For better health, eat yogurt like a French woman

Yogurt is a “vital secret for hunger management,” writes Mireille Giuliano, author of French Women Don’t Get Fat, noting that women in France will regularly eat a serving or more for breakfast, as a snack, or as a dessert as a way to stay slimmer, sexier, and healthier. In fact, the average French woman (and man), eats at least one serving of yogurt a day, or at least six times per week, while the average American eats zero-to-three servings per week.

Giuliano’s claims don’t appear to be contestable. Yogurt’s benefits are well supported by evidence, according scientists who presented their research at the Yogurt in Nutrition Initiative for a Balanced Diet (YINI) 2^nd Global Summit on the Health Effects of Yogurt, on April 30, in San Diego. The event took place during American Society for Nutrition’s Scientific Sessions and Annual Meeting at Experimental Biology 2014 in partnership with Danone.

Yogurt is strongly associated with being healthier and leaner across several different countries around the world, said pediatric nutritionist Mauro Fisberg, Ph.D., a professor at Federal University of São Paulo, Brazil.  He said those who averaged the most consumption were women and children, who were more highly educated and came from higher socioeconomic levels. Men don’t eat as much, but perhaps they should, he said.

Going over the long history of yogurt (and other fermented dairy products such as cuajada and kefir), Fisberg said that the ancient food was traditionally used as medicine and has proven to be a product that is rich in highly bioavailable protein, calcium and potassium, and probiotics. Traditionally, yogurt is also often consumed with other nutrient-dense foods such as nuts and fruits. In countries where consumption isn’t as frequent, Fisberg said, yogurt is a “window of lost opportunities.”

How to move nutrition science forward

Wilbur Olin Atwater

Best known for fathering modern nutrition in the United States, for pioneering nutrition research and education in the country, and for having developed the system of measuring energy in food that is used throughout the world today, a lesser known fact about USDA’s first chief of nutritional investigations Wilbur Olin Atwater was that he also fought for our right to enjoy a good stiff drink.

In the early 1880s, the US temperance movement was in full force and widely promoted the myth that alcoholic beverages were “poison,” destructive to families, and that drinking them served only to fill the greedy pockets of saloons and breweries. One of the most influential women in the movement was Mary Hunt, who in alliance with the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) had managed to convince politicians to pass laws that required physiology textbooks in schools to encourage complete abstinence of alcohol and its prohibition.

Vehemently protesting the measure was Atwater, arguing that alcohol was not “poison” and that children should only be taught the “simple facts” supported by science and that those facts be free of “exaggerated theories” and “errors.” But, for his position, he suffered personal criticism by Hunt, as well as attacks on his career and on his funding from the USDA, even his ability to publish scientific papers.

David Allison

Biostatistician David Allison, professor at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, and 2014 recipient of the W.O. Atwater Lectureship awarded by the American Society for Nutrition (ASN), drew parallels between Atwater’s and some of his own experiences, such as his publications regarding the science of sugar-sweetened beverages, in fighting for rigorous research in obesity and nutrition.

In his lecture given on Tuesday, April 29, at Experimental Biology in San Diego, Dr. Allison said, “As you see, these things are repeating today. I think we need to try to try to learn those lessons from history, try to come out in favor of truthfulness in science, saying what we believe, and being able to engage in dialogue without trying to shut each other down.”

When we take the long view, Dr. Allison said, there has been positive progress made across the field of nutrition science at a practical level. For example, we have effectively eliminated lead and other toxins from our wine and foods. We have made many advances in agriculture and have come to understand much about nutrition, which has allowed us to radically reduce hunger and nutrient deficiencies in most of the developed world.

Are you really addicted to food?

It’s certainly tempting to think of some foods as being addictive. Buttered popcorn and doughnuts with sprinkles come to mind. These highly palatable, sugar- and fat-stuffed goodies are clearly “junk foods,” but does unrestrained splurging on them really a food junkie make?

An Internet search would lead you to believe so—not only that “food addiction” is real, but also in offering ways to recognize signs and symptoms, take self-diagnosis “quizzes”, and going as far as giving advice on treatment of our sugar- and fat-hijacked brains and their dopamine-reward systems.

“When you google ‘food addiction,’ Fox News gives you not one but seven ways to beat it,” said James Hill, professor of pediatrics and medicine at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus, in a symposium on Monday, April 28, in San Diego at Experimental Biology. “The concept of food addiction is becoming widely accepted, but a critical evaluation is needed.”

