When you finish treatment for breast cancer, you might have a mix of feelings. Going through treatment is physically and mentally exhausting, with many side effects from chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, and immunotherapy. Once the treatment phase is over, is there anything you can do to boost your odds of staying cancer-free?
The answer is YES. There’s a lot you can do in your everyday life — in addition to taking any meds your doctor prescribes to help prevent recurrence and keeping up with your screenings.
Cancer experts have long advised breast cancer survivors that the same healthy lifestyle habits that have been shown to lower your chance of developing breast cancer in the first place are also likely to cut the risk of breast cancer recurrence. In the past, that advice was based mostly on expert opinion.
But more recently, studies specifically done on breast cancer survivors have added weight to that opinion. These findings suggest that regular physical activity and a healthy diet that is high in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and beans and low in processed carbohydrates and high in fiber can help guard against breast recurrence and death.
You’ve Got to Move It, Move It
Being physically active has clear benefits.
Women who got regular physical activity before their cancer diagnosis and after treatment are less likely to have their cancer come back or to die compared with those who were inactive. That’s according to a 2020 study from researchers at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, NY.
The study focused on 1,340 women with breast cancer and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) physical activity guidelines for adults, which are to get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity and 2 days of muscle-strengthening activity every week. In the study, women who did that were less likely to have their cancer come back than those who were inactive. They also were less likely to die over the 2 years of the study period. Even those who were considered to be “low active,” meaning that they came close to meeting the recommended activity levels but didn’t quite get there, had improved survival, as well.
Fitness Tips for Breast Cancer Survivors
Your body has been through a lot – from the cancer itself to the treatments for it. No one is expecting you to run a marathon unless you want to. But don’t underestimate the power of regular movement.
Start small. Even a daily 15-minute walk has benefits. “You don’t have to do a lot of intense workouts to benefit,” says Karen Basen-Engquist, PhD, the director of the Center for Energy Balance in Cancer Prevention and Survivorship at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. “It can be hard to begin exercising when you’re experiencing fatigue related to cancer treatment, but moving just a small amount most days can help you reach the point where you can do more.”
Tell your doctor. You may have glossed over the guidance you often see in fitness magazines: “Consult your doctor before starting any exercise program.” Don’t ignore that advice this time. Check with your treatment team to see how much exercise they feel you can handle at this point in your recovery.
Set realistic expectations. If you were running an 8-minute mile before you started chemotherapy, don’t expect to be able to match that pace 3 or 4 months after your last dose.And that’s OK.
Don’t stress your bones and joints. This is especially important if you’ve had bone loss related to chemotherapy. Instead of running or high-impact aerobics, which could add to your risk of fractures, start with walking. Or try swimming, a no-impact way to work your muscles and your cardiovascular system.
Be aware of your ability to balance. If you have neuropathy (tingling or numbness) in your feet or hands after chemotherapy, that can affect your balance. Be careful about activities where you might risk falling. Instead of running on a treadmill, for example, you might prefer to work out on an exercise bicycle.
Make time for strength training. It can make a difference in your daily life. “While we can’t say whether or not it improves overall survival, the evidence shows that breast cancer survivors who do strength training see improvements in their fatigue, quality of life, and physical functioning,” Basen-Engquist says.
What to Eat: Leafy Greens and Smart Carb Intake
What about food? The good news is that the general principles of healthy eating are also beneficial for breast cancer survivors.
Two recent studies suggest that a healthy diet can help breast cancer survivors live longer. Both studies involve data from about a quarter of a million women who took part in two large observational studies called the Nurses’ Health Studies. The studies followed these women, all of whom were under 55 and cancer-free when they began, for up to 30 years. By 2011, about 9,000 of the study participants had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
The first study found that women who ate the greatest amounts of fruits and vegetables after their breast cancer diagnosis had an overall lower risk of dying during the course of the study compared to those who ate the least amounts.
When the researchers dug deeper, they found that it was leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts that were driving most of the benefits. Women who ate almost a full serving of cruciferous vegetables daily had a 13% lower risk of dying from any cause during the study, compared to those who ate almost none of these vegetables. And women who ate almost two servings of leafy greens daily were 20% less likely to die, compared to those who ate almost no greens.
Carbs were key in the second study – specifically, what kinds or types of carbs women ate. It found that high glycemic load carbs — those that cause your blood sugar to spike, like sugary beverages, processed foods like chips and doughnuts, and fast food like cheeseburgers and french fries — posed an increased risk. Breast cancer survivors with high glycemic load diets were more likely to die of breast cancer than those who ate lower glycemic load diets. They also found that women who ate high-fiber diets had a lower risk of death than those who ate diets low in fiber.
The bottom line: Eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
“Taken together, the research suggests that women diagnosed with breast cancer may benefit from eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables and eating less rapidly digested foods sources, such as whole grains and non-starchy vegetables,” says Nigel Brockton, PhD, vice president of research for the American Institute of Cancer Research (AICR).
And there was good news for fans of tofu and edamame: Despite past concerns that the estrogen-like properties of soy might contribute to breast cancer, evidence now shows that the opposite is true. “If anything, soy has a beneficial effect and may even reduce the risk of breast cancer recurrence,” Brockton says.
Maintaining a Healthy Weight
In general, getting regular physical activity and eating a healthy diet can help keep you from gaining too much weight, something that researchers have also found is important after breast cancer.
“There is strong evidence that a higher body mass index after diagnosis is associated with poorer outcomes in breast cancer,” Brockton says. “Avoiding weight gainand doing your best to stay at a healthy weightis important.”
Overall, Brockton says that the AICR’s recommendations about diet and physical activity for cancer prevention are still wise advice for breast cancer survivors to avoid a recurrence. These include:
Maintain a healthy weight.
Be physically active.
Eat more whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and legumes (like beans).
Avoid sugary drinks and limit your intake of fast foods and processed foods high in fats, starches, and sugars.
Newswise — AUSTIN, Minnesota. Las setas comestibles se pueden encontrar en muchos platos, desde omelets hasta salteados, en los que suelen pasar desapercibidas. Las setas comestibles no solo son versátiles, sino que también aportan muchos beneficios a la salud, que van desde la salud del cerebro hasta la prevención del cáncer. Son naturalmente bajas en sodio y grasa, dos elementos que pueden afectar la salud cardíaca cuando se eleva la presión arterial.
Existen numerosos motivos relacionados con la salud para consumir estos hongos casi mágicos, entre ellos:
Prevención del cáncer Los investigadores han descubierto que incorporar cualquier variedad de setas comestibles en la dieta diaria reducirá su riesgo de desarrollar cáncer hasta en un 45 por ciento. ¿Cuántas setas comestibles debería ingerir? La cantidad recomendada es de tan solo dos mitades por día.
Salud del cerebro Las setas comestibles también son una fuente natural de fibra, lo que promueve la salud del intestino nutriéndolo de bacterias “buenas”. Se ha descubierto que estas bacterias son neurotrasmisores o sustancias químicas que envían mensajes entre los nervios. Estos neurotrasmisores favorecen la estabilidad del estado de ánimo, la concentración, la salud del cerebro y el bienestar mental. Una seta comestible que llama mucho la atención cuando se trata de la salud del cerebro es la melena de león. Esta se identifica por su parte superior esponjosa, blanca y larga. La investigación en etapa temprana demuestra que la capacidad de la seta melena de león es proteger contra el daño neurológico y promover el crecimiento del tejido nervioso, que es importante para quienes padecen enfermedad de Alzheimer, esclerosis múltiple y enfermedad de Parkinson.
Aumento de la vitamina D Las setas comestibles que se exponen a la luz ultravioleta, ya sea a través del sol o de una lámpara de luz ultravioleta, contienen vitamina D, un nutriente vital que puede ser difícil de encontrar en la naturaleza. La vitamina D ayuda a que el cuerpo absorba calcio para fortalecer los huesos y los dientes. Tener niveles de vitamina D adecuados también está relacionado con la prevención de la demencia, de la diabetes tipo 2 y del riesgo de muerte prematura.
Fuente de micronutrientes Estas pequeñas cantidades de nutrientes ayudan a tener un sistema inmunitario saludable. Las setas comestibles son una de las mejores fuentes de selenio, que ayuda al cuerpo a producir antioxidantes que pueden reducir el daño celular.
Fuente de vitamina B Las setas comestibles son una buena fuente de vitaminas B2, B3, B5 y B9, también conocidas como folato. Las vitaminas B son fundamentales para el crecimiento y la formación de las células. Esto significa que su cabello, su piel y sus uñas pueden estar más sanos, como también su cerebro y su corazón.
Aumento del calcio y el potasio Un estudio reciente de Mayo Clinic demostró que sumar más calcio y potasio a su dieta podría prevenir la formación y reaparición de cálculos renales.
Cómo usar las setas comestibles en las comidas
Las setas comestibles que podrían resultarle más conocidas son los champiñones. Pero existen miles de variedades de setas comestibles con diversas formas, tamaños y colores. Las setas comestibles crecen de manera silvestre, pero puede ser difícil identificar cuáles son las variedades aptas para consumo alimentario, por lo que es mejor comprar las variedades cultivadas que se encuentran en el supermercado.
El sabor y la textura varían según el tipo de seta comestible del que se trate. Los champiñones o setas comestibles cremini tienen un sabor más leve y una textura más suave que las setas comestibles shiitake, que son más duras y tienen un sabor más terroso. Si bien las setas comestibles enlatadas y frescas tienen beneficios para la salud, las setas comestibles frescas tienen diferente textura.
Una característica particular de las setas comestibles es que aportan umami, vocablo japonés que significa sabroso, a las comidas. El umami suele considerarse el quinto sabor básico junto con lo dulce, lo ácido, lo salado y lo amargo. Este sabor parecido al consomé permite que sea una buena alternativa a la carne. Intente reemplazar de un cuarto a la mitad de la carne en una receta con setas comestibles troceadas. Agregue setas comestibles a diversas variedades de platos, incluidas sopas, ensaladas, cazuelas y fideos.
Antes de usarlas crudas o de prepararlas para cocinarlas, limpie delicadamente las setas comestibles con agua corriente para eliminar la tierra o use una toalla de papel húmeda.
Si necesita un poco de inspiración mientras explora los beneficios para la salud y la versatilidad de las setas comestibles, pruebe estas recetas de Mayo Clinic.
Información sobre Mayo Clinic Mayo Clinic es una organización sin fines de lucro, dedicada a innovar la práctica clínica, la educación y la investigación, así como a ofrecer pericia, compasión y respuestas a todos los que necesitan recobrar la salud. Visite la Red Informativa de Mayo Clinic para leer más noticias sobre Mayo Clinic.
Newswise — An estimated 53 million people in the U.S. turned to food banks and community programs for help putting food on the table in 2021. In recent decades, food banks have adopted policies and practices to make sure people not only have access to food but also healthy and nutritious food.
But until now, food banks have had few ways to evaluate those initiatives.
University of California, Davis, Assistant Professor of Cooperative Extension Cassandra Nguyen led a team of researchers to develop the Food Bank Health and Nutrition Assessment to address that concern. Their findings were published in the journal Public Health Nutrition.
“This tool will allow food banks to reflect on their current practices and determine whether they can adopt additional strategies to promote nutrition and health. It also serves as a benchmark, which they can use to track their progress over time,” said Nguyen, with the UC Davis Department of Nutrition.
