

Also, don’t start obsessing about what you do when. Yes, cardio-first workouts help you get a calorie-burning bonus. But if you’ve only got 20 minutes — enough for a quickie weight routine — grab it. ANY kind of exercise burns calories. It’s far more important to get moving than to chew it over so long that you end up doing nothing.

In fact, what’s so gratifying about exercise is that unlike the list of things you need to clean out of your life (Cheetos, excuses), physical activity is something you can add almost as much of as you want. All while watching Raymond reruns. Don’t have a treadmill in front of the TV? Get some dumbbells. Or do sit-ups. Or jumping jacks. Just do something!

Lifestyle changes should come before medicine, says a researcher whose recent study detailed the benefits of statins for people with a low heart disease risk.

Last week, news broke that a study of nearly 20,000 adults found that people with low cholesterol levels could still reduce their risk of heart attack or stroke by taking a statin known commercially as Crestor. It led to speculation that the number of statin prescriptions could skyrocket.

But even Dr. Paul Ridker, the lead researcher of the study, suggests other interventions before a prescription.

In the study, people with a high level of what’s called a C-reactive protein benefited from Crestor. But Ridker shared his recommendations for someone with a high C-reactive protein score with the Boston Globe:

“The first, second, third, and fourth intervention for anyone with elevated hs-CRP is get to the gym, lose a few pounds, throw away the cigarettes, and start thinking about a healthier diet. That remains overwhelmingly the most important intervention for lowering cardiovascular risk,” he said.

Another doctor, Leslie Cho, of the Cleveland Clinic, said she recommends lifestyle changes first.

Background: Surprising statin research
The Jupiter trial has yielded results that are being called “landmark,” though there is plenty of skepticism, too.

The trial “found that in people whose cholesterol levels were normal the risk of a heart attack risk was reduced by 54 per cent and stroke by 48 [after taking the drug]. The combined risk of heart attack, stroke and heart-related death fell by 47%, as did the odds of undergoing surgical procedures,” reported the Daily Telegraph.

Patients in the study took a drug called rosuvastatin, which is made by AstraZeneca under the name Crestor. The pharmaceutical company also funded the study.

Those with normal cholesterol levels had a higher C-reactive protein level, which the Daily Telegraph describes as “a marker of inflammation and has been thought to indicate a risk of cardiovascular problems in the future.”

Jupiter’s results caused quite a stir at last week’s American Heart Association’s meeting in New Orleans, where they were presented. When it was announced, AstraZeneca’s stock price rose in London, according to Bloomberg.

Lori Mosca, a professor of medicine at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, jokingly repeated a question to Bloomberg that she had heard at the Heart Association meeting: “Should we put them in the drinking water?”

Mosca had different thoughts: “Are we going to use this like aspirin therapy? This finding is clearly expanding the universe of who should receive cholesterol pills, but we need to carefully evaluate at what point it becomes cost effective to treat the majority of people.”

Best-selling author gives tips on how to beat procrastination

Since the late 1980s, Nike has been telling us, “Just Do It!” If only we simply needed a sneakered kick in the butt.

Dan Ariely says people are more likely to attend to work duties than diet or exercise.

“The world is designed to create procrastination problems,” says Dan Ariely, Ph.D., James B. Duke professor of behavioral economics at Duke University and the author of “Predictably Irrational.”

“Our emotions get the better of us, and we tend to forsake our long-term goals in favor of short-term desires. It’s a major source of human misery.”

Ariely surveyed almost 3,000 Oprah.com users to explore how procrastination toys with our lives. He found that while people have a general tendency to drag their feet, certain tasks are real “back burners” for pretty much everyone.

Of the 12 activities listed (including chores like holiday shopping, paying bills, and scheduling doctors’ appointments), exercising and starting a diet are the two people put off the most, topped only by evaluating their retirement plan.

Work duties like completing assignments and returning voice mails are attended to much more promptly. Even when people express a willingness to deal with their most avoided to-dos by setting deadlines, the data revealed, they are likely not to follow through.

“Just recognizing the problem,” says Ariely, “is the first step to overcoming it.”

1. Pull a Ulysses

“The hero of ‘The Odyssey’ realized that, left to his own devices, he would succumb to the seduction of the Sirens’ song, so he had himself tied to the mast of his ship, limiting his ability to behave badly later,” says Ariely.

Try to outsmart the temptation of your short-term desires. Don’t go grocery shopping when you’re hungry, and ask the waiter not to even show you the dessert menu.

2. Borrow from your own success.

If you’re good at handling job demands, translate the same tactics to the areas where you procrastinate. “Work seems more urgent because others are depending on you and there are deadlines to meet,” Ariely says. “That’s what helps make it a priority.” Oprah.com: Five ways to get a life

Invest in a trainer to give your workouts more structure, or arrange to walk regularly with a friend, whom you’ll let down if you don’t show up.

3. Get in your own face.

Celebrity trainer Jim Karas adds that constant reminders of your mission will help keep you from deferring it. Find a photo of yourself when you last felt happy and confident about your appearance, and make it your screen saver.

Put mirrors all over your house and look at yourself constantly, he suggests. “People go around wearing blinders. They don’t want to see reality. The more you look at yourself, the more you will want to make a difference — now.”

Increase in Death Risk Not Limited to Overweight, Obese

Belly fat has been linked to an increased risk of heart disease and diabetes. Now an important new study links belly fat to early death.

Researchers followed about 360,000 Europeans enrolled in one of the largest, longest health studies in the world.

