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Ultraprocessed foods linked to ovarian and other cancer deaths, study finds

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CNN
 — 

Eating more ultraprocessed foods raises the risk of developing and dying from cancer, especially ovarian cancer, according to a new study of over 197,000 people in the United Kingdom, over half of whom were women.

Overly processed foods include prepackaged soups, sauces, frozen pizza and ready-to-eat meals, as well as hot dogs, sausages, french fries, sodas, store-bought cookies, cakes, candies, doughnuts, ice cream and many more.

“Ultra-processed foods are produced with industrially derived ingredients and often use food additives to adjust colour, flavour, consistency, texture, or extend shelf life,” said first author Dr. Kiara Chang, a National Institute for Health and Care Research fellow at Imperial College London’s School of Public Health, in a statement.

“Our bodies may not react the same way to these ultra-processed ingredients and additives as they do to fresh and nutritious minimally processed foods,” Chang said.

However, people who eat more ultra-processed foods also tend to “drink more fizzy drinks and less tea and coffee, as well as less vegetables and other foods associated with a healthy dietary pattern,” said Duane Mellor, a registered dietitian and senior teaching fellow at Aston Medical School in Birmingham, UK, in an email.

“This could mean that it may not be an effect specifically of the ultra-processed foods themselves, but instead reflect the impact of a lower intake of healthier food,” said Mellor, who was not involved in the study.

The study, published Tuesday in the journal eClinicalMedicine, looked at the association between eating ultraprocessed foods and 34 different types of cancer over a 10-year period.

Researchers examined information on the eating habits of 197,426 people who were part of the UK Biobank, a large biomedical database and research resource that followed residents from 2006 to 2010.

The amount of ultraprocessed foods consumed by people in the study ranged from a low of 9.1% to a high of 41.4% of their diet, the study found.

Eating patterns were then compared with medical records that listed both diagnoses and deaths from cancer.

Each 10% increase in ultraprocessed food consumption was associated with a 2% increase in developing any cancer, and a 19% increased risk for being diagnosed with ovarian cancer, according to a statement issued by Imperial College London.

Deaths from cancers also increased, the study found. For each additional 10% increase in ultraprocessed food consumption, the risk of dying from any cancer increased by 6%, while the risk of dying from ovarian cancer rose by 30%, according to the statement.

“These associations persisted after adjustment for a range of socio-demographic, smoking status, physical activity, and key dietary factors,” the authors wrote.

When it comes to death from cancer among women, ovarian cancer is ranked fifth, “accounting for more deaths than any other cancer of the female reproductive system,” noted the American Cancer Society.

“The findings add to previous studies showing an association between a greater proportion of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) in the diet and a higher risk of obesity, heart attacks, stroke, and type 2 diabetes,” said Simon Steenson, a nutrition scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation, a charity partially supported by food producers and manufacturers. Steenson was not involved in the new study.

“However, an important limitation of these previous studies and the new analysis published today is that the findings are observational and so do not provide evidence of a clear causal link between UPFs and cancer, or the risk of other diseases,” Steenson said in an email.

People who ate the most ultraprocessed foods “were younger and less likely to have a family history of cancer,” Chang and her colleagues wrote.

High consumers of ultraprocessed foods were less likely to do physical activity and more likely to be classified as obese. These people were also likely to have lower household incomes and education and live in the most underprivileged communities, the study found.

“This study adds to the growing evidence that ultra-processed foods are likely to negatively impact our health including our risk for cancer,” said Dr. Eszter Vamos, the study’s lead author and a clinical senior lecturer at Imperial College London’s School of Public Health in a statement.

This latest research is not the first to show an association between a high intake of ultraprocessed foods and cancer.

A 2022 study examined the diets of over 200,000 men and women in the United States for up to 28 years and found a link between ultraprocessed foods and colorectal cancer — the third most diagnosed cancer in the United States — in men, but not women.

And there are “literally hundreds of studies (that) link ultraprocessed foods to obesity, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and overall mortality,” Marion Nestle, the Paulette Goddard professor emerita of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University told CNN previously.

While the new UK-based study cannot prove causation, only an association, “other available evidence shows that reducing ultra-processed foods in our diet could provide important health benefits,” Vamos said.

“Further research is needed to confirm these findings and understand the best public health strategies to reduce the widespread presence and harms of ultra-processed foods in our diet,” she added.

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Weight loss surgery extends lives, study finds

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CNN
 — 

Weight loss surgery reduces the risk of premature death, especially from such obesity-related conditions as cancer, diabetes and heart disease, according to a new 40-year study of nearly 22,000 people who had bariatric surgery in Utah.

Compared with those of similar weight, people who underwent one of four types of weight loss surgery were 16% less likely to die from any cause, the study found. The drop in deaths from diseases triggered by obesity, such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes, was even more dramatic.

“Deaths from cardiovascular disease decreased by 29%, while deaths from various cancers decreased by 43%, which is pretty impressive,” said lead author Ted Adams, an adjunct associate professor in nutrition and integrative physiology at the University of Utah’s School of Medicine.

“There was also a huge percentage drop — a 72% decline — in deaths related to diabetes in people who had surgery compared to those who did not,” he said. One significant downside: The study also found younger people who had the surgery were at higher risk for suicide.

The study, published Wednesday in the journal Obesity, reinforces similar findings from earlier research, including a 10-year study in Sweden that found significant reductions in premature deaths, said Dr. Eduardo Grunvald, a professor of medicine and medical director of the weight management program at the University of California San Diego Health.