Nutrition policy is more than what’s on the shelf
Food banks face some common challenges in promoting nutrition, health and equity. While food banks could assess the nutritional quality of their inventory, Nguyen said promoting nutrition requires more than knowing the types of food on the shelf.
“Food banks can have nutrition policies that outline where they source food and which foods they prioritize when funding is available. They can also ensure that food pantry clients are either represented on advisory boards or are able to provide feedback about foods they would like to receive,” Nguyen said.
Additionally, food banks can take steps to make sure nutrition education materials and information about federal assistance programs for health and nutrition are available in languages spoken by recipients.
Partnerships with outside organizations and local farmers can also increase the variety and availability of nutritious foods. Food banks with diverse connections may also adapt better to unexpected spikes in need, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Food Bank Health and Nutrition Assessment was designed to evaluate these and additional objectives so food banks can identify areas of success as well as potential strategies they hadn’t considered before.
Importance of data
“By having data from this assessment to show that some practices to promote nutrition and health may be difficult to implement, several food banks can raise their voices to advocate for policy changes,” Nguyen said.
Food banks with Feeding America and the Midwest Food Bank in four Midwestern states participated in the initial development of the Food Bank Health and Nutrition Assessment. In this small initial sample, most food banks asked food recipients about their preferences or whether diet-related diseases (for example, diabetes) were common, but few had current or former charitable food recipients on advisory boards.
The assessment is available for free through Feeding America, the largest nonprofit organization supporting the charitable food system, and online through the University of Illinois Extension. Food bank staff and partnering community-based professionals such as extension staff can use the assessment to improve promotion of nutrition and health.
Other authors include Caitlin Kownacki, Veronica Skaradzinski, Kaitlyn Streitmatter, Stephanie Acevedo and Jennifer McCaffrey with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Stephen D. Ericson with Feeding Illinois; and Jessica E. Hager with Feeding America.
Funding for the research was supported by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education, or SNAP-Ed, in Illinois.
March 14, 2023 – Sticking closely to the Mediterranean diet – rich in healthy fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grains, and seafood – may help protect the aging brain.
In a large study of older adults, close following of a Mediterranean diet was tied to a 23% lower risk of getting dementia over an average of 9 years.
This was true even in people with genes that make them more likely to have dementia, study investigator Oliver Shannon, PhD, with Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, U.K., tells WebMD.
The study was published online March 14 in the journal BMC Medicine.
Diet may be an important risk factor for dementia. Focusing on diet, and eating healthier, could be targeted to prevent or cut the risk of the memory-robbing disease. Yet, prior studies exploring the impact of the Mediterranean diet have typically been limited in size, and few have explored the impact of one’s genetic makeup.
In the new study, researchers looked at genetic and dietary data for more than 60,000 adults in the United Kingdom who were 60 and older. Over the course of about 9 years, 882 got dementia.
People who ate mostly the Mediterranean diet had a 23% lower risk of dementia, compared to peers who were least careful about following the diet plan. Sticking closely to the largely plant-based diet was equal to a 0.55% reduction in risk of getting dementia.
This was the case regardless of a person’s individual genetic risk profile.
“This is one of the largest studies in this area to date and, importantly, we found that even for those with higher genetic risk, having a more Mediterranean-like diet reduced the likelihood of developing dementia,” Shannon says.
In a statement, Susan Mitchell, PhD, with Alzheimer’s Research UK, who was not involved in the study, said there is a “wealth of evidence that eating a healthy, balanced diet can help reduce the risk of cognitive decline. But evidence for specific diets is much less clear cut.”
“This new, large study adds to this overall picture, but it only drew on data from people with white, British or Irish ancestry,” she said.
“More research is needed to build on its intriguing findings, and uncover whether these reported benefits also translate to minority communities, where historically dementia has often been misunderstood and highly stigmatized, and where awareness of how people can reduce their risk is low,” Mitchell said.
The new study adds to research published earlier this month, which found that people who most closely followed the Mediterranean diet or the brain-focused MIND diet had fewer signs of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease in their brain after they died.
I started to get coughs and chest pain that seemed to come out of nowhere. Exercise got a lot harder. I was 26 and ran a fitness boot camp, so I was relatively fit. But one day, I couldn’t keep up with the group during a warm-up run.
That was 2012, when I found out that I have dilated cardiomyopathy. That means my heart is bigger than normal and doesn’t pump blood very well. That led to advanced congestive heart failure. Later on, my doctor told me my heart condition — left ventricular non-compaction cardiomyopathy (LVNC) — is congenital.
My diagnosis came as a shock. But my mindset shifted when I learned I was born with a heart problem. I hadn’t been living with heart disease for 3 years. I’d been living with it my whole life. That’s when I stopped fighting my condition and learned to embrace it.
Here’s how.
Finding My Calm
I needed to adjust to my medication, of course. But my first real challenge was mental. I was young. I had big plans and ideas. And my diagnosis felt like I was facing death.
Independence comes naturally to me, so I tried to regroup within myself. I’d go quiet when I got stressed or tired. I had to learn to share what was going on, which was a challenge. I was used to being the one who helped others. Sometimes I didn’t need anyone to do anything for me. But it was important that my family or others knew why I needed space or a break.
I also had to learn how to say no to myself. It’s OK to be in my head every now and then. But there was a time when I needed to force myself to get out of bed, to socialize, to make friends, and to be a part of the community. In time, I realized those things made me happier.
My two therapists have also been a big help. I see a social worker from the hospital, who’s taught me how to reframe life with a chronic illness. And I meet with a Black counselor, who’s helped me from a cultural standpoint.
I’m also Muslim, and I try to pray once a day. On top of that, I do a lot of guided meditations. I’ll do a session in the morning and before I go to sleep at night. I’ll take a moment in the middle of the day if I need to.
My goal is to keep my stress levels low, which is why I mediate often. But when I do get overwhelmed, the tools and habits I’ve learned — through therapy and meditation — come naturally. It’s almost a reflex.
A New Exercise Routine
Early on, I still wanted to do things like play soccer with my friends. But then I’d be tired for the rest of the day. One of my biggest symptoms was low energy, so this up and down wasn’t working. But I wanted to stay as physically fit as possible. And not just for my body. Exercise was, and still is, a good way to ease stress and decompress.
I learned to work out safely with a personal trainer. They taught me how to exercise in a more stable way. For example, I started to build muscle by doing more reps with light weights, instead of heavy lifting. In my case, this kind of approach helped. My energy started coming back.
Here’s what my physical activity looks like these days:
I exercise regularly. I try to do 30 to 60 minutes of strength training twice a week. And I aim for 8,000 to 10,000 steps a day. But I mix up my aerobic activity up, so I don’t get bored.
For cardio, I might:
Walk along the river
Ride my bike in or outdoors
Pace around my basement
Use the treadmill in my house — my least favorite
I measure and track my activity. This helps me meet my goals and stay within my physical limits. I use a wearable fitness tracker. But you could use your phone.
I set realistic goals. When I was very sick, it didn’t make sense to walk 30 minutes a day. Instead, I’d walk up and down the stairs. Then I’d rest. I needed to give my body time to heal. As I got better, I added more activity — maybe I’d load the dishwasher and go up and down the stairs a few times.
I use my cardiac rehab lessons. I learned my safety zones. And one day, the physical therapist pointed out that I hold my breath when I do certain exercises. Those are the kinds of things I needed to be more mindful about, and coaching helped.
I do group activities. I challenge myself with martial arts. We meet twice a week. The class helps me understand my stamina and helps my flexibility.
Nutrition Changes
I never drank alcohol or smoked. And I’m not big on juice, soda, or caffeine. But I wanted to be as healthy as possible. I reached out to a nutritionist to find the best way to approach my condition.
The first thing I learned was to go easy on the salt. Luckily, that wasn’t hard for me. I didn’t go for a low-salt diet, but I stopped adding extra sodium to my food. And I tried to minimize how much I ate out.
Now, I get medical meals delivered weekly. I also keep other essentials stocked. That includes lots of fruits and vegetables, along with eggs, oatmeal or muesli, or heart-healthy ingredients for a sandwich. And I don’t skip meals because I don’t want to get too hungry. For starters, that’s when you can’t think clearly. But that’s also when you end up eating whatever you can find.
How much water I drink is also important. I measure it out. Everyone is different, but my limit is about 84 ounces a day. During hot days, my health care team says I should drink more. I might go up to about 105 ounces a day.
I stick with my healthy diet as much as possible, and I avoid added sugar or salt most of the time. That leaves me with some space for the less healthy stuff — fast food, chocolate, cake — and I don’t worry too much when I splurge.
Going Forward
There was a time when I wasn’t sure what caused my heart problems. I felt guilty that maybe I’d done something wrong. But my heart muscle never really formed the right way. It’s not possible for me to get physically better. I’m still on the list for a heart transplant. But right now, I’m living with a left ventricular assist device (LVAD).
Along with my LVAD, my lifestyle changes have boosted my energy and mood. When I feel good — mentally, physically, and spiritually — I can keep up with my kids and be a better husband and brother.
I also have bi-weekly calls with people in the heart disease community. We talk about what it’s like to personally live with a heart condition or to have family members or friends who do. Sometimes there are tears. But there’s also laughter and even singing. Those moments remind us that we’re more than patients. We’re here to help each other heal.
March 7, 2023 — If you think the biggest risk factor to good health is smoking or genetics, think again.
According to Stephen Kopecky, MD, a preventive cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic, “nutrition is now the number one cause of early death and early disease in our country and the world.” Moreover, he says that while having genes for disease will increase your risk by 30% to 40%, having a bad lifestyle for disease will increase your risk by 300% to 400%.
About 20 years ago, Kopecky says, the cause of death worldwide changed from infection to non-infection (like non-communicable diseases). “In those last 20 years, that’s grown in terms of what kills us and what gets us sick,” he says. “The three big non-communicable diseases are heart disease, cancer, and rapidly rising is Alzheimer’s. But there’s also diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure — all those things are also related to diet.”
Forty-eight-year-old James, of Fredericksburg, VA, knows this all too well. James asked that his last name not be printed, to protect his privacy. For the last 30 years, he’s been managing type 1 diabetes and complications of insulin resistance, along with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, thyroid disease, and low testosterone. As a former Division 1 college athlete, James exercised regularly and ate what he believed to be a responsible diet.
“Those weirdos in the gym at 5 a.m. who eat chicken salads for every lunch? Yeah, that’s me,” says James.
But he went from a playing weight of 202 pounds to 320 pounds, despite continuing to lift weights and do cardiovascular exercise at least 5 days a week. “Whenever I went to the doctor and stepped on the scale, I got skeptical looks when I made claims of ‘exercising and eating right.’ In all honesty, I thought I was,” says James, noting he followed a low-carb, high-protein diet. “But I didn’t count calories or consider the impact of fat on my already insulin-resistant body,” he says.
After visiting many health professionals, James finally found success with Nancy Farrell Allen, a registered dietitian nutritionist.
Previous doctors applauded his diet, but Allen explained that his insulin resistance was linked to the amount of fat James consumed. “The more fat in my system, the more insulin I needed to inject,” he says. “The more insulin I injected, the more weight I’d gain. The more weight I’d gain, the more insulin I’d inject, continuing this regrettable cycle.”
