Health
Doctors have often recommended reducing coffee intake or eliminating it altogether to lower blood pressure.
This is a mistake, according to a study led by Jinnie Rhee of the Stanford University School of Medicine. The scientists found no relationship between the consumption of caffeinated coffee, decaffeinated coffee or caffeine and hypertension (high blood pressure). They measured systolic and diastolic blood pressure (high and low blood pressure measurements) at three different times and compared these values with self-reported consumption of these three products in postmenopausal women.
Coffee promotes longevity and can increase both physical and mental performance. It contains powerful antioxidants that prevent cell destruction. It may reduce the risk of some cancers and promote blood sugar regulation.
Coffee is a healthy addition to a balanced diet.
(American Journal Clinical Nutrition, 103: 210 - 217, 2016)
Exposure to the cold promotes weight loss by stimulating the activity of brown body fat. Brown adipose tissue is a special type of tissue that releases energy in the form of heat instead of storing this energy in the form of fat. Brown adipose tissue becomes more active in response to the activity of specific types of microbes in the gut.
Swiss scientists from the University of Geneva found in a study with rats that cold changed the composition of gut microbes, increasing insulin sensitivity and converting white fat cells into brown fat cells. The activity of these gut microbes could explain why exposure to cold promotes fat loss.
Viruses and bacteria affect food absorption and digestive tract hormones that regulate appetite and metabolic rate (the rate at which you burn calories). Animals infected with a common human cold virus put on much more fat than animals that were not infected. The same viruses were more prevalent among overweight people, which means there could be a link.
The Pennington Medical Research Center in Louisiana, a leading center for obesity research, has even established a virus and obesity unit.
(Cell, 163: 1360 - 1374, 2015)
28 percent of Americans have suffered from lower back pain in the last three months. More than 90 percent will suffer from back pain at some point. The costs are enormous: 176 billion dollars in direct costs for medical treatment and 11 billion dollars in indirect costs for sick days and reduced productivity. Low back pain is by far the leading cause of disability worldwide. Treatments include over-the-counter and prescription medications, weight loss, exercise, physical therapy and surgery. Scientists have published thousands of studies on treatment methods and yet there is little consensus on the most effective treatment and prevention.
Daniel Steffens and colleagues from the University of Sydney concluded that exercise and education are the most effective methods for treating lower back pain. They looked at more than 6,000 studies and summarized the results of 23 studies in a meta-analysis. Exercise or exercise combined with education (learning how to protect the spine) were the only methods with a proven effect on reducing back pain.
Studies by Stuart McGill of the University of Waterloo in Canada showed that certain exercises such as trunk flexion training (e.g. sit-ups) can exacerbate back problems (see Backfit.com). His work shows that exercises that stiffen the spine work best when it comes to preventing lower back pain and promoting core fitness for sport.
Increased core stiffness transfers power and speed to the extremities, prevents lower back pain, increases the load-bearing capacity of the spine and protects the internal organs during exercise movements.
(JAMA Internal Medicine, published online January 11, 2016)
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Focus on a quality diet and regular exercise if you want to maintain a healthy weight - at least that's what an editorial by Jean-Pierre Despres of Laval University in Quebec, Canada recommends.
Most studies have shown that dietary restriction is the most important factor in weight loss and that exercise has only a minimal effect. However, exercise provides a buffer to combat excess calorie intake. People who want to lose weight and maintain their new weight typically incorporate large amounts of exercise into their weight management program. Only about five percent of people who lose a significant amount of weight keep their new weight off for more than a year. Despite this depressing statistic, some people lose weight and manage to keep their new weight off.
The National Weight Control Registry contains records of people who have successfully lost more than 30 pounds and kept their new weight off for a year or more. These people share one thing in common - they burn an extra 3000 kcal a week, which means they exercise for about an hour a week.
Don't just gauge your progress by looking at your scale. People who exercise regularly tend to build lean muscle mass while losing fat. Dr. Despres recommended replacing the bathroom scale with simple and inexpensive tape measure measurements to determine body circumferences.
(American Journal Clinical Nutrition, 102:1303 - 1304, 2015)
Recognizing factors that control the balance of food intake and energy expenditure is important for understanding the physiology of obesity. Energy metabolism works through a series of interconnected reactions. This means that energy released during the breakdown of fat, carbohydrates and proteins is captured in other reactions such as the production of ATP (a high-energy chemical) or the storage of fats and carbohydrates. Decoupling occurs when the energy from the breakdown of food is released in the form of heat instead of being stored in the form of ATP. The body contains small amounts of brown fat and uncoupling proteins that convert energy directly into heat.
Polish scientists from the Institute of Animal Reproduction and Food Research at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw found in a study conducted with rats that bile acid, which is produced in the liver as part of digestion, stimulated uncoupling proteins to increase energy expenditure.
This study shows another mechanism that the body uses to control body weight.
(American Journal Physiology Endocrinology Metabolism, published online December 29, 2015)