The Swedish study also found a significant number of people were in remission from diabetes at both two years and 10 years after surgery.

“This new research from Utah is more evidence that people who undergo these procedures have positive, beneficial long-term outcomes,” said Grunvald, who coauthored the American Gastroenterological Association’s new guidelines on obesity treatment.

The association strongly recommends patients with obesity use recently approved weight loss medications or surgery paired with lifestyle changes.

“And the key for patients is to know that changing your diet becomes more natural, more easy to do after you have bariatric surgery or take the new weight loss medications,” said Grunvald, who was not involved in the Utah study.

“While we don’t yet fully understand why, these interventions actually change the chemistry in your brain, making it much easier to change your diet afterwards.”

Despite the benefits though, only 2% of patients who are eligible for bariatric surgery ever get it, often due to the stigma about obesity, said Dr. Caroline Apovian, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and codirector of the Center for Weight Management and Wellness at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Apovian was the lead author for the Endocrine Society’s clinical practice guidelines for the pharmacological management of obesity.

Insurance carriers typically cover the cost of surgery for people over 18 with a body mass index of 40 or higher, or a BMI of 35 if the patient also has a related condition such as diabetes or high blood pressure, she said.

“I see patients with a BMI of 50, and invariably I will say, ‘You’re a candidate for everything — medication, diet, exercise and surgery.’ And many tell me, ‘Don’t talk to me about surgery. I don’t want it.’ They don’t want a surgical solution to what society has told them is a failure of willpower,” she said.

“We don’t torture people who have heart disease: ‘Oh, it’s because you ate all that fast food.’ We don’t torture people with diabetes: ‘Oh, it’s because you ate all that cake.’ We tell them they have a disease, and we treat it. Obesity is a disease, too, yet we torture people with obesity by telling them it’s their fault.”

Most of the people who choose bariatric surgery — around 80% — are women, Adams said. One of the strengths of the new study, he said, was the inclusion of men who had undergone the procedure.

“For all-causes of death, the mortality was reduced by 14% for females and by 21% for males,” Adams said. In addition, deaths from related causes, such as heart attack, cancer and diabetes, was 24% lower for females and 22% lower for males who underwent surgery compared with those who did not, he said.

Four types of surgery performed between 1982 and 2018 were examined in the study: gastric bypass, gastric banding, gastric sleeve and duodenal switch.

Gastric bypass, developed in the late 1960s, creates a small pouch near the top of the stomach. A part of the small intestine is brought up and attached to that point, bypassing most of the stomach and the duodenum, the first part of the small intestine.

In gastric banding, an elastic band that can be tightened or loosened is placed around the top portion of the stomach, thus restricting the volume of food entering the stomach cavity. Because gastric banding is not as successful in creating long-term weight loss, the procedure “is not as popular today,” Adams said.

“The gastric sleeve is a procedure where essentially about two-thirds of the stomach is removed laparoscopically,” he said. “It takes less time to perform, and food still passes through the much-smaller stomach. It’s become a very popular option.”

The duodenal switch is typically reserved for patients who have a high BMI, Adams added. It’s a complicated procedure that combines a sleeve gastrectomy with an intestinal bypass, and is effective for type 2 diabetes, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

One alarming finding of the new study was a 2.4% increase in deaths by suicide, primarily among people who had bariatric surgery between the ages of 18 and 34.

“That’s because they are told that life is going to be great after surgery or medication,” said Joann Hendelman, clinical director of the National Alliance for Eating Disorders, a nonprofit advocacy group.

“All you have to do is lose weight, and people are going to want to hang out with you, people will want to be your friend, and your anxiety and depression are going to be gone,” she said. “But that’s not reality.”

In addition, there are postoperative risks and side effects associated with bariatric surgery, such as nausea, vomiting, alcoholism, a potential failure to lose weight or even weight gain, said Susan Vibbert, an advocate at Project HEAL, which provides help for people struggling with eating disorders.

“How are we defining health in these scenarios? And is there another intervention — a weight neutral intervention?” Vibbert asked.

Past research has also shown an association between suicide risk and bariatric surgery, Grunvald said, but studies on the topic are not always able to determine a patient’s mental history.

“Did the person opt for surgery because they had some unrealistic expectations or underlying psychological disorders that were not resolved after the surgery? Or is this a direct effect somehow of bariatric surgery? We can’t answer that for sure,” he said.

Intensive presurgery counseling is typically required for all who undergo the procedure, but it may not be enough, Apovian said. She lost her first bariatric surgery patient to suicide.

“She was older, in her 40s. She had surgery and lost 150 pounds. And then she put herself in front of a bus and died because she had underlying bipolar disorder she had been self-medicating with food,” Apovian said. “We as a society use a lot of food to hide trauma. What we need in this country is more psychological counseling for everybody, not just for people who undergo bariatric surgery.”

Managing weight is a unique process for each person, a mixture of genetics, culture, environment, social stigma and personal health, experts say. There is no one solution for all.

“First, we as a society must consider obesity as a disease, as a biological problem, not as a moral failing,” Grunvald said. “That’s my first piece of advice.

“And if you believe your life is going to benefit from treatment, then consider evidence-based treatment, which studies show are surgery or medications, if you haven’t been able to successfully do it with lifestyle changes alone.”

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Midriff bulge linked to later physical decline, study says

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Editor’s Note: Seek advice from a health care provider prior to starting a workout program.



