Severely overweight kids who reduce their sugar intake see improvements in health markers such as blood pressure and cholesterol after just 10 days, a new study has found.

The new research is helping shed light on a question scientists have long argued about: Is sugar itself unhealthy, or is the weight gain that comes from consuming sugary drinks and foods mainly what contributes to ill health over the long term?

In the new study, (financed by the National Institutes of Health) and recently published in the journal Obesity, scientists designed an experiment to try and find an answer this question. They removed foods with added sugar from a group of kid’s diets and replaced them with other types of carbs so that the subjects’ weight and overall calorie intake remained similar.

After 10 days, the kids showed dramatic health improvements, but little or no weight loss. The findings reinforces the conclusion that all calories are not the same, and the results suggest that those from refined sugars are especially likely to contribute to Type 2 diabetes and other diseases, which are increasingly affecting children. This is according to the study’s lead author, Dr. Robert Lustig, a paediatric endocrinologist at the Benioff Children’s Hospital of the University in San Francisco, California.

[The research indicates that] we can turn a child’s metabolic health around in 10 days without changing calories and without changing weight – just by taking the added sugars out of their diet

he said.

Added sugars — the extra sweeteners food companies put in their products, including sodas and increasingly a wide variety of pre-packaged foods, (not the sugar that occurs naturally in foods like fruit) are a topic of growing debate. In February, the U.S. federal government’s Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee recommended that Americans limit their intake of added sugars to no more than 10 percent of daily calories.

In 2014, the FDA put forward the recommendation that food companies information on their nutrition labels listing the amount of added sugars in their products. After the dietary guidelines committee issued its report earlier in 2015, the FDA expanded on its 2014 proposal, recommending that companies should also list a “daily percent value” for added sugars on their labels in line with the 10% recommendation.

The recommended changes have been opposed by the food industry as unscientific. The Sugar Association, a trade group, said the F.D.A. was “making assertions that lack adequate scientific evidence,” and the Grocery Manufacturers Association criticised the standards the agency used to establish the daily value as being “inadequate.”

The newly released study is well-timed in part because it lowered sugar intake among children to roughly 10% of daily calories – the amount recommended by the dietary guidelines committee.
The study involved 43 children between the ages of 9 and 18 who were considered at particularly high risk of diabetes and related disorders. All the subjects were black or Hispanic and obese, and had at least one or more symptoms of metabolic syndrome (a cluster of risk factors that includes hypertension, high blood sugar, abnormal cholesterol and excess body fat around the waist).

As an average, the subjects had been getting about 27 percent of their daily calories from sugar. By comparison, the average American takes in about 15 percent, though children typically consume much more than this in part because they have the highest intake of sugary beverages. Fast foods also play their part in what is increasingly being viewed as an epidemic of childhood obesity.

The study replaced the sugary foods in their diets with other foods purchased from local grocery stores. The goal was not to eliminate carbohydrates, but to reduce sugary foods and replace them with starchy foods without lowering body weight or calorie intake.

So rather than yogurt sweetened with sugar, the children ate bagels. Instead of sugary pastries, they were given baked potato chips. Instead of chicken teriyaki (which contains a lot of sugar) they ate turkey hot dogs or burgers for lunch. The remaining sugar in their diet came mostly from fresh fruit.

On average, the subjects’ LDL cholesterol (the kind implicated in heart disease), fell by 10 points. Their diastolic blood pressure fell five points. Their triglycerides, a type of fat that travels in the blood and contributes to heart disease, dropped 33 points. And their fasting blood sugar and insulin levels (indicators of their diabetes risk) also markedly improved.

Dr. Sonia Caprio, a pediatric endocrinologist and professor of paediatrics at Yale Medical School, said that although the study was small,

it addressed the issue in an original way and tried to isolate the effect of sugar on metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance.

She also stated that

This is an important area of research that might solve some of the metabolic issues that we are facing in children, particularly in adolescents, this study needs to be taken seriously, and we need to expand on it.

The post Cut Sugar Out of Your Kids Diet Now! first appeared on Healthy Gab.

The post Cut Sugar Out of Your Kids Diet Now! appeared first on Healthy Gab.

A recent Canadian study has indicated that more creative folk may suffer from nightmares more often than the average sleeper.

Your scary dreams might signal something seriously awesome

People who suffer more nightmares may be more creative than those who dream without terror, a recent Canadian study seems to suggest. The study was published by the Dream & Nightmare Laboratory, Center for Advanced Research in Sleep Medicine, Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal and the Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada.

The researchers asked nightmare sufferers and those who enjoyed pleasant dreams to react to emotionally charged words with the first response that came to mind.

