Many have high percentages of body fat, leaving them prone to heart disease, diabetes

From HealthDay

Despite appearances to the contrary, more than half of normal-weight Americans have a high percentage of body fat. And, like their overweight contemporaries, this makes them susceptible to heart disease, diabetes and other metabolic disorders, a new study says.

Men whose body fat is greater than 20 percent and women whose body fat is greater than 30 percent are suffering from “normal weight obesity,” the study authors said, even though their weight may be normal for their size.

“The prevalence of people with a high amount of body fat despite a normal weight is relatively high,” said lead researcher Dr. Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, a cardiologist with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. “Many of these people have metabolic abnormalities.”

These findings should alert doctors that body weight isn’t the only way to protect against health problems caused by excess pounds, Lopez-Jimenez said. Even normal-weight people should be advised to exercise and eat a healthful diet to reduce their level of fat, especially belly fat, he added.

The findings were expected to be presented Tuesday at the American College of Cardiology’s annual meeting, in Chicago.

For the study, Lopez-Jimenez and his colleagues collected data on 2,127 people who participated in the U.S. government’s Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Specifically, the researchers looked at risk factors for heart disease, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome, a precursor of diabetes.

The researchers found that 61 percent of the participants had levels of body fat that indicated “normal weight obesity.” In addition, Lopez-Jimenez’s group found changes in blood chemistry that can affect heart and metabolic health, including high cholesterol; high levels of leptin, a hormone found in fat and other tissues that’s involved in appetite regulation; and high rates of metabolic syndrome.

Lopez-Jimenez said the study shows that just because your weight may be normal for your size, it doesn’t mean you aren’t at risk for heart disease and diabetes.

“If you have a normal weight, don’t feel that everything is just OK,” Lopez-Jimenez said. “If you have an excess amount of fat, you might have metabolic abnormalities as well,” he said.

One expert agrees that normal body weight is not synonymous with good health.

“Body weight is a very blunt instrument; it is not a reliable gauge of obesity, or health, at the individual level,” said Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine. “For example, a muscular man may have a very high body weight, yet be perfectly fit and healthy. Many people whose body weight is in the normal range are anything but.”

And some people are vulnerable to weight gain in all the wrong places, such as in and around the vital organs of the abdomen, notably the liver, Katz said.

“Even a small amount of extra fat where it matters most can wreak metabolic havoc, increasing risk for diabetes and heart disease, while leaving you with a body weight that looks perfectly innocent,” Katz said. “Excess body fat in the belly is a menace, whatever your weight. This study should sensitize patients and providers alike to this concern.”

Choosing a creamer over milk with your office coffee could mean you consume far more saturated fat than you think, the Center for Science in the Public Interest has warned

From FoodNavigator.com

According to the CSPI, the nutrition labels on coffee creamers could be misleading consumers into thinking that they are a healthier option than real milk.

“The nutrition label on the Coffee-mate in your office kitchen might list 10 calories and just a half a gram of saturated fat. Those sound like reassuringly low levels of both. But use a more realistic tablespoon-size serving instead of the miserly teaspoon the Food and Drug Administration allows-and unround the rounded down numbers on the label-and you’re looking at 45 calories and three grams of heart-harmful saturated fat,” the CSPI said.

Given that the average daily coffee consumption is around three or four servings, many US office workers could have “stealthily consumed half a day’s saturated fat”, the consumer advocacy center claims.

The CSPI carried out its assessment of the fat content of the most popular office creamers for an article in its monthly newsletter, and is critical of most of the popular brands.

While it points out that Nestl (the owner of the Coffee-mate brand) does produce a number of low-fat variants, as do other creamer producers, it warns that this is no guarantee that the product is fat-free.

“If a food has less than 0.5 grams of fat (trans, saturated, or total) per serving, labels can round the number to zero.”While the CSPI report stated that a flat teaspoon has 0.27 grams of saturated fat, a spokesperson for Nestle told FoodNavigator-USA.com that CSPI had been given some incorrect figures relating to serving size.While the CSPI report stated that a flat teaspoon has 0.27 grams of saturated fat, a spokesperson for

From NaturalNews.com

diet high in fat and in high fructose corn syrup may cause severe liver problems in people with a sedentary lifestyle, according to a study conducted by researchers from Saint Louis University and presented this year at the Digestive Diseases Week meeting in Washington, D.C.

Researchers fed mice a diet that was 40 percent fat and high in high fructose corn syrup for 16 weeks. In contrast to other studies, where mice have been fed a regulated amount, the animals in the study were allowed to eat as much as they wanted. They were kept sedentary and prevented from exercising.

“We wanted to mirror the kind of diet many Americans subsist on, so the high fat content is about the same you’d find in a typical McDonald’s meal, and the high fructose corn syrup translates to about eight cans of soda a day in a human diet, which is not far off with what some people consume,” said Brent Tetri, M.D., an associate professor of internal medicine at Saint Louis University Liver Center.

