TriVita Health — The Research Desk
New findings in health and wellness

Watch what you drink! Calories from beverages are on the rise

Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Americans are getting 94% more calories from beverages than they did in the early 1960s, according to researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health. That’s an average of 222 extra calories per day.

Beverages comprised 12% of daily calories in 1965; by 2002, beverages accounted for 21% of daily caloric intake. Over the course of the study, calories from whole milk consumption decreased 45%, while calories for alcohol increased 73% and fruit juice calories increased 20%.

“This has considerable implications for numerous health outcomes, including obesity and diabetes as this is just adding several hundred calories daily to our overall caloric intake,” said Barry M. Popkin, Ph.D., professor of nutrition and one of the lead researchers. “Regardless of beverage type – sodas, milk, orange juice or beer – those extra calories are not compensated for by a reduction in food intake.”

Researchers studied data from the Nationwide Food Consumptive Surveys of 1965 and 1977-1978 and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys of 1989-1994 and 1999-2002 to reach their conclusions. The surveys polled 46,576 Americans aged 19 and up.

Antioxidant supplements may help chronic pancreatitis

New Delhi, India
Antioxidant supplements helped reduce pain in patients with chronic pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas), researchers reported in the January 2009 issue of Gastroenterology. Patients who supplemented for six months experienced a 2.3 times greater drop in painful days versus patients on a placebo.

In the study, 127 patients were divided into two groups: an antioxidant group and placebo group. Participants in the antioxidant group were given selenium, ascorbic acid, beta-carotene, Vitamin E and methionine.

Those in the antioxidant group experienced less pain, took fewer pain pills and reported fewer pain-related sick days. And, 33% of them reported being pain-free over six months.

Researchers concluded that antioxidant supplementation effectively relieved pain and reduced levels of oxidative stress in those with chronic pancreatitis.

Too little sleep can lead to a cold, says new study

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
People who get fewer than seven hours of sleep are three times more likely to catch a cold than those who get eight or more hours, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University reported in the January 2009 Archives of Internal Medicine. And if a person has trouble falling asleep or wakes up periodically, they are over five times more likely to catch a cold.

“Although sleep’s relationship with the immune system is well-documented, this is the first evidence that even relatively minor sleep disturbances can influence the body’s reaction to cold viruses,” said Sheldon Cohen, the Robert E. Doherty Professor of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon and lead author of the study.

“It provides yet another reason why people should make time in their schedules to get a complete night of rest.”

In the study, 153 participants were interviewed daily for two weeks regarding their quality and duration of sleep. Then they were introduced to a cold virus and sequestered in a hotel for five days, where they were monitored for cold symptoms. Of the 153 participants, 54 caught a cold.

Those who reported fewer than seven hours of sleep a night were 2.94 times more likely to develop cold symptoms than those who reported eight or more hours. Those who did not sleep well – waking up during the night or having difficulty falling asleep – were 5.5 times more likely to develop a cold.

“Experiments that explore the relationship between sleep and immune function often involve sleep deprivation or study subjects with sleep disorders, which are often rooted in psychiatric conditions that influence other aspects of health,” Cohen explained. “This research points to the role played by ordinary, real-life habits in healthy persons.”

Blood Sugar Linked To “Senior Moments”

New York, New York
