What is Cranial Electrotherapy Stimulation? (Part 2) 
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An intermittent, low-carbohydrate diet was superior to a standard, daily calorie-restricted diet for reducing weight and lowering blood levels of insulin, a cancer-promoting hormone, according to recent findings. Researchers at Genesis Prevention Center at University Hospital in South Manchester, England, found that restricting carbohydrates two days per week may be a better dietary approach than a standard, daily calorie-restricted diet for preventing breast cancer and other diseases, but they said further study is needed.
A healthy diet and the right amount of exercise are key players in treating and preventing obesity but we still know little about the relationship both factors have with each other. A new study now reveals that an increase in physical activity is linked to an improvement in diet quality. Many questions arise when trying to lose weight. Would it be better to start on a diet and then do exercise, or the other way around? And how much does one compensate the other?
A team of Johns Hopkins researchers has uncovered further evidence of the benefits of a balanced diet that replaces white bread and pasta carbohydrates with unsaturated fat from avocados, olive oil, and nuts — foods typical of the so-called “Mediterranean diet.” In a report prepared for the American Heart Association’s scientific sessions in Orlando next week, the Johns Hopkins investigators say swapping out certain foods can improve heart health in those at risk for cardiovascular disease, even if the dietary changes are not coupled with weight loss.
Healthier dietary choices by pregnant women are associated with reduced risks of birth defects, including neural tube defects and orofacial clefts, according to a study published Online First by the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. The investigation was carried out by Suzan L. Carmichael, Ph.D., from Stanford University, Stanford, Calif., and colleagues.
A flurry of Internet sites are touting raw egg drinks or shakes as “primal and powerful,” with others suggesting uncooked eggs be blended with vanilla or avocado for a tasty, healthy snack and insisting that the connection between raw eggs and salmonella is a myth. Suzy Weems, Ph.D., a national food expert and chair of Baylor University’s family and consumer sciences department, has this word for health-seekers: Leave no egg uncooked.
In 1943, American psychologist Abraham Maslow proposed that all humans seek to fulfill a hierarchy of needs, which he represented with a pyramid. The pyramid’s base, which he believed must come first, signified basic needs (for food, sleep and sex, for example). Safety and security came next, in Maslow’s view, then love and belonging, then esteem and, finally, at the pyramid’s peak, a quality he called “self-actualization.” Maslow wrote that people who have these needs fulfilled should be happier than those who do not.
You are making a healthier choice when opting for a diet soda instead of a calorie-laden drink, but beware that you do not sabotage your good behavior by indulging in fat-adding foods. “I suspect that people are likely drinking those diet sodas to wash down high fat and high-calorie fast food or take-out meals, not as a complement to a healthy meal prepared at home or to quench a thirst after a tough workout, ” says Jessica Bartfield, MD, internal medicine who specializes in weight and nutrition at Gottlieb Memorial Hospital.
A high-fat diet can be bad for your health. However, a snack-based “cafeteria”-style diet of highly palatable, energy-dense foods is even worse, according to new research. A study by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that rats that ate snack foods commonly consumed by children and adults in the U.S. ate more, gained more weight, had more tissue inflammation, and were intolerant to glucose and insulin (warning signs of diabetes) than rats whose diets were high fat from lard.
A recent study from scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies suggests that a strawberry a day (or more accurately, 37 of them) could keep not just one doctor away, but an entire fleet of them, including the neurologist, the endocrinologist, and maybe even the oncologist. Investigations conducted in the Salk Institute’s Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory (CNL) will appear in the June 27, 2011, issue of PLoS ONE.
Over the past 30 years U.S. adults have been eating larger portions and eating more often, according to a new study by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers. The findings help illustrate that how Americans are eating contributes to the country’s obesity epidemic. Check the end of this report for a link to download this open access study that is freely available in June 2011 issue of the journal PLoS Medicine.