Allen suggested he shift his diet to a more balanced approach, with a strict eye on fat. “She completely changed my way of thinking about food, broke my belief that all carbs are bad, helped me identify my daily caloric needs, and focused me on eating a balanced diet enriched with fiber,” says James, who then lost 45 pounds in 3 months. “I found myself having more energy, sleeping better, focusing better, and taking less insulin than I had in nearly 20 years,” he says.
Another patient, Sheila Jalili of Miami, took a proactive approach to her health when she turned 40, getting some tests and lab work done for a baseline comparison. “My BMI was around 20, I exercise every day, and I don’t have any diseases in my family,” Jalili says, noting everything checked out fine.
She continued her annual checkups and tests, noticing her triglycerides and cholesterol numbers increasing. When her cholesterol reached alarming levels and her triglycerides skyrocketed to 1,230, she met with Kopecky, the Mayo Clinic cardiologist, who prescribed fish oil and asked about her diet. Jalili started tracking what she ate and did an exhaustive review of her fridge contents, noting the sodium levels, cholesterol levels, and fat levels in the foods.
To her surprise, she discovered she ate a lot of unhealthy carbs and fats. “I went into overload. I changed everything. I did so much research,” she says. After 42 days of eating extremely healthy, she dropped her total cholesterol by about 100, halved her HDL, and reduced her triglycerides from 1,238 to 176.
A bad lifestyle often starts with what you eat — and what you don’t. Even if you think you’re eating healthy, you might want to revisit your diet. In particular, reconsider ultra-processed foods (like doughnuts, hot dogs, and fast-food burgers). Though convenient and affordable, they’re inflammatory and, over time, can cause many health issues.
“It bothers our tissues, our heart, our arteries, our brains, our pancreas, our liver, and our lungs, and that leads to disease,” Kopecky says. “It could be in the brain with Alzheimer’s, the heart with coronary artery disease, or cancers elsewhere.”
Ideally, you’d immediately overhaul an unhealthy diet. But that’s not a reality for most people. Making sweeping changes all at once can feel overwhelming. Take small steps instead.
Baby-Step Your Way to a Healthier Diet
Before making any dietary changes, Selvi Rajagopal, MD, MPH, advises having a conversation with your health care provider to figure out your specific health status. Rajagopal, assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, says that, generally speaking, everyone will benefit from eating a balanced, healthy diet filled with a variety of nutrient-rich foods.
That includes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein, low-fat/fat-free dairy, and healthy fats. However, talking with your doctor can help you identify any specific nutrient deficiencies, health issues, and lifestyle factors that need to be addressed. Then you can devise a healthy eating plan that works specifically for your needs.
Revamp how you organize your refrigerator. Most refrigerators put two opaque drawers labeled “Fruits” and “Vegetables” at the bottom, where you’re least likely to see them. Kopecky advises moving your produce to eye level and put the less-healthy options in those bottom drawers. “When we open the fridge, that’s what we see, and that’s what we tend to eat,” he says.
Change your perspective. “There isn’t one healthy weight or one healthy size,” says Rajagopal. Don’t aim for a number on the scale or a certain BMI or certain clothing size. Every body is different, not only in shape and size, but in health risk factors. Also, many people feel really overwhelmed trying to “be healthy.” Rajagopal says, “Healthy is just trying to do something to improve your health, and that improvement can be really small.”
Understand how to read food labels. Allen takes every patient to the grocery store to read and understand food labeling and to highlight different foods. She shares the guidelines below with her patients.
Fat: Low-fat foods contain 3 grams of fat or less per serving.
Sugar: Four grams equal 1 teaspoon. When a serving of sugar lists 12 grams of sugar in a 2/3-cup serving, that means it contains roughly 3teaspoonsof sugar.
Fiber: A naturally high-fiber food can contain about 5 grams of fiber per serving.
Sodium: A low-sodium food contains less than or equal to 140 milligrams of sodium per serving.
Protein: Seven grams of protein equal about 1 ounce of protein.
This approach is particularly important as the FDA is exploring a change in which foods can be labeled as healthy. The agency in September unveiled a proposed rule to try and counter the fact that, as the agency claims, more than 80% of people in the U.S. aren’t eating enough vegetables, fruit, and dairy. And most people consume too much added sugars, saturated fat, and sodium.
Under the proposed rule, in order to be labeled “healthy” on food packaging, products must contain “a certain meaningful amount” of food from at least one of the food groups or subgroups (e.g., fruit, vegetable, dairy, etc.) recommended by the agency’s dietary guidelines.
They must also stick to specific limits for certain nutrients, such as saturated fat, sodium, and added sugars.
Breakfast cereals, for example, would need to contain 0.75 ounces of whole grains and contain no more than 1 gram of saturated fat, 230 milligrams of sodium, and 2.5 grams of added sugars to qualify, the agency said.
Don’t fear carbs or fat! Your body needs both to survive, as carbs help fuel your body and fat helps your body absorb fat-soluble nutrients like vitamins A, D, and E. But not all carbs or fats are equal. Choose complex carbohydrates found naturally in plant-based foods (like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains) over simple carbohydrates often found in processed foods (like white bread, enriched pasta, and white rice).
Similarly, strive to include healthy, unsaturated fats (including polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats) found in foods such as fatty fish, vegetable oils, avocadoes, and some seeds and nuts. Avoid foods with unhealthy saturated and trans fats found primarily in animal products (such as meat, eggs, high-fat dairy) and highly processed foods (frozen pizza and microwave popcorn). “Having a baseline understanding of what this means makes you a much savvier consumer,” says Rajagopal, who suggests going to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website to learn about these food components.
Adopt healthier cooking methods. Maybe you’re buying healthy foods but preparing them in unhealthy ways. That lean, skinless chicken breast just got a lot less healthy once you breaded it, deep-fried it, and smothered it with cheese. Allen suggests lighter, leaner techniques such as baking, roasting, grilling, and steaming. “Frying, sautéing, breading, au gratin, buttery, and Alfredo all add additional calories to burn off,” says Allen.
Start small. Eliminate the all-or-nothing thinking, such as, “I want to cut out all sugar” or “I want to cook all my meals at home.”
If you’ve been eating sugar your whole life or eating dinner out 5 nights a week, eliminating this bad habit at once is a huge undertaking. Instead, start small. For instance, reduce one sugary food item you frequently eat.
“Maybe it’s soda,” says Rajagopal. “Maybe you go from four cans of soda a day to two cans. Make one change and see how it goes for a week or two.”
Ditto for cooking — aim to add one more home-cooked meal a week rather than trying to cook at home 7 days a week. She also advises bringing in an accountability buddy to help you stay on track.
Take one bite. “If you take a bite of a ground meat or sausage and replace that with a bite of something that’s a little healthier — like black beans or a vegetable — then, after doing this for a couple of years, that actually reduces your risk of heart attack and reduces your risk in the long-term of cancers and Alzheimer’s,” advises Kopecky. “Literally one bite difference.”
By making small, consistent changes, they can have a big impact over time. Pick one tip that resonates most, implement it, and stick to it until it becomes second nature. Once mastered, move on to another tip, building on that foundation of success.
Bempedoic acid may be an alternative for people who need to lower their cholesterol but can’t or won’t take statins, according to a large study published Saturday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Statins are the most commonly prescribed cholesterol-lowering drugs that help lower what’s known as the “bad” cholesterol, or low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol in the blood; more than 90% of adults who take a cholesterol-lowering medicine use a statin, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Statins are considered safe and effective, but there are millions of people who cannot or will not take them. For some people it causes intense muscle pain. Past research has shown anywhere between 7% and 29% of patients who need to lower cholesterol do not tolerate statins, according Dr. Steven Nissen, a cardiologist and researcher at the Cleveland Clinic and co-author of the new study.
“I see heart patients that come in with terrible histories, multiple myocardial infarction, sometimes bypass surgery, many stents and they say, ‘Doctor, I’ve tried multiple statins, but whenever I take a statin, my muscles hurt, or they’re weak. I can’t walk upstairs. I just can’t tolerate these drugs,’ ” Nissen said. “We do need alternatives for these patients.”
Doctors have a few options, including ezetimibe and a monoclonal antibody called a proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9, or PCSK9 inhibitors for short.
Bempedoic acid, sold under the name Nexletol, was designed specifically to treat statin-intolerant patients. The FDA approved it for this purpose in 2020, but the effects of the drug on heart health had not been fully assessed until this large trial.The new study was fundedin part by Esperion Therapeutics, the maker of Nexletol.
For the study, which was presented Saturday at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session with the World Congress of Cardiology, Nissen and his colleagues enrolled 13,970 patients from 32 countries.
All of the patients were statin intolerant, typically due to musculoskeletal adverse effects. Patients had to sign an agreement that they couldn’t tolerate statins “even though I know they would reduce my risk of a heart attack or stroke or death,” and providers signed a similar statement.
The patients were then randomized into two groups. One was treated with bempedoic acid, the other was given a placebo, which does nothing. Researchers then followed up with those patients for up to nearly five years. The number of men and women in the trial were mostly evenly divided, and most participants, some 91%, were White, and 17% were Hispanic or Latino.
The drug works in a similar way that statins do, by drawing cholesterol out of a waxy substance called plaque that can build up in the walls of the arteries and interfere with the blood flow to the heart. If there is too much plaque buildup, it can lead to a heart attack or stroke.
But bempedoic acid is only activated in the liver, unlike a statin, so it is unlikely to cause muscle aches, Nissen said.
In the trial, investigators found that bempedoic acid was well-tolerated and the percent reduction in the “bad” cholesterol was greater with bempedoic acid than placebo by 21.7%.
The risk of cardiovascular events – including death, stroke, heart attack and coronary revascularization, a procedure or surgery to improve blood flow to the heart – was 13% lower with bempedoic acid than with placebo over a median of 3.4 years.
“The drug worked in primary and secondary prevention patients – that is, patients that had had event and patients who were very high risk for a first event. There were a lot of diabetics. These were very high risk people,” Nissen said. “So the drug met its expectations and probably did a lot better than a lot of people thought it would do.”
In the group that took bempedoic acid, there were a few more cases of gout and gallstones, compared with people who took a placebo.
“The number is small, and weighing that against a heart attack, I think most people would say, ‘OK I’d rather have a little gout attack,’ ” Nissen said.
Bempedoic acid had noobserved effect on mortality, but that may be because the observation period was too short to tell if it had that kind of impact. Earlier trials on statins showed the same; it was only after there were multiple studies on statins that scientists were able to show an impact on mortality.
Dr. Howard Weintraub, a cardiologist at NYU Langone Health who did not work on this study, said that while he knows some people will not consider a medication successful unless it reduces mortality, he thinks that is short-sighted.
“I think there’s more to doing medicine then counting body bags,” Weintraub said.”Preventing things that can be life changing, crippling, and certainly change your quality of life forever going forward, and your cost of doing things going forward, I think is a good thing.”
He was pleased to see the results of this trial, especially since the people in this study are often what he called “forgotten individuals” – the millions who could benefit from lowering their cholesterol, but can’t take statins.
“It’s not like their LDL was 180 or 190 or 230, their LDL was 139. This is about average in our country,” Weintraub said. He said often doctors will just tell those patients to watch their diet, but he thinks this suggests they would benefit from medication.
