calorie intake Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Research Demonstrates a Clear Link Between Nicotine Withdrawal and Poor Eating Habits

AHA Publisher — Tue, 28 Sep 2021 07:00:05 +0000

University of Minnesota Medical School via News-Medical – New data collected by University of Minnesota Medical School researchers demonstrate a clear connection between nicotine withdrawal and poor eating habits. Their findings point to the opioid system, the brain functions responsible for addiction and appetite regulation, as a possible cause for smoker preference of energy-dense, high-calorie food during nicotine withdrawal. This can lead to weight gain, for those who quit smoking, which, in turn, may increase the risk of relapse. Mustafa al’Absi, PhD, a licensed psychologist and professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Biobehavioral Health at the U of M Medical School, Duluth Campus, is the principal investigator and the senior author of the study recently published in the Journal of Drug and Alcohol Dependence. “We looked at whether or not acute nicotine withdrawal increases the intake of junk food -; high in salt, fat and sugar -; and how the stress-relieving receptors of the opioid system are involved. Mitigating these challenges during the treatment process will help patients quit smoking while understanding their eating habits and encourage healthier decisions.” Mustafa al’Absi, PhD, Professor, Department of Family Medicine and Biobehavioral Health, U of M Medical School The team studied a group of smoking and non-smoking participants between the ages of 18 and 75 during two laboratory sessions. All were randomly assigned to do a 24-hour withdrawal from nicotine products and administered either a placebo or 50 mg of naltrexone. At the end of each session, participants were given a tray of snack items that differed in high to low energy density and dimensions of salty, sweet and fat. The study found that: Smokers undergoing nicotine withdrawal consumed more calories than non-smokers. Participants were also less likely to select high-fat food after the naltrexone was administered than placebo. “The study’s findings may be related to the use of food, especially those high in calories, to cope with the negative affect and distress that characterizes the feelings people experience during smoking withdrawal,” al’Absi said. “Results from preclinical and clinical research support this and demonstrate that stress increases proclivity for high-fat and high-sugar foods.” Naltrexone normalized calorie intake to levels seen in non-smokers, suggesting that the opioid system may be a mechanism of withdrawal-induced intake of calories. “This is rather a novel finding in the context of nicotine addiction and has lots of implications for the development of future treatment,” al’Absi said. The choice and consumption of food items were impacted by the participants’ smoking backgrounds. al’Absi and his team are now focusing on the impact of appetite changes on weight gain post-cessation and the extent to which these changes hinder smoking cessation and increase the risk of relapse. Future work will be critical to identifying the mechanisms of these changes and could be targeted for therapeutic interventions. “These findings extend earlier studies that indicate the impact of tobacco use on appetite and help identify the influence of an important biological link, the brain opioid system, on craving during nicotine withdrawal,” al’Absi said. “The fear of weight gain is a major concern among smokers who think about quitting. The key to removing these barriers is to better understand the factors that increase the urge for high-caloric foods.” To read the original article click here.

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Lowering Iron in Fat Cells Prevented Weight Gain in Mice

AHA Publisher — Mon, 12 Jul 2021 07:00:10 +0000

UT Southwestern Medical Center via Newswise – DALLAS – June 28, 2021 – Lowering iron content in fat cells prevented mice fed a high-fat diet from gaining excess weight and developing associated health problems by limiting the amount of lipids absorbed by the intestines, UT Southwestern scientists report in a new study. The findings, published online in Cell Metabolism, could eventually lead to new strategies to protect people against obesity and related diseases. “It’s easy to say that we should consume fewer calories – but at the same time, we all like to eat,” says study leader Philipp E. Scherer, Ph.D., professor in the departments of internal medicine and cell biology at UTSW. “By absorbing fewer lipids, these animals kept their weight down and did not experience the secondary consequences of excess weight gain.” It has long been known that systemic iron deficiencies cause anemia, explains Scherer, with symptoms including extreme fatigue and weakness. Researchers have also investigated the effects of depriving specific cell populations of iron, which typically causes cells to become dysfunctional and even die. However, he adds, researchers have not tested this manipulation in fat cells. When Scherer and his team used a breeding technique to generate mice with significantly lower iron content in their fat cells, the scientists expected the resulting animals to be in poor health. On the contrary, they remained healthy, even when fed a high-fat diet that drove their cage mates to become severely obese. While the normal “wild type” mice developed health problems associated with obesity, including insulin resistance and high levels of cholesterol and triglycerides, the mice with iron-poor fat tissue were leaner and developed none of these issues. A different genetic manipulation that lowered iron content in fat cells of adult mice produced the same positive health effects, protecting the mice from metabolic disorders induced by a high-fat diet, and even improving the health of mice after they became obese, reversing most of the negative obesity-associated consequences. Searching for what caused this phenomenon, Scherer and his colleagues discovered that the intestinal cells of mice with iron-poor fat absorbed fewer lipids, significantly limiting the number of calories they took in. Scherer suggests that iron-deficient fat cells may send a chemical signal to communicate their iron status to the intestine, triggering the tissue to take up fewer lipids. However, the nature of this signal is yet unknown. If researchers could find a way to safely deplete fat cells of iron or artificially supply the chemical signal, they may eventually be able to improve metabolic health in people. “Finding how fat is talking to the intestines is the next step we have to embark upon,” Scherer says. To read the original article click here.

