Diet and Disease

New study shows dietary self-monitoring takes less than 15 minutes a day

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Dietary self-monitoring is the best predictor of weight-loss success. But the practice is viewed as so unpleasant and time-consuming, many would-be weight-losers won’t adopt it. New research shows for the first time how little time it actually takes: 14.6 minutes per day on average. The frequency of monitoring, not the time spent on the process, was the key factor for those in the study who successfully lost weight.

I continuously self-monitor using estimates of calories in my head.  I have used online resources in the past which were useful.

Read the source article at this link.

Potential effects of reduced red meat compared with increased fiber intake on glucose metabolism and liver fat content: a randomized and controlled dietary intervention study

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Our data indicate that caloric restriction leads to a marked improvement in glucose metabolism and body-fat composition, including liver-fat content. The marked reduction in liver fat might be mediated via changes in ferritin levels. In the context of caloric restriction, there seems to be no additional beneficial impact of reduced red meat intake and increased fiber intake on the improvement in cardiometabolic risk parameters

Source: Potential effects of reduced red meat compared with increased fiber intake on glucose metabolism and liver fat content: a randomized and controlled dietary intervention study

Scientists uncover how high-fat diet drives colorectal cancer growth

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In mice.

The research, conducted in a mouse model, suggests how lifestyle and genetics converge. The researchers found that animals with an APC mutation, the most common genetic mutation found in humans with colorectal cancer, developed cancer faster when fed a high-fat diet.

The mice with APC mutations developed benign growths called adenomas. In humans, adenomas are common in the intestine and are routinely removed during colonoscopies. These growths normally take decades to turn into malignant adenocarcinomas. Yet the adenomas in these mice quickly turned cancerous when given high-fat diets.

Older Adults Should Eat More Protein

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Even healthy seniors need more protein than when they were younger to help preserve muscle mass, experts suggest. Yet up to one-third of older adults don’t eat an adequate amount due to reduced appetite, dental issues, impaired taste, swallowing problems and limited financial resources. Combined with a tendency to become more sedentary, this puts them at risk of deteriorating muscles, compromised mobility, slower recovery from bouts of illness and the loss of independence.

Here’s the link to the full article.

The KHN article has a number of useful links.  Go check it out.

2018 -The year vegan junk food went mainstream

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As Abigail Higgins laid out earlier this year at Vox, there are a number of reasons for vegans’ relative unpopularity (a 2017 analysis suggested that just “labeling a product as ‘vegan’ causes its sales to drop by 70%”). One is that vegans make people feel bad. “People tend to interpret someone’s choice not to eat meat as condemnation of their own choices, which can make them pretty defensive,” Higgins explained. And this defensiveness isn’t totally misplaced. It’s true that a lot of vegans believe, for any number of reasons, they are doing the right thing, which indeed indicates that they believe a) there is a “right” thing, and b) you’re not doing it.

This article is strikingly blunt.  I loved it.

Statins are more effective for those who follow the Mediterranean diet

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Science Daily article here.  Study abstract here.

Conclusions

MD lowered the risk of all-cause, cardiovascular and CAD/cerebrovascular mortality CVD patients, net of statins. In the same population, statins reduced CVD death risk only in combination with MD. Low-grade inflammation, rather than lipids, is likely to be on the pathway of the interaction between MD and statins towards mortality risk.