CNN
 — 

If you are a man or woman approaching 50, look down at your middle. If you’re like many people, you might have to lean over a bit to see your feet. Yes, it’s the dreadful midriff bulge — that expanding waistline that can often creep up on you as you age, much like a receding hairline or extra wrinkles.

Tough to combat, it almost seems like a rite of passage, just part of the cycle of life, right? But a new study has found that allowing your middle to expand will do more than send you shopping for the next size up in britches -— it can also harm your physical abilities later in life.

The study, which followed 4,509 people who were 45 years old or older in Norway for over two decades, found participants who had a high or moderately high waist circumference at the start of the study were 57% more likely to be “frail” than those with a normal waistline.

But frailty is not that “tottering” elderly person bent over a cane that comes to mind. Instead, frailty includes a poor grip strength, a slower walking speed, overall exhaustion, unintentional weight loss and low physical activity.

People who were obese at the start of the study, defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 and higher, were also 2.5 more likely to be frail than those with normal BMI (18.5 to 24.9), according to the study published January 23, 2023, in the journal BMJ Open.

There could be several reasons, according to study authors. Obesity leads to an increase in inflammation in fat cells, which can damage muscle fibers “resulting in reduced muscle strength and function,” study coauthor Shreeshti Uchai, a doctoral research fellow in nutritional epidemiology at the University of Oslo in Tromsø, Norway, and her colleagues wrote.

The results highlight the need to stay on top of both overall weight gain and any rise in waist circumference, and to broaden the definition of frailty, the authors concluded.

“In the context where the population is rapidly ageing and the obesity epidemic is rising, growing evidence recognises the subgroup of ‘fat and frail’ older individuals in contrast to viewing frailty only as a wasting disorder,” they wrote.

Exercise can help counter the growing frailty that aging may bring. Adults should perform muscle-strengthening exercises involving all major muscle groups on at least two or more days each week, in addition to exercising at least two hours and 30 minutes per week at a moderate intensity, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services’ physical activity guidelines for Americans.

Reducing body fat and building lean muscle can help improve balance and posture, Dr. Nieca Goldberg, the medical director of Atria New York City and clinical associate professor of medicine at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, told CNN previously.

To stay strong and healthy, try to do both aerobics and strength exercises.

They “appear to work together and help each other move toward better outcomes,” said Dr. William Roberts, a professor in the department of family medicine and community health at the University of Minnesota Medical School. “A balanced program of strength and aerobic activity is probably best and probably more closely mimics the activities of our ancestors, which helped determine our current gene sets.”

To get started on strength exercises, CNN fitness contributor Dana Santas, a mind-body coach in professional sports, suggests mastering body-weight movements first before moving on to free weights.

– Source:
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A few minutes of brisk activity can help your brain, study finds

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Editor’s Note: Seek advice from a health care provider before starting a workout program.



CNN
 — 

What if you could look at all the things you do daily — walking from room to room, preparing a presentation at your desk, running up and down stairs to deliver folded laundry or taking a jog around the block — and know which ones will best help or hurt your brain?

A new study attempted to answer that question by strapping activity monitors to the thighs of nearly 4,500 people in the United Kingdom and tracking their 24-hour movements for seven days. Researchers then examined how participants’ behavior affected their short-term memory, problem-solving and processing skills.

Here’s the good news: People who spent “even small amounts of time in more vigorous activities — as little as 6 to 9 minutes — compared to sitting, sleeping or gentle activities had higher cognition scores,” said study author John Mitchell, a Medical Research Council doctoral training student at the Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health at University College London, in an email.

Moderate physical activity is typically defined as brisk walking or bicycling or running up and down stairs. Vigorous movement, such as aerobic dancing, jogging, running, swimming and biking up a hill, will boost your heart rate and breathing.

The study, published Monday in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, found doing just under 10 minutes of moderate to vigorous exertion each day improved study participants’ working memory but had its biggest impact on executive processes such as planning and organization.

The cognitive improvement was modest, but as additional time was spent doing the more energetic workout the benefits grew, Mitchell said.

“Given we don’t monitor participants’ cognition over many years, this may be simply that those individuals who move more tend to have higher cognition on average,” he said. “However, yes, it could also imply that even minimal changes to our daily lives can have downstream consequences for our cognition.”

Steven Malin, an associate professor in the department of kinesiology and health at Rutgers University in New Jersey, told CNN the study provides new insight in how activity interacts with sedentary behavior as well as sleep.

“Understanding the interaction of sleep and various physical activities is often not examined,” said Malin, who was not involved in the new study.

While the study had some limitations, including a lack of knowledge about the health of the participants, the findings illustrate how “the accumulation of movement patterns in a day to a week to a month is just as, if not more important, than just getting outside for a single session of exercise,” he said.

There was bad news as well: Spending more time sleeping, sitting or engaged only in mild movement was linked to a negative impact on the brain. The study found cognition declined 1% to 2% after replacing an equivalent portion of moderate to vigorous physical activity with eight minutes of sedentary behavior, six minutes of light intensity or seven minutes of sleep.

“In most cases we showed that as little as 7 to 10 minutes less MVPA (moderate to vigorous physical activity) was detrimental,” Mitchell said.

That change is only an association, not a cause and effect, due to the observational methods of the study, Mitchell stressed.

In addition, the study’s findings on sleep can’t be taken at face value, he said. Good quality sleep is critical for the brain to operate at peak performance.

“The evidence on the importance of sleep for cognitive performance is strong,” Mitchell said, “yet there are two major caveats. First, over-sleeping can be linked to poorer cognitive performance.

