food consumption Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Eating More of THIS Food May Lower Heart Disease Risk, New Study Suggests

AHA Publisher — Wed, 29 Jun 2022 07:18:47 +0000

Patrick Tims via NaturalHealth365 – There are plenty of ways to reduce your risk of heart disease, including diet and exercise. In fact, surprising to many people, eating fat-rich avocados can actually help to reduce the risk of heart disease. Avocados taste amazing and clearly benefit the human body, as detailed below. A recent study shows people who consume two or more servings of avocados per week have a 16% to 22% less chance of developing heart disease. The details of this study are quite interesting. Higher Intake of Avocados Associated With Significantly Lower Risk of Cardiovascular Disease The study referenced above, conducted by Pacheco et al., used data from two potential cohort studies dating back to the late 1980s up until 2016. The participants reported information about their food intake every two years. The cohort participants also answered questions about medical history, lifestyle, and overall health. The study subjects were asked how frequently they consumed specific foods, focusing on avocados, olive oil, butter, and plant oil. Once lifestyle and diet factors were adjusted for, researchers determined that those who ate more avocados were less likely to develop heart disease and stroke. Interestingly, the study revealed that consuming half a serving of avocados each day in place of the same amount of margarine was enough to reduce the risk of heart disease by the 16% mentioned above. However, it must be noted that the study had limitations of note. For example, some question whether self-reported food intake is accurate as people tend to feel guilty about eating unhealthy food. Heart Disease Remains Leading Cause of Mortality Worldwide The study’s findings, as detailed above, are meaningful as heart disease is the leading cause of mortality across the globe. Cardiovascular disease also causes atherosclerotic lesions to form, causing the arteries to narrow, leading to a thrombus formation followed by a clinical event. All in all, nearly 18 million people die each year due to cardiovascular diseases. As the massive baby boomer age cohort moves through its golden years, heart disease and cancer will be the center of the medical industry’s attention. The Role of Diet and Lifestyle in Heart Health Sufficient sleep, exercise, and food consumption all play a role in preventing heart disease. However, the average person is understandably unaware of the most important foods to eat to improve their heart health. For example, avocados are loaded with monounsaturated fatty acids, yet they are also rich in polyphenols 5 and antioxidants. Avocados have the ability to decrease LDL-C (low-density lipoprotein cholesterol), proving helpful in preventing cardiovascular disease. In case you need more reasons to chow down on avocados, here is another one. Previous epidemiological studies have found that the regular consumption of avocados reduces cholesterol and triglycerides while simultaneously hiking serum HDL-C (high-density lipoprotein cholesterol) concentrations. Science has spoken and shown that avocados deserve a spot on your plate. Best of all, including them in your diet is not difficult. Make a delicious avocado toast, or add sliced avocados to your salad to give it a nutritional boost with heart-protective benefits. Sources for this article include: NaturalHealthResearch.org Paho.org To read the original article click here.

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New Brain-Training App Helps People to Change Eating Habits and Lose Weight

AHA Publisher — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 07:00:54 +0000

University of Exeter via News-Medical – Using a brain-training app helps people eat less junk food and lose weight, new research suggests. The Food Trainer (FoodT app) trains people to tap on images of healthy foods – but to stop when they see unhealthy snacks, creating an association between these foods and stopping. The new study, by the universities of Exeter and Helsinki, found that playing the game about once a day for a month led to an average one-point reduction of junk food consumption on an eight-point scale (the scale ranges from four or more items per day, to one or zero items per month). Overall, people who used the app more also reported larger changes in their food intake. About half of the study’s 1,234 participants followed the recommendation and played the game at least 10 times. Across all participants, an average weight loss of half a kilogram (just over a pound) and a small increase in healthy food eaten was seen. “As an example, someone who ate each junk food two to four times a week reduced this to once a week after using the app regularly for a month,” said Professor Natalia Lawrence, of the University of Exeter. “Overall, the findings are really encouraging. The app is free and it only takes about four minutes per day – so it’s something people realistically can do – and our results suggest it is effective. “There’s some evidence that the benefits were stronger for people who were more overweight. “We would expect to see this, because the app targets mechanisms that lead people to become overweight, such as the strong urges to approach and consume tempting junk foods.” “For anyone with unhealthy eating habits – perhaps developed during lockdown – FoodT might be helpful.” Dr Matthias Aulbach, University of Helsinki The study used FoodT usage data, and the app also periodically asks questions about how often users eat certain foods, along with other information such as their age and weight. The findings suggest that using the app regularly was linked with bigger changes in eating habits. “If you’re trying to teach the brain something new, it’s a good idea to space out the learning over multiple sessions,” said Dr Aulbach. “It may be helpful to do the training in different contexts – not just at home but at work and elsewhere, so the associations you learn don’t just relate to one location. “From our results it seems important that you do the training regularly and don’t just stop. So keep it interesting and relevant for yourself so you won’t get bored with it: personalize the app as far as possible and pick the foods that you find really hard to resist.” The researchers stress that their findings should be interpreted cautiously, because there was no control (comparison) group and other factors (such as the possibility that people who did more training were also separately more motivated to lose weight) could play a part in the results. Leaving a review on Google Play, one app user wrote: “Really useful. Seems to work on different levels whether it’s the green/red circle association of stop/go which psychologically makes you more aware, I’m not sure – but my cravings have reduced dramatically and I no longer eat in the evening mindlessly.” Development of the app was made possible by donations to a crowdfunding campaign, and app users who consent for their data to be used – anonymously – have enabled this research and app improvements to be made. To read the original article click here.

