Eats « Weekly Gravy

Going vegetarian is trendy and popular, along with being a healthy choice, but a large portion of those who say they want to stick with a plant-based diet don’t. It might come down to your DNA, suggests new research that has uncovered three genes that seem to be strongly linked to vegetarianism. “It seems there are more people who would like to be vegetarian than actually are, and we think it’s because there is something hard-wired here that people may be missing,” said corresponding study author Dr. Nabeel Yaseen, a professor emeritus of pathology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. As many as 48% to 64% of people who identify as vegetarian still report eating fish, poultry and/or red meat, the study authors pointed out in a university news release. To study the impact of genes on eating behavior, the scientists compared UK Biobank genetic data from more than 5,300 strict vegetarians — those who ate no fish, poultry or red meat — to more than 329,000 non-vegetarians (the “control” group). The investigators found 31 genes that are potentially associated. Several of these genes, including two of those most closely associated, are involved in metabolizing fat and/or brain function. “One area in which plant products differ from meat is complex lipids,” Yaseen said. “My speculation is there may be lipid component(s) present… read on > read on >

Drinking dark tea daily may help balance blood sugar levels and stave off type 2 diabetes, the form of the disease most closely tied to obesity. This is the main message from a new study that looked at tea-drinking habits and diabetes risk among people in China. Folks who drank dark tea every day had a 53% lower risk of developing prediabetes and a 47% reduced risk for type 2 diabetes when compared to people who never drank tea. Prediabetes refers to blood sugar levels that are higher than normal, but not high enough to be called diabetes yet. Dark tea is an aged tea from China that has gone through an extensive fermentation process and is rich in healthy bacteria or probiotics that may improve gut health. The new study wasn’t designed to say how, or even if, drinking dark tea improves blood sugar control, but researchers do have some theories. “Tea has been reported to exert numerous desirable effects, which help to reduce inflammation and [damaging] oxidation and improve insulin sensitivity,” said study author Dr. Tongzhi Wu, an associate professor at the Adelaide Medical School in Australia. For the study, researchers asked 1,923 adults aged 20 to 80 living in China how often they drank tea and what type of tea they preferred whether green, black, dark or another type. The investigators then… read on > read on >

Some common medications — including antidepressants, sleep aids and painkillers — may dull the driving skills of seniors, a new study finds. Many different medication classes have been linked to the risk of driving impairment, as anyone who has ever read the label warning “do not operate heavy machinery” might have guessed. But the new study took a particularly rigorous approach to investigating the issue — following older adults for up to 10 years and testing their driving skills with annual road tests. And it turned out that those using certain classes of medications were at greater risk of failing the road test at some point. When older folks were taking either antidepressants, sedative/hypnotics (sleep medications) or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), they were nearly three times more likely to get a failing or “marginal” grade than non-users. The findings do not prove the medications are to blame, said lead researcher Dr. David Carr, a specialist in geriatric medicine at Washington University’s School of Medicine in St. Louis. It can be hard, he said, to draw a direct line between a particular medication and diminished driving skills: Is it that drug, or the medical condition it’s treating or another medication an older adult is taking? In this study, though, Carr and his colleagues were able to account for many factors, including participants’ medical conditions, memory and… read on > read on >

What a baby eats, or how the baby eats, may have an impact on future weight and health, research has shown. A new study backs that up. It found that 9-year-olds who had been breast-fed for six months or more had a lower percentage of body fat than their peers who were never breast-fed or received breast milk. The researchers also found that kids who were not given soda before 18 months of age also had less fat at age 9. Past studies have zeroed in on links between infant feeding and obesity based on body mass index (BMI) — an estimate of body fat based on height and weight. This one relied on what researchers considered a more precise measure: percent fat mass. That’s the proportion of total weight owing to body fat. “Infancy is a vulnerable life stage characterized by significant developmental changes, and when environmental exposures may have long-lasting effects on an individual’s metabolism and physiology,” said lead researcher Catherine Cohen. She is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora. “This study provides initial data to support that the types of foods introduced during infancy may be involved in predisposing individuals to more (body fat) accrual in childhood; also, these behaviors could represent targets for interventions aiming to prevent the onset of obesity and related metabolic… read on > read on >

A diet rich in whole grains, fruits and non-starchy vegetables is the best recipe for middle-aged folks trying to keep their weight under control, new research finds. Low in added sugar, yet rich in vitamins and minerals, such foods are considered “high-quality” carbs, investigators explained. The same cannot be said of refined grains, sugary beverages or starchy vegetables. Such foods are “low-quality” carbs that are likely to fuel an expanding waistline at a time in life when weight gain is common. “The quality and source of carbohydrate is crucial for long-term weight management, especially for people already with excessive body weight,” said study lead author Yi Wan, a postdoctoral research fellow in the department of nutrition at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. The good news, said Wan, is that switching from low-quality to high-quality carbs “may support efforts to control body weight,” and could even help stave off the risk for diabetes, heart disease and cancer. The findings follow a review of data from three different ongoing studies gathered between 1986 and 2015. In sum, the studies included a pool of more than 136,000 men and women, all aged 65 or younger. All were deemed healthy at enrollment, meaning they were free of diabetes, cancer, heart disease, respiratory illnesses, kidney disease and/or gastrointestinal illness. Dietary routines were assessed by way of… read on > read on >