“Secondly, sleep quality may be even more important than duration. Our accelerometer devices can estimate how long people slept for, but cannot tell us how well they slept.”

Additional studies need to be done to verify these findings and understand the role of each type of activity. However, Mitchell said, the study “highlights how even very modest differences in people’s daily movement — less than 10 minutes — is linked to quite real changes in our cognitive health.”

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Health

A few minutes of brisk activity can help your brain, study finds

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Editor’s Note: Seek advice from a health care provider before starting a workout program.



CNN
 — 

What if you could look at all the things you do daily — walking from room to room, preparing a presentation at your desk, running up and down stairs to deliver folded laundry or taking a jog around the block — and know which ones will best help or hurt your brain?

A new study attempted to answer that question by strapping activity monitors to the thighs of nearly 4,500 people in the United Kingdom and tracking their 24-hour movements for seven days. Researchers then examined how participants’ behavior affected their short-term memory, problem-solving and processing skills.

Here’s the good news: People who spent “even small amounts of time in more vigorous activities — as little as 6 to 9 minutes — compared to sitting, sleeping or gentle activities had higher cognition scores,” said study author John Mitchell, a Medical Research Council doctoral training student at the Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health at University College London, in an email.

Moderate physical activity is typically defined as brisk walking or bicycling or running up and down stairs. Vigorous movement, such as aerobic dancing, jogging, running, swimming and biking up a hill, will boost your heart rate and breathing.

The study, published Monday in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, found doing just under 10 minutes of moderate to vigorous exertion each day improved study participants’ working memory but had its biggest impact on executive processes such as planning and organization.

The cognitive improvement was modest, but as additional time was spent doing the more energetic workout the benefits grew, Mitchell said.

“Given we don’t monitor participants’ cognition over many years, this may be simply that those individuals who move more tend to have higher cognition on average,” he said. “However, yes, it could also imply that even minimal changes to our daily lives can have downstream consequences for our cognition.”

Steven Malin, an associate professor in the department of kinesiology and health at Rutgers University in New Jersey, told CNN the study provides new insight in how activity interacts with sedentary behavior as well as sleep.

“Understanding the interaction of sleep and various physical activities is often not examined,” said Malin, who was not involved in the new study.

While the study had some limitations, including a lack of knowledge about the health of the participants, the findings illustrate how “the accumulation of movement patterns in a day to a week to a month is just as, if not more important, than just getting outside for a single session of exercise,” he said.

There was bad news as well: Spending more time sleeping, sitting or engaged only in mild movement was linked to a negative impact on the brain. The study found cognition declined 1% to 2% after replacing an equivalent portion of moderate to vigorous physical activity with eight minutes of sedentary behavior, six minutes of light intensity or seven minutes of sleep.

“In most cases we showed that as little as 7 to 10 minutes less MVPA (moderate to vigorous physical activity) was detrimental,” Mitchell said.

That change is only an association, not a cause and effect, due to the observational methods of the study, Mitchell stressed.

In addition, the study’s findings on sleep can’t be taken at face value, he said. Good quality sleep is critical for the brain to operate at peak performance.

“The evidence on the importance of sleep for cognitive performance is strong,” Mitchell said, “yet there are two major caveats. First, over-sleeping can be linked to poorer cognitive performance.

“Secondly, sleep quality may be even more important than duration. Our accelerometer devices can estimate how long people slept for, but cannot tell us how well they slept.”

Additional studies need to be done to verify these findings and understand the role of each type of activity. However, Mitchell said, the study “highlights how even very modest differences in people’s daily movement — less than 10 minutes — is linked to quite real changes in our cognitive health.”

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Intermittent fasting may not be as helpful for losing weight as once thought, study finds

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CNN
 — 

Are snacks before bed your vice? Or do you prefer to wait a few hours after you wake up to eat?

The timing of meals may not have as big an impact on weight as once thought, according to a new study.

The study tracked the portion sizes and eating times of 547 people, in addition to data on their health and weight, over the course of six years. The data showed no association between an interval of the day in which people had their meals and their weight, according to the study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Restricting eating times, as seen in diet trends such as intermittent fasting, has been a popular method to try to lose weight in recent years.

But the researchers found no association between restricting eating times and weight loss, said principal investigator of the study Dr. Wendy Bennett, an associate professor of medicine in the division of general internal medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. That included how long people ate after waking up, how long their window of eating was throughout the day and how close to going to bed they ate, she noted.

Instead, smaller meals were associated with weight loss, she said.

“Based on other studies that have come out, including ours, we are starting to think that timing of meals through the day most likely doesn’t immediately result in weight loss,” Bennett said, adding the caveat that for some people, timing meals may be a useful tool in tracking nutrition.

The results of this study should be taken with a grain of salt, experts cautioned.

There were few racial and ethnic minorities among the participants, noted Dr. Fatima Cody, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. There are also many social determinants of health, such as stress and people’s environment, that could be added to the data, Cody added.

Those factors could be important for getting a better look at the effects of meal timing, added Alice Lichtenstein, professor of nutrition science and policy at Tufts University.

“I suspect that if they looked more closely at the data, that there would be subgroups (where timing of meals) may have had a significant effect,” Lichtenstein said.

This study was observational, Bennett noted, meaning that they looked at existing patterns for the study instead of making changes to a randomized group. Further work on this topic is underway, she added.

The big takeaways are that there is no one strategy that works for all people when it comes to nutrition, and that quality of the food counts, Lichtenstein said.