“Both groups primary and secondary prevention got benefit, which I think is impressive with the modest amount of LDL reduction,” Weintraub said.
There are some limitations to this trial. It was narrowly focused on patients with a known statin intolerance. Nissen said the trial wasnot designed todetermine whether bempedoic acid could be an alternative to statins.
“Statins are the gold standard. They are the cornerstone. The purpose of this study was not to replace statins, but to allow an alternative therapy for people who simply cannot take them,” Nissen said.
Bempedoic acid is a much more expensive drug than a statin. There are generic versions of statins and some cost only a few dollars. Bempedoic acid, on the other hand, has no generic alternative and a 30-day supply can cost more than $400, according to GoodRx.
“I think what insurance companies need to recognize that even though this drug is going to cost more than statins, having a heart attack or a stroke or needing a stent is expensive. A 23% reduction in (myocardial infarctions) is a considerable reduction,” Weintraub said.
In an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine that accompanied the study, Dr. John H. Alexander, who works in the division of cardiology at Duke Clinical Research Institute, Duke Health, Durham said that doctors should take these results into consideration when treating patients with high cholesterol who can’t take statins.
“The benefits of bempedoic acid are now clearer, and it is now our responsibility to translate this information into better primary and secondary prevention for more at-risk patients, who will, as a result, benefit from fewer cardiovascular events,” Alexander wrote.
Dr. Manesh Patel, a cardiologist and volunteer with the American Heart Association who was not a part of the study, said that providers are already prescribing bempedoic acid for some patients, but with this new research, he thinks they will quickly be used with more statin-intolerant patients.
“We continue to see that if we can lower your LDL significantly, we improve people’s cardiovascular health. And so we need as many different arrows in our quiver to try to get that done,” Patel said.
Heart disease is the No. 1 killer for men and women in the world. One person dies every 34 seconds in the US from cardiovascular disease, according to the CDC. About 697,000 people in the US died from heart disease in 2020 alone – about the same number as the population of Oklahoma City.
“Given the number of people that are eligible for statins, which are tens of millions of patients already, the number of people who cannot tolerate statins is in the millions,” Nissen said. “This is a big public health problem and I think we’ve come up with something that directly addresses this.”
Newswise — New guidelines released by the Food and Drug Administration can help consumers better understand nutritional difference between plant-based and dairy milks, according to a food science expert.
“It’s important for consumers to educate themselves about what food labels tell us about what we are putting into our bodies. The largest nutritional differences are with protein and carbohydrates,” says Wright. “While plant-based beverages might contain as much protein as dairy milk, the key piece of information that consumers don’t always know is that not all protein is equal when it comes to human digestion.”
Wright explains that all sources of protein have a PDCAAS, or protein digestibility-correctedamino acid score. This method evaluates the quality of a protein based on the amino acid requirements for humans and their ability to digest it.
“The major components making up carbohydrates in plant-based milks are fiber and sugar. Dairy milks have no fiber, so all of the carbohydrates come from sugars. The key takeaway here is that almost 100 percent of the sugar in plant-based beverages are added sugars,” says Wright.
“The recent FDA decision to add to the nutrition facts panel makes a distinction between natural sugars (like the lactose in milk) and added sugars (like the cane sugar added to sweetened plant-based milks). Milk sugar (lactose) provides a nutritional benefit to humans that cane sugar does not,” says Wright.
Wright explains that most of the plant-based milk options — oat, almond, rice, coconut, hemp, cashew, hazelnut, soy, pea, flaxseed, and sesame — have similar nutrition profiles. “Coconut can have more fat than others, soy has more protein than the rest, sodium content is very consistent among all, oat and hazelnut can have more sugars, oat can have more calories than some.”
“When you look at the list of sources, it’s important to remember that there are many potential allergens represented, including tree nuts, soy and sesame,” says Wright. “Many consumers leave dairy milk because of lactose intolerance, but may find that they are sensitive to the proteins in plant-based products as well. Reading and understanding labels is important for that reason.”
About Wright
Melissa Wright is director of the Food Producer Technical Assistant Network at Virginia Tech, which supports the food entrepreneur by assisting with starting a food business, nutrition label content, food safety analysis, and pertinent food regulations. The program’s goal is to help Virginia’s food-processing industry produce high-quality, safe, and innovative food products. As part of the Virginia Cooperative Extension network in the Department of Food Science and Technology under the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the program provides affordable and valuable assistance to help food entrepreneurs and businesses bring their products to market of food products produced in Virginia and beyond.
What: Virtual Press Briefing on New Study of Low- and No-Calorie Sweeteners and Glycemic Response.
When: Tuesday, February 21 2022 at 1:00 PM EST
Who: Dr. Tauseef Khan, Research Associate in Epidemiology at the University of Toronto
Details:
Public health organizations that are working to reduce intake levels of sugars have suggested that sweetness in the diet be reduced (including from both sugars and low-calorie sweeteners), hypothesizing that consumption of sweet-tasting foods leads to a desire for more sweets.
This Newswise Live Event will discuss the effects of dietary sweeteners and overall diet quality on metabolic and endocrine health.
Dr. Khan from the University of Toronto will participate in the expert panel and discuss the different aspects of these effects, with questions prepared by Newswise editors and submissions from media attendees.
TRANSCRIPT
Thom: Okay, welcome to today’s Newswise live event. We’re here to talk about no-calorie sweeteners and their effect on health. We have with us today, Dr. Tauseef Khan. He’s a research associate in epidemiology at the University of Toronto. And he’s also affiliated with IAFNS.
We’ll get started with Dr. Khan and please Dr. Khan, if you would, tell us a little bit about the study that you’re working on and the results here relating to these no-calorie sweeteners. And how is this different from other papers and studies about these sorts of topics?
Dr. Khan: So, as we know that sugars have emerged as a dominant nutrient of concern and the call for its reduction is presented by all health agencies and nutrition organizations, and dietary guidelines. And the focus has been – so one thing that can replace those excess calories or excess sugars is low-calorie sweeteners. However, low-calorie sweeteners have been – in the media, there has been a certain amount of information given which might hint at harm. So that attention needs to be addressed. Is there harm with the low-calorie sweeteners? And some proposed mechanisms are that they affect sweet taste receptors, which impair your glucose response, and insulin response, or if you eat them with carbohydrates, then there is another acute response leading to glucose intolerance. So, we wanted to answer these concerns actually.
First of all, many of these papers or studies did not consider that these low-calorie sweeteners are distinct compounds. So, an effect of one was attributed to all others. Plus, also there are methodological design issues with many of these studies. So how they are taken, what are they taken with, and what are they compared to? So, we want to address that question.
So, we undertook a systematic review and meta-analysis to compare non-nutritional sweetened beverages to water and also to caloric sweeteners.
So, recent evidence shows that low-calorie sweeteners can replace those calories. However, the question is there is some concern regarding low-calorie sweeteners – Or I would call them non-nutritive sweeteners over here because that’s the name that we have used, the term we have used in the paper.
So, eight had been approved by the FDA and the attention has been, as I described, that these non-nutritive sweeteners may affect sweet taste receptors or glucose intolerance, or they might lead to glucose intolerance and then the results are usually given. So, one study is done and it’s attributed to all others.
So, we want to address those concerns.
So, what we did was- we did a systematic review and network meta-analysis. So, it’s a kind of a review of all acute studies, all studies which looked at the intake of non-nutritive sweeteners in the beverage form in which the non-nutritive sweetener was either single or blend, compared them to water and sugary beverages. And the outcomes we looked at were glucose, insulin, and all other endocrine responses that are related to sweet taste or weight gain or appetite.
We looked at three different kinds of studies and one was uncoupling intervention. So where non-nutritive sweetened beverages are consumed without any calories. So, you consume them in water compared to a sugary beverage or compared to water. So, they’re not consumed with any calories.
Then the second one was coupling interventions with non-nutritive sweetened beverages consumed with calories. And that can answer the specific question that we want to ask.
And another one was the delayed coupling where intervention with non-nutritive sweetened beverages is taken first and within 15 minutes, or there’s a delay of up to 15 minutes and then a meal is taken afterwards. So this answers the question – so if non-nutritive – do they affect these various responses or outcomes of these endocrine hormonal factors and can they then affect your meal response afterwards? This is a result which is a network meta-analysis. So, the advantage of – I’ll just explain what it is.
So, these are individual – so this is a big network plot where we have compared the individual sweeteners are here on the axis that is coming down and their individual non-nutritive sweeteners, then blends are here, then water, and these are caloric sweeteners which mean either glucose, sucrose or fructose.
So, what’s happening is every bar shows you a comparison. So, aspartame over here is compared to glucose or sucralose is compared to ASK and aspartame or saccharin is compared to over here to water. So, network meta-analysis allows us to compare each non-nutritive sweetener to another. So, every comparison can be compared to another, even if in the original studies they haven’t been compared with each other. And what we see is – anything that is bold is significant effect or anything that is blue is in a significant effect that is non-trivial. So, meaning that they are significant and that response actually needs attention. So, what we see is between the individual non-nutritive sweeteners and water, there’s no difference. They’re actually acting similarly. There is slight deviations here but those are non-trivial or unimportant. However, we see a large difference between the sweeteners and the non-nutritive sweeteners and caloric sweeteners. What it shows is compared to caloric sweeteners and non-nutritive sweeteners are acting similar to water and only caloric sweeteners are increasing glucose response. And this was in 14 trials. And if we see a coupling intervention where non-nutritive sweetener was given with calories, there is no difference between the control arm and the non-nutritive sweetener arm. And this is just one for glucose but we have this for all outcomes. I’m just showing you for glucose but we have all these outcomes, more than 11 outcomes that we have compared.
Delayed coupling where the non-nutritive sweetener is given slightly before the calories and calories are taken afterwards. We see no difference between all these non-nutritive sweeteners and sweetener blends and water. So, they’re very similar to water. They’re inert. They have no effect on the subsequent glucose response at all with meals.
So, what do we find?
So, we found that non-nutritive sweetener beverages had no effect on acute glucose, insulin or other endocrine response markers like GLP-1, GIP, PYY, ghrelin, or glucose. These are all appetite or food-related endocrine factors or hormonal factors.
Non-nutritive sweeteners were similar to water. The findings are similar to previous reviews looking at this topic, ghrelin, Nicole and Tucker. So, these studies looked at either glucose or insulin but we have looked at all the other outcomes too. The results are similar to recently published systematic reviews in which rigorous methods were used. These were from our group also last year, Lee 2022, which was cohort studies and Maglin 2022, which was RCTs. And we show a similar difference of caloric versus non-nutritive sweeteners.
Non-nutritive sweeteners will be similar to water.
Our results differ from select narrative reviews, in vitro studies and human studies as they failed to consider key methodological and design issues, which I have described earlier like – a pattern of intake. So, these are three patterns we are looking at, plus the type of non-nutritive sweeteners and the comparator. Are you comparing it to another non-nutritive sweetener? Are you comparing it to blend? Are you comparing it to glucose? Are you comparing it to sucrose? So, all this actually matters.
This paper actually answers these two very important questions that are raised for acute studies, especially acute responses. One is that there’s uncoupling a sweet taste from caloric content because of non-nutritive sweeteners that disrupt metabolic consequences of sweet taste – through hormonal changes.