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Using Technology During Mealtimes May Decrease Food Intake, Study Finds

AHA Publisher — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 07:00:59 +0000

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, News Bureau via EurekAlert – Being distracted by technology during mealtimes may decrease the amount of food a person eats, nutrition scientists suggest in a new study. CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — When 119 young adults consumed a meal while playing a simple computer game for 15 minutes, they ate significantly less than when they ate the same meal without distractions, said lead author Carli A. Liguori. Liguori conducted the research while earning a master’s degree in food science and human nutrition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The findings were published recently in the Journal of Nutrition. Participants’ food consumption was evaluated on two separate occasions – one day when they played the game while eating and on another day when they ate without distractions. The game, called Rapid Visual Information Processing, tests users’ visual sustained attention and working memory and has been used extensively by researchers in evaluating people for problems such as Alzheimer’s disease and attention-deficit disorder. The game randomly flashes series of digits on the computer screen at the rate of one per second. Participants in the study were instructed to hit the space bar on the keyboard whenever they saw three consecutive odd numbers appear. “It’s fairly simple but distracting enough that you have to really be watching it to make sure that you don’t miss a number and are mentally keeping track,” Liguori said. “That was a big question for us going into this – how do you ensure that the participant is distracted? And the RVIP was a good solution for that.” The participants, who had fasted for 10 hours before each visit, were told to consume as much as they wanted of 10 miniature quiches while they were either playing the game or eating quietly without distractions for 15 minutes. The food was weighed and counted before and after it was given to each person. After a 30-minute rest period, participants completed an exit survey that asked them to recall how many quiches they had been given and the number they had consumed. They also rated how much they enjoyed the meal as well as their feelings of hunger and fullness. Liguori hypothesized that, in keeping with prior research, when people ate while using the computer game they would not only consume more food but would have poorer memory of what they ate and enjoy it less. Instead, she found that participants ate less when they were distracted by the computer game. Moreover, participants’ meal memory – their ability to recall how much they had been served and eaten – was less accurate when they were distracted than when they ate quietly without the game. However, participants’ consumption on their second visit was affected by which activity they had performed during their initial visit. The people who engaged in distracted eating on their first visit ate significantly less than their counterparts who did not experience the distracted eating condition until their second visit. Moreover, when participants who engaged in the distracted eating on their first visit were served the quiches on their next visit, “they behaved as if they were encountering the food for the first time, as evidenced by a lower rate of consumption similar to that of those who began” with the non-distracted meal, according to the study. “It really seemed to matter whether they were in that distracted eating group first,” said Liguori, who is a visiting faculty member in health and physical activity at the University of Pittsburgh. “Something about being distracted on their initial visit really seemed to change the amount they consumed during the nondistracted meal. There may be a potent carryover effect between the mechanism of distraction and the novelty of the food served.” The results suggest that there may be a difference between distracted eating and mindless eating. Although the terms are often used interchangeably, Liguori hypothesized that they may be distinctly different behaviors with nuances that need to be explored. Mindless eating may occur when we eat without intending to do so, Liguori hypothesized. For example, we grab a handful of candy from the jar at the office as we walk by or start snacking on chips because they happen to be in sitting front of us. Conversely, distracted eating may occur when we engage in a secondary activity such as watching TV or answering emails while we are deliberately eating – for example, when we’re eating dinner, she said. Although prior research indicated that people eat more when distracted, Liguori hypothesized that the differing results in her study may have been associated with examining within-person differences – comparing individuals’ consumption under the , rather than comparing individuals’ behavior to that of peers. Or, she said, her findings could have been influenced by factors such as the type of distraction that was used, the type of food served or by using college students as the study population, limiting the diversity in participants’ age, race, food preferences and motivation to regulate their consumption. To read the original article click here.

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