Category: Research Studies

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Consistent self-monitoring of weight: a key component of successful weight loss maintenance — Random Thoughts 01.02.21

Consistent self-weighing may help individuals maintain their successful weight loss by allowing them to catch weight gains before they escalate and make behavior changes to prevent additional weight gain. While change in self-weighing frequency is a marker for changes in other parameters of weight control, decreasing self-weighing frequency is also independently associated with greater weight gain.

Consistent self-monitoring of weight: a key component of successful weight loss maintenance — https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18198319/

And another year of the lifelong struggle begins. I’d be lying if I said all of this effort is easy. It would also be a lie if I said substantial weight loss is easy. The hard truth is everyone is different and what works for me won’t necessarily work for you. We are all somewhere along the continuum as we trudge ahead in year two of the Great Pandemic. In writing the memoir genre stands alone. The author picks and chooses what she wants to share. But memories dim with age and the memories themselves change over time. Many just disappear never to be brought to the surface again. Other memories get fleshed out by the memoirist and a really good piece of memoir writing is always part fiction. For the writer this technique is especially useful. We write with the intent to tell our stories even if some of the facts are muddled or made up.

I step onto The Digital Devil nearly every day. You might think I’m OCD (and in fact I’ve wondered that myself). But I’m not OCD because I know that 75% of people who have lost a lot of weight and kept it off weigh themselves at least once a week and 36% weigh themselves daily according to published research. This March marks 14 years of feeding information to The National Weight Control Registry http://www.nwcr.ws/. Here’s proof I didn’t make this up:

Yes Eagle Eyes, same institution where Dr. Lee did his residency.

2020 was the year I got serious again about my weight. I’m where I want to be so 2021 is maintenance mode. Some the behavioral changes I made last year were easy. Other changes came about from the virus and turned out to be positives from a weight loss perspective. This year has just started and I’m not confident how long beer will remain on the Don’t Have It In the House List. All I know is no beer makes it a hell of a lot easier to keep my weight where I want it to be. At the same time a good beer is pure heaven on earth.

Due to the holidays there are two packages of tiny chocolate peanut butter cups in the Pandemic Pantry. I over bought chocolate and The Boss didn’t bake as many cookies as she could have. These tasty nasties belong on the Don’t Have It In the House List. But so far both bags are unopened. I’m not confident about the shelf life of these things. Could be short. Time to stop thinking about chocolate and get back to writing my future best seller.

YIKES! How did these things get in the house?
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We asked five health professionals if they would dine indoors at a restaurant. Four said no – and one had a surprising answer.

Some interesting studies have looked at the airflow and air currents in restaurants in relation to where people became infected. In one, a person was 20 feet away from the source for only about 5 minutes, but the person was directly in the airflow and became infected. It’s a reminder of what we’ve been saying – there’s nothing magical about 6 feet. The high degree of community disease in the U.S. right now increases the likelihood that another diner in the restaurant is infected. If you are tired of cooking and need a break, takeout is the way to go.

Would you eat indoors at a restaurant? We asked five health experts — https://theconversation.com/would-you-eat-indoors-at-a-restaurant-we-asked-five-health-experts-152300

Good article.

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Eat More Carrots – VRG Scientific Update

Researchers began studying close to 50,000 women in 1984 when their average age was 48 years old. They collected information about the women’s diets over the next 22 years. The women’s cognitive function was assessed at 28 or 30 years after the start of the study. At that point, 41% had good cognitive function, 47% had moderate function, and 12% had poor function. Women who had the highest long-term intake of total carotenoids were 33% less likely to have poor cognitive function and 14% less likely to have moderate cognitive function than those who had the lowest intake. The same results occurred when the researchers examined individual carotenoids.

VRG > Vegetarian Journal > 2020 Issue 4 > Scientific Update — https://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2020issue4/2020_issue4_scientific_update.php

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An Avocado a Day Keeps Your Gut Happy

The researchers found that people who ate avocado every day as part of a meal had a greater abundance of gut microbes that break down fiber and produce metabolites that support gut health. They also had greater microbial diversity compared to people who did not receive the avocado meals in the study.

University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. “An avocado a day keeps your gut microbes happy, study shows.” ScienceDaily. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201215175758.htm (accessed December 16, 2020).

Journal Reference

Sharon V Thompson, Melisa A Bailey, Andrew M Taylor, Jennifer L Kaczmarek, Annemarie R Mysonhimer, Caitlyn G Edwards, Ginger E Reeser, Nicholas A Burd, Naiman A Khan, Hannah D Holscher. Avocado Consumption Alters Gastrointestinal Bacteria Abundance and Microbial Metabolite Concentrations among Adults with Overweight or Obesity: A Randomized Controlled Trial. The Journal of Nutrition, 2020; DOI: 10.1093/jn/nxaa219

Funding for the research was provided by the Hass Avocado Board and the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

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Convenience Stores and Obesity

One of the few prospective longitudinal studies examining the influence of key elements of a comprehensive set of food outlets, both large and small, the study followed two groups of 3 to 15 year-old children in four New Jersey cities — Camden, New Brunswick, Newark, and Trenton. These cities were known to be initiating policy and environmental changes aimed at childhood obesity prevention. The first group was studied from 2009-10 to 2014-15, the second from 2014 to 2016-17.

Less healthy changes were found in children when their exposure to convenience stores increased over time. For example, exposure to an additional convenience store within a mile of a child’s home over 24 months resulted in 11.7 percent greater likelihood of a child being in a higher body mass index range compared to other children of the same sex and age at the end of the study. In contrast, exposure to an additional small grocery store within a mile over 24 months resulted in 37.3 percent lower odds of being in a higher body mass index category. No consistent patterns were found for changes in exposure to supermarkets, restaurants, or pharmacies.

Elsevier. “Kids gain weight when new convenience stores open nearby.” ScienceDaily. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201210074725.htm (accessed December 12, 2020).

Journal Reference

  1. Punam Ohri-Vachaspati, Francesco Acciai, Kristen Lloyd, David Tulloch, Robin S. DeWeese, Derek DeLia, Michael Todd, Michael J. Yedidia. Evidence That Changes in Community Food Environments Lead to Changes in Children’s Weight: Results from a Longitudinal Prospective Cohort Study. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 2020; DOI: 10.1016/j.jand.2020.10.016

The only thing I buy at the 7-11 is gas.

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Does Olive Oil Lower Cardiovascular Risk in U.S. Populations?

Does Olive Oil Lower Cardiovascular Risk in U.S. Populations?

Definitely maybe.

This study confirms what most of us likely recommend to our patients — replace saturated fats with olive oil. The CVD prevention benefit of olive oil seems to extend to all populations, including Americans, who consume far less olive oil on average than Mediterranean populations. As with all observational studies, residual confounding might explain some of the associations, and the healthcare professionals studied may not be generalizable to other more diverse groups. However, results from the PREDIMED trial (N Engl J Med 2018; 378:e34) support this well-conducted study. Recommending routine use of olive oil seems like a no-brainer.

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Coconut Oil? No Thanks

Clinical trials don’t support the public’s positive perception of coconut oil, a recent systematic review and meta-analysis suggests. The study, published in Circulation, found that compared with other vegetable oils, coconut oil increases low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C)—the “bad” kind that ups cardiovascular disease risk—while offering no improvements to weight, blood glucose, or inflammation markers.

From the authors: “Despite the rising popularity of coconut oil because of its purported health benefits, our results raise concerns about high coconut oil consumption. Coconut oil should not be viewed as healthy oil for cardiovascular disease risk reduction and limiting coconut oil consumption because of its high saturated fat content is warranted.”

Read the full article at the link below.

Coconut Oil’s Health Halo a Mirage

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Walnuts may be good for the gut and help promote heart health

Walnuts may be good for the gut and help promote heart health

In a randomized, controlled trial, researchers found that eating walnuts daily as part of a healthy diet was associated with increases in certain bacteria that can help promote health. Additionally, those changes in gut bacteria were associated with improvements in some risk factors for heart disease.

Journal Reference: Alyssa M Tindall, Christopher J McLimans, Kristina S Petersen, Penny M Kris-Etherton, Regina Lamendella. Walnuts and Vegetable Oils Containing Oleic Acid Differentially Affect the Gut Microbiota and Associations with Cardiovascular Risk Factors: Follow-up of a Randomized, Controlled, Feeding Trial in Adults at Risk for Cardiovascular Disease. The Journal of Nutrition, 2019; DOI: 10.1093/jn/nxz289

RCT but only 42 participants.

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Plant-Based Harm Reduction

Plant-Based Diet Linked to Lower Heart Failure Risk

The study was published in the April 30 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Researchers followed more than 16,000 adults (mean age, 64 years) with no known coronary heart disease (CHD) or HF at baseline, comparing those who adhered to a plant-based diet with those who consumed a Southern diet, consisting of more fried and processed foods and sweetened drinks. They found that the plant-based diet was associated with a 41% lower risk for incident HF with the highest vs lowest adherence, while the Southern diet was associated with a 71% higher risk for HF with higher vs lower adherence, after adjustment for potential demographic, lifestyle, and medical confounders.

Plant-Based Diets Help Reduce Kidney Disease Risk Long Term

A diet that favors plant-based foods, as well as a completely vegetarian diet, modestly reduces the long-term risk of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in the general population provided individuals are not overweight or obese to begin with, a new community-based cohort study indicates.

Reminder:

I am not a vegan.

 

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Print Books are Better for Toddlers

Print is better.

Dr. Jenny Radesky, study author and associate editor of NEJM Journal Watch Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, commented: “Even though we recommend parent-child co-viewing of media, this research suggests that it’s more difficult to engage in rich back-and-forth interactions with children when interactive media have their attention. Pediatric providers might want to help parents reflect upon this attention-grabbing nature of modern technology — which parents may feel themselves at times — and encourage families to choose play objects such as print books and simple toys that are easier to connect around.”

Differences in Parent-Toddler Interactions With Electronic Versus Print Books

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