So, what it says is, that when you take non-nutritive sweeteners there are no calories involved. The body actually acts differently, and in that uncoupling, then the body then has to have a different response and it actually eats – there’s a different glucose or hormonal response because of that sweet taste disruption. However, when we looked at non-nutritive sweeteners uncoupled from calories, they did not elicit any different response. It was similar to water and I haven’t shown this but we also had a subset of people with type two diabetes and they showed the same result.
So, this actually answers this sweet and coupling hypothesis.
Another hypothesis that is presented in the literature is the non-nutritive sweeteners might alter metabolism when consumed along with carbohydrates. So, on their own they are fine but if you eat them with carbohydrates they have a different response and that is why they might be harmful. However, when we looked at that question – when we looked at the coupled and the delayed coupling studies, delayed coupling was a preload and non-nutritive sweeteners had taken preload. They did not produce any alteration in acute glucose or other metabolic responses and the effect was similar to water.
So, we answered these two very important questions that are being raised in literature.
In conclusion, that is my final slide, no differences in acute metabolic and endocrine responses were shown. These metabolic responses were glucose. These are the ones that regulate glucose of food intake. When we compared non-nutritious sweeteners, singles or blends with water – across three patterns of intake. Our study actually supports the use of non-nutritious sweetened beverages and an alternative replacement strategy for sugar-sweetened beverages similar to water.
That ends my presentation and thank you, and I’m open to questions now.
Thom: We’ve got a couple of questions from Marlene at Medscape. You addressed some of them already a little bit, but just to recap, if you could, in a few words. Even these sweeteners, these low-calorie sweeteners and things like soft drinks, your study is showing that they do not increase appetite or cause weight gain, and that’s one of Marlene’s questions from Medscape.
Dr. Khan: Yeah. We can talk about appetite and weight gain related to many of these hormonal factors that we study. These are acute trials, so they’re not looking at your weight gain three months down the line or your appetite changes over a long term. We’ll be looking at acute responses within two hours. Does it affect GLP, GIP, which affect appetite? Your glucose-insulin response might affect how your calories are stored as fat or not or if they are burned up. When we look at those short-term studies, there is no effect of the non-calorie sweeteners. The results are limited to short-term responses. However, these short-term responses can be considered to inform a long-term effect also, because if anything is happening long-term, it should then show something in the short-term also.
Thom: In light of that, another question from Marlene, that’s a good follow-up to that is, what should then doctors advise patients who want to follow a healthy way of eating and lose weight? The suggestion of substituting these kinds of sweeteners versus others – and as you said, looking at the more long-term patterns versus these acute ones, what would you say in response to that question?
Dr. Khan: So Long-term cohort studies – there is some literature published which shows that in the long term when you take low-calorie sweeteners or sweetened beverages, there is an increased risk of weight gain, diabetes, or mortality. However, those studies suffer from major methodological issues, and we addressed them in another paper we published recently in Diabetes Care. What those studies do is a lot of people when they’re taking excess calories, so they’re already at high risk of disease. As soon as either the doctor tells them or consciously, they decide to change and then switch to low-calorie sweeteners. When the study is done, actually they are recorded as taking low-calorie sweeteners, but it actually is that risk – so those who switch to low-calorie sweeteners are actually the ones who are at higher risk of disease already because of the excess intake over a lifetime of intake previously, like over decades. That is something, a phenomenon called reverse causality.
The high risk itself makes them switch to low-calorie sweeteners. When we look at those studies, we see that effect.
When you actually control for that, and we have done that in the previous paper in Diabetes Care where we looked at people who actually switched from sugar-sweetened beverages to low-calorie sweeteners. Actual switching and adjusting for their weight, and second, those who actually increase their intake of low-calorie sweeteners. In both situations, we found that low-calorie sweeteners actually reduced the risk of type 2 diabetes and mortality, and also was associated with a reduction in weight. Both in the long-term and the acute term, if rigorous methods are used and properly controlled methods are used, then low-calorie sweeteners show that they can be a viable replacement for excess calories.
Thom: Another question from Kristy Adams relating to oral health and these non-nutritive sweeteners. She references that the World Health Organization has mentioned that dental caries is the single most common health condition globally. Do these low and non-nutritive sweeteners play a role in reducing sugar consumption to support oral health around the world?
Dr. Khan: Thank you for this question. It’s very interesting. The WHO sugar guidelines for adults and children are actually based on oral health. Excess sugars or sugars that you take actually affect your oral health. So a reduction in sugar intake is recommended because of its benefits to oral health, and oral health then has association with chronic disease also.
If anything, that can reduce the consistent intake of sugary substances will be beneficial for oral health. So, this is not my area of research, I haven’t seen literature on how low-calorie sweeteners benefit oral health. However, if they are associated with the reduction in replacing those sugar intake, it most likely will affect or benefit oral health also.
Thom: What, if any, gaps are there still in this research that you’d like further studies to address?
Dr. Khan: Yeah, there are still some gaps. In acute studies, we had very few studies for blends. The majority of trials looked at single non-nutritive sweeteners. However, in industry, the majority of foods have blends in them.
More studies or more trials need to be done on blends. That’s one issue.
Then there has to be consistency between what we see in human studies and what is seen in animal studies. In animal studies, they give very high dosages, and then they show some effect. However, with humans, the amount is so small, it doesn’t. More studies need to be done regarding those specific non-nutritive sweeteners which have shown some effect in animal studies. But in our study, we show that they are also inert in their effect on humans.
Thom: If we don’t have any others coming in the chat, I wanted to ask Dr. Khan about this sweet uncoupling that you referred to. Could you just summarize that for us as best you can, this separation between the taste of sweetness versus actual calories, and help us make a little bit of sense of that for maybe a takeaway here?
Dr. Khan: Sweet uncoupling hypothesis is just a hypothesis. It’s not been proven yet. This was presented a few years ago in the literature which says that when there’s uncoupling of sweet taste from calories. When you eat sweet food or caloric sugars, it has sweetness.
However, non-nutritive sweeteners are sweet, but they have no calories.
The hypothesis was when there is an uncoupling or separation between that, our body becomes confused and it disrupts the metabolic consequences of sweet taste. When you eat non-nutritive sweeteners, you feel the sweetness, but your gut then is expecting calories, but those calories do not arrive. It then starts responding through some acute hormonal changes. These factors GLP, GIP1, or glucose or insulin response actually then is disrupted. That is the hypothesis.
Thom: Your feeling is that this study is evidence to disprove that hypothesis?
Dr. Khan: Yes. Our study is uniquely placed to answer that question because we looked at studies where non-nutritive sweeteners were separated from calories. It did not elicit any acute hormonal response and they were very similar to water. It was both in healthy people and also in people with type 2 diabetes.
I believe our study actually answers that very well.
Thom: Fascinating. Thank you so much, Dr. Khan. I think that’s all the questions we have for today. With that, I will say thank you to Steve Gibb from the IAFNS for helping to arrange this and thank you, Dr. Tauseef Khan from the University of Toronto. Really fascinating stuff and good luck with your next studies. Thanks very much.
Newswise — Washington D.C. – The Institute for the Advancement of Food and Nutrition Sciences (IAFNS) launched two years ago and saw both growth in new members and science productivity increase. In 2022 IAFNS supported 23 peer-reviewed scientific papers and hosted over 150 speakers at 37 events. IAFNS webinars reached over 11,000 nutritionists and food safety professionals in government, industry, academia and other stakeholder groups.
In 2022 IAFNS expanded public and private sector membership, embraced the next generation of scientists with Summer Research Opportunity Fellowships, and was cited in over 270 media outlets including the San Francisco Chronicle, Yahoo!, The PBS News Hour and Forbes. IAFNS Executive Director Dr. Wendelyn Jones published 10 Op-Eds on topics as diverse as leadership and core values, the Bioeconomy, data access, climate and corn pathogens, and heavy metals. This media coverage and thought leadership demonstrates IAFNS ongoing relevance and agility in the always dynamic food and beverage ecosystem.
IAFNS created new ways to meet future opportunities by hosting its second Science Innovation Showcase highlighting plant-based proteins, the FDA’s new “healthy” food definition and a session on Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) criteria. It featured timely presentations from start-up leaders and scientific experts and included dialogue sessions on Canadian front of pack labels and lively input from NGO stakeholder groups.
In 2022 IAFNS leaders doubled down on their core values of scientific integrity centered on transparency, collaboration and public benefit. The organization’s leadership in these areas has been recognized by securing a Platinum Seal of Transparency from GuideStar at Candid – a recognition achieved by fewer than 1 percent of nonprofits. IAFNS-supported scientists also adhere to the TOP guidelines as a signatory to the Center for Open Science – demonstrating our active shepherding of this commitment.
According to IAFNS’ Dr. Wendelyn Jones, “This has been another banner year for actionable science that advances public health as evidenced by our output and recognition by external stakeholders. We’re pleased to report that 2022 brought a 20% increase in new supporting members to IAFNS as we continue to build our science-driven programs to support evidence-based decision-making by all sectors.”
Mark your calendars as we will be hosting the IAFNS Annual Summer Science Symposium on June 13 and 14 in Washington, D.C. The event is proving to be a unique gathering of scientific and regulatory experts where connections are made and collaborations are formed to drive positive change. More details to come here.
For more on how you can engage with IAFNS, follow us on LinkedIn, sign-up for our Science Briefs, and visit our events page to learn about upcoming nutrition and food safety presentations. Learn more about joining IAFNS here.
The Institute for the Advancement of Food and Nutrition Sciences (IAFNS) is committed to leading positive change across the food and beverage ecosystem. IAFNS is a 501(c)(3) science-focused nonprofit uniquely positioned to mobilize government, industry and academia to drive, fund and lead actionable research. iafns.org
[ad_2]
Institute for the Advancement of Food and Nutrition Sciences
Newswise — Washington D.C. – Identifying the top sources of sodium in the American diet can inform policies and programs aimed at reducing sodium intake, a key risk factor for hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Nearly 90 percent of Americans consume sodium in excess of dietary guidance, much of it from prepackaged foods.
A new study on the subject by researchers at the University of Toronto and supported by IAFNS appears in the peer-reviewed journal Nutrients. The scientists studied over 7,000 research subjects using the 2017-2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey which consists of information on the health and nutritional status, including dietary recall information on foods consumed, of a nationally representative sample of adults and children in the United States.
Efforts to curtail population sodium intake through consumer education and food labelling campaigns have had minimal impact. This suggested a need to have a more recent assessment of food contributors to sodium intake.
According to the researchers, the top 15 food categories accounted for 50.83% of total dietary sodium intake: pizza (5.3%); breads, rolls and buns (4.7%); cold cuts and cured meats (4.6%); soups (4.4%); burritos and tacos (4.3%); savoury snacks (4.1%); poultry (4.0%); cheese (3.1%); pasta mixed dishes (2.9%); burgers (2.5%); meat mixed dishes (2.5%); cookies, brownies and cakes (2.4%); bacon, frankfurters, sausages (2.4%); vegetables (2.2%); and chicken nuggets (1.5%).
According to the authors, “This study found that the top 15 food category contributors to dietary sodium represent just over 50 percent of total dietary sodium intake for American adults, with pizza, breads, cold cuts, soups and burritos being the top five contributors. Our findings were consistent across the population subgroups.”
