Category: Nutrition

People following this diet have a healthier biomarker profile with a lower risk of cancer, age-related conditions and cardiovascular disease.

Vegetarians have a healthier biomarker profile than those who eat meat, a new study finds.

Biomarkers, or biological markers, are medical measures predicting whether a person is healthy or at risk of disease.

Biological markers help early diagnoses and treatment of conditions associated with ageing, cardiovascular disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s and other chronic illnesses.

A research team studied 177,723 UK adults using biomarkers to find out the impact of diet on health.

Subjects in this study were classified as meat-eaters or vegetarians who didn’t eat fish, red meat, and poultry.

Participants’ blood and urine samples were checked for 19 clinical biomarkers related to cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, liver and kidney disease, bone and joint health.

The results showed that levels of 13 biomarkers were notably lower in vegetarians than meat-eaters even when factors such as obesity, alcohol consumption, smoking, ethnicity, age, and sex were considered.

The biomarkers were:

• Insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1 linked to increased risk of developing cancer),
• apolipoprotein A and B (large proteins associated with cardiovascular disease),
• total cholesterol,
• LDL (bad) cholesterol,
• the liver and kidney function markers such as alanine aminotransferase (AST) and gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT), creatinine, and urate.

The results were not all good for vegetarians, who had:

• lower HDL (the ‘good’ cholesterol),
• lower levels of calcium and vitamin D (increased risk of joint, bone, and muscle pain),
• higher concentration of triglycerides (fat),
• and elevated levels of cystatin C (linked to kidney dysfunction).

Dr Carlos Celis-Morales, the study’s lead author, said:

“Our findings offer real food for thought.

As well as not eating red and processed meat which have been linked to heart diseases and some cancers, people who follow a vegetarian diet tend to consume more vegetables, fruits, and nuts which contain more nutrients, fibre, and other potentially beneficial compounds.

These nutritional differences may help explain why vegetarians appear to have lower levels of disease biomarkers that can lead to cell damage and chronic disease.”

The study was presented at the European Congress on Obesity (ECO), May 2021.

Foods rich in this vitamin will improve muscle mass and prevent age-related muscle loss.

People with the best muscle mass tend to get lots of vitamin C, a study reveals.

Vitamin C is found in vegetables like red bell pepper and broccoli, citrus fruits including oranges, berries, cantaloupe, melon, and kiwi.

Vitamin C is crucial for building muscle and maintaining it as we get older, particularly over the age of 50.

Losing skeletal muscle mass is typical in older people which often results in a condition called sarcopenia.

Sarcopenia or muscles wasting can even effect persons in their 30s and those who have an inactive life.

The symptoms are decline in muscle size and function, weakness, difficulty with movement, poor balance, and so poor quality of life.

Professor Ailsa Welch, the study’s lead author, said:

“As people age, they lose skeletal muscle mass and strength.

People over 50 lose up to one percent of their skeletal muscle mass each year, and this loss is thought to affect more than 50 million people worldwide.

It’s a big problem, because it can lead to frailty and other poor outcomes such as sarcopenia, physical disability, type-2 diabetes, reduced quality of life and death.

We know that Vitamin C consumption is linked with skeletal muscle mass.

It helps defend the cells and tissues that make up the body from potentially harmful free radical substances.

Unopposed these free radicals can contribute to the destruction of muscle, thus speeding up age-related decline.

But until now, few studies have investigated the importance of Vitamin C intake for older people.

We wanted to find out whether people eating more Vitamin C had more muscle mass than other people.”

Researchers analysed data on 13,000 adult aged between 42 and 82 who participated in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition study.

Along with calculating the participants’ skeletal muscle mass, their blood vitamin C levels were tested and their vitamin C intake was estimated using a seven-day food record.

Dr Richard Hayhoe, study co-author, said:

“We studied a large sample of older Norfolk residents and found that people with the highest amounts of vitamin C in their diet or blood had the greatest estimated skeletal muscle mass, compared to those with the lowest amounts.

We are very excited by our findings as they suggest that dietary vitamin C is important for muscle health in older men and women and may be useful for preventing age-related muscle loss.

This is particularly significant as Vitamin C is readily available in fruits and vegetables, or supplements, so improving intake of this vitamin is relatively straightforward.