In a earlier interview with ASN, the session’s co-chair Michael Kelley, Senior Principal Scientist for the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, said that the goal of the RIS was to have a comprehensive session that evaluated “where we stand” on the issues such as terminology used, mechanism of action, methodologies, and outcome measures. “Central to the review will be questions of what current technologies tell us, what they are not capable of telling us, and where we should go from there,” he said.

Stop singling out sugar

It’s been called “deadly,” “toxic,” and “poison”. Today there’s no shortage of books, news articles, and journal articles singling out the sweet substance as the scapegoat for all of society’s ills. These include obesity, metabolic syndrome factors such as high blood pressure, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), type-2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

Providing the most recent fodder for anti-sugar headlines in several media channels was the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation to halve intake of sugar in draft guidelines released on March 5 for public consultation (now closed). It provided strong recommendations to reduce intake of free sugars and to limit intake of free sugars to less than 10 percent of calories per day, as well as a conditional recommendation to further reduce free sugars to below 5 percent of calories for additional benefits for body weight and dental caries.

But what does the evidence really say about sugar’s impact on health to warrant such low doses? How does it really compare with other sources of carbohydrates and calories in foods and beverages? And, is the focus on fructose as a monosaccharide warranted in finding a real answer to improving public health? Challenging the WHO and others for spreading fears about sugar unfairly were scientists in a symposium on Saturday, April 26. The event, supported and sponsored by the Corn Refiners Association, took place during the American Society for Nutrition 2014 Scientific Sessions and Annual Meeting at Experimental Biology in San Diego.

A reprisal from the breakfast club

“Hypothetical model of how BRR [biased research reporting] and RLPV [research lacking probative value] may be involved in perpetuation presumptions” [or, an accurate representation of David’s thinking process]. Source: Brown, Bohan Brown, Allison. AJCN. 2013.

Breakfast is still the most important meal of the day. Excuse me if I’m a little biased. Apparently, I’m not alone. I like to eat breakfast. I’ve long told everyone they should eat breakfast. And I make sure my children eat breakfast every day, often cooking up their favorite sorts of breakfast meals on the weekends.

Breakfast is a great time to eat the types of foods (like yogurt and muesli, granola, cereal, or egg omelets) that can provide valuable nutrients like protein, calcium, iron, and a range of vitamins. For nutritionists, that’s a big deal. These nutrients are especially important in children and teens, who should be eating breakfast daily to better concentrate in school and who might not get these nutrients in other meals.

Besides, it’s useful to remind that eating breakfast can help you avoid weight gain by satisfying your appetite and keeping you from bingeing on high-sugar, high-fat foods later in the day. That’s a well-known fact. Everyone knows that, right?

So on that morning last September when well-respected researchers Andrew Brown, Michelle Bohan Brown, and David Allison of the University of Alabama at Birmingham dared to question breakfast’s sanctity in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (1), I just figured I’d ignore it. “Discarded information,” that’s all it was.

Eating Pace and Protein to Control Overeating

One matter that most evidence-based nutritionists and dietitians will agree on is that humans have evolved to be experts in the task of seeking out palatable foods, which generally contain a combination of sugar, fat, and salt. These nutrients, usually scarce over the long span of evolutionary time and highly valued, are what helped lead to the development of our senses.

Nowadays, it is still the sight, aroma, and taste of food powered by sugar-fat-salt reward and satisfaction that still guides our eating decisions, except in a modern environment of widely available food and sedentary lifestyles.

The axe that nutritionists have to grind with food manufacturers is the blatant targeting of our senses with   layer upon layer of bold sugar-fat-salt flavors — think of potato chips dipped in artichoke dip, French fries and ketchup, pizza topped with pepperoni, and so on. According to David Kessler, these foods are so powerfully appealing to our senses that they may even alter our brain chemistry driving our appetites for more.
In any case, any nutritionist should agree, these processed foods being higher in sugar, fat, salt also usually come at the expense of other nutrients like protein, fiber, vitamins, and minerals.

With the holidays around the corner, it’s the time of year when folks look for advice on how to avoid putting on 10 or more pounds by the new year. Recently, a couple of studies offer a couple of possible pointers on what might help folks still enjoy the festivities but control their appetites well enough to stay on track with their health and weight-management goals.

Pay attention to percent protein  

Eating foods with a higher percent of calories from protein could help control appetite, according to new randomized controlled experiment published in PLoS One (1). Scientists tested “the protein leverage hypothesis” on lean men and women by feeding them foods with similar palatability but with macronutrient composition disguised under ad libitum (all you can eat) conditions. They studied the subjects over four-day periods with fixed menus containing either 10, 15, or 25 percent calories from protein.