For most people, there’s no reason to give up gluten for good. But that’s not so easy for folks with two gluten-related medical conditions: celiac disease and gluten intolerance, according to Dr. Sarmed Sami, a gastroenterologist at Mayo Clinic Healthcare in London. He offers some details about this protein and the two health conditions. Gluten is a protein found in grains including wheat, barley and rye. In people with celiac disease, eating it triggers an autoimmune reaction that causes cell damage to the small intestine. That reaction can cause diarrhea, fatigue, weight loss, bloating, anemia and lead to serious complications, Sami said. Gluten intolerance is more common, he added. “In gluten intolerance, there is no cell damage or inflammation. It’s more of a sensitivity: ‘Gluten doesn’t agree with me,’” Sami said in a clinic news release. “If you eat gluten and have an immediate reaction, such as diarrhea, that’s more likely to be gluten intolerance than celiac disease, which is a slow process that you don’t tend to feel immediately.” A sign of gluten intolerance or celiac disease is having one or more gastrointestinal symptoms such as diarrhea, bloating or heartburn that diminish or disappear if gluten is removed from the diet. These symptoms then return if the person begins eating gluten again. It is important to be tested in case you have the more… read on > read on >

Faced with growing reports of inaccurate clinical lab tests, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday announced that it will for the first time regulate these vital diagnostic tools. Many Americans might have assumed that the FDA already had oversight of all medical tests; it does not. However, FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said the time is now to monitor the quality of high-tech tests for cancer, heart disease and a myriad other illnesses. “A growing number of clinical diagnostic tests are being offered as laboratory developed tests without assurance that they work. The stakes are getting higher as these tests are increasingly being used to drive treatment decisions,” Califf explained in an FDA news release. “According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 70% of today’s medical decisions depend on laboratory test results,” he noted. “Given the role these tests play in modern medical care, their accuracy and validity have a significant impact on public health.” A handful of corporations, including Abbott Laboratories and Quest Diagnostics, develop and sell many lab tests and now dominate the marketplace. Some more common tests — such as those used in hospitals, pharmacies or doctors’ offices to spot strep throat, COVID-19 and other conditions — are already subject to pre-marketing FDA review. But thousands of so-called “laboratory developed tests” (LDTs), analyzed at many high-tech labs, face… read on > read on >

THURSDAY, Sept. 28, 2023 (HealthDay News) – An advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday voted resoundingly against recommending a stem cell-based experimental treatment for ALS. Although the FDA isn’t bound by the votes of its advisory panels, agency scientists have already penned a scathing review of the drug, called NuOwn. The application from Brainstorm, the company that developed the treatment, was “scientifically incomplete” and “grossly deficient,” FDA staff scientists wrote in the review. Meanwhile, the advisory panel voted 17-1 against the drug to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Only a panelist representing patients voted for the medication, while one adviser abstained from voting, the Associated Press reported. “Creating false hope can be considered a moral injury and the use of statistical magic or manipulation to provide false hope is problematic,” Lisa Lee, a bioethics and research integrity expert from Virginia Tech who voted against the treatment said, the AP reported. ALS is typically fatal within three to five years of a patient’s first symptoms, as the condition destroys nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, taking away the ability to walk, talk, swallow and breathe. The FDA agreed to convene the advisory panel in response to a 30,000-signature petition from ALS patients and advocates. But a study from Brainstorm involving 200 patients did… read on > read on >

Smoking during pregnancy is a significant risk factor for premature births, but drinking coffee is not, new research suggests. Women who smoked during pregnancy were 2.6 times more likely to give birth prematurely compared to nonsmokers, a risk that was double that of previous estimates, the University of Cambridge scientists found. “We’ve known for a long time that smoking during pregnancy is not good for the baby, but our study shows that it’s potentially much worse than previously thought. It puts the baby at risk of potentially serious complications from growing too slowly in the womb or from being born too soon,” said Gordon Smith, head of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Cambridge, in the United Kingdom. The study also showed that with prenatal smoking, a baby was four times more likely to be small for its gestational age. This brings the risk of potentially serious complications, including breathing difficulties and infections. On the other hand, high caffeine intake from coffee or other drinks did not have the same effect, even though it’s been shown previously to be associated with lower birth weights and possibly fetal growth restriction. In this study, scientists measured levels of chemical byproducts created when substances such as tobacco and caffeine are processed in the body. The investigators recruited more than 4,200 women who attended the Rosie Hospital, part… read on > read on >

Adding 3,000 extra steps a day can help older adults with hypertension significantly lower their blood pressure. About 80% of older adults in the United States have high blood pressure. Keeping it down can help protect against heart failure, heart attacks and strokes. “We’ll all get high blood pressure if we live long enough, at least in this country,” Linda Pescatello, professor of kinesiology at the University of Connecticut, said in a university news release. “That’s how prevalent it is.” While her previous research had shown that exercise could have an immediate and long-lasting impact on blood pressure, this new study set out to learn whether moderately increasing walking — popular in this age group — could do the same. “It’s easy to do, they don’t need any equipment, they can do it anywhere at almost any time,” said co-author Duck-Chul Lee, a professor of kinesiology at Iowa State University. The researchers focused on a group of sedentary 68- to 78-year-olds who walked about 4,000 steps per day. By adding in 3,000 steps, they would log 7,000 daily steps, in line with a recommendation of the American College of Sports Medicine. Getting “3,000 steps is large enough but not too challenging to achieve for health benefits,” Lee said in the release. Participants received kits with pedometers, blood pressure monitors and step diaries to track their… read on > read on >