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Energy Dense Foods May Increase Cancer Risk Regardless Of Obesity Status

Link between high dietary energy density in food and obesity-related cancer in normal weight individuals

Diet is believed to play a role in cancer risk. Current research shows that an estimated 30% of cancers could be prevented through nutritional modifications. While there is a proven link between obesity and certain types of cancer, less is known about how the ratio of energy to food weight, otherwise known as dietary energy density (DED), contributes to cancer risk. To find out, researchers looked at DED in the diets of post-menopausal women and discovered that consuming high DED foods was tied to a 10% increase in obesity-related cancer among normal weight women. Their findings are published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

DED is a measure of food quality and the relationship of calories to nutrients. The more calories per gram of weight a food has, the higher its DED. Whole foods, including vegetables, fruits, lean protein, and beans are considered low-DED foods because they provide a lot of nutrients using very few calories. Processed foods, like hamburgers and pizza, are considered high-DED foods because you need a larger amount to get necessary nutrients. Previous studies have shown that regular consumption of foods high in DED contributes to weight gain in adults.

In order to gain a better understanding of how DED alone relates to cancer risk, researchers used data on 90,000 postmenopausal women from the Women’s Health Initiative including their diet and any diagnosis of cancer. The team found that women who consumed a diet higher in DED were 10% more likely to develop an obesity-related cancer, independent of body mass index. In fact, the study revealed that the increased risk appeared limited to women who were of a normal weight at enrollment in the program.

 

“The demonstrated effect in normal-weight women in relation to risk for obesity-related cancers is novel and contrary to our hypothesis,” explained lead investigator Cynthia A. Thomson, PhD, RD, Professor of Health Promotion Sciences at the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health in Tucson, AZ. “This finding suggests that weight management alone may not protect against obesity-related cancers should women favor a diet pattern indicative of high energy density.”

Although restricting energy dense foods may play a role in weight management, investigators found that weight gain was not solely responsible for the rise in cancer risk among normal weight women in the study. They hypothesize that the higher DED in normal-weight women may cause metabolic dysregulation that is independent of body weight, which is a variable known to increase cancer risk.

While further study is needed to understand how DED may play a role in cancer risk for other populations such as young people and men, this information may help persuade postmenopausal women to choose low DED foods, even if they are already at a healthy body mass index.

“Among normal-weight women, higher DED may be a contributing factor for obesity-related cancers,” concluded Dr. Thomson. “Importantly, DED is a modifiable risk factor. Nutrition interventions targeting energy density as well as other diet-related cancer preventive approaches are warranted to reduce cancer burden among postmenopausal women.”

Story Source:
Materials provided by Elsevier. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:

Cynthia A. Thomson, Tracy E. Crane, David O. Garcia, Betsy C. Wertheim, Melanie Hingle, Linda Snetselaar, Mridul Datta, Thomas Rohan, Erin LeBlanc, Rowan T. Chlebowski, Lihong Qi. Association between Dietary Energy Density and Obesity-Associated Cancer: Results from the Women’s Health Initiative. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 2017; DOI: 10.1016/j.jand.2017.06.010

source: www.sciencedaily.com    August 17, 2017


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These 5 Preventable Conditions Shorten Lives

More bad news for plus-sized Americans: Obesity is the leading cause of preventable life-years lost in the nation, a new study finds.

Obesity steals more years than diabetes, tobacco, high blood pressure and high cholesterol – the other top preventable health problems that cut Americans’ lives short, according to researchers who analyzed 2014 data.

“Modifiable behavioral risk factors pose a substantial mortality burden in the U.S.,” said study lead author Glen Taksler, an internal medicine researcher at the Cleveland Clinic.

“These preliminary results continue to highlight the importance of weight loss, diabetes management and healthy eating in the U.S. population,” Taksler said in a clinic news release.

Obesity was linked with as much as 47 percent more life-years lost than tobacco, his team said.

Tobacco, meanwhile, had the same effect on life span as high blood pressure, the researchers found.

The researchers noted that three of the top five causes of life-years lost – diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol – can be treated. And helping patients understand treatment methods, options and approaches can have a significant effect, the study authors said.

The findings also emphasize the importance of preventive care, and why it should be a priority for physicians, Taksler’s team said.

