Increased stress during examination associated with intake of junk food

While it becomes almost impossible to suppress those junk food cravings during university examinations, submitting to these cravings might not be the best thing to do. According to the recent study, increased stress during university examinations is associated with eating a poorer quality diet including less fruit and vegetables and more fast food.

"Stress has long been implicated in a poor diet. People tend to report overeating and comfort eating foods high in fat, sugar, and calories in times of stress. Our findings looking at the eating habits of students during exam periods confirm this stress-induced dietary deterioration hypothesis," said  lead researcher of the study.

According to the researchers, a healthy diet is needed for optimal academic and mental performance. "Unfortunately, our findings suggest that students have difficulties eating healthily and find themselves adopting bad eating habits, which over a few weeks can considerably affect your overall health and be difficult to change," the researcher asserted.

As part of the study, the researchers investigated the relationship between exam stress and change in dietary quality, and whether these associations were modified by psychosocial factors such as eating behaviour (emotional/external/restrained), food choice motive, taste preference, reward/punishment sensitivity, impulsivity, coping strategies, sedentary behaviour, and social support.

During the month-long exam period, participants found it harder to stick to a healthy diet, and only a quarter fulfilled the WHO recommended 400g of fruit and vegetables a day. What is more, students reporting higher levels of stress tended to snack more often.

The findings suggest that emotional eaters (who eat in response to negative emotions), external eaters (who eat in response to the sight or smell of food), sweet/fat lovers, people who are highly motivated by health (with health as a food choice motive), sensitive to reward and punishment, highly sedentary, and with higher stress levels are at greatest risk of making unhealthy food choices during this stressful time.

According to the researchers, to fight against stress-induced eating, prevention strategies should integrate psychological and lifestyle aspects including stress management (eg. emotion regulation training, mindfulness, yoga), nutritional education with techniques for self-effectiveness, awareness of eating-without-hunger, and creating an environment that stimulates a healthy diet and physical activity.

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Blood Pressure Drops with High-Protein Diet

• Adults who consume a high-protein diet may be at a lower risk for developing high blood pressure (HBP), according to a study (“Diets Higher in Protein Predict Lower High Blood Pressure Risk in Framingham Offspring Study Adults”) in the American Journal of Hypertension. Scientists from the Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) found participants consuming the highest amount of protein (an average of 100 g protein/day) had a 40% lower risk of having high blood pressure compared to the lowest intake level.
  
  One of three U.S. adults has hypertension and 78.6 million are clinically obese, a risk factor for the development of hypertension. Because of the strain that it puts on blood vessel walls, HBP is one of the most common risk factors of stroke and an accelerator of multiple forms of heart disease, especially when paired with excess body weight.
  
  The researchers analyzed protein intakes of healthy participants from the Framingham Offspring Study and followed them for development of high blood pressure over an 11-year period. They found that adults who consumed more protein, whether from animal or plant sources, had statistically significantly lower systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure levels after four years of follow-up. They also found that consuming more dietary protein also was associated with lower long-term risks for HBP.
  
  “Beneficial effects of protein were apparent for men and women and for normal-weight and overweight individuals,” wrote the investigators. “Higher protein diets also characterized by higher fiber intakes led to a 59% reduction (95% CI, 0.37–0.66) in HBP risk.”
  
  “These results provide no evidence to suggest that individuals concerned about the development of HBP should avoid dietary protein. Rather, protein intake may play a role in the long-term prevention of HBP,” explained corresponding author Lynn Moore, D. Sc., associate professor of medicine at BUSM. “This growing body of research on the vascular benefits of protein, including this study, suggest we need to revisit optimal protein intake for optimal heart health.”
  
   THIS IS ONLY FOR INFORMATION, ALWAYS CONSULT YOU PHYSICIAN BEFORE HAVING ANY PARTICULAR FOOD/ MEDICATION/EXERCISE/OTHER REMEDIES.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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Sleep Disorders Can Affect metabolism

A recent study has linked inadequate or disturbed sleep to the 

development of metabolic disorders, including diabetes and type 2 

diabetes. The findings are crucial as they mean that it sleep issues 

should be addressed without fail. 

Authors of the review published in The Lancet Diabetes and 

Endocrinology journal said that the problem of sleep disorder 

should be addressed for prevention and treatment of these 

disorders. 

"Metabolic health in addition to genetic predisposition, is largely 

dependent on behavioural factors such as dietary habits and 

physical activity. In the past few years, sleep loss as a disorder 

characterising the 24-hour lifestyle of modern societies has 

increasingly been shown to represent an additional behavioural 

factor adversely affecting metabolic health," said the authors. 