The research contributes key data on the food categories that could be reformulated to reduce sodium content to have the greatest impact on North Americans’ diets. The World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that limiting population-level sodium intake can reduce hypertension, an important preventative strategy to lower the risk of cardiovascular diseases — among the leading causes of death in North America. The study provides an updated understanding of the top sources of sodium intake in the American population overall.
According to the authors, “The present research contributes important information pertaining to the food categories that would be amenable to reformulation and have significant impact on Americans’ diets.”
Lead author Mavra Ahmed says, “This data is important in light of the FDA Voluntary Sodium Reduction Goals which bring renewed focus on the importance of limiting sodium in the food supply and can help focus future efforts.”
This research was supported by a competitive grant from the Institute for the Advancement of Food and Nutrition Sciences (IAFNS) Sodium in Foods and Health Implications Committee. IAFNS is a 501(c)(3) science-focused nonprofit uniquely positioned to mobilize industry, government and academia to drive, fund and lead actionable research. IAFNS has over forty scientific projects and programs all focused on delivering science that matters. Learn more at iafns.org.
[ad_2]
Institute for the Advancement of Food and Nutrition Sciences
Newswise — CHICAGO – The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics encourages consumers to fuel for the future when planning meals and snacks. Fuel for the Future is the campaign theme for the Academy’s 2023 National Nutrition Month®, which kicks off in March.
“Food is the fuel that keeps your body running smoothly throughout your life, so give it the nutrients it needs to meet each life stage,” says registered dietitian nutritionist Amy Bragagnini, a national Academy Spokesperson based in Grand Rapids, Mich.
“Registered dietitian nutritionists can help you meet your health goals as well as treat or reduce your risk of diet-related chronic diseases by reviewing your eating habits and lifestyle, assessing your nutritional status and creating a personalized nutrition treatment plan,” she says.
Bragagnini provides helpful eating tips during National Nutrition Month® and all year long:
“Eat with the environment in mind by enjoying more plant-based meals. Purchase foods with minimal packaging. Buy foods in season and shop locally when possible. Start a garden to grow food at home.”
“Plan your meals and snacks to stay nourished and save money. Check your pantry before buying more food, use a grocery list while shopping and shop the sales. Educate yourself about community resources and governmental programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children and local food banks.”
“Eat a variety of foods from all food groups whether fresh, frozen, canned or dried. Include your favorite cultural foods and traditions in your meals. Avoid fad diets that promote unnecessary restrictions and practice self-love.”
“Learn how to make tasty foods at home with new flavors and foods from around the world. Find creative ways to use leftovers instead of throwing them away. Create happy memories by eating with friends and family when possible.”
National Nutrition Month®
Each March during National Nutrition Month®, the Academy hosts resources on its website to encourage people to make informed food choices and develop sound eating and physical activity habits that they can follow all year long.
During National Nutrition Month® , the Academy celebrates RDNs on the second Wednesday of March during Registered Dietitian Nutritionist Day. This year’s observance is March 8.
The Academy celebrates the inaugural Nutrition and Dietetics Technician, Registered Day on March 9 to honor the contributions and experience of NDTRs, who are valuable members of the health care and food service management teams. The Academy will celebrate Nutrition and Dietetics Technician, Registered Day annually on the second Thursday in March.
National Nutrition Month® started in 1973 as National Nutrition Week, and it became a month-long observance in 1980 in response to growing interest in nutrition. To find an RDN near you, visit the Academy’s Find a Nutrition Expert directory.
###
Representing more than 112,000 credentialed nutrition and dietetics practitioners, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics is the world’s largest organization of food and nutrition professionals. The Academy is committed to improving health and advancing the profession of dietetics through research, education and advocacy. Visit the Academy at www.eatright.org.
U.S. agriculture officials on Friday proposed new nutrition standards for school meals, including the first limits on added sugars, with a focus on sweetened foods such as cereals, yogurt, flavored milk and breakfast pastries.
The plan announced by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack also seeks to significantly decrease sodium in the meals served to the nation’s schoolkids by 2029, while making the rules for foods made with whole grains more flexible.
The goal is to improve nutrition and align with U.S. dietary guidelines in the program that serves breakfast to more than 15 million children and lunch to nearly 30 million children every day, Vilsack said.
“School meals happen to be the meals with the highest nutritional value of any meal that children can get outside the home,” Vilsack said in an interview.
The first limits on added sugars would be required in the 2025-2026 school year, starting with high-sugar foods such as sweetened cereals, yogurts and flavored milks.
Under the plan, for instance, an 8-ounce container of chocolate milk could contain no more than 10 grams of sugar. Some popular flavored milks now contain twice that amount. The plan also limits sugary grain desserts, such as muffins or doughnuts, to no more than twice a week at breakfast.
By the fall of 2027, added sugars in school meals would be limited to less than 10% of the total calories per week for breakfasts and lunches.
The proposal also would reduce sodium in school meals by 30% by the fall of 2029. They would gradually be reduced to align with federal guidelines, which recommend Americans aged 14 and older limit sodium to about 2,300 milligrams a day, with less for younger children.
Levels would drop, for instance, from an average of about 1,280 milligrams of sodium allowed now per lunch for kids in grades 9 to 12 to about 935 milligrams. For comparison, a typical turkey sandwich with mustard and cheese might contain 1,500 milligrams of sodium.
Health experts say cutting back on sugar and salt can help decrease the risk of disease in kids, including obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and other problems that often continue into adulthood.
The plan, detailed in a 280-page document, drew mixed reactions. Katie Wilson, executive director of the Urban School Food Alliance, said the changes are “necessary to help America’s children lead healthier lives.”
But Diane Pratt-Heavner, spokeswoman for the School Nutrition Association, a trade group, said school meals are already healthier than they were a decade ago and that increased regulations are a burden, especially for small and rural school districts.
“School meal programs are at a breaking point,” she said. “These programs are simply not equipped to meet additional rules.”
Vilsack emphasized that the plan phases changes in over the next six years to allow schools and food manufacturers time to adjust to the new standards. He said in a press conference Friday that the USDA will also fund grants of up to $150,000 to help small and rural schools make the changes.
“Our hope is that many school districts and food providers accelerate the timeline on their own,” he said.
Courtney Gaine, president of the Sugar Association, said the proposal ignores the “many functional roles” sugar plays in food beyond sweetness and encourages the use of sugar substitutes, which have not been fully studied in children. Sugar substitutes are allowed under the new standards, Vilsack said.
As part of the plan, agriculture officials are seeking feedback about a proposal that would continue to require that 80% of all grains offered in a week must be whole grains. But it would allow schools to serve non-whole grain foods, such as white-flour tortillas, one day a week to vary their menus.
Another option suggests serving unflavored nonfat and lowfat milk to the youngest children and reserving chocolate and other flavored milks for high school kids.
A 60-day public comment period on the plan opens Feb. 7.
Shiriki Kumanyika, a community health expert at Drexel University’s Dornsife School of Public Health said if they’re done right some of the changes will be hard for kids to notice: “They’ll see things that they like to eat, but those foods will be healthier,” she said.
___
This story has been corrected to fix the spelling the president of the Sugar Association. It is Courtney Gaine, not Courtney Gaines.
___
AP Videojournalist Shelby Lum and AP Science Writer Maddie Burakoff contributed to this report.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Newswise — Scientists have discovered that a high-fat diet allows the immune system to eliminate a parasitic worm which is a major cause of death and illness in the developing world.
Parasitic worms affect up to a billion people, particularly in developing nations with poor sanitation. One of these parasites known as “whipworm” can cause long lasting infections in the large intestine.
Researchers from Lancaster University and the University of Manchester in the UK have discovered that a high-fat diet allows the immune system to eliminate the parasite.
Lead author Dr Evelyn Funjika, formerly at Manchester and now at the University of Zambia, said: “Just like the UK, the cheapest diets are often high in fat and at-risk communities to whipworm are increasingly utilising these cheap diets. Therefore, how worm infection and western diets interact is a key unknown for developing nations.
“In order to be able to study how nutrition affects parasite worm infection, we have been using a mouse model, Trichuris muris, closely related to the human whipworm Trichuris trichiura and seeing how a high-fat diet impacts immunity.”
It has been previously shown that immune responses which expel the parasite rely on white blood cells called T-helper 2 cells, specialised for eliminating gastrointestinal parasites.
The findings, published in the journal “Mucosal Immunology”, demonstrate how a high-fat diet, rather than obesity itself, increases a molecule on T-helper cells called ST2 and this allows an increased T-helper 2 response which expels the parasite from the large intestinal lining.
Dr John Worthington from the Department of Biomedical and Life Science at Lancaster University co-led the research.
“We were quite surprised by what we found during this study. High-fat diets are mostly associated with increased pathology during disease. However, in the case of whipworm infection this high fat diet licenses the T-helper cells to make the correct immune response to expel the worm.”
Co-lead Professor Richard Grencis from the University of Manchester said: “Our studies in mice on a standard diet demonstrate that ST2 is not normally triggered when expelling the parasite, but the high-fat diet boosts the levels of ST2 and hence allows expulsion via an alternative pathway”.
Co-lead Professor David Thornton from the University of Manchester added: “It was really fascinating that simply altering the diet completely switched the immune response in the gut from one that fails to expel the parasite, to one that brings about all the correct mechanisms to eliminate it.”
However, Dr Worthington added caution to the findings.
“Before you order that extra take-away, we have previously published that weight loss can aid the expulsion of a different gut parasite worm. So these results may be context specific, but what is really exciting is the demonstration of how diet can profoundly alter the capacity to generate protective immunity and this may give us new clues for treatments for the millions who suffer from intestinal parasitic infections worldwide.”
The research was funded by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission, The Wellcome Trust and EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council).
Social media users claim to have found a new culprit for sky-high egg prices: chicken feed.
The theory gained steam on Facebook, TikTok and Twitter in recent weeks, with some users reporting that their hens stopped laying eggs and speculating that common chicken feed products were the cause. Some went a step further to suggest that feed producers had intentionally made their products deficient to stop backyard egg production, forcing people to buy eggs at inflated prices.
“One of the largest egg producers in the country cut a deal with one of the largest feed producers in the country to change their feed formula so it no longer contains enough protein and minerals for your chickens to produce eggs,” one Facebook user wrote in a post shared more than 2,000 times. “They are now price gouging eggs to make bank.”
But poultry experts say there’s no evidence for such claims. Here’s a closer look at the facts.
CLAIM: Chicken feed companies have altered their products to stop backyard hens from laying eggs and drive up demand for commercial eggs.
THE FACTS: U.S. egg prices in grocery stores more than doubled over the past year due to an outbreak of bird flu, combined with increasing labor and supply costs.
Some backyard chicken owners may have separately found their chickens underperforming, but experts say the issues are unrelated. While feed quality can affect hens’ egg-laying abilities, state agricultural officials told The Associated Press they have not heard of any widespread issues with feed affecting egg production, and several major feed suppliers say they haven’t changed their formulas.
Experts say there are far more mundane explanations for the poultry’s meager production.
“Is there a broad conspiracy? No, there’s not a broad conspiracy,” said Todd Applegate, a professor in poultry science at the University of Georgia. “Beyond feed, there are a lot, probably even more so, things from the management and from the bird’s environment that creates different things that would cause her to either go out of production or lower her production.”