The scientists noted that subjects eating a 10 percent protein diet ate an average of 12 percent more calories over the four days, almost 60 percent of which came from savory foods. Seventy percent of the caloric increase came from eating “snack foods.” If the subjects on the 10 percent protein diet kept at it, without an increase in energy expenditure from increased activity, they’d likely put on about 2 pounds of weight per month, the scientists report.

“In our study population a change in the nutritional environment that dilutes dietary protein with carbohydrate and fat promotes overconsumption, enhancing the risk for potential weight gain,” the authors wrote.

Pace yourself when you eat

Another pointer is to take time to really enjoy foods. Yet two more studies, presented at the Obesity Society in Orlando this month, (2) suggest that there may just be something to the idea of eating more slowly to help control calories, although I realize that the evidence of these may have similar problems of earlier studies’ methodology. The studies found that men usually ate faster than women, heavier faster than lighter, and that refined grains were eaten faster than whole grains (whole grains require more chewing because they’re more fibrous).

“It takes time for your body to process fullness signals,” said lead researcher Kathleen Melanson in a press release, “so slower eating may allow time for fullness to register in the brain before you’ve eaten too much.”

Previously, Melanson’s lab was the first to find in 2007 that eating slowly actually led people to eat fewer calories overall. In that study, women who were told to eat slowly, pausing between bites and chewing slowly, ate about 10 percent fewer calories.

How our ancestors ate

Looking back on how our ancestors ate, the majority of their diet being lean meats combined with fibrous fruits and vegetables, it only makes sense that the pointers above could help keep us in line with a style of eating more appropriate for our genetic make-up.

Paying more attention to the percent of protein in foods (and fiber too) and how fast foods are eaten could help cut calories and the weight off. The higher percent of protein in a meal and eating over a longer period of time might also help with maintaining healthy blood sugar levels.

With an abundance of highly palatable goodies available these days, especially during the holidays, it’s worth keeping in mind these strategies to help guard against how fat, sugar and salt affect our brains and compel us to overeat.

References

1. Gosby AK, Conigrave AD, Lau NS et al. Testing protein leverage in lean humans: a randomised controlled experimental study. PLoS One 2011;6:e25929. doi:  10.1371/journal.pone.0025929
2. McLeish T. Researcher provides further evidence that slow eating reduces food intake. University of Rhode Island. 2011.

Living longer with an ideal BMI

Maintaining a healthy body mass index, or BMI, is one of the most important ways to help you live longer, according to a new study published in the December issue of New England Journal of Medicine.

BMI is not a perfect measure, but it is one of the simplest for estimating body weight. It is calculated by weight in pounds divided by height in inches squared and multiplying the number by 703, or by weight in kilograms divided by height in inches squared. What’s your BMI? Find out using this free calculator provided by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, of the National Institutes of Health.

The study’s findings support an optimal BMI in the “normal weight” range of 20 to 24.9, which is generally associated with the lowest risk of death from all causes including chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease and cancer. The association was strongest among participants who were younger than 50 years old.

A BMI of 25 or more was associated with the highest mortality risks. The higher the BMI, the higher the likelihood of dying from cardiovascular disease.

“The results of our analysis are most relevant to whites living in affluent countries,” write the authors who pooled and analyzed data from 19 prospective studies encompassing 1.4 million white adults ages 19 to 80.

In the United States, among non-Hispanic whites, there was an estimated 11 percent of men and 17 percent of women with a BMI of 35 or higher in 2008.

The authors restricted the study to non-Hispanic whites based on self-reported ethnic group and controlled for pre-existing conditions, alcohol consumption, barbital status, education, and physical activity. They also excluded those with a BMI of less than 15 or higher than 50.

Smokers made up 25 percent of the study participants in the lowest BMI category of 15 to 18.4 and 8 percent of those in the highest BMI category.

Source: Berrington de Gonzalez A, Hartge P, Cerhan JR et al. Body-Mass Index and Mortality among 1.46 Million White Adults. NEJM 2010;363:2211-9.

Thoughts:

BMI is easy for anyone to measure, so this study gives us some back-up for using it as a way to speak to clients about real implications of obesity causing a shortened lifespan because of increased risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer.

It’s important, however, to realize that while BMI may be easy it’s possible for someone to be at a “normal weight” and still be “obese” — dubbed normal weight obesity. This is still hazardous to your health, so you can’t completely rely on BMI. Opt instead for body fat percentage measurement.