the-psoriasis-treatment

Do overweight folks live longer? It is not uncommon to see graphs like the one below, from the Med Journal Watch blog ( ), suggesting that, at least as far as body mass index (BMI) is concerned ( ), overweight folks (25 < BMI < 30) seem to live longer. The graph shows BMI measured at a certain age, and risk of death within a certain time period (e.g., 20 years) following the measurement. The lowest-mortality BMI is about 26, which is in the overweight area of the BMI chart. Note that relative age-adjusted mortality risk (i.e., relative to the mortality risk of people in the same age group), increases less steeply in response to weight variations as one becomes older. An older person increases the risk of dying to a lesser extent by weighing more or less than does a younger person. This seems to be particularly true for weight gain (as opposed to weight loss). The table below is from a widely cited 2002 article by Allison and colleagues ( ), where they describe a study of 10,169 ...

by Amanda Jensen*  Losing weight is an ambition with no end. To get fit, live longer, reduce injury, look better, feel better and sleep better will pave the road toward your skinny. Yes, losing weight is known to help the heart and boost insulin sensitivity, but the question still asked is: how? There are differences between losing weight and keeping it off. From the Department of Clinical Sciences Malmo in Sweden, researchers found seven key genes expressed in adipose tissue (fat tissue) that change with weight loss and weight maintenance—a finding that brings science one step closer to understanding how the body responds to and regulates fat loss. This randomized controlled trial shows that the genes expressed by adipose tissue change when an obese person trims down, and stays down. "For most people," the authors report, "maintaining a reduced weight is a difficult but important task to fully obtain the beneficial effects of weight loss." Researchers placed 12 obe...

If you've been following this blog, then you're probably aware that back in April I blogged about a highly attended debate at Experimental Biology 2012 in San Diego (dubbed the #sugarshowdown in a hashtag on Twitter; here's the Storify story in case you missed it). The event was  sponsored by the Corn Refiners Association.   In that symposium, Dr. Robert Lustig, of University of California, San Francisco, who is famed for sensationalizing the position that sugar is "toxic" in media coverage and the scientific literature, was seriously challenged by not only speakers, but also by fellow scientists (from industry and non-industry alike) in the crowd during the question-and-answer period. One of those scientists was Dr. John Sievenpiper, of St. Michael's Hospital, University of Toronto, who told me in an interview  after the event, "Having both sides better represented was far more balanced than what came out of his two-million hit sensation on YouTube and ...

One of the problems often pointed out about rice, and particularly about white rice, is that its nutrition content is fairly low. It is basically carbohydrates with some trace amounts of protein. A 100-g portion of cooked white rice will typically deliver 28 g of carbohydrates, with zero fiber, and 3 g of protein. The micronutrient content of such a portion leaves a lot to be desired when compared with fruits and vegetables, as you can see below (from Nutritiondata.com). Keep in mind that this is for 100 g of “enriched” white rice; the nutrients you see there, such as manganese, are added. White rice is rice that has had its husk, bran, and germ removed. This prevents spoilage and thus significantly increases its shelf life. As it happens, it also significantly reduces both its nutrition and toxin content. White rice is one of the refined foods with the lowest toxin content. Another interesting property of white rice is that it absorbs moisture to the tune of about 2.5 times its weig...