More than 43 million of the 58 million birds slaughtered over the past year to control the bird flu virus have been egg-laying chickens, The Associated Press has reported.
“Because of high path avian influenza, we’ve had to depopulate millions of laying hens. And when you take that many chickens out of production, there’s fewer eggs,” said Ken Anderson, a poultry industry specialist at North Carolina State University. “And when there’s fewer eggs, the price goes up.”
Democratic U.S. Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island and a farmer-led advocacy group have called for an investigation into potential egg price-gouging by producers. But there is no evidence that altered chicken feed is driving steep egg prices.
Agricultural officials in multiple states, including North Carolina and Georgia, told the AP they have received no reports of widespread problems.
“Our members have not really heard any exact reports of any correlation between the feed and egg production,” said Austin Therrell, executive director of the Association of American Feed Control Officials, a group of local, state and federal agencies responsible for regulating animal feeds.
Therrell noted, however, that officials have fielded questions from people who saw feed-related claims on social media.
Other factors could explain the individual reports of low backyard egg yields, experts say. Limited daylight hours in the winter can reduce or stop hens’ egg production, as can cold weather, said Applegate. Improperly stored feed can become compromised and affect egg production, too.
“Backyard flock producers don’t necessarily follow lighting programs to support peak egg production,” Anderson said. “A lot of backyard flock people utilize natural daylight.”
Many social media users claimed that specific feed products, such as those offered by Purina Animal Nutrition and Tractor Supply, a chain of farm supplies stores, were at fault. Some said their hens started laying again after they switched feeds or made their own. But the companies deny that their products are to blame.
“We confirm there have not been formulation changes to Purina poultry feed products,” Brooke Dillon, a spokesperson for Land O’Lakes, the parent company of Purina Animal Nutrition, wrote in an email. Similarly, Mary Winn Pilkington, a spokesperson for Tractor Supply, said that its suppliers confirmed there has been “no change to the nutritional profile” of their feed products.
Feed products have been recalled in the past for improper nutrition, according to Adam Fahrenholz, an associate professor of feed milling at North Carolina State University. But while feed nutrition issues, like insufficient protein, can reduce egg production, he found no merit in online claims of a massive conspiracy.
“I don’t find it plausible from the standpoint of an intentional, large scale, you know, planned event at all,” Fahrenholz added.
The conspiracy that feed companies are deliberately trying to sabotage backyard egg supplies found an audience thanks to a broader distrust of government officials and experts, said Yotam Ophir, an assistant professor at the University at Buffalo who focuses on misinformation. It’s common for people to look for scapegoats during periods of social anxiety, he said. The claims join other recent conspiracies alleging a coordinated effort to undermine the nation’s food supply.
“The official narrative is kind of reminding us that we are sometimes vulnerable to the randomness of nature,” Ophir said.
___
This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
Social media users claim to have found a new culprit for sky-high egg prices: chicken feed.
The theory gained steam on Facebook, TikTok and Twitter in recent weeks, with some users reporting that their hens stopped laying eggs and speculating that common chicken feed products were the cause. Some went a step further to suggest that feed producers had intentionally made their products deficient to stop backyard egg production, forcing people to buy eggs at inflated prices.
“One of the largest egg producers in the country cut a deal with one of the largest feed producers in the country to change their feed formula so it no longer contains enough protein and minerals for your chickens to produce eggs,” one Facebook user wrote in a post shared more than 2,000 times. “They are now price gouging eggs to make bank.”
But poultry experts say there’s no evidence for such claims. Here’s a closer look at the facts.
CLAIM: Chicken feed companies have altered their products to stop backyard hens from laying eggs and drive up demand for commercial eggs.
THE FACTS: U.S. egg prices in grocery stores more than doubled over the past year due to an outbreak of bird flu, combined with increasing labor and supply costs.
Some backyard chicken owners may have separately found their chickens underperforming, but experts say the issues are unrelated. While feed quality can affect hens’ egg-laying abilities, state agricultural officials told The Associated Press they have not heard of any widespread issues with feed affecting egg production, and several major feed suppliers say they haven’t changed their formulas.
Experts say there are far more mundane explanations for the poultry’s meager production.
“Is there a broad conspiracy? No, there’s not a broad conspiracy,” said Todd Applegate, a professor in poultry science at the University of Georgia. “Beyond feed, there are a lot, probably even more so, things from the management and from the bird’s environment that creates different things that would cause her to either go out of production or lower her production.”
More than 43 million of the 58 million birds slaughtered over the past year to control the bird flu virus have been egg-laying chickens, The Associated Press has reported.
“Because of high path avian influenza, we’ve had to depopulate millions of laying hens. And when you take that many chickens out of production, there’s fewer eggs,” said Ken Anderson, a poultry industry specialist at North Carolina State University. “And when there’s fewer eggs, the price goes up.”
Democratic U.S. Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island and a farmer-led advocacy group have called for an investigation into potential egg price-gouging by producers. But there is no evidence that altered chicken feed is driving steep egg prices.
Agricultural officials in multiple states, including North Carolina and Georgia, told the AP they have received no reports of widespread problems.
“Our members have not really heard any exact reports of any correlation between the feed and egg production,” said Austin Therrell, executive director of the Association of American Feed Control Officials, a group of local, state and federal agencies responsible for regulating animal feeds.
Therrell noted, however, that officials have fielded questions from people who saw feed-related claims on social media.
Other factors could explain the individual reports of low backyard egg yields, experts say. Limited daylight hours in the winter can reduce or stop hens’ egg production, as can cold weather, said Applegate. Improperly stored feed can become compromised and affect egg production, too.
“Backyard flock producers don’t necessarily follow lighting programs to support peak egg production,” Anderson said. “A lot of backyard flock people utilize natural daylight.”
Many social media users claimed that specific feed products, such as those offered by Purina Animal Nutrition and Tractor Supply, a chain of farm supplies stores, were at fault. Some said their hens started laying again after they switched feeds or made their own. But the companies deny that their products are to blame.
“We confirm there have not been formulation changes to Purina poultry feed products,” Brooke Dillon, a spokesperson for Land O’Lakes, the parent company of Purina Animal Nutrition, wrote in an email. Similarly, Mary Winn Pilkington, a spokesperson for Tractor Supply, said that its suppliers confirmed there has been “no change to the nutritional profile” of their feed products.
Feed products have been recalled in the past for improper nutrition, according to Adam Fahrenholz, an associate professor of feed milling at North Carolina State University. But while feed nutrition issues, like insufficient protein, can reduce egg production, he found no merit in online claims of a massive conspiracy.
“I don’t find it plausible from the standpoint of an intentional, large scale, you know, planned event at all,” Fahrenholz added.
The conspiracy that feed companies are deliberately trying to sabotage backyard egg supplies found an audience thanks to a broader distrust of government officials and experts, said Yotam Ophir, an assistant professor at the University at Buffalo who focuses on misinformation. It’s common for people to look for scapegoats during periods of social anxiety, he said. The claims join other recent conspiracies alleging a coordinated effort to undermine the nation’s food supply.
“The official narrative is kind of reminding us that we are sometimes vulnerable to the randomness of nature,” Ophir said.
___
This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
Grocery stores need to be brought to heel over food prices. This isn’t ‘inflation’ because it isn’t caused by monetary oversupply. It’s just price gouging and we know that because we can literally see that they’re all reporting surplus profits.
On social media, complaints regarding the rising costs of groceries are trending. It’s no surprise after all, the price of groceries has gone up around 13% compared to last year. According to the data from the Labor Department, the price of fruits and vegetables increased by 10.4 percent annually, while milk rose 15.2 percent and eggs soared 30.5 percent. Like other sectors of the economy, food prices are susceptible to supply chain complications and geopolitical unrest including the war in Ukraine. But some people have expressed their disdain for grocery store companies, accusing them of “price gouging” to increase their profits, which have been reaching exorbitant heights (corporate profits are at their highest levels in nearly 50 years, according to CBS MoneyWatch).
For example, this tweet shared by thousands blames the rising prices of groceries on retailers engaged in price gouging: “Grocery stores need to be brought to heel over food prices. This isn’t ‘inflation’ because it isn’t caused by monetary oversupply. It’s just price gouging and we know that because we can literally see that they’re all reporting surplus profits.”
Is putting the blame on grocery store managers for your rising costs of orange juice accurate? It’s not quite that simple. The claim of “price gouging” at the grocery store is misleading because of the complex nature of the grocery business. Professor Lisa Jack, School of Accounting, Economics and Finance and lead of the Food Cultures in Transition (FoodCiTi) research group at the University of Portsmouth explains…
Supermarket profits are complex and care should be taken with attributing them to any one cause. There are three main factors:
Commercial income, also known as suppliers payments or back margin, contributes heavily to supermarket profits. These payments and support from suppliers to the supermarket include volume discounts and marketing fees. These can represent as much as 7% of a supermarket’s income: bottom line profits can average around 1-2% of income. Primary producers are seeing rapidly increasing costs for all inputs and having been squeezed to breaking point over the last 20 years, have no choice but to increase the prices of their output. Similarly for processors, packagers, distributors and every other business supplying supermarkets. The supermarkets themselves claim to be fighting on behalf of consumers to be keeping prices down and there is evidence that they are refusing price increase requests, which implies that commercial income is still being maintained.
In the last few years, supermarkets have been increasing profits by cutting overhead costs at head offices and in support services. Counterintuitively, the only economy of scale they have is bargaining power – see above. All their activities, including large stores, increase the overhead costs which can be as much as 75% of their spend. A significant amount of recent ‘soaring profits’ come from job losses, which are not sustainable in the long run.
Since their emergence in the 1920s, the business model for supermarkets has been to sell basics at little or no profit relying on high volumes to break even. Profits come from enticing customers to buy at least one impulse, premium item of food and non-grocery items. 8 of the 10 best sellers in supermarkets are the cheaper (but still higher profit margin) alcohol, confectionery and snacks. Since the pandemic and the cost of living crisis hit, more of us are exchanging going out for buying in ready-meals, alcohol and other treats, and buying more of our non-grocery items from supermarkets. These are where the profits come from, and they are being taken away from other sectors. Unsurprisingly, the food businesses that have the highest margins are those that produce brands of alcohol, confectionery etc – ‘Big Food’.
Note to Journalists/Editors: The expert quotes are free to use in your relevant articles on this topic. Please attribute them to their proper sources.
“Steve, how many calories should I eat every day? I have goals!”
Great question.
Knowledge is power. So today, we are going to make you more powerful by calculating your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE).
Of course, “knowing is half the battle.”The other half is using your newfound knowledge to achieve your goals!
Fortunately for you, we’ve helped thousands of Online Coaching Clients lose weight and get healthy, and TDEE is just one of many factors we consider when building a specific strategy for somebody’s goals.
Okay FINE, I’ll share the other factors and strategies below too.
Simply click on the section below for quick reading, though I’d recommend you read the whole enchilada to properly apply TDEE to your life:
Although you can adjust it, I want you to set your “Activity Level” as “Sedentary,” (I’ll explain why in a minute):
Nerd Fitness Total Daily Energy Expenditure Calculator
(Note: we have used The Mifflin-St Jeor Equation to create this calculator! [1])
Hooray! You now know estimates of your BMR and TDEE![2]
You may be thinking, “Ah, Steve, what do either of these mean?”
I got you boo.
