Eats « Weekly Gravy

Calorie labels on restaurant menus are harming people with eating disorders, a new evidence review claims. These labels are meant to make it healthier to eat out at restaurants, by informing customers of the calorie content of food choices. But people diagnosed with eating disorders tend to respond poorly when presented with a menu featuring calorie labels, researchers reported Jan. 28 in the BMJ Public Health. Unhealthy responses included avoiding restaurants altogether, triggering harmful thoughts associated with eating disorders, and obsessing over the calorie counts. Some said that seeing these menu labels actually reinforced the beliefs behind their eating disorders, researchers added. “It’s definitely set my recovery back by a long way and I only feel safe eating at home now,” a patient with an eating disorder said in one of the studies included in the review. “Our study highlights that people with lived experience of eating disorders are frustrated at being left out of the conversation around calorie labels,” senior researcher Tom Jewell, a lecturer in mental health nursing at King’s College London, said in a news release. The obesity epidemic has caused policymakers to act without any thought to the impact on people with eating disorders, Jewell added. “Striking a balance between the positive and harmful impacts of calorie labels on menus is vital in any public health policies,” he said. “Policymakers should… read on > read on >

Seniors whose cholesterol levels spike and plummet year-to-year could be at increased risk of dementia and failing brain health, a new study suggests. Those whose cholesterol fluctuated the most had a 60% increased risk of dementia, researchers report in findings published Jan. 29 in the journal Neurology. They also had a 23% increased risk of mild cognitive impairment, an early stage of brain aging that can lead to dementia, researchers found. “These results suggest that fluctuating cholesterol, measured annually, may be a new biomarker for identifying people at risk of dementia, providing more information than the actual cholesterol levels measured at a single time point,” lead investigator Zhen Zhou, a research fellow at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, said in a news release. High cholesterol levels in middle age have been identified as a risk factor of cognitive decline and dementia later in life, researchers mentioned in background notes. However, research into the impact of cholesterol on brain health in seniors has yielded mixed results. Some studies have said cholesterol has no impact on the brain in old age, while others have found that low cholesterol might actually increase dementia risk. For this study, researchers tracked the brain health of more than 9,800 people 65 and older who started off with no dementia or other memory problems. The participants’ cholesterol levels were measured at the… read on > read on >

“Hidden hunger” — low levels of essential vitamins or minerals — is common among people with type 2 diabetes, a new evidence review says Overall, as many as 45% of type 2 diabetics are suffering multiple deficiencies in vitamins, minerals and electrolytes, researchers reported Jan. 28 in the journal BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health. The review “exemplifies the double burden of malnutrition in action,” where people trying to manage their diabetes through diet wind up with nutritional deficiencies, concluded the research team led by Dr. Daya Krishan Mangal, an adjunct professor at the International Institute of Health Management Research in Jaipur, India. For the evidence review, researchers pooled results from 132 prior studies involving more than 52,500 participants between 1998 and 2023. Very low levels of vitamin D were the most common deficiency, affecting more than 60% of people with type 2 diabetes. Other common deficiencies included magnesium (42%), iron (28%) and vitamin B12 (22%). People on the diabetes drug metformin were at higher risk for B12 deficiency, with 29% having low levels of that vitamin. Women with diabetes were more likely to have vitamin deficiencies than men, 49% versus 43%, results show. And diabetics in North and South America had the highest levels of vitamin deficiencies, with 54% suffering a lack of specific nutrients. “The treatment of type 2 diabetes often tends to focus… read on > read on >

Helping kids with obesity drop pounds can have a huge impact on their future health. When these children and teens lose weight, they are less likely to have type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol as young adults, researchers reported in a new study published Jan. 21 in JAMA Pediatrics. They also had a lower risk of dying young, their results show. “The results are very good news,” senior researcher Emilia Hagman, a docent of clinical science, intervention and technology at Karolinska Institute in Sweden, said in a news release. “Whether or not the treatment of obesity in childhood has long-term health benefits have been debated, since weight-loss is hard to maintain,” she said. “This emphasizes the importance of providing early treatment, as we know that timely intervention increases the likelihood of success and helps mitigate the long-term health risks associated with obesity.” For the study, researchers analyzed data on more than 6,700 Swedish children who registered for obesity treatment between 1996 and 2019. All received at least one year of obesity treatment prior to age 18. On average, the kids started treatment at age 12 and received around three years of treatment, researchers report. The research team then checked in with the children as they reached adulthood — between 18 to 30 years of age — to see whether losing weight had… read on > read on >

Don’t worry if someone’s checking your blood pressure in a loud public place. The reading they get is apt to be just as accurate as if the test were taking place in a quiet, less stressful environment, researchers reported in a study published Jan. 27 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. “The BP readings obtained in public spaces were minimally different from BPs obtained in a private office, suggesting that public spaces are reasonable settings to screen for hypertension,” the research team led by Dr. Tammy Brady, a professor of epidemiology with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, concluded. Current guidelines for accurate blood pressure measurement emphasize the importance of performing the test in a quiet, private setting free from distractions, researchers noted. But the new study’s results open up the possibility of more practical and convenient mass efforts to screen for high blood pressure, in locales like shopping malls, public markets, churches, sports venues, supermarkets and business offices. High blood pressure is a leading contributor to heart disease and stroke. Nearly 47% of U.S. adults have high blood pressure, according to the American Heart Association’s newly released 2025 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics report. For the study, researchers compared blood pressure readings taken at a historic public market in Baltimore, the Northeast Market, with those taken at a quiet office… read on > read on >

Major heart health risk factors like obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure remain on the rise in the United States, according to an annual report from the American Heart Association (AHA). These risks are thwarting efforts to save lives from heart disease, heart attack, stroke and other lethal heart-related diseases, says the report published Jan. 27 in the AHA journal Circulation. Overall, there was a slight increase in heart-related deaths in 2022, the most recent year for which final data is available, the 2025 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics report says. There were 941,652 heart-related deaths in 2022, an increase of more than 10,000 from the 931,578 deaths in 2021. The report indicates that heart-related deaths appear to be leveling out after a major uptick during the COVID pandemic, the report says — but heart disease remains the No. 1 killer in the U.S. Someone dies of heart disease every 34 seconds, amounting to nearly 2,500 people every day, noted Dr. Keith Churchwell, volunteer president of the American Heart Association. “Those are alarming statistics to me — and they should be alarming for all of us, because it’s likely many among those whom we lose will be our friends and loved ones,” Churchwell said in a news release. He noted that heart disease and stroke together kill more people than all cancers and accidental deaths… read on > read on >

Maintaining tight control over blood pressure for even a short while can provide lasting benefits for seniors’ brain health, a new clinical trial says. People had lower risk of mild cognitive impairment or dementia after keeping their blood pressure around 120 systolic for three and a half years, according to results published recently in the journal Neurology. (Systolic pressure, the top number in a blood pressure reading, measures the pressure in arteries when the heart pumps blood.) What’s more, this reduced risk stayed with seniors long after they stopped such intense blood pressure treatment. “Our study shows that intensive blood pressure control is an important strategy in the prevention of cognitive impairment, a major cause of loss of independence in older adults,” said senior researcher Dr. Jeff Williamson, a professor of gerontology and geriatric medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C. “Lowering your blood pressure to more aggressive targets can improve the quality of life and extend active life for individuals with hypertension,” Williamson added in a news release. The new study is the latest from a landmark clinical trial which, in 2015, reported that intensive blood pressure management reduced risk of heart disease and death by 30% to 40% in people with high blood pressure. The trial — called the Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial, or SPRINT — compared the… read on > read on >

Food stamps and food banks can be key to healthy pregnancies. Food assistance programs are effective in helping hungry women avoid pregnancy complications, researchers say in a new study published Jan. 23 in JAMA Network Open. Food insecurity in pregnancy is associated with a higher risk of gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, preterm birth and newborn admission to a neonatal intensive care unit. However, risk of those complications disappears if women receive food assistance through state or federal welfare programs or local food banks, according to the findings. “Food insecurity in pregnancy was associated with a higher risk of perinatal complications, and these associations were overall attenuated to the null among individuals who received food assistance in pregnancy,” the research team led by senior investigator Yeyi Zhu, a research scientist with Kaiser Permanente Northern California, concluded. Food insecurity refers to when people don’t have enough to eat and don’t know where their next meal will come from. “Pregnancy is a critical period during which exposure to food insecurity can have magnified detrimental effects on the pregnant individual and their developing fetuses,” the researchers said in background notes. More than 8% of households in the U.S. have low food security, and another 5% have very low food security, according to 2023 data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That means about 18 million families were food insecure at… read on > read on >

Patients can improve their odds for a successful surgery by actively preparing for the procedure through diet and exercise, a tactic called “prehabilitation,” a new evidence review shows. Surgical patients who prehabbed had fewer complications and shorter hospital stays, also recovered better and had a higher quality of life, researchers reported Jan. 22 in The BMJ. “If you are going to be having surgery, it is always a good idea to ask about prehabilitation,” said lead researcher Dr. Daniel McIsaac, an anesthesiologist and senior scientist at The Ottawa Hospital and clinical research chair in perioperative innovation at the University of Ottawa in Canada. “If you are willing and able to regularly increase your activity levels and protein intake for a few weeks before surgery, you are likely to experience a noticeably shorter recovery time after surgery,” he added in a news release. The term “prehabilitation” dates to World War II and the British Army’s efforts to improve the general health and fitness of military recruits, researchers said in background notes. The medical community later adopted the term, making prehabilitation a major area of research for the past three decades, researchers said. “We know that people who are more physically fit tend to recover faster from surgery and suffer fewer complications,” McIsaac said. “While many patients, with encouragement from their doctors, want to improve their fitness… read on > read on >