A new study came out this week in the New England Journal of Medicine demonstrating what many of us have been saying for years. With dieting, it doesn’t matter what diet you are on, what matters is that you are eating less (or taking in fewer calories) than you are expending.
Calories In = Calories Out
If you eat more than you burn up for the day, you will gain weight.
If you eat less than you burn up for the day, you will loose weight.
Or in more technical terms, the conclusions of the published study:
Reduced-calorie diets result in clinically meaningfulweight loss regardless of which macronutrients they emphasize.
The Study
In the study 811 overweight adults were randomly assigned to one of four diets with varying percentages of energy derived from fat, protein and carbs. Each of the diets consisted of similar foods and all met guidelines for cardiovascular health.
Participants were followed for a period of 2 years. They were also offered group and individual instruction sessions during this time.
The main outcome measured at the end of 2 years was the change in body weight. Among the 80% of participants who completed the study, the average weight loss was 4 kg (8.8 lbs.). A smaller percentage 14 – 15% experienced a reduction of at least 10% of their initial body weight. This study also found that attendance at group sessions was strongly associated with weight loss.
A new study published in January’s Issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine is demonstrating that the ratio of sodium to potassium may be more important than the amount of sodium or potassium alone.
Senior author Dr. Paul Whelton from Loyloa University Health System was quoted as saying:
There isn’t as much focus on potassium, but potassium seems to be effective in lowering blood pressure and the combination of a higher intake of potassium and lower consumption of sodium seems to be more effective than either on its own in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease.
Potassium Rich Foods
In general, the more processed a food is, the more sodium and less potassium a food has. The diagram from the textbook Understanding Nutrition shows the differences in how much sodium vs. potassium are in food that has been processed or food that has not been processed.
One way of getting plenty of potassium is to be sure to eat a diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables. Some examples of Potassium Rich foods:
One Banana – 400 mg Potassium
One Potato – 900 mg Potassium
One cup Spinach – 950 mg Potassium
1/2 cup Raisins – 600 mg Potassium
8 ounces (one cup) Orange Juice – 500 mg Potassium
While not normally a Nutrition topic, the eBook Living with Loss is a wellness topic. This eBook is a good resource for improving or maintaining wellness in the face of a loss, a death or a significant life changing event.
The Living with Loss By Understanding Grief eBook is a complementary resource that I helped write, design, create and get published as part of the Tuolumne County Working Group for Loss & Grief Education and Support.
The booklet was written by Dr. Dyer in 2008 with input from Working Group Members which included a cross section of those interested in Grief and Loss within Tuolumne County.
Download a copy of the eBook by clicking on the eBook image at the left or on the image in the right side bar.
You can find out more about the Living with Loss eBook and even view a smaller version of it on the Grief, Loss and Bereavement Blog.
The Environment Working Groups Guide is now in its 5th edition. It features the 12 fruits and veggies with the most and least pesticides so you’ll know which ones to buy organic, and which conventionally-grown ones are okay when organic isn’t available.
Note: The Environmental Working Group ranked a total of 44 different fruits and vegetables but grapes are listed twice because they looked at both domestic and imported samples.
December 1, 2008 marks the 20th anniversary of celebrating World AIDS Day, a day set aside to recognize the disease that has killed over 25 million since it was identified in 1981.
The focus on this 20th anniversary is how the response to AIDS has greatly changed, some for the positive, but an anniversary provides an opportunity to highlight how much more still needs to be done.
Take the Test. Take Control.
A unique campaign has been developed using text messaging to promote HIV testing.
Mobile phone users can send a text message with their zip code to “KNOWIT” (566948). Within seconds, they will receive a text message identifying an HIV testing site near them.
This mobile phone service connects users with CDC’s testing database found at www.HIVtest.org.
I was able to find a short clip about a reporter who decided to become a volunteer drinker in a field sobriety test in this news report from 2007, on “How Much is Too Much?”
His report shows some of the sobriety checks done by police officers to determine if someone has had too much to drink.
A study published in the The Journal of Law and Economics by researchers at the City University of New York is showing what many parents and teachers already knew to be true, that television ads are contributing to childhood obesity.
In a research study supported by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases researchers Chou, Rashad and Grossman estimated that the effects of television fast-food restaurant advertising on children and adolescents are playing a role with children being overweight.
These researches predict that a ban on fast-food restaurant advertising would reduce the number of overweight children ages 3–11 in a fixed population by 18 percent and would reduce the number of overweight adolescents ages 12–18 by 14 percent.
In addition, eliminating the tax deductibility of junk food advertising would produce more declines of between 5 and 7 percent in these outcomes.