However, the researchers acknowledged that some people’s situations may be different than those of the general population. For example, for someone with obesity and alcoholism, drinking may be a more important risk factor than obesity, even though obesity is more significant in the general population.

“The reality is, while we may know the proximate cause of a patient’s death – for example, breast cancer or heart attack – we don’t always know the contributing factor(s), such as tobacco use, obesity, alcohol and family history,” Taksler said. “For each major cause of death, we identified a root cause to understand whether there was a way a person could have lived longer.”

The findings were scheduled for presentation Saturday at the annual meeting of the Society of General Internal Medicine, in Washington, D.C. Research presented at meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

Obesity steals the most years of all, researchers say

By Robert Preidt     HealthDay Reporter     MONDAY, April 24, 2017
Sources: Cleveland Clinic, news release, April 22, 2017     WebMD News from HealthDay


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The Hidden Food Ingredient Linked to Pain and Inflammation

There’s a food additive so ubiquitous in the food industry it is found in most packaged foods, restaurant sauces and even many foods that have been “certified organic.” That ingredient is carrageenan. While the additive starts out harmless enough (it comes from the seaweed known as Irish moss) it is then processed to extract the ingredient known as carrageenan, which acts as a thickener or emulsifier for many prepared foods.

Like most people, I originally thought that carrageenan was a harmless extract from seaweed, so I didn’t give it much consideration. Then I heard that researchers were giving animals carrageenan to induce pain and inflammation as a way to prepare the animals for scientific studies exploring anti-pain drugs. That was the first I’d heard of carrageenan being used for harm. So I began to investigate.

Dr. Joanne Tobacman has conducted many studies on the effects of carrageenan consumption, including one in the Journal of Diabetes Research. After eating carrageenan for only six days, animals fed carrageenan developed glucose intolerance, an umbrella term used to describe impaired metabolism involving excessively high blood sugar levels. Dr. Tobacman found that the food additive caused blood sugar levels to skyrocket, indicating that it may lead to the development of diabetes. She indicates that carrageenan used in animals’ diets so commonly cause diabetes that the additive could be used for mouse models of the study of diabetes.

She also found that carrageenan causes intestinal and systemic inflammation in animal studies. Considering that inflammation is a well-established factor in most chronic disease, including: heart disease, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, pain disorders and many others, any food additive in common use is a serious concern. Dr. Tobacman also indicates that the amount of carrageenan found in most peoples’ diets is sufficient to cause inflammation.

 

Sources of Carrageenan

Carrageenan is found in common foods, including:

  • infant formula
  • ice cream
  • cream
  • butter
  • soy milk
  • almond milk
  • rice milk
  • cottage cheese
  • sour cream
  • yogurt
  • coffee creamers
  • vegan cheese alternatives
  • egg nog
  • protein supplements
  • aloe vera gel
  • deli meats
  • juices
  • puddings
  • pizzas
  • chocolate bars
  • coffee beverages
  • many packaged foods

Additionally, some supplements, particularly those involving gel caps, commonly contain carrageenan. And, most grocery store rotisserie chickens typically contain the additive.

The Cornucopia Institute has compiled a comprehensive list of organic foods that contain carrageenan, since the ingredient is legally allowed in foods bearing the label “organic” or “certified organic.”

 
a Care2 favorite by Michelle Schoffro Cook      About Michelle
Follow Michelle at @mschoffrocook
source: www.care2.com


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5 Kind Phrases That Can Inspire A Child

“Be mindful when it comes to your words. A string of some that don’t mean much to you may stick with someone else for a lifetime.” – Rachel Wolchin

Adults, especially parents, have a huge impact on what kind of person a child will become. At a young age, a child will mimic a parent’s words and actions – in other words, their behavior.

Words have an extremely powerful influence on children. Early in children’s lives, they are guided mostly by behavior and emotions. However, as their cognitive and verbal skills rapidly develop, words begin to play a larger and larger role in their lives.

As adults, we can choose to have a positive influence on any child simply by using the right words. And a child may indeed need your positive words, whether they realize it or not.

It may be helpful to specify what “child” or “children” we’re speaking of. In this article, we focus on the psychological aspect during childhood development.

Child development is defined as “the biological, psychological and emotional changes that occur in human beings between birth and the end of adolescence.” In the later years, a person develops an increasing sense of autonomy.