To the researchers’ shock, it took only four weeks for the first signs of serious health problems to emerge.

“We had a feeling we’d see evidence of fatty liver disease by the end of the study,” Tetri said. “But we were surprised to find how severe the damage was and how quickly it occurred. It took only four weeks for liver enzymes to increase and for glucose intolerance — the beginning of Type 2 diabetes — to begin.”

According to Tetri, preliminary research suggests that fructose actually suppresses the body’s feeling of fullness, whereas foods rich in fiber activate it. This meant that the mice didn’t know when to stop eating, even though their diet was exceptionally high in calories.

High fructose corn syrup is a widely used sweetener, particularly in the United States, where corn is cheap and sugar importation is expensive.

“A high-fat and sugar-sweetened diet compounded by a sedentary lifestyle will have severe repercussions for your liver and other vital organs,” Tetri warned.

From MedWire News

People with a high intake of vitamin C-rich vegetables have a decreased risk of prostate cancer, although other vegetables and fruit do not greatly affect the risk of the disease, Australian study findings suggest.

It is believed that diet plays an important role in the incidence of prostate cancer, although studies so far have produced inconclusive results. However, specific bioactive compounds from plant foods have been shown to reduce prostate cancer risk.

To investigate further, Gina Ambrosini, from the University of Western Australia in Perth, and colleagues studied 1985 men who were previously exposed to asbestos and randomly assigned to receive 30 mg beta-carotene (or 0.75-30.0 mg if they had abnormal liver function tests) or 7.5 mg retinol supplements daily as part of a cancer prevention program.

In addition, the men completed a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire to assess average daily intakes of 43 foods during the previous year, the team reports in the journal Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases.

During a median follow-up period of 12.7 years, 441 men died, there were 97 incident cases of prostate cancer, and 35 participants were lost to follow-up. Prostate cancer cases were significantly older than non-cases at baseline, at 62.6 years versus 54.7 years.

There were no overall differences in fruit and vegetable intake, although cases had significantly lower median intakes of cooked tomato, broccoli, and bell peppers. Multivariate analysis taking into account age and source of asbestos exposure revealed that vitamin A supplementation, total fruit, and vegetable intakes were not associated with prostate cancer.

However, increasing intakes of vitamin C-rich foods, such as peppers, broccoli, and spinach, were associated with a lower risk of prostate cancer, with men in the highest tertile of intake having a relative risk of prostate cancer of 0.53 versus the lowest intake.

The team concludes: “Prostate cancer risk in this study does not appear to be strongly associated with the intake of beta-carotene, retinol, fruits or vegetables, except possibly with vitamin C-rich vegetables such as peppers and broccoli.

From NaturalNews.com

A recently released study shows that women who drink moderate amounts of caffeine during their pregnancy can double their chance of miscarriage. The study was published in The American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology on January 21st. Dr. De-Kun Li, the lead author and investigator in the study, found that women who consumed 200 milligrams or more per day significantly increased the probability of miscarriage. 200 milligrams is equivalent to about two cups of coffee. Other known risk factors of the mother were taken into consideration, such as smoking habits and age of the mother.

The Keiser Permanente study monitored 1,063 women starting early in their pregnancies. The women self reported their caffeine consumption. Among women who did not consume any caffeine at all, the miscarriage rate was 12.5 percent. Women who consumed 200 mg or more had a miscarriage rate of 25.5 percent. There was also an increased risk for women who consumed less than 200 mg, but Dr. Li says that the increase is very small and not statistically significant. According to the researchers, the increase in miscarriage was unrelated to the source of the caffeine. Coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and sodas all caused the same increase.

Caffeine is difficult for the fetus to metabolize, according to Dr. Li. It can also decrease blood flow to the placenta, constrict arteries, and influence cell development. He recommends that pregnant women give up all caffeine for at least the first three to four months of pregnancy. The majority of miscarriages happen in the first trimester. “If, for whatever reason, they really can’t do it, think of cutting to one cup or switching to decaf,” Dr. Li said. “Stopping caffeine really doesn’t have any downside.”

Doctors have disagreed in the past on the effects of caffeine. Many Ob/Gyns urge their patients to limit caffeine intake, but it is not an across-the-board recommendation. There have been other studies, which have linked caffeine to low birth weight, but experts disagree on the significance of those findings.

Dr. Li’s study addressed an important issue that had not been resolved in previous studies. It is an accepted fact that women who experience morning sickness are far less likely to miscarry. Hormonal changes that cause nausea may contribute to a healthy pregnancy, some researchers said this could cause confusion in caffeine studies. They argued that women may consume less caffeine overall simply because they feel sick. While caffeine studies may show that they did not miscarry due to less caffeine, other researchers conclude that these women had healthier pregnancies to begin with. Dr. Li claims that his research team was able to determine that the risk came from caffeine, and morning sickness can not be used to debunk his research.

There are no current official guidelines by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists on the consumption of caffeine. Dr. Li hopes that his study will change that.