The authors added that sleep disturbance must be addressed to 

keep the metabolic health of a person in a good shape. 


According to the authors, "These findings open up new strategies 

for targeted interventions aimed at the present epidemic of the 

metabolic syndrome and related diseases. Ongoing and future 

studies will show whether interventions to improve sleep duration 

and quality can prevent or even reverse adverse metabolic traits. 

Meanwhile, on the basis of existing evidence, health care 

professionals can be safely recommended to motivate their 

patients to enjoy sufficient sleep at the right time of day." 

ps- this is only for information, always consult you physician before having any particular food/ medication/exercise/other remedies.

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Popping dietary pills can harm the liver

Next time you gulp down your favourite dietary supplement, or even take that concentrated green tea pill to burn fat, think twice.

New data suggests that the unregulated dietary supplements industry accounts for nearly 20 percent of drug-related liver injuries, up from 7 percent a decade ago.

According to a new study, reported by New York Times, teenagers are not the only consumers at risk, many are middle-aged women who turn to dietary supplements that promise to burn fat or speed up weight loss.

“When people buy these dietary supplements, it’s anybody’s guess as to what they’re getting,” Herbert L. Bonkovsky, director of the liver, digestive and metabolic disorders laboratory at Carolinas HealthCare System in Charlotte, NC, was quoted as saying.

The supplement business is largely unregulated. In recent years, said NYT, critics of the industry have called for measures that would force companies to prove that their products are safe and made in accordance with strict manufacturing standards before they reach the market.

The study found that many of the products implicated in liver injuries were bodybuilding supplements carrying unlisted steroids, and herbal pills and powders promising to increase energy and help consumers lose weight.

The investigators looked at 845 patients with severe, drug-induced liver damage who were treated at hospitals from 2004 to 2012. It focused only on cases where the investigators ruled out other causes and blamed a drug or a supplement with a high degree of certainty.

One product that patients used frequently was green tea extract, which contains catechins, a group of potent antioxidants that reputedly increase metabolism.

“Most green tea pills are highly concentrated, containing many times the amount of catechins found in a single cup of green tea, which can be toxic to the liver,” said Bonkovsky.

But liver injuries attributed to herbal supplements are more likely to be severe and result in liver transplants as these typically carry no information about side effects, said the report, quoting Victor Navarro, chairman of the Hepatology Division at Einstein Healthcare Network in Philadelphia.

However, supplements like vitamins, minerals, probiotics and fish oil had not been linked to any adverse effect, the report added.

The new research was produced by the Drug-Induced Liver Injury Network, which was established by the National Institutes of Health in the US to track patients who suffer liver damage from certain drugs and alternative medicines.

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Pregnant women with weak thyroid 4 times likelier to have autistic kids

 A new study has claimed that pregnant women, who are unable to make nearly enough thyroid, are nearly 4 times more likely to produce a autistic child.

The link emerged from a study of more than 4,000 Dutch mothers and their children, and it supports a growing view that autism spectrum disorders can be caused by a lack of maternal thyroid hormone, which past studies have shown is crucial to the migration of foetal brain cells during embryo development.

Lead author , a neurologist and neuroepidemiologist , said that it`s increasingly apparent to us that autism is caused by environmental factors in most cases, not by genetics.

The researchers also found that autistic children had more pronounced symptoms if their mothers were severely deficient for T4, also called thyroxine.

Mild T4 deficiencies in mothers produced an insignificant increase in autistic children`s symptoms.

The most common cause of thyroid hormone deficiency is a lack of dietary iodine - because both the thyroid hormones, T3 and T4, contain that element.

The present work was based on the Generation R Study, conducted by (Rotterdam, Netherlands) doctors and social scientists, in which thousands of pregnant women were voluntarily enrolled between 2002 and 2006.

Blood was withdrawn from the mothers at or around 13 weeks into their pregnancies to measure levels of T4 and two proteins that could indicate the cause of thyroid deficiency.

Six years later, mothers were asked to describe the behavioral and emotional characteristics of their children using a standardized psychology checklist.

Researchers identified 80 "probable autistic children" from a population of 4,039 -- a number consistent with the Dutch rate of autism spectrum disorders. 159 mothers were identified as being severely T4 deficient (defined as having 5 percent or less of normal T4, but producing a normal amount of thyroid stimulating hormone), and 136 were identified as mildly T4 deficient.

The researchers found a weak association between mild T4 deficiency and the likelihood of producing an autistic child, but a strong association between severe T4 deficiency and autism (3.89 more likely, as compared with mothers with normal thyroid hormone).

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