WORDS AND THE CHILD BRAIN

Let’s take a look at a study conducted by Martin Teicher, MD, PhD, and his colleagues at Harvard Medical School.

The study, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, administered a self-assessment to a group of young adults, ages 18 to 25. The assessment asked each young adult to rate their childhood exposure to peer and parental verbal abuse – and were then given a brain scan.

Here are the results of the study:

– Individuals who reported experiencing verbal abuse from peers during middle school years had an underdeveloped corpus callosum, a part of the brain responsible for sending signals (communications) between the brain’s left and right hemispheres.

– This group also had higher levels of anger, anxiety, depression, dissociation, hostility, and drug abuse than others in the study.

– Verbal abuse from peers during middle school years had the largest impact. This makes sense, as middle school age (11-14) are associated with rapid brain development.

Other studies have indicated that verbal abuse not only impedes psychological health, it also stunts brain development. This can lead to severe psychological problems, unfulfilled potential, poverty – and a number of other tragic outcomes.

The point: the words kids hear, especially words directed towards them, can significantly impact their lives.

Now the question is what to do about it.

We can begin by paying more attention to our thoughts and emotions, as they often create the words we speak. In a child’s presence, we may need to take a sensitive discussion elsewhere, or wait until a different time.

Finally, we can say things that promote a child’s well-being – an important behavior that segues into the topic of this article.

 

HERE ARE FIVE KIND PHRASES THAT CAN CHANGE A CHILD’S LIFE:

1. “KINDNESS IS THE GREATEST GIFT YOU CAN GIVE.”

In a world filled with its fair share of cynical and uncompassionate people, we need people who freely bestow kindness onto others. If you try, you can probably think of a time when someone else’s kind words made all the difference in your day; maybe even your life.

A personal story:

For this author, it was his high school psychology teacher, who would later become his mentor.

After three years of mediocre academic performance in high school, I focused the best I could to get good grades. After scoring a 98 percent on my teacher’s exam, he wrote: “Why didn’t you do this the last three years? You could be in the top 10 of your class! Great job!”

I still remember those words when I doubt myself.

2. “APPRECIATE THE LITTLE THINGS.”

Through young childhood, it’s unlikely that this will mean much – but say it anyways. In fact, say it until they day the child leaves home or your presence.

“Appreciate the little things.”

We, despite our best efforts, tend to accept too many things for granted. While the world is stricken with plenty of problems, it also possesses an astonishing amount of beauty. Many of us are fortunate in ways we don’t often contemplate.

Teach your child to appreciate the trees, animals, flowers, and sun in nature. Teach them about food, water and shelter – and how fortunate they are to have those things.

3. “TREAT EVERYONE WITH ACCEPTANCE AND RESPECT.”

Today, our lack of mutual acceptance and respect for people – and their differences – has led to tragedy after tragedy, including bloodshed and loss of life.

If we adults repeat these words and exhibit such behaviors, the end result will be a child who highly values acceptance and respect. They’ll be peacemakers and leaders; advocates for the dignities of all people.

4. “LISTEN BEFORE SPEAKING.”

The skill of active listening – fully concentrating, understanding, responding to, and remembering what is said – is a difficult one to acquire and master.

However, we can plant the seed of active listening and conversing by reminding the child to listen before talking. For instance, if you’re giving the child instructions and they interrupt (it happens often), remind them of this phrase.

With enough guidance, repeating this phrase with kindness and gentleness will teach children the importance of respectful communication.

5. “THINK GOOD THOUGHTS AND DO GOOD THINGS.”

This is a simple phrase with a powerful lesson.

The earlier and more frequently we adults emphasize the importance of positive thinking and good deeds, the likelier the child is to embrace and exhibit these traits.

We need positivity in this world. Let’s pass it on to our kids.

