all nutrition & diet stories

Suboptimal sleep, TV watching correlate with overweight in infants and toddlers

404132862 — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:25:02 -0400

Infants and toddlers who sleep less than 12 hours a day are twice as likely to become overweight by age 3 than children who sleep longer. In addition, high levels of television viewing combined with less sleep elevate the risk, so that children who sleep less than 12 hours and who view two or more hours of television per day have a 16 percent chance of becoming overweight by age 3.

Consumption of some foods associated with decrease in ovarian cancer risk

404132862 — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:47:20 -0500

New research from the Channing Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) reports that frequent consumption of foods containing the flavonoid kaempferol, including non-herbal tea and broccoli, was associated with a reduced risk of ovarian cancer. The researchers also found a decreased risk in women who consumed large amounts of the flavonoid luteolin, which is found in foods such as carrots, peppers and cabbage. These findings appear in the November 15,

Weight gain between first and second pregnancies and sex ratio

404132862 — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 13:08:13 -0400

A new study from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, found that mothers who experienced an increase in weight from the beginning of the first pregnancy to the beginning of the second pregnancy may be slightly more likely to give birth to a baby boy during their second pregnancy. The study appears online September 24, 2007 in the journal Fertility & Sterility.

Harvard researchers find longevity, restricted diet link

404132862 — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 15:17:33 -0400

Researchers believe they’ve found the cellular link between extremely restricted diets and dramatically lengthened lifespan and hope to use the knowledge to develop new treatments for age-related diseases.

The research, conducted by scientists at Harvard Medical School, Cornell University Medical School, and the National Institutes of Health, illuminates for the first time the cellular processes triggered by extremely low-calorie diets.

Scientists have known for about 70 years that extremely restricted diets — where caloric intake is 30 percent to 40 percent below normal — can extend lifespan by as much as a third. In addition, those years are healthier and relatively free of common age-related debilities such as cancer, heart problems, and type 2 diabetes.

Teen diets can hurt their lungs

50443248 — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 09:27:34 -0400

For most teenagers in the United States and Canada, fish and fruit are not high on their delicious list. Also, many of them — about 20 percent of those under 18 — cough, wheeze, and suffer from asthma and bronchitis. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) have found a connection between these two situations.

A study of more than 2,100 high school seniors found that those who eat the least fruit and fish have the weakest lungs.

Cocoa shows promise as next wonder drug

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 10:28:50 -0400

A big problem facing Americans and Europeans is the dangerous rise in blood pressure with age, increasing their risk of heart disease and diabetes. Kuna Indians living off the Caribbean coast of Panama don't have that problem. Norman Hollenberg, a professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School, is convinced that it's because they drink more than five cups of cocoa a day.

Getting to obesity’s bottom line

50443248 — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 09:43:20 -0400

Hunter-gatherer instincts set loose in a world of modern food abundance are at the root of today’s obesity crisis, according to a Harvard psychologist.

Deirdre Barrett, psychologist with the Harvard-affiliated Cambridge Health Alliance and assistant clinical professor of psychology in Harvard Medical School’s Psychiatry Department, says food manufacturers and advertising campaigns play to our Paleolithic instincts. They overemphasize the qualities of certain food items that appeal to the hunter-gatherer in us, creating “supernormal stimuli,” cues on an unnatural object that make it more desirable — and harder to resist — than the natural object it mimics.

Too much water can be life-threatening for marathoners

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 12:43:55 -0400

Runners who consume too much water or sports drinks during a marathon can develop a life-threatening condition called exercise-associated hyponatremia (EAH). Beyond drinking, however, researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital report in the May 2007 issue of the American Journal of Medicine that this complication during endurance exercise is also the result of a hormonal stress response, which decreases urine formation and prevents the excretion of excess water.

Vitamin D may protect against prostate cancer

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 16:28:47 -0400

With spring on the way, Harvard researchers advise men to get more sun, supplements, and seafood. All are good sources of vitamin D, and a large, lengthy study suggests the vitamin reduces risk of prostate cancer.

About 240,000 men in the United States alone will be told that they have the cancer this year, and around 30,000 of those with the disease will die from it. An 18-year Harvard investigation of 14,916 medical doctors found that 1,066 developed the cancer, and 496 of them suffered a deadly form of it. The researchers say that such tolls can be reduced with the help of vitamin D.

Hormones in milk can be dangerous

50443248 — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 09:58:49 -0400

Ganmaa Davaasambuu is a physician (Mongolia), a Ph.D. in environmental health (Japan), a fellow (Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study), and a working scientist (Harvard School of Public Health).

On Monday (Dec. 4), she drew on all those roles during a lunchtime talk to most of her fellow fellows.

Ganmaa's topic was lunch-appropriate: the suspected role of cow's milk, cheese, and other dairy products in hormone-dependent cancers. (Those include cancers of the testes, prostate, and breast.)