“If you make some effort to consume a healthy diet, you make some effort to be physically active, you’re less likely to have diabetes, chronic kidney disease, obstructive pulmonary disease and hypertension,” Lichtenstein said.

It’s the boring stuff no one wants to hear, she added, but there is no getting around eating fruits and vegetables and getting physical activity when it comes to weight management.

For some people, trying intermittent fasting or restricting eating intervals can be a helpful way to take note of personal tendencies, but many people can’t sustain it for enough time to see long-term change — or keep off any weight they lose, Lichtenstein added.

Cody, who is an obesity medicine physician at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital Weight Center, doesn’t like to focus too strongly on either calorie restriction or intermittent fasting, she said. Instead, she wants her clients to look at the nutritional value of the food they are eating.

To the body, 100 calories of gummy bears is not the same as 100 calories of oatmeal with fruit and nuts, she added.

But different approaches work better in different lifestyles, and everyone should work with their own doctor and their own body without stress and shame, Cody said.

If a nutrition strategy works for someone else, she said, “it just means someone’s body responded and the other one didn’t. It doesn’t mean you’re flawed. It just means that’s just not what your body needed.”

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Updated childhood obesity treatment guidelines include medications, surgery for some young people

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CNN
 — 

Updated American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines for treatment of obesity urge prompt use of behavior therapy and lifestyle changes, and say surgery and medications should be used for some young people.

The guidelines, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, are the first comprehensive update to the academy’s obesity treatment guidelines in 15 years. They provide guidance for treatment of children as young as 2 and through the teen years.

The guidelines acknowledge that obesity is complex, and tied to access to nutritious foods and health care, among other factors.

Treatment for younger children should focus on behavior and lifestyle treatment for the entire family, including nutrition support and increased physical activity. For children 12 and older, use of weight loss medications is appropriate, in addition to health behavior therapy and lifestyle treatment, AAP says. Teens 13 and older with severe obesity should be evaluated for surgery, according to the guidelines.

“There is no evidence that ‘watchful waiting’ or delayed treatment is appropriate for children with obesity,” Dr. Sandra Hassink, an author of the guideline and vice chair of AAP’s Clinical Practice Guideline Subcommittee on Obesity, said in a statement. “The goal is to help patients make changes in lifestyle, behaviors or environment in a way that is sustainable and involves families in decision-making at every step of the way.”

For children and teens, overweight is defined as a body mass index at or above the 85th percentile and below the 95th percentile; obesity is defined as a BMI at or above the 95th percentile.

Myles Faith, a psychologist at the State University of New York at Buffalo who studies childhood eating behaviors and obesity, praised the new report both for acknowledging that the causes of childhood obesity are complex and that its treatments must be a team effort.

“It’s not one cause for all kids,” he says. “There’s not been this kind of report to say that there are more options and that we shouldn’t automatically discount the possibility of medication, that we shouldn’t discount the role of surgery. For some families, it might be something to consider,” said Faith, who was not involved in the creation of the guidelines.

The new guidelines do not discuss obesity prevention; it will be addressed in another AAP policy statement to come, it says.

“These are the most comprehensive, patient-centered guidelines we have had that address overweight and obesity within childhood,” Dr. Rebecca Carter, pediatrician at the University of Maryland Children’s Hospital and assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said in an email Monday.

“New to these recommendations are several new medication management strategies that have proven very successful in the treatment of obesity as a chronic disease for adults, and are now being recommended for use in children and adolescents,” Carter said. “This is a major step in allowing overweight and obesity to be considered as the chronic diseases that they are.”

She added that the recommendations also are a “major step forward” in helping both parents and medical teams “take ownership” over a child’s long-term health risks related to overweight and obesity.

“They give a variety of tools to help families feel empowered that there are ways to treat these medical conditions, and that there are nuanced causes for these conditions that go beyond easy solutions and certainly take our focus away from outdated or unhealthy dieting strategies,” Carter said.

The new guidelines are designed for health care providers, but Carter said parents should talk with their children’s doctor if there are concerns about weight, and discuss strategies to optimize health and monitor changes.

“It is also appropriate to do this in a child-focused manner, taking care not to stigmatize them or make them feel bad about their body, while empowering the child to feel they have the tools needed to keep their body healthy over time.”

The new guidelines are a “much-needed advancement” to align holistic care with current science, Dr. Jennifer Woo Baidal, assistant professor of pediatrics and director of the Pediatric Obesity Initiative at Columbia University in New York City, said in a separate email Monday.

“Uptake of the new guidelines will help reverse the epidemic of childhood obesity,” she said. “More work at policy levels will be needed to mitigate policies and practices that propagate racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in obesity starting in early life. Although the guidelines support advocacy efforts of pediatricians, we as a society need to voice our support for healthful environments for the nation’s children.”

AAP says more than 14.4 million children and teens live with obesity. Children with overweight or obesity are at higher risk for asthma, sleep apnea, bone and joint problems, type 2 diabetes and heart disease, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Separate research, published last month in the American Diabetes Association journal Diabetes Care, suggests that the number of young people under age 20 with type 2 diabetes in the United States may increase nearly 675% by 2060 if current trends continue.

Last month, the CDC released updated growth charts that can be used to track children and teens with severe obesity.

Growth charts are standardized tools used by health care providers to track growth from infancy through adolescence. But as obesity and severe obesity became more prevalent in the last 40 years – more than 4.5 million children and teens had severe obesity in 2017-2018, the agency says – the charts hadn’t kept up.