Sources:FIELDS, DOUGLAS R., PH.D. (2010, OCTOBER 30). STICKS AND STONES – HURTFUL WORDS DAMAGE THE BRAIN. RETRIEVED FROM HTTPS://WWW.PSYCHOLOGYTODAY.COM/BLOG/THE-NEW-BRAIN/201010/STICKS-AND-STONES-HURTFUL-WORDS-DAMAGE-THE-BRAIN
TAYLOR, J., PH.D. (2014, AUGUST 5). THE POWER OF WORLDS TO TEACH COMPASSION TO YOUR CHILDREN. RETRIEVED FROM HTTPS://WWW.PSYCHOLOGYTODAY.COM/BLOG/THE-POWER-PRIME/201408/THE-POWER-WORDS-TEACH-COMPASSION-YOUR-CHILDREN
WIKIPEDIA. (2017). CHILD DEVELOPMENT. RETRIEVED APRIL 7, 2017, FROM HTTPS://EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG/WIKI/CHILD_DEVELOPMENT
 


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The Solution to Millennial Loneliness

How do we stop being so lonely?

On a cold, moonless night, the co-owner of Macy’s department store and his wife were aboard the sinking Titanic. Mrs. Straus distributed blankets to the women and children in Life Boat No. 8. But, when asked to enter the lifeboat herself, she refused to leave Mr. Straus’s side. “All these years we have traveled together, and shall we part now? No, our fate is one,” she explained. Two sailors tried to force her in, and she wrangled herself free, looking at her husband. “Where you go, I go,” she said. The couple was last seen arm in arm on the deck, the finale of their forty years together.

Today, a different sentiment dominates. It’s closer to, “Where you go, I might consider visiting.” The individual comes first.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about why millennials are lonely. In short, it’s because loneliness is contagious (literally), and the internet exacerbates it. Our “infectious isolation,” I concluded, is mounting.

This is problematic for lots of reasons: In animals, social isolation shortens lifespan, promotes obesity and diabetes, hinders psychosexual development, and increases cortisol levels. In humans, social isolation has, according to Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection, “an impact on health comparable to the effect of high blood pressure, lack of exercise, obesity or smoking.” Socially isolated people are more than twice as likely to die of heart disease. They’re also more stressed, less creative, have lower self-esteem, and feel less in control of their lives than non-lonely people.

So how do we stop being lonely?

I think the answer starts with priorities. Social connection has become less important to us. One large cross-sectional study found that subjective loneliness actually declined slightly between 1978 and 2009 in adolescents, while objective social isolation increased. High school students in 2009, the study’s authors write, “reported fewer friends with whom to interact, but less desire for more friends.” Meanwhile, empathy decreased, and insecure attachments increased.

This is consistent with my own experience. Since graduating college, I’ve put friendships on the back burner. I even emailed someone wanting to grab coffee a couple months ago that “I’m just incapable of making friends right now. There’s a little too much going on with work.” The fact that today many people’s best friends are from college may attest to the amount of effort we put into friendships after college.

When I was suffering from a bout of loneliness last year, my boyfriend told me to just go out and meet people. Well, I’m not that lonely, I thought. But recovering from our society-wide isolation will require effort.

Just meeting people, however, isn’t enough. We also need to sacrifice for them. In response to my last article, several readers pointed out that trust is missing from many modern friendships. I think trust is the feeling that someone has your back no matter what. And, today, the truth is very few people do.

In a 2012 op-ed for the New York Times, Sherry Turkle wrote that we’re “increasingly drawn to technologies that provide the illusion of companionship without the demands of relationship.” Millennials may be lonely not just from insufficient social interaction, but also due to insufficient social obligation.

Generational researcher Jean Twenge has found that millennials are significantly more likely than adolescents in the 1970s to describe themselves using traits like “independent” and “assertive.” The resulting gains from this attitude are real, and shouldn’t be discounted — particularly for women. But it’s also, in a way, too bad.

My friends and I have talked about how you never know whether to stay in a city, because your friends could leave soon for some better job somewhere else. If you stayed, hoping they’d stick around, you’re SOL. (Even the prospect that you’d consider them before your career is embarrassing.) Our solution to get everyone to stay put, we joke, is to build a commune. But we know that will never happen. And we know, if we get a better opportunity elsewhere, we’ll leave.

Our commune dream is for something quasi-contractual to keep us together. This is also why, though millennials are marrying later, many of us quietly crave a ring. But marriage, indeed, is a perfect example of our stubborn determination to be a, or at least give, the bird: we’re marrying later — by an average of six years since 1960 — to extend our geographic and professional autonomy.

Amazingly, research has found that attachment to even just a place reduces loneliness. If everyone decided to remain in the same city or town for a lifetime, as they did for centuries before now, we’d receive the two best remedies for loneliness: a home and a community.