The results were that nightmare-free sleepers responded with predictable words, like “joy” in response to “happy,” or “mad” in response to “angry.”

But those who experienced nightmares at least twice a week made more creative associations.

They responded to the word ‘angry’ with words like ‘red’ and ‘face,

says lead study author Michelle Carr, Ph.D.(c), of the Dream & Nightmare Laboratory at the Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal.

Their minds didn’t follow common patterns of thinking.

That seemingly shows their brains were able to come up with a logical response different from what would generally arise from a more conventional thought process—a potential sign of creativity.

The common link between creativity in waking life and nightmares during sleep might be heightened sensitivity, said Carr.

According to the study creative people tend to experience events on a much deeper level. They’re much more attuned to their emotions and senses, which may allow them to think and express feelings in a more creative manner.

So what’s the end result? When you’re asleep, that insight translates into vivid, intense, and imaginative dreams, she says.

Vivid dreams aren’t necessarily a bad thing

But if you’re stressed or anxious, they can take a negative turn, leading to what we perceive as nightmares instead – and if you’re a more creative type you tend you have much more vivid, and potentially frightening dreams.

The post Creative People Suffer from Nightmares More Often – New Study. first appeared on Healthy Gab.

The post Creative People Suffer from Nightmares More Often – New Study. appeared first on Healthy Gab.

A study of 16,000 women found that those with big butts had lower levels of cholesterol and were far more likely to produce hormones that help to metabolise sugars. So women with a large booty are less likely to have diabetes and heart health problems.

In the female body, a big rear end favours the production of leptin and high dinopectina levels. Leptin is a hormone that helps regulate weight and dinopectina is a hormone with anti-inflammatory, vascular protective and antidiabetic properties.

The adipose tissues in the buttocks actually traps fatty particles and prevents cardiovascular disease. Similar studies have found that women with large behinds, wide hips and smaller waists may actually live longer.

When it comes to intelligence levels, having a big backside means having excess levels of Omega 3 fats. Omega 3’s have been demonstrated to catalyse brain development.

These researchers also found that children born to women with wide hips are intellectually superior to children of slimmer, less curvy women.

If you were looking for a reason to be proud of your ample behind this research may be just what the doctor ordered.

The post Bootylicious – Big Butts Are Healthy! first appeared on Healthy Gab.

The post Bootylicious – Big Butts Are Healthy! appeared first on Healthy Gab.

Athletes rely on interval training to improve their speed and power, but generally as part of a broader, weekly training program that also includes extended, less-intense workouts, such as long runs or bicycling.

However in the past couple of years, scientists and many sportspeople have become interested in the idea of exercising exclusively with intervals, ditching long workouts altogether.

The attraction of this approach is obvious to all. Interval exercise duration can be short, making this form of exercise a positive gift for anyone who feels that they never have enough time to exercise.
Prior to this study most studies of interval training have had limitations, such as not including a control group, being of short duration or studying only health or fitness results, not a combination of both.

For this reason fundamental and important questions have remained unanswered about just how well these short, very intense workouts really compare to traditional, endurance type training.
This led scientists at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, (who had themselves conducted many of those earlier studies of interval training), to conduct what has been recognized as the most scientifically rigorous comparison to date of super short and standard exercise programs.

They recruited 25 out-of-shape men and measuring their aerobic fitness levels and as a marker of their general health their body’s ability to use insulin properly to keep blood sugar levels regular. The scientists also biopsied the men’s muscles to examine functioning at a cellular level.
The researchers then randomly divided the men into 3 groups. One group was asked to change nothing about their current, low levels of exercise – these would then be the controls.

A second group began a typical endurance workout exercise regime, consisting of riding at a moderate pace on a stationary bike in the lab for forty five minutes, with a 2-minute warm-up and 3-minute cool down time.

The last group was tasked with interval training, using the most abbreviated workout proven to have verifiable benefits. The volunteers warmed up for 2 minutes on stationary bikes, then pedalled as hard as possible for twenty seconds; rode at a very slow pace for 2 minutes, sprinted all-out again for twenty seconds; then recovered with slow riding for another 2 minutes; pedalled all out for a last twenty seconds; then cooled down for 3 minutes. The entire workout lasted ten minutes, with only 1 minute of that time being strenuous.

Both groups completed three sessions each week for twelve weeks, a period of time that is about 2x as long as in most past studies of interval training.

By the end of the study which was published in PLOS One, the endurance group had ridden for 27 hours, while the interval group had ridden for six hours, with only 36 minutes of that time being high energy exercise.

