Diet Plan News

A newly published report states that while there are 73,000 published papers on Alzheimer’s Disease, less has been relative to why people get Alzheimer’s and what may be done to avoid it and makes compelling recommendations, which could lower the prevalence of this disease. Nutri-Med Logic Corp, agreeing with this report, adds while the report correctly addresses some of the key nutritional factors that cause neuro-degeneration in Alzheimer’s but pro-inflammatory diet is also a key contributing cause.

Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/business/press-releases/article/Diet-May-Play-a-Key-Role-as-a-Turning-Point-in-3452170.php#ixzz1qz90KYMr

More and more U.S. adults are being told by their doctor to get out and exercise, according to government survey released Thursday.

Nearly 33 percent of adults who saw a doctor in the previous year said they were told to exercise. That was up from about 23 percent in 2000, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.   The report also found more women got that advice than men. And among people with chronic health problems, diabetics, were the most likely to get the advice and cancer patients were least likely.

The most dramatic – and surprising – increases were reported in patients age 85 and older. In 2000, about 15 percent were told by doctors to exercise. By 2010, almost 30 percent were getting such a recommendation.   “It’s very encouraging that doctors feel people at that age still have time to live and can make their health better,” said Pat Barnes, a CDC health statistician who was lead author of the report.

The report was based on a survey of nearly 22,000 adults in 2010. The CDC then compared the results to similar surveys done in 2000 and 2005.   The doctors’ advice may be getting through to at least some people. Other CDC data has found that about 51 percent of Americans said they exercise regularly in 2009, up from about 46 percent in 2001.   However, more than one third of U.S. adults are obese, a statistic that’s held steady for nearly a decade.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/02/10/doctors-telling-more-adults-get-out-and-exercise

As the holiday season gets more hectic, all your good intentions can start slipping away. Maybe you hoped to drop another ten pounds before your office party, but the homemade goodies kept that from happening. Or you convinced yourself that you were NOT going to drink rum-spiked eggnog this year, but suddenly, you’re enjoying a second cup of it.

More at link: http://startyourdiet.com/holiday-diet-tips.htm

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Women who spend a lot of time exercising or eat a heart-healthy diet appear to reach menopause earlier, a new Japanese study shows.

While that doesn’t prove work-outs and healthy foods are directly responsible, researchers say the findings could be important for cancer prevention.

Healthy Diet For the study, researchers tracked more than 3,100 premenopausal women over 10 years. Those who exercised the most — about eight to 10 hours a week — were 17 percent more likely to start menopause during the study than their sedentary peers.

Similarly, women who ate the most polyunsaturated fats — found in many fish and vegetable oils — were 15 percent more likely to reach menopause than those who got the least.

During menopause, a woman’s ovaries stop producing eggs and she can no longer get pregnant. According to Dr. Margery Gass, who directs the North American Menopause Society, menopause usually begins between ages 41 and 55.

In the new study, published in the journal Menopause, Dr. Chisato Nagata of Gifu University and colleagues gave food and activity questionnaires to women aged 35 to 56 at baseline.

Over the next decade, nearly 1,800 women went through menopause. Although it’s unclear how old they were when that happened, the findings suggest very active women and those getting lots of polyunsaturated fats have a higher chance of reaching menopause early.

Doing so means women have less exposure to high estrogen levels, said Dr. JoAnn E. Manson, president of the North American Menopause Society. The hormone promotes breast tumors, and that may explain why early menopause is tied to a lower risk of breast cancer.

On the other hand, Manson told Reuters Health, early menopause has also been linked to increased risks of heart disease and bone thinning.

“I wouldn’t want women to be concerned that they would be at higher risk of cardiovascular disease or osteoporosis if they make lifestyle modifications,” she cautioned. “The benefits far outweigh any risks.”

Manson noted the study doesn’t prove cause and effect, and factors other than diet and exercise could play into the timing of menopause.

Other studies on menopause have been contradictory. For example, high levels of physical activity — usually five or more hours of exercise per week — have been tied to early menopause. But they’ve also has been linked to irregular menstrual cycles, which could lead to later menopause.

Even in this latest study, researchers called the relation between exercise and the timing of menopause “small or null.”

Total fat as well as saturated fat, which comes largely from animals, didn’t have any effect on the timing of menopause, the Japanese researchers note.

Manson, also at Harvard Medical School in Boston, said physical activity lowers estrogen levels, and that may be why it’s linked to early onset of menopause.

“The take home message from this study is regular physical activity and regular heart-healthy patterns are advisable for reducing the risk for several hormone-related cancers and osteoporosis,” she says. “It’s a modest effect, but it matters.”

http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/sns-rt-us-women-who-exercise-lot-hit-menopause-earliertre-20111011,0,5141362.story?track=rss

OVERWEIGHT people should be referred to commercial weight loss programs subsidised by the taxpayer in a radical plan to address the nation’s burgeoning obesity epidemic.

Professor Boyd Swinburn, director of the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention, said if the government spent half a billion dollars on cholesterol-lowering drugs a year, it should subsidise commercial diet programs as well.

“We … should use the same sort of judgments we do for other things like drugs for treating health problems,” Professor Swinburn said.

His comments follow a study in the Lancet last week that found patients referred to Weight Watchers for 12 months lost twice as much weight as those overseen by doctors.

Although the study was funded by a Weight Watchers grant to the UK Medical Research Council, researchers involved in the Australian end of the study said the findings had significant implications for public health policy in a country where 70 per cent of men and 60 per cent of women are now considered overweight.

Dr Lisa Studdert from the Australian National Preventative Health Agency – which funds the “Measure-up” and “Swap it, don’t stop it” campaigns – said the agency was interested in the Lancet data.

“If we can prevent people from becoming obese in the first place, there is a major saving there, so we will be looking at this study.”

Co-author Professor Ian Caterson from the University of Sydney said the diet itself did not matter, it just needed to be something one stuck to.

A spokesman for Health Minister Nicola Roxon said the government took obesity seriously but it was “not considering public funding for commercial weight-loss programs”.