We found that nearly 60 percent of men and 50 percent of women participants were not consuming as much Vitamin C as they should, according to the European Food Safety Agency recommendations.

We’re not talking about people needing mega-doses.

Eating a citrus fruit, such as an orange, each day and having a vegetable side to a meal will be sufficient for most people.”

The study was published in Journal of Nutrition (Lewis et al., 2020).

One way of brewing coffee increases the chance of heart attacks while another leads to longevity.

Methods for brewing coffee can strongly influence the risk of heart disease and life expectancy.

According to scientists, the healthiest way to make a coffee is a filtered brew because it lowers the risk of death from cardiovascular disease and heart attacks.

Unlike filtered coffee, an unfiltered brew is linked to more heart attacks and death from heart disease.

Professor Dag S. Thelle, study co-author, said:

“Our study provides strong and convincing evidence of a link between coffee brewing methods, heart attacks and longevity.

Unfiltered coffee contains substances which increase blood cholesterol.

Using a filter removes these and makes heart attacks and premature death less likely.”

Coffee is not only a popular drink but also the most commonly used stimulant and most likely the safest one.

Professor Thelle, through his work 30 years ago, found that coffee consumption elevates levels of total cholesterol and the “bad” cholesterol (low-density lipoprotein) in such a way that can damage the heart.

With more research, Professor Thelle and colleagues detected substances such as diterpenes kahweol and cafestol in coffee, that are responsible for the damage but can be removed by a filter.

In contrast to filtered coffee, a cup of unfiltered coffee has a 30 times higher amount of lipid-raising diterpenes kahweol and cafestol.

Professor Thelle siad:

“We wondered whether this effect on cholesterol would result in more heart attacks and death from heart disease.

But it was unethical to do a trial randomising people to drink coffee or not.

So we set up a large population study and several decades later we are reporting the results.”

They enrolled more than half a million healthy Norwegian adults from 1985 to 2003.

Their data show that drinking coffee was generally a safe habit and actually a filtered brew was healthier compared to not having coffee.

Drinking filtered coffee was associated with a decreased risk of death from any cause by 15 percent.

It also reduced the risk of dying from heart disease by 20 percent in women and 12 percent in men.

The lowest death rate was observed amongst participants who had 1 to 4 cups of filtered coffee daily.

Unfiltered coffee was linked to an increased risk of death from heart disease, heart attacks, and any cause compared to filtered brew.

Professor Thelle said:

“Our analysis shows that this was partly because of the cholesterol-increasing effect of unfiltered coffee.

For people who know they have high cholesterol levels and want to do something about it, stay away from unfiltered brew, including coffee made with a cafetière.

For everyone else, drink your coffee with a clear conscience and go for filtered.”

The study was published in European Journal of Preventive Cardiology (Tverdal et al., 2020).

Research reveals if the ‘sugar rush’ is real.

The so-called ‘sugar rush’ is a complete myth, new research finds.

Sugar has almost no effect on mood.

In fact, it makes people feel more tired and less alert.

Within 30 minutes of eating sugary foods, or other carbohydrate heavy foods, people feel more tired.

Within 60 minutes of eating sugar or other carbs, people feel less alert.

The conclusions come from a review of 31 separate studies including almost 1,300 people.

The studies looked at sugar’s effect on different aspects of mood, including alertness, depression, anger and fatigue.

The results showed that:

• Sugar had almost no effect on mood, no matter how much people consume.
• The idea of a sugar rush is a total myth.
• After eating sugar, people are less alert and more tired than those who had not consumed it.

Dr Konstantinos Mantantzis, the study’s first author, said:

“The idea that sugar can improve mood has been widely influential in popular culture, so much so that people all over the world consume sugary drinks to become more alert or combat fatigue.

Our findings very clearly indicate that such claims are not substantiated — if anything, sugar will probably make you feel worse.”

Dr Sandra Sünram-Lea, study co-author, said:

“The rise in obesity, diabetes and metabolic syndrome in recent years highlights the need for evidence-based dietary strategies to promote healthy lifestyle across the lifespan.

Our findings indicate that sugary drinks or snacks do not provide a quick ‘fuel refill’ to make us feel more alert.”

The study was published in the journal Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews (Mantantzis et al., 2019).