The growth chart in use since 2000 is based on data from 1963 to 1980 and did not extend beyond the 97th percentile, the agency said. The newly extended percentiles incorporate more recent data and provide a way to monitor and visualize very high body mass index values.

The existing growth charts for children and adolescents without obesity will not change, the CDC said, while the extended growth chart will be useful for health care providers treating patients with severe childhood obesity.

“Prior to today’s release, the growth charts did not extend high enough to plot BMI for the increasing number of children with severe obesity. The new growth charts coupled with high-quality treatment can help optimize care for children with severe obesity,” Dr. Karen Hacker, director CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, said in a statement. “Providers can work with families on a comprehensive care plan to address childhood obesity.

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Here’s how to eat to live longer, new study says

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You can reduce your risk of an early death for any reason by nearly 20%, just by eating more foods from your choice of four healthy eating patterns, according to a new study.

People who more carefully followed any of the healthy eating patterns — which all share a focus on consuming more whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes — were also less likely to die from cancer, cardiovascular illness, and respiratory and neurodegenerative disease.

The results of the study, published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, show “there is more than one way to eat well and derive the attendant health benefits,” said Dr. David Katz, a lifestyle medicine specialist who was not involved in the study.

People often get bored with one way of eating, study coauthor Dr. Frank Hu said, “so this is good news. It means that we have a lot of flexibility in terms of creating our own healthy dietary patterns that can be tailored to individual food preferences, health conditions and cultures.

“For example, if you are eating healthy Mediterranean, and after a few months you want to try something different, you can switch to a DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet or you can switch to a semi-vegetarian diet,” said Hu, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology and chair of the department of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Or you can follow US dietary guidelines and create your own healthy eating plate.”

The study followed the eating habits of 75,000 women participating in the Nurses’ Health Study and more than 44,000 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study over 36 years. None of the men and women had cardiovascular disease at the start of the study, and few were smokers. All filled out eating questionnaires every four years.

“This is one of the largest and longest-running cohort studies to examine recommended dietary patterns and the long-term risk of premature deaths and deaths from major diseases,” Hu said.

Hu and his team scored participants on how closely they followed four healthy eating styles that are in sync with current US dietary guidelines.

One is the Mediterranean diet, which stresses eating fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, legumes, fish and a high amount of olive oil, Hu said. “This dietary pattern emphasizes healthy fats, especially monounsaturated fat, in addition to plant-based foods and moderate alcohol,” he said.

The next is called the healthful plant-based diet, which also focuses on eating more plant products but gives negative points for all animal products and any alcohol.

“It even discourages relatively healthy options, like fish or some dairy products,” Hu said, adding that the eating plan frowns on unhealthy plant-based foods such as potato products.

“So you can imagine that vegetarians are probably on the higher end of this diet score,” he said, “and people who eat a lot of animal products or highly processed carbohydrate foods would be at the lower end of this score.”

The Healthy Eating Index tracks whether people follow basic US nutritional guidelines, which stress healthy, plant-based foods, frown on red and processed meat, and discourage eating added sugar, unhealthy fats and alcohol, Hu said.

The Alternate Healthy Eating Index was developed at Harvard, Hu said, and uses the “best available evidence” to include foods and nutrients most strongly associated with a lower risk of chronic disease.

“We explicitly included nuts, seeds, whole grains and lower consumption of red and processed meats and sugar-sweetened beverages,” he added. “A moderate consumption of alcohol is allowed.”

After each person’s eating pattern was scored, the participants were divided into five groups, or quintiles, from highest to lowest adherence to one or more of the eating patterns.

“The highest quintile of diet quality as compared to the lowest was associated with a roughly 20% reduction in all-cause mortality,” said Katz, president and founder of the nonprofit True Health Initiative, a global coalition of experts dedicated to evidence-based lifestyle medicine.

The study also found reductions in risk of death from certain chronic diseases if people improved their diet over time, Hu said.

Participants who improved the health of their diet by 25% could reduce their risk of dying from cardiovascular disease by a range of 6% to 13% and dying from cancer by 7% to 18%, he said. There was up to a 7% reduction in risk of death by neurodegenerative disease, such as dementia.

“Respiratory disease mortality reduction was actually much greater, reducing risk by 35% to 46%,” Hu said.

The study relied on participants’ self-reports of food preferences and therefore only showed an association, not a direct cause and effect, between eating habits and health outcomes. Still, the fact that the study asked about diets every four years over such a long time frame added weight to the findings, Hu said.

What is the takeaway of this large, long-term study?

“It’s never too late to adopt healthy eating patterns, and the benefits of eating a healthy diet can be substantial in terms of reducing total premature deaths and different causes of premature death,” Hu said.

“People also have a lot of flexibility in terms of creating their own healthy dietary pattern. But the common principles — eating more-plant based foods and fewer servings of red meat, processed meats, added sugar and sodium — should be there, no matter what kind of diet that you want to create.”

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Health

Mediterranean diet named best diet for 2023

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CNN
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The gold medals are piling up. For the sixth year in a row, the Mediterranean style of eating earned the title of best overall diet, according to 2023 ratings announced Tuesday by U.S. News & World Report. Meals from the sunny Mediterranean also ranked first in the categories of diet best diet for healthy eating and best plant-based diet, the report said.

In two new categories added for 2023, the Mediterranean tied with the cholesterol-lowering TLC (Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes) and flexitarian diets as best family-friendly diet, and with DASH (dietary approaches to stop hypertension) for best bone and joint health diet.

