Nutrition. Vitamins. You.
Photo by Pablo Heimplatz on Unsplash A new study conducted by researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Seoul National University suggests that individuals with a vitamin d deficiency may be at a much greater risk of developing diabetes. The …
Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash According to research published in the journal Science by researchers from the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, the promotion of a select group of gut bacteria by a diet …
According to research from the University of Bonn in Germany, eating fast food is like giving your body a bacterial infection.
The obesity rate in the U.S. is a major health issue. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than one-third (36.5%) of U.S. adults have obesity. This is largely due to unhealthy diets and lifestyles; the Standard American Diet (SAD) is typically composed of heavy, highly-refined carbohydrates and sugar.
Numerous studies have shown that the rise in obesity rates could be attributed to an increase in calorie intake, coupled with a lack of adequate physical activity.
The Institute of Innate Immunity at the University of Bonn in Germany reports that the immune system reacts similarly to a high-fat and high-calorie diet as to bacterial infection. Unhealthy food seems to make the body’s defenses more aggressive in the long term; even after switching to a healthy diet, “inflammation towards innate immune stimulation is more pronounced.”
Scientists placed mice on a “western diet” for a month – high in fat, high in sugar, and low in fiber. The animals developed a strong inflammatory response throughout the body, almost like after an infection. Anette Christ posdoctoral lead in the study reports, “The unhealthy diet led to an unexpected increase in the number of certain immune cells in the blood of the mice. This was an indication for an involvement of immune cell progenitors in the bone marrow.” When researchers offered the rodents their typical cereal diet for another four weeks, the acute inflammation disappeared. What did not disappear was the genetic reprogramming of the immune cells and their precursors – “even after these four weeks, many of the genes that had been switched on during the fast food phase were still active.”
Director of the Institute, Prof. Dr. Eicke Latz, explains, “After an infection, the body’s defenses remain in a kind of alarm state, so they can respond more quickly to a new attack.”
Inflammatory responses can accelerate the development of vascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Researchers report that individuals born today will live on average, shorter lives than their parents – “Unhealthy diets and too little exercise likely play a decisive role in this.”
According to the Food Institute’s analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, millennial’s alone spend 44% of their budget’s food dollars on eating out. In comparison to 40 years ago, the average American family now spend half their food budget on restaurant food.
While the occasional night out won’t hurt, a habit of eating fast food can do a number on your health, according to Healthline. –
Some studies have shown that you can reverse the damage brought on by too much fast food by changing your diet and getting more exercise. Make healthier substitutes slowly; think: sweet potato fries instead of french fries or having 2% milk instead of whole milk. Be sure to have your cholesterol checked by your doctor. If it is high, follow a high-fiber diet rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Get at least 30 minutes of aerobic exercise most days of the week. You should also get your BMI checked. If it is above 25 and you’re overweight, speak with your doctor on your weight loss options. Joyce Lee, M.D., MPH, says losing even 5% of your body weight can lower your risk of diabetes.
Photo by Jennifer Burk on Unsplash Researchers from several worldwide institutions – including the Imperial College London in the UK and the International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organization (WHO) in France – have discovered that cancers related to metabolic diseases …
Photo by Jason Tuinstra on Unsplash Diabetes is a vicious and life-threatening disease. It is a condition where your blood sugar is continuously and seriously elevated. The excess circulating blood sugar is very destructive, inflaming tissues in the heart and circulation, the eyes, brain, kidneys …
If you’ve ever been on a diet, one common tip is to not eat heavy meals at night, usually past 9pm. The reason being that the probability of high activity level after that time, enough to burn the fat from that meal, is very slim. But findings presented at SLEEP 2017, the 31st Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC, report that eating late at night could be more dangerous than you think.
In order to understand how eating a meal late at night can negatively impact your body, you must understand how healthy digestion takes place. First, of course, as you eat your meal, your teeth are breaking up the food and enzymes are breaking down the sugars. Once the food makes it way to the stomach, stomach acids and enzymes break it down into proteins. Next, it travels to the small intestines, where enzymes are further breaking down the food particles into proteins, fats and sugars. Once the nutrients from the food particles are absorbed into the small intestines, they pass through the blood stream and are carried to the liver to be processed.
When you are eating harmful foods like junk food, the digestion process is slower. Fast foods do not have the healthy enzymes needed to breakdown the foods properly. An unbalanced diet leads to a high amount of carbohydrates, sugars, salt, and fats at a low nutritional value. The foods are processed and refined but lost most of their key nutrients, do not contain enough nutrients, or contain poor water content (needed to break down the food).
New findings of a small study performed by researchers at the University Of Pennsylvania School Of Medicine report that, compared to eating earlier in the day, prolonged delayed eating can increase weight, insulin and cholesterol levels, and negatively affect fat metabolism, and hormonal markers implicated in heart disease, diabetes and other health problems.
In the study, nine healthy weight adults underwent two conditions, one of daytime eating – three meals and two snacks between 8am and 7pm – for eight weeks. The other, delayed eating – three meals and two snacks eating from noon to 11pm – for eight weeks. There was a two-week washout period between conditions to make sure there was no carry over effect. The sleep period was held constant, between 11pm and 9am. Metabolic measures and blood was drawn throughout the study to allow the team to note changes in weight, metabolism and energy used.
The participants who ate later, compared to the daytime condition, weight increased. Respiratory quotient (the ratio of carbon dioxide products by the body to oxygen consumed by the body) rose as well, indicating that eating later led to metabolizing fewer lipids and carbs. The hormone ghrelin that stimulates appetite was found to peak earlier in the daytime in those who followed daytime eating conditions. Researchers say this suggests that eating earlier may help prevent overeating in the evening and at night.