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Diet or Exercise? New Research Shows Which One Leads to Weight Loss

AHA Publisher — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 07:00:51 +0000

Lorie Johnson via CBN News – People who want to lose weight need to cut calories, not increase their exercise expenditure. Although exercise is necessary for overall health, research shows increasing our movement can’t make us thin. These findings come from years of research on cultures that endure strenuous physical activity each day who don’t have a lot of food. A prime example would be the Hazda people living in southeast Africa. Duke University researcher Dr. Herman Pontzer and his team first examined the Hazdas’ daily energy output ten years ago. “Of course they’re so physically active,” Dr. Pontzer told CBN News, “Men are walking ten miles a day, women are walking six or eight miles a day. We were sure they’d be burning so many more calories than people in the US and Europe and industrialized populations.” They were wrong. Knocked Their Socks Off The researchers witnessed and documented extreme levels of exercise among the hunter-gatherer people group. However, using highly advanced and accurate measurement techniques, they discovered the Hazdas didn’t burn more calories than their couch-potato counterparts half a world away. “Instead what we found,” Dr. Pontzer said, “It knocked our socks off, was that actually, Hadza men and women, who are incredibly physically active, burn the same number of calories as we are here in the US.” That number? “On average, men burn about 3,000 calories a day, women burn about 2,500 a day just by virtue of being a little bit smaller,” he said. In his book, Burn: New Research Blows the Lid Off How We Really Burn Calories, Lose Weight, and Stay Healthy, Dr. Pontzer lays out a number of similar studies on calorie expenditure in different cultures around the world over the last decade that all reached the same startling conclusion: people who exercise more don’t burn markedly more calories than people who hardly exercise at all. “What we find is that people who are really physically active are burning the same number of calories as people who are less active, in fact, even more sedentary,” Dr. Pontzer said. How Can This Be? To help explain this metabolic mystery, scientists discovered that regardless of how much we exercise, the human body’s daily calorie expenditure primarily consists of burning most of its energy in ways that keep our bodies operating. “Your immune function, your reproductive function, just staying alive day-to-day,” Dr. Pontzer said, adding that things like thinking, breathing, and digestion burn a lot of calories. Dr. Pontzer says he and his fellow scientists learned that when people exercise a great deal, the body’s metabolism shifts in a way that doesn’t allow a person to burn more calories. “Your body makes adjustments in those activities and how much it’s spending on those activities to make room for physical activity,” he said. Although excess exercise prevents people from losing weight, which many overweight westerners may view as a drawback, since these cultures have an abundance of food, it also prevents people from starving to death in cultures that don’t have a lot of high-calorie foods. Watch What You Eat In light of this discovery, how does a person drop those unwanted pounds? Pontzer says the answer is easy to understand but difficult to implement. “So if you want to manage your weight, you want to focus on diet,” he said. Scientists tell us we should look to the old adage, “calories in versus calories out.” In other words, our weight is determined by the difference between how many calories we consume versus how many calories we burn. Dr. Pontzer says since we now understand the number of calories we burn is relatively fixed, in order to manage our weight, we need to focus on the variable that is flexible: the number of calories we consume. Surprisingly, however, he discourages people from trying to count them because people tend to make mistakes. “It’s actually really hard to pay attention to the calories you eat every day,” he explained, ” You forget. Or you sort-of misestimate how much you eat. It happens to everyone.” Instead, he recommends daily weighing and adjusting food intake based on what the scale reads. If the number on the scale is higher than you’d like, cut back on what you’re consuming. Dr. Pontzer says the best place to start is by avoiding processed items such as sugary drinks and prepared packaged foods. “They’re literally engineered for you to over-consume,” he said. Dr. Pontzer says people who are trying to lose weight should replace processed foods with whole foods. These are items that are close to their original state[s], such as fresh produce, meat, fish, and dairy. Many of these items can be found on the exterior of the grocery store. They are foods that are generally lower in calories than processed foods while at the same time make you feel fuller than processed foods. Pontzer stresses that even though exercise is not necessary to lose weight we still need to exercise. Physical activity helps fight disease in many ways such as lowering inflammation, improving brain function, and strengthening the cardiovascular system. To read the original article click here. For more articles from CBN News click here.

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