“We’re always looking for more health conditions that we can address. But often there’s not enough scientific data examining diet X and condition X,” said Gretel Schueller, managing editor of health for U.S. News & World Report, who oversees the annual diet ranking.

“However, bone and joint health is an area where there’s a fair amount of scientific literature,” Schueller said. “We also recognize our population is aging so focusing on diets that can increase the quality of life among older individuals is an important element.”

Also new this year: Reviewers only ranked 24 diets instead of the 40 or so diets analyzed in past years. Five diets from the original list — vegetarian, vegan, Nordic, the traditional Asian and the glycemic index — were integrated by judges into the Mediterranean and other diets due to their underlying plant-based principles.

“The take-home message here is the recognition that the Mediterranean diet is really not just about the foods around the Mediterranean,” Schueller said. “You can take the the lessons and the approach of the Mediterranean eating pattern and apply it to any cuisine in any country.”

That approach is reflected within two new diets — Keyto and Pritikin — that were added to the review for 2023, Schueller said. (Yes. that’s Keyto with a Y.)

“We recognize that more and more people are eating sort of a plant-forward or plant-based diet or at least trying to,” she said. “The keto with a Y diet is supposed to be a flexible, low-carb Mediterranean plan.

“The Pritikin diet focuses on low-fat, high-fiber eating of whole foods, and is fairly flexible,” she added. “We are seeing a push towards eating more whole, unprocessed foods, which I think is a great thing.”

Numerous studies have found the Mediterranean diet can reduce the risk for diabetes, high cholesterol, dementia, memory loss, depression and breast cancer. The diet, which is more of an eating style than a restricted diet, has also been linked to stronger bones, a healthier heart and longer life.

The diet features simple, plant-based cooking, with the majority of each meal focused on fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans and seeds, with a few nuts and a heavy emphasis on extra-virgin olive oil. Fats other than olive oil, such as butter, are consumed rarely, if at all, and sugar and refined foods are reserved for special occasions.

Red meat is used sparingly, usually only to flavor a dish. Eating healthy, oily fish, which are packed with omega-3 fatty acids, is encouraged, while eggs, dairy and poultry are eaten in much smaller portions than in the traditional Western diet.

Social interactions during meals and exercise are basic cornerstones of the Mediterranean style of eating. Lifestyle changes that are part of the diet include eating with friends and family, socializing over meals, mindfully eating favorite foods, as well as mindful movement and exercise.

Just as they did in 2022, the DASH and the flexitarian diet tied for second place in best overall diet. Similar to the Mediterranean style of eating, these diets reduce or eliminate processed foods and stress packing your plate with fruits, vegetables, beans, lentils, whole grains, nuts and seeds.

The DASH diet emphasizes limiting salt intake in its goal to reduce blood pressure, while the flexitarian diet, true to its name, allows an occasional indulgence of meat or poultry.

A panel of 33 experts examined top diets and ranked them in several categories: Did the diet include all food groups; was it evidence based; are needed foods available at any supermarket; how easy is the diet to prepare, and did it use additional vitamins or supplements.

“We focused on quality over quantity,” Schueller said. “Our reviewers felt there are some diets out there that are so wacky they’re not worth giving time to, such as the Dukan diet, which we no longer rank.”

The worst diet award went to the raw foods diet this year, at least in part due to the lack of nutritional completeness, which has raised safety concerns among the reviewers. Because followers can only eat unprocessed foods that haven’t been cooked, microwaved, irradiated, genetically engineered or exposed to pesticides or herbicides, reviews consider the diet almost impossible to follow.

The popular keto diet, along with the modified keto, was ranked 20 out of the 24 diets, followed by Atkins, SlimFast and Optavia. These diets emphasize eating high-protein or high-fat foods with minimal carbohydrates and receive low rankings because they are extremely restrictive, hard to follow and eliminate entire food groups.

Despite keto’s low overall rating, reviewers gave the keto diet first place for best short-term weight loss diet, Schueller said, quickly adding that these diets are not considered healthy as a lifestyle.

“These are the diets for someone who’s got a wedding or an event they want to go to in the next few months,” she said. “Will you lose weight in the short term? Absolutely. Will you keep it off for the next two years? Probably not.”

In the category of best (long-term) weight-loss diet, WW (formely called Weight Watchers) came in first, with DASH and TLC tied for second. WW also got top honors in the best (commercial) diet program, followed by NOOM and Jenny Craig.

Flexitarian and TLC shared the gold in the category of easiest diet to follow, while the Mediterranean and DASH diets tied for third.

The DASH diet took top honors as best diet for heart health and for people with diabetes, followed by the Mediterranean, flexitarian and Ornish diets. The Ornish diet was created in 1977 by Dr. Dean Ornish, founder of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in California.

The Ornish diet is combined with stress-management techniques, exercise, social support and smoking cessation, and according to Ornish is the only scientifically proven program to reverse heart disease without drugs or surgery

Want to make the Mediterranean style of eating one of your goals this year? Sign up for CNN’s Eat, But Better: Mediterranean Style newsletter, an eight-part series that guides you in a delicious expert-backed eating lifestyle that’s good for your health.

Read original article here

Health

Mediterranean diet named best diet for 2023

Leave a comment



CNN
 — 

The gold medals are piling up. For the sixth year in a row, the Mediterranean style of eating earned the title of best overall diet, according to 2023 ratings announced Tuesday by U.S. News & World Report. Meals from the sunny Mediterranean also ranked first in the categories of diet best diet for healthy eating and best plant-based diet, the report said.