They found that people with the most belly fat had about double the risk of dying prematurely as people with the least amount of belly fat.

Death risk increased with waist circumference, whether the participants were overweight or not.

The study provides some of the strongest evidence yet linking belly fat to early death, says lead author Tobias Pischon, MD, MPH. It appears in the Nov. 12 issue of TheNew EnglandJournal of Medicine.

“Our study shows that accumulating excess fat around your middle can put your health at risk even if your weight is normal,” he says. “There aren’t many simple individual characteristics that can increase a person’s risk of premature death to this extent, independent of smoking and drinking.”

Belly Fat Research
It has long been recognized that people who carry their excess weight around their middles — those who are apple-shaped instead of pear-shaped — have a higher risk for heart attacks and strokes.

Recent research also suggests a link between belly fat and a range of other diseases, including diabetes, some cancers, and even age-related dementias.

But it has not been clear whether the increase in death risk associated with abdominal obesity occurs independently of recognized risk factors like general obesity, Pischon says.

The researchers used two measures of abdominal obesity — waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio — in their attempt to better understand the role of belly fat in early death.

They examined data on 359,387 European adults followed for nearly 10 years who were enrolled in the larger, ongoing European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) health study.

Other research showed that high-fat diets rich in processed meats and cheeses may affect measures of heart failure.

Courtesy of Charlene Laino: Failing to eat enough vegetables, soy, and fish can have the same effect, says Longjian Liu, MD, of Drexel University School of Public Health in Philadelphia.

Consuming a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, on the other hand, was associated with improved blood vessel function, other research showed.

Eckel shares these tips for a heart-healthy diet:

Eat fresh, frozen, and canned vegetables and fruits without high-calorie sauces and added salt and sugars.
Increase fiber intake by eating beans, whole-grain products, fruits, and vegetables.
Use liquid vegetable oils in place of solid fats.
Limit beverages and foods high in added sugars. Common forms of added sugars are sucrose, glucose, fructose, maltose, dextrose, corn syrups, concentrated fruit juice, and honey.
Choose foods made with whole grains. Common forms of whole grains are whole wheat, oats/oatmeal, rye, barley, corn, popcorn, brown rice, wild rice, buckwheat, triticale, bulgur (cracked wheat), millet, quinoa, and sorghum.
Cut back on pastries and high-calorie bakery products such as muffins and doughnuts.
Select milk and dairy products that are either fat free or low-fat.
Incorporate vegetable-based meat substitutes into favorite recipes.
Encourage the consumption of whole vegetables and fruits in place of juices.

Legumes Help Lower Cholesterol Levels
Other research presented at the meeting suggested that eating a diet rich in pinto beans, chickpeas, and other legumes may help to lower cholesterol levels.

“Based on our findings, [I'd suggest you] consume at least three cups of dry beans and peas, or legumes, a week,” says researcher Lydia A. Bazzano, MD, of Tulane University in New Orleans.

Past research has shown that eating soy-rich products may help to control cholesterol levels, but little was known about the non-soy legumes that are more popular in the U.S., she says.

To fill in the knowledge gap, Bazzano and colleagues pooled and analyzed results of 12 studies involving nearly 300 men and women.

Most of them had “undesirable cholesterol levels,” she says. Their average total cholesterol level was 250 points at the start of the study; their average LDL, or bad, cholesterol was 172 points.

Total cholesterol in those who ate a legume-rich diet for at least three weeks dropped by an average of 14 points compared to those on placebo. LDL cholesterol dropped by an average of 11 points more in the group eating lots of beans.

Courtesy Robynne Boyd: Study Shows Protein in Diet Should Be Based on Weight, Not Age

The amount of protein an adult needs to stay healthy is based on weight, not age.

That’s according to a new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

As people age, their metabolism and physiology usually change. And these changes can influence a person’s nutritional needs. Although many researchers believe that older adults require more protein than younger adults, it’s not reflected in the current Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) and Estimated Average Requirement (EAR), which are the same for all healthy men and women aged 19 and older.

The RDA and EAR for protein is 0.80 grams and 0.66 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day, respectively. That’s an RDA of about 54 grams of protein a day for a 150-pound adult, or approximately 1.5 chicken breasts and a 7-ounce steak.

Wayne Campbell, PhD a researcher and professor of foods and nutrition at Purdue University, and colleagues developed a study to test whether protein requirements actually change with age.

The researchers recruited 42 people to participate in the study: 11 young men, 12 young women, eight older men, and 11 older women. The age range for the younger and older adults was 21 to 46 and 63 to 81.

Each participant underwent three 18-day study periods in which his or her diet was firmly restricted. During each 18-day trial, they were given 63%, 94%, or 125% of the Recommended Dietary Allowance of protein. They were also allowed to eat their usual diet for at least one week between the study periods.

During the 14th to 17th day of each trial, the researchers measured the participants’ nitrogen balance. Nitrogen balance determines the difference between how much nitrogen (mainly from protein) a person is ingesting and excreting (as waste). Healthy adults eliminate the same amount of nitrogen as they consume.

Researchers say the study shows that younger and older adults don’t require different amount of protein to be healthy. This means that the RDA of 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight should be adequate for virtually every older person.

However, in an editorial accompanying the study, Joe Millward, PhD, the head of nutrition and safety at the at the University of Surrey, England, writes that even though the study shows that an adult’s daily protein requirement is likely to be independent of age, it should not “be classed as definitive in terms of the absolute magnitude of the requirement.” He notes the difficulty in precisely assessing nitrogen balance.