However, when the scientists retested aerobic fitness, muscles and blood sugar control, they found that the exercisers showed almost identical gains, whether they had completed the long endurance workouts or the short, more stressful interval routine. In both groups of subjects, endurance had increased by nearly twenty percent, insulin resistance had likewise improved significantly. There were also significant increases in the number and function of certain microscopic structures in the men’s muscles which were related to energy production and oxygen use.

The control group showed no changes in health or fitness.

The result indicates that three months of concerted endurance or interval exercise can almost identically improve someone’s fitness and health.
Is that enough reason for folk who currently exercise moderately or not at all to begin interval training as their only workout choice?

Martin Gibala, a professor of kinesiology at McMaster University says:

it depends on who you are and why you exercise

If you are an elite athlete, then obviously incorporating both endurance and interval training into an overall program maximizes performance. But if you are someone, like me, who just wants to boost health and fitness and you don’t have 45 minutes or an hour to work out, our data show that you can get big benefits from even a single minute of intense exercise.

The post Can you get Away with Just One Minute of Exercise? first appeared on Healthy Gab.

The post Can you get Away with Just One Minute of Exercise? appeared first on Healthy Gab.

 

In a new first, scientists compared the neurological impacts of different types of exercise, including running, weight training and high-intensity interval training. The results suggest that high impact training may not be the best choice to maintain long-term brain health.

Exercise has been shown to change the structure and functioning of the brain. Studies in animals and people have shown that physical activity usually increases brain volume and can reduce the frequency and size of age-related holes in various parts of the brain.

Exercise also augments adult neurogenesis, (the creation of new brain cells in an already mature brain). In studies of animals, exercise involving running wheels or treadmills can double or even triple the number of new neurons that appear in the animals’ hippocampus, which is a key area of the brain associated with learning and memory. This result was apparent when comparing the brains of animals that remain sedentary with those that underwent exercise. Although not proven many scientists believe that the human hippocampus would be similarly affected.

These studies of exercise and neurogenesis have focused on distance running. Lab rodents of course know how to run. But the question still remains whether other forms of exercise would also prompt increases in neurogenesis.

The current study, which was published this month in the Journal of Physiology, involved researchers at the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland (and other institutions) injecting rats with a substance that marks new brain cells. These researchers then set groups of rats a variety of different workouts, with one group remaining sedentary to serve as a control group.

Some groups of rats were given running wheels in their cages, allowing them to run at will. Most jogged moderately every day for several miles.

Other groups began resistance training, which involved climbing a wall with weights attached to their tails.

There was also the rodent equivalent of high-intensity interval training. For this the animals were placed on small treadmills and required to sprint at a very rapid and strenuous pace for three minutes, followed by two minutes of slow activity, with the entire sequence repeated twice more, for a total of 15 minutes.

The study continued for seven weeks. At the end of the time period the researchers examined brain tissue from the hippocampus of each animal.

There were differing levels of neurogenesis, dependant on how each animal had exercised.
Those rats that had jogged on wheels showed robust levels of neurogenesis, far more than in the brains of the sedentary animals. The greater the distance that the animal had covered during the experiment, the more new cells its brain grew.

There were far fewer new neurons in the brains of rats that had completed high-intensity interval training. They showed somewhat higher amounts than in the sedentary animals but less than in the distance runners.

And the weight-training rats showed no discernible augmentation of neurogenesis, although their strength levels had increased. Their hippocampal tissue looked just like that of the animals that had not exercised at all.

According to Miriam Nokia, a research fellow at the University of Jyvaskyla “sustained aerobic exercise might be most beneficial for brain health also in humans.”

Dr. Nokia and her colleagues theorise that distance running stimulates the release of brain-derived neurotrophic factor which is known to regulate neurogenesis. The more miles an animal runs, the more B.D.N.F. it produces.

Weight training, on the other hand, while beneficial for muscular health, has previously been shown to have little effect on the body’s levels of B.D.N.F.

According to Dr. Nokia high-intensity interval training, is much more physiologically draining and stressful than moderate running, and “stress tends to decrease adult hippocampal neurogenesis,” she said.

These results do not mean, however, that only running and similar moderate endurance workouts strengthen the brain, Dr. Nokia said. Those activities do seem to prompt the most neurogenesis in the hippocampus. But the other types of exercise may lead to different types of changes in the brain. They could encourage the creation of additional blood vessels or new connections between brain cells or between different parts of the brain.

So if you’re at the gym doing weight training perhaps you should also think about mixing it up a bit more. Get on your bike or hit the cardio circuit a bit more often.

 

The post The Fast Track To Brain Health first appeared on Healthy Gab.

The post The Fast Track To Brain Health appeared first on Healthy Gab.