Make sure you write down your two numbers, and then move on to the next section.
If you’re already starting to get overwhelmed, have no fear! We help hundreds of men and women calculate their calorie goals, and we’d love to help you too!
Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) is an estimate of how many total calories you burn in a day.
Since your BMR includes the calories you need while resting, we’ll also need to factor in movement and exercise.
To do this, we’ll take your BMR and multiply it by an “Activity Factor.”
ACTIVITY LEVELS CAN BE THOUGHT OF AS THE FOLLOWING:
Sedentary (BMR x 1.2): You regularly have to tell Netflix you are still watching. You don’t intentionally exercise at all.
Lightly Active (BMR x 1.375): You casually stroll through your neighborhood a few times a week. On average, you walk for exercise about 30 minutes a day. Another way to think about this would be 15 minutes per day of vigorous exercise like running or lifting weights.
Moderately Active (BMR x 1.55): If we called the gym on a weeknight looking for you, they’d find you. This averages out to about one hour and 45 minutes of walking (for exercise, not going around your house) a day, or 50 minutes of vigorous exercise a day.
Very Active (BMR x 1.725): You work in construction during the day and you’re on the company softball team. This averages out to about four hours and 15 minutes of walking (again, for intentional exercise) a day, or two hours of vigorous exercise.
If you’re following along at home, you may notice that different Activity Factors can make a big difference in the calories burned.
Let’s use some numbers.
Suppose you’re:
Male
35 years old
Weigh 200 pounds
Six foot even (72 inches)
You’re also wearing a recently ironed collared shirt and it looks great on you. It really brings out your eyes.
Awesome shirt or no awesome shirt, we know your BMR comes in at 1,882 calories given the variables we identified. Meaning you’ll need roughly 1,900 calories for basic bodily functions.
This is where things get interesting.
If you’re sedentary, we’ll multiply 1,882 (BMR) by 1.2 to get a TDEE of 2,258, which means you’ll need 2,258 calories to maintain your current weight, support bodily functions, and to walk around your house, to go from your car to your office, from your office back home, etc.
Let’s imagine a scenario where you are not sedentary. Let’s say you’re lightly active – you walk around your neighborhood a few times per week.
We take your BMR of 1,882 and multiply it by 1.375 to get a TDEE of 2,588.
”The difference between these two activity factors, in this case, is 230 calories. That’s equivalent to a single glazed donut.
These results suggest that normal weight individuals overestimate energy expenditure (EE) during exercise by 3-4 folds. Further, when asked to precisely compensate for exercise EE with food intake, the resulting energy intake is still 2 to 3 folds greater than the measured EE of exercise.
Not only that, but our fitness trackers overestimate how many calories we expend through exercise too…some by as much as 90%![5]
This infographic shows how big of a difference those calorie discrepancies can be:
We think we’re working out “intensely” for 60 minutes, so we overeat, assuming we have lots of extra calories in our “daily budget” to spare.
However, when researchers look at stuff like heart rate, VO2 max, and calories burned, they determine that we actually only exercised “moderately.”
So yeah, don’t always trust your Fitbit:
Oh, and this is only one side of the equation. As I said, folks also UNDERESTIMATE how much they ate.
Regarding calories and food intake, folks consistently believe they eat less than they actually do.
Oh, and this is even true of dietitians, who are specifically trained on calories contained in different meals.
As we mention in our “Lose Fat and Build Muscle” article, strength training requires A LOT of energy, not only for the exercise itself, but also for rebuilding muscle in the days following the activity.
That’s why Coach Matt highlights the importance of strength training in our video on body recomposition:
So when determining our activity level for our calorie calculator, we consider strength training to be “vigorous exercise” (as we highlighted above).
Another way to think of this: if it takes 30 mins of walking a day to be “Lightly Active,” 15 minutes of daily strength training would roughly be equivalent.
NOTE: if estimating your Activity Factor and TDEE is starting to freak you out:
Trying to pick and calculate the right amount of calories to consume can be stressful.
Especially if you’ve had trouble losing weight in the past. And that’s just the math part – we haven’t even got to the psychological part about how delicious pizza and ice cream are.
It’s actually the reason we created our uber-popular 1-on-1 Coaching Program. We sought to take all the guesswork out of getting in shape, by creating a program to tell you exactly what to do.
The TDEE we calculated above provides a decent estimate of the calories you require each day.
If the scale is staying constant – congrats! You’ve found your “calorie equilibrium.”
Your body is burning just as many calories as you’re consuming each day.
However, I’m going to guess you’re here because your goal is to see the scale go down!
In order for you to lose weight, you need to start reducing your total calorie intake, which then forces your body to start burning the stored fat you have for energy.
You’ve already calculated roughly how many calories you burn (your TDEE) on a daily basis, let’s see roughly how many calories you’re consuming each day too!
(If your weight is staying steady, then these numbers should be relatively close – provided your tracking is accurate!)
It’s this nerd’s humble opinion that the easiest way to track calories consumed is with an app.
We live in the future.
Use a smartphone and download one of the following to track your food intake:
My Fitness Pal. The gold standard of calorie counting apps. It’s also the most popular, supporting the largest food database in the game. Plus, it can download recipes from the internet and provide a calorie and macronutrient estimate.
FatSecret.Basic, simple, and free, FatSecret is a great calorie tracker. It’ll allow you to connect with other users, plus it’s got a barcode scanner for caloric content from labels. Super nifty.
Lose it!Another free calorie-counting app, focusing more on goal setting. Additionally, the Snap It™ feature lets you use pictures for data input. Double nifty.
You certainly don’t have to track your food forever.
But a solid week’s worth of data will help you get a sense of the food you are consuming, especially if you eat roughly the same food each day.
Not sure if you’re getting your portion sizes correct? Most people don’t. Consider a cheap food scale to educate yourself on actual portion sizes!
You can also check out our guide How to Portion Control, which will teach you how to use your hand to estimate calories:
The important thing is to compare your daily calories consumed to your TDEE.
To lose weight, your calorie consumption should be less than your TDEE.
(If you’re currently thinking, “But Steve according to my stats I burn way more calories than I consume, but I’m not losing weight!” I would read this.)
Some numbers to keep in mind:
3,500 calories equals roughly one pound of fat.
There are seven days in a week.
Basic math suggests if you want to lose one pound of body fat in a week (a sustainable goal for some), you need to create a caloric deficit of 500 calories a day. We can get there by:
Consuming 500 fewer calories
Burning 500 more calories
Or a combination of both
When you consistently consume fewer calories than you burn, your body will have to start pulling from your stored fat for its energy needs.
Aka weight loss.
Let’s imagine that your TDEE is 2,500. This means you’d want to consume around 2,000 calories a day to lose around a pound per week.
As we discuss in great detail in “Why Can’t I Lose Weight,” sustained weight loss is largely a result of consistently managing the first half of the equation: “calories in.”
Said another way: it’s much more difficult to sustainably increase your Activity Level than it is to reduce the calories you consume.
After all, what’s more likely to become a lifelong habit? Changing your food choices, or going from being a couch potato to vigorously exercising 90 minutes per day?
Many of our coaching clients found weight loss previously unattainable until one of our trained professionals objectively reviewed their life and provided actionable feedback.
They all follow the same premise: they reduce or eliminate certain foods or macronutrients, making it easier to eat in a calorie deficit.
While all sensible diets will prioritize protein, some might limit carbs while others might limit fats. These differences come down to what works best for the individual.
So yes, any diet can help you lose weight in the short term – just remember that you need to stick with the changes permanently to make the results stick permanently!
After all, temporary changes create temporary results.
I personally follow a mental model diet, that focuses on real food most of the time, and occasionally includes some junk food. I plan my week of eating ahead of time:
#1) Limit your intake of processed food – it’s designed to be overconsumed.
Do you really think you’d be able to eat half of a snickers bar to limit yourself to 200 calories? Of course not. This argument is essentially the rationale for following a paleo diet.
#2) Eat veggies. Vegetables are nutrient-dense and light on calories. Because of all the fiber, they are also tough to overeat.
Imagine eating a plateful of broccoli.
Are you going for seconds? Probably not. So eat your veggies to help keep you full.
#3) Be wary of liquid calories. Cut back on soda, juices, smoothies, and any beverage with calories.
Even most coffee orders (with sugar, cream, etc.) will have a ton of hidden calories.
All these drinks are sugar bombs since there is no fiber to balance out all the carbs you are consuming. Stick to water and unsweetened tea or coffee. Here are our thoughts on diet soda.
#4) Prioritize protein. Your body needs to use protein to heal and rebuild muscle after exercise.
Outside of repairing your body, protein will also work to keep you full and satiated: 400 calories of chicken will leave you wayyy more full than 400 calories worth of Gatorade.[9]
If you prioritize protein on your plate, you’ll be doing a lot of the heavy lifting on proper nutrition.
As we lay out in our epic “How Much Protein Should I Eat?” guide, some great sources of protein include chicken, eggs, beef, pork, fish, nuts, legumes, quinoa, and most dairy products.
These four points will help you on your journey to create a caloric deficit.
Disclaimer: this is all easier said than done. After all, 70% of the country is overweight. Don’t worry though, because most of them don’t read Nerd Fitness.
You do. This is like a strategy guide for life.
We’ve helped thousands of people like you here at NF, and we really focus on nutrition.
As we said, it’s 90% of the battle!
It’s why we created our own free, fun 10-level nutritional system. Each level gets a bit more challenging, but you can progress at your own speed to make your changes stick.
You can download our 10-Level Nutrition Guide when you sign up in the box right here:
Download our free weight loss guide
THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life
Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace
What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating
3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target
Let’s recap this whole guide for you, with some actionable steps:
#1)Determine your BMR and TDEE. This will be critical for computing your caloric deficit. They’re good numbers to keep in mind during the whole experiment. Calculate your TDEE here.
#2) Track everything, as is, for one week.Log everything you eat. No judgment. If you eat five slices of pizza in a night, count every slice.
This step alone has helped many Rebels turn their lives around. Consider a food tracking app or online tracker to educate yourself!
#3) Compare numbers.Where is your current caloric intake at? How does this compare against your TDEE? If your intake is higher than your TDEE, you’re likely gaining body fat. We want to flip the equation.
#4) Create a consistent caloric deficit.The easiest and most sustainable way to do this is to eat REAL food. Mixing in strength training and fun cardio can help too.
#5) Track progress. Continue to track your calorie intake, to ensure you consistently expend more calories than you consume.
That’s it.
You can do this. I know you can because many of our readers have done it themselves.
Want help taking your next step after calculating your TDEE? I have MULTIPLE options for you. Pick the path below that best aligns with your goals and timeline:
1) If you want step-by-step guidance on how to lose weight, eat better, and get stronger, check out our killer 1-on-1 Coaching Program:
2) If you want an exact blueprint for how to eat better and get in shape, check out NF Journey. Our fun habit-building app helps you exercise more frequently, eat healthier, and level up your life (literally).
Try your free trial right here:
3) Enlist in the Rebellion! We need good people like you in our community, the Nerd Fitness Rebellion.
Sign up in the box below when you download our free weight loss guide!
Download our free weight loss guide
THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life
Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace
What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating
3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target
You can do this, and we got your back!
-Steve
PS:Seriously, how great is The Shawshank Redemption? I could quote that movie all day long.