With estimates that children see over 30,000 television commercials a year and a third of them are for junk food, it is likely that eliminating junk food ads would go a long way in helping manage the advertising world’s contribution to promoting childhood obesity.
These findings go along with earlier ones conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation which found that “The vast majority of the foods that kids see advertised on television today are for products that nutritionists would tell us they need to be eating less of, not more of, if we’re going to get a handle on childhood obesity.”
In Fall 2008, the U.S. Department of Agriculture launched the My Pyramid for Preschoolers Website just for Preschoolers, children aged 2-5. The site encourages parents and caregivers to
Use MyPyramid to help your preschooler eat well, be active, and be healthy.
Customized MyPyramid for Your Preschooler
Visitors to the My Pyramid for Preschoolers Web site can “get a customized MyPyramid Plan for your preschooler” by entering the child’s first name, age, gender, and typical amount of daily activity. The site then generates a plan tailored to that child.
A news item update from a colleague on a new article published in the PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Science) looking at the prevalence of corn isotopes in fast foods.
This new study researchers from the University of Hawaii sampled food from McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s chains and then used stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis to trace the input materials from these large fast food chains.
From these findings they were able to infer the source of feed to meat animals, the source of fat within fries, and the extent of fertilization and confinement inherent to production.
What they discovered was the overwhelming majority of American fast food is based on a single source – corn. This study highlights the overwhelming importance of corn agriculture within virtually every aspect of fast food manufacturing. The presence of corn in so much of the food has some pretty striking implications.
…the fact that so much of said food can be traced back to corn has environmental implications. Corn feed is relatively cheap and provides farmers with a way of maximising the calories that their animals are eating for minimum cost.
But corn agriculture in the US is encouraged by heavy government subsidies, but has been criticised for being environmentally unsustainable. It encourages heavy use of both fertiliser (as revealed by the nitrogen isotope analysis) and pesticides.
if we eat just one hamburger, one chicken sandwich and one small order of fries we will be getting 50% of our recommended calories for the day, 80% of our carbs and 75% of our protein (90% for women). We would also be getting a full day’s worth of saturated fat. And all for just about $3.
This is a pretty remarkable nutritional bargain, but of course there are hidden costs (beyond the heart attack on a plate aspect). Corn as a feedstock is not only wasteful but highly subsidized. Our cheap meal is being paid for in other ways (taxes).
Bottom Line
While fast food may be tempting, because it is cheap and inexpensive, you may ultimately be paying for it in several ways, not only through poor nutrition, high calories and high fat intake, but also by supporting corn as a wasteful, subsidized and environmentally unsustainable food source.
There has been some debate going on in regards to the terms that should be used to indicate a child’s weight status.
For adults the categories are Underweight, Overweight and Obese, but these terms have been avoided in children.
Some doctors have avoided the blunt terms in particular “obese.” Instead, they refer to children many would consider too fat as being “at risk for overweight,” and “overweight” for those others would consider obese. These fuzzier labels let pediatricians “off the hook” when counseling patients who need to lose weight.
Dr. Reginald Washington, a committee spokesman and member of the American Academy of Pediatrics stated that the reason for not using the actual terms has been of “fear that we’re going to stigmatize children, we’re going to take away their self-esteem, we’re going to label them.”
Recommendations
A committee of medical experts American Medical Association and funded by federal health officials including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that the terms overweight or obese be applied to children.
The recommended terms are more accurate, but don’t mean that doctors need to be insensitive about using the terms.
The recommendations were endorsed by most of the organizations on the committee, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Dietetic Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the American College of Preventive Medicine.
The CDC will consider whether to adopt the recommendations.
Reason for Concern – More Obese and Overweight Children
About 17% of U.S. children are obese and one-third are overweight, using the committee’s recommended definitions. Those numbers are rising, putting children at risk for diabetes, high blood pressure, cholesterol problems and other ailments more commonly found in adults.
A new study published in January’s Issue of the 
A study published in the The Journal of Law and Economics by researchers at the City University of New York is showing what many parents and teachers already knew to be true, that television ads are contributing to childhood obesity.
Visitors to the My Pyramid for Preschoolers Web site can “get a customized MyPyramid Plan for your preschooler” by entering the child’s first name, age, gender, and typical amount of daily activity. The site then generates a plan tailored to that child.
You can raise a healthy eater by setting a good example and practicing positive habits. 
This new study researchers from the University of Hawaii sampled food from McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s chains and then used stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis to trace the input materials from these large fast food chains.
…the fact that so much of said food can be traced back to corn has environmental implications. Corn feed is relatively cheap and provides farmers with a way of maximising the calories that their animals are eating for minimum cost.
There has been some debate going on in regards to the terms that should be used to indicate a child’s weight status.