The link between cancer and dietary hormones - estrogen in particular - has been a source of great concern among scientists, said Ganmaa, but it has not been widely studied or discussed.

Risk of breast cancer may be associated with red meat consumption

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:38:46 -0400

Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have found that eating more red meat may be associated with a higher risk for hormone receptor–positive breast cancers in premenopausal women. This research is published in the Nov. 13 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

"This study suggests that dietary factors may be related to a woman's chance of developing this type of breast cancer, a disease that is on the rise in American women," said lead author, Eunyoung Cho, a researcher at BWH.

Dietary supplements can cause harmful reactions with prescription medicines

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 10:28:39 -0400

More than one of every five people who take prescription drugs also use dietary supplements, like ginseng and gingko, without telling their doctors. Such combinations may lead to harmful results, such as interfering with the action of prescription medications taken for conditions ranging from insomnia to heart disease, cancer, and arthritis.

Study says moderate drinking reduces men's heart attack risk

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 07:10:56 -0400

Even as studies have consistently found an association between moderate alcohol consumption and reduced heart attack risk in men, an important question has persisted: What if the men who drank in moderation were the same individuals who maintained good eating habits, didn't smoke, exercised and watched their weight?

How would you know that their reduced risk of myocardial infarction wasn't the result of one or more of these other healthy habits?

A new study led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) helps answer this question. Reported in the Oct. 23, 2006, issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, the findings show for the first time that among men with healthy lifestyles, those who consumed moderate amounts of alcohol - defined as between one-half and two drinks daily - had a 40 percent to 60 percent reduced risk of heart attack compared with healthy men who didn't drink at all.

"This latest research speaks to how robust the link is between moderate drinking and heart attack risk," explains lead author Kenneth Mukamal, MD, MPH, an internist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. "The fact that we found the association [between alcohol consumption and heart attack] to be just as strong in this tightly controlled group of men as we've found it to be in more general studies suggests that physicians should not avoid alcohol consumption as a topic for discussion when talking with patients about ways to reduce their risk of myocardial infarction."

Study shows benefits of eating fish greatly outweigh risks

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:46:48 -0400

Many studies have shown the nutritional benefits of eating fish (finfish or shellfish). Fish is high in protein and omega-3 fatty acids. But concerns have been raised in recent years about chemicals found in fish from environmental pollution, including mercury, PCBs and dioxins. That has led to confusion among the public - do the risks of eating fish outweigh the benefits?

Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) tackled that question by undertaking the single most comprehensive analysis to date of fish and health. In the first review to combine the evidence for major health effects of omega-3 fatty acids, major health risks of mercury, and major health risks of PCBs and dioxins in both adults and infants/ young children, the results show that the benefits of eating a modest amount of fish per week - about 3 ounces of farmed salmon or 6 ounces of mackerel - reduced the risk of death from coronary heart disease (CHD) by 36 percent.

Notably, by combining results of randomized clinical trials, the investigators also demonstrated that intake of fish or fish oil reduces total mortality - deaths from any causes - by 17 percent.

Included with the paper, which appears in the Oct. 18, 2006, issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (http:// jama.ama-assn.org/), is the first comprehensive summary of levels of omega-3 fatty acids, mercury, PCBs and dioxins in various species of fish and other foods, including chicken, beef, pork, butter and eggs.

The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Sunshine may help prevent breast cancer

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 10:30:01 -0400

Evidence is piling up that boosting vitamin D intake may help prevent breast cancer. One major study of 1,760 women found that the higher the levels of vitamin D in a woman's blood, the less the risk of breast cancer. Those who boasted the highest levels (more than 52 nanograms per liter) cut their risk of breast cancer in half compared with women with the lowest amounts (less that 12 nanograms per liter).

On the basis of such studies, nutrition experts have started to recommend that adults get 800-1,000 international units (IU) of the vitamin every day, up from the 400 IU, the standard for women 50-70 years old.

An article in the June issue of Women's Health Watch, published by the Harvard Medical School, suggests that women can easily up their daily D dose with a combination of sunlight, diet, and supplements.

Anyone who gets enough sun doesn't need to worry about getting enough of the vitamin. It's a hormone that is made in skin by exposure to ultraviolet rays. However, sun doesn't come easily in places like New England and the Pacific Northwest. There's also a worry of increasing the risk of skin cancer. Sunscreens cut that risk, but they also block the ultraviolet B rays that drive the skin to make vitamin D.

The Harvard article points out, "You can get adequate vitamin D from 10 to 15 minutes of sun a couple times a week, without sunscreen, on the face, arms, and hands." Many experts see little cancer risk in that much exposure. For longer periods in the sun, use sunscreen.

You may need to spend more time in the sun if your skin is dark or you are older. The darker your skin, the more sun exposure it requires to produce D. The older your skin, the less able it is to manufacture the vitamin.