In two new categories added for 2023, the Mediterranean tied with the cholesterol-lowering TLC (Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes) and flexitarian diets as best family-friendly diet, and with DASH (dietary approaches to stop hypertension) for best bone and joint health diet.

“We’re always looking for more health conditions that we can address. But often there’s not enough scientific data examining diet X and condition X,” said Gretel Schueller, managing editor of health for U.S. News & World Report, who oversees the annual diet ranking.

“However, bone and joint health is an area where there’s a fair amount of scientific literature,” Schueller said. “We also recognize our population is aging so focusing on diets that can increase the quality of life among older individuals is an important element.”

Also new this year: Reviewers only ranked 24 diets instead of the 40 or so diets analyzed in past years. Five diets from the original list — vegetarian, vegan, Nordic, the traditional Asian and the glycemic index — were integrated by judges into the Mediterranean and other diets due to their underlying plant-based principles.

“The take-home message here is the recognition that the Mediterranean diet is really not just about the foods around the Mediterranean,” Schueller said. “You can take the the lessons and the approach of the Mediterranean eating pattern and apply it to any cuisine in any country.”

That approach is reflected within two new diets — Keyto and Pritikin — that were added to the review for 2023, Schueller said. (Yes. that’s Keyto with a Y.)

“We recognize that more and more people are eating sort of a plant-forward or plant-based diet or at least trying to,” she said. “The keto with a Y diet is supposed to be a flexible, low-carb Mediterranean plan.

“The Pritikin diet focuses on low-fat, high-fiber eating of whole foods, and is fairly flexible,” she added. “We are seeing a push towards eating more whole, unprocessed foods, which I think is a great thing.”

Numerous studies have found the Mediterranean diet can reduce the risk for diabetes, high cholesterol, dementia, memory loss, depression and breast cancer. The diet, which is more of an eating style than a restricted diet, has also been linked to stronger bones, a healthier heart and longer life.

The diet features simple, plant-based cooking, with the majority of each meal focused on fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans and seeds, with a few nuts and a heavy emphasis on extra-virgin olive oil. Fats other than olive oil, such as butter, are consumed rarely, if at all, and sugar and refined foods are reserved for special occasions.

Red meat is used sparingly, usually only to flavor a dish. Eating healthy, oily fish, which are packed with omega-3 fatty acids, is encouraged, while eggs, dairy and poultry are eaten in much smaller portions than in the traditional Western diet.

Social interactions during meals and exercise are basic cornerstones of the Mediterranean style of eating. Lifestyle changes that are part of the diet include eating with friends and family, socializing over meals, mindfully eating favorite foods, as well as mindful movement and exercise.

Just as they did in 2022, the DASH and the flexitarian diet tied for second place in best overall diet. Similar to the Mediterranean style of eating, these diets reduce or eliminate processed foods and stress packing your plate with fruits, vegetables, beans, lentils, whole grains, nuts and seeds.

The DASH diet emphasizes limiting salt intake in its goal to reduce blood pressure, while the flexitarian diet, true to its name, allows an occasional indulgence of meat or poultry.

A panel of 33 experts examined top diets and ranked them in several categories: Did the diet include all food groups; was it evidence based; are needed foods available at any supermarket; how easy is the diet to prepare, and did it use additional vitamins or supplements.

“We focused on quality over quantity,” Schueller said. “Our reviewers felt there are some diets out there that are so wacky they’re not worth giving time to, such as the Dukan diet, which we no longer rank.”

The worst diet award went to the raw foods diet this year, at least in part due to the lack of nutritional completeness, which has raised safety concerns among the reviewers. Because followers can only eat unprocessed foods that haven’t been cooked, microwaved, irradiated, genetically engineered or exposed to pesticides or herbicides, reviews consider the diet almost impossible to follow.

The popular keto diet, along with the modified keto, was ranked 20 out of the 24 diets, followed by Atkins, SlimFast and Optavia. These diets emphasize eating high-protein or high-fat foods with minimal carbohydrates and receive low rankings because they are extremely restrictive, hard to follow and eliminate entire food groups.

Despite keto’s low overall rating, reviewers gave the keto diet first place for best short-term weight loss diet, Schueller said, quickly adding that these diets are not considered healthy as a lifestyle.

“These are the diets for someone who’s got a wedding or an event they want to go to in the next few months,” she said. “Will you lose weight in the short term? Absolutely. Will you keep it off for the next two years? Probably not.”

In the category of best (long-term) weight-loss diet, WW (formely called Weight Watchers) came in first, with DASH and TLC tied for second. WW also got top honors in the best (commercial) diet program, followed by NOOM and Jenny Craig.

Flexitarian and TLC shared the gold in the category of easiest diet to follow, while the Mediterranean and DASH diets tied for third.

The DASH diet took top honors as best diet for heart health and for people with diabetes, followed by the Mediterranean, flexitarian and Ornish diets. The Ornish diet was created in 1977 by Dr. Dean Ornish, founder of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in California.

The Ornish diet is combined with stress-management techniques, exercise, social support and smoking cessation, and according to Ornish is the only scientifically proven program to reverse heart disease without drugs or surgery

Want to make the Mediterranean style of eating one of your goals this year? Sign up for CNN’s Eat, But Better: Mediterranean Style newsletter, an eight-part series that guides you in a delicious expert-backed eating lifestyle that’s good for your health.

Read original article here