Journal of the American Heart Association study (Feb 17, 2020):
The association between poor overall sleep quality and greater consumption of added sugars observed in the current study aligns with previous findings that intakes of confectionary and sugar‐sweetened beverages were higher in middle‐aged Japanese women reporting poor, compared with good, sleep quality.
Background – Poor sleep increases cardiovascular disease risk, and diet likely contributes to this relationship. However, there are limited epidemiological data on the relationship between measures of sleep quality and habitual dietary patterns. This study examined these associations in a diverse sample of women.
Both short sleep duration and poor sleep quality are associated with the development of obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and cardiovascular disease (CVD), and it is likely that the relationship between sleep and cardiometabolic disease risk is partially mediated by diet.5 Indeed, experimental studies demonstrate that restricting sleep duration leads to increases in energy intake, confirming associations of short sleep with higher energy intakes in observational population‐based studies.
From a New York Times article by Jane E. Brody (Feb 17, 2020):
“It takes 10 to 12 hours to use up the calories in the liver before a metabolic shift occurs to using stored fat,” Dr. Mattson told me. After meals, glucose is used for energy and fat is stored in fat tissue, but during fasts, once glucose is depleted, fat is broken down and used for energy.
I was skeptical, but it turns out there is something to be said for practicing a rather prolonged diurnal fast, preferably one lasting at least 16 hours. Mark P. Mattson, neuroscientist at the National Institute on Aging and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, explained that the liver stores glucose, which the body uses preferentially for energy before it turns to burning body fat.
For example, human studies of intermittent fasting found that it improved such disease indicators as insulin resistance, blood fat abnormalities, high blood pressure and inflammation, even independently of weight loss. In patients with multiple sclerosis, intermittent fasting reduced symptoms in just two months, a research team in Baltimore reported in 2018.
Intermittent fasting has salutary effects. Listen how Dr. Mark P. Mattson, co-author of a recent NEJM review on the topic, assesses the practice — and how he’s managed to skip breakfast for the past 30 years or so.
Evidence is accumulating that eating in a 6-hour period and fasting for 18 hours can trigger a metabolic switch from glucose-based to ketone-based energy, with increased stress resistance, increased longevity, and a decreased incidence of diseases, including cancer and obesity.
From a Rush University Medical Center online article:
The study found that participants in the group with the highest flavonol consumption were 48% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s dementia later on in life than participants with the lowest level. Of the 186 people in the highest group, 28 people, or 15%, developed Alzheimer’s dementia, compared to 54 people, or 30%, of the 182 people in the lowest group.
People who eat or drink more foods with flavonol, which is found in nearly all fruits and vegetables, plus tea and wine, may be less likely to develop Alzheimer’s dementia, according to the Rush researchers. They published the results of their study in the Jan. 29 online issue of Neurology.
Flavonols are a type of flavonoid, a group of phytochemicals found in plant pigments. They are known for their beneficial effects on health due to their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.
A total of 921 people with an average age of 81 participated in the Neurology study. These participants did not have Alzheimer’s dementia when starting the study.
“Our findings show dining out is a recipe for unhealthy eating most of the time,” said Dariush Mozaffarian, senior author and dean of the Friedman School.
At fast-food restaurants, 70 percent of the meals Americans consumed were of poor dietary quality in 2015-16, down from 75 percent in 2003-04. At full-service restaurants, about 50 percent were of poor nutritional quality, an amount that remained stable over the study period. The remainder were of intermediate nutritional quality.
BOSTON (Jan. 29, 2020, 9:00 a.m. EST)—The typical American adult gets one of every five calories from a restaurant, but eating out is a recipe for meals of poor nutritional quality in most cases, according to a new study by researchers at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University.
Published today in The Journal of Nutrition, the study analyzed the dietary selections of more than 35,000 U.S. adults from 2003-2016 in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) who dined at full-service (those with wait staff) or fast-food restaurants, which included pizza shops and what has become known as fast-casual. The researchers assessed nutritional quality by evaluating specific foods and nutrients in the meals, based on the American Heart Association 2020 diet score.
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We derived a healthy lifestyle score based on information on five lifestyle factors—diet, smoking, physical activity, alcohol consumption, and body mass index (BMI).
Our findings suggest that promotion of a healthy lifestyle would help to reduce the healthcare burdens through lowering the risk of developing multiple chronic diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes, and extending disease-free life expectancy. Public policies for improving food and the physical environment conducive to adopting a healthy diet and lifestyle, as well as relevant policies and regulations (for example, smoking ban in public places or trans-fat restrictions), are critical to improving life expectancy, especially life expectancy free of major chronic diseases.
The average life expectancy in the world has increased substantially in the past few decades. The aging of the population has led to a high prevalence of chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Although people live longer, older individuals often live with disabilities and chronic diseases. People with chronic diseases including cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes have a shorter life expectancy than do their peers without these chronic conditions. Estimates of the loss in life years due to these chronic conditions range from 7.5 to 20 years, depending on the methods used and the characteristics of the study population.
Estimated life expectancy at age 50 years with and without cancer, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and/or type 2 diabetes among participants of Nurses’ Health Study (women) and Health Professionals Follow-up Study (men) according to levels of individual lifestyle risk factors. Estimates of multivariate adjusted hazard ratios (sex specific) for morbidity and mortality associated with low risk lifestyles compared with people with zero low risk lifestyle factors adjusted for age, ethnicity, current multivitamin use, current aspirin use, family history of diabetes, myocardial infarction, or cancer, and menopausal status and hormone use (women only). AHEI=Alternate Healthy Eating Index; BMI=body mass index; F=fifth. *Cigarettes/day. †Hours/week. ‡Grams/day
Modifiable lifestyle factors including smoking, physical activity, alcohol intake, body weight, and diet quality affect both total life expectancy and incidence of chronic diseases. Studies have shown that smoking, inactivity, poor diet quality, and heavy alcohol consumption contribute up to 60% of premature deaths and 7.4-17.9 years’ loss in life expectancy. Nevertheless, little research has looked at how a combination of multiple lifestyle factors may relate to life expectancy free from the major diseases of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.
From a NeuroscienceNews.com online release article (01/02/20):
During the years 1976 through 1980, 15% of U.S. adults were obese. Today, about 40%of adults are obese. Another 33% are overweight.
“But, of course, food is now abundant, and our next meal is as close as the kitchen, or the nearest fast-food drive-through, or right here on our desk. Often, these foods are high in fats, sugars, and therefore calories, and that’s why they taste good. It’s easy to overconsume, and, over time, this takes a toll on our health.”
Dopamine Signaling in the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus Enables Weight Gain Associated with Hedonic Feeding – Current Biology January 2, 2020
In a study published Thursday in the journal Current Biology, Güler and his colleagues demonstrate that the pleasure center of the brain that produces the chemical dopamine, and the brain’s separate biological clock that regulates daily physiological rhythms, are linked, and that high-calorie foods – which bring pleasure – disrupt normal feeding schedules, resulting in overconsumption. Using mice as study models, the researchers mimicked the 24/7 availability of a high-fat diet, and showed that anytime snacking eventually results in obesity and related health problems.