I know that’s unrealistic. But before genuine connection sinks altogether, it’s worth thinking about what such a loss would actually mean. Seventeenth-century English poet John Donne wrote that, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent.” We like to believe we’re floating free. But we need each other, and acting otherwise results more in isolation than true independence.

A version of this article originally appeared on Forbes.
Apr 25, 2017    Caroline Beaton      The Gen-Y Guide


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Fun Fact Friday

  • Eating chocolate makes you happy because it contains phenylephylamine – the same hormone the brain triggers when you fall in love.

  • Not having enough sleep per day leads to a desire for sex, depression and alcoholism.

  • Stomach rumblings are caused by air moving through your digestive tract and doesn’t always mean you are hungry.

  • Soda is so corrosive that without a liner, the liquid would eat through the aluminum can after three days.

Happy Friday!
 source:   factualfacts.com   https://twitter.com/Fact   @Fact


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Feeling Bad About Feeling Down Is Good For Your Mental Health: Study

Letting yourself feel negative emotions is good in the long run, researchers says.

Accepting and embracing your negative emotions can actually make you feel better in the long run, a new study out of UC Berkeley says.

According to researchers, feeling that pressure of needing to be constantly upbeat will not make you feel better – in fact, it will make you feel worse because of added stress.

“We found that people who habitually accept their negative emotions experience fewer negative emotions, which adds up to better psychological health,” senior author Iris Mauss of UC Berkeley said in a statement.

People who allow these feelings of sadness, disappointment and resentment “run their course,” the team found that these individuals are more likely to report fewer mood disorder symptoms than those who judge them and push them away, even after six months.

To find this out, researchers conducted three separate studies on several groups both in the lab and online. They factored in age, gender, socio-economic status and other demographic elements.

In the first study, over 1,000 participants filled out a survey. They were asked to rate how strongly they agreed with certain statements like, “I tell myself I shouldn’t be feeling the way that I’m feeling.” Those who didn’t feel bad about feeling bad were more likely to show higher levels of well-being than their accepting counterparts.

In another experiment, this time in a lab setting, 150 participants were given two minutes to prepare and deliver a three-minute recorded speech to a panel of judges. This was to represent a mock job application, to show off their communication skills and other “relevant” qualifications.

After the task was done, they were asked to rate their emotions about the event. And just as the research team expected, those who avoided negative feelings reported more distress.

For the final study, over 200 people were asked to journal their most “taxing experiences” for two weeks. When asked about their psychological health six months later, those who avoided expressing negative emotions reported more mood disorder symptoms than those who didn’t shy away from revealing their emotions.

It’s not clear why this dynamic exists, the team admits, but they have a theory.

“Maybe if you have an accepting attitude toward negative emotions, you’re not giving them as much attention,” Mauss said. “And perhaps, if you’re constantly judging your emotions, the negativity can pile up.”

Feeling negative is a natural response to stressors, lead author Brett Ford told Global News, and in the short run, these negative emotions might actually help people respond to stressors more successfully, for example getting nervous in anticipation of a closing deadline.

“People don’t necessarily feel this way, though – while some individuals accept their negative emotions and thoughts as natural, others judge these negative experiences and strive to change them,” Ford said. “Theoretically, acceptance should help people from ruminating over their negative emotions and from judging these emotions and prolonging their overall experience of negativity.”

Perhaps what surprised Ford the most was how this correlation applied to varying types of people.

“I was somewhat surprised and excited to see how useful acceptance was for so many people, finding that acceptance was equivalently beneficial for people of different genders, race, socio-economic status, and who are experiencing varying levels of stress,” she said. “This underscores the broad relevance of acceptance as a useful tool for many people.”

Ford hopes that people walk away knowing that while processing negative emotions are difficult, it might actually help our mental health in the long run.

“It’s so natural to want to get rid of negative emotions but here are a couple of more concrete ways to think about it: When times are tough and you’re feeling angry, worried, sad, and so forth – try to simply let your feelings happen,” she said. “Allow yourself to experience your feelings, without judging those feelings and without try to control or change them.”

The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

 
related:  Parents, this is how to tell your children you’re dealing with depression, anxiety
 
August 11, 2017    By Dani-Elle Dubé   National Online Journalist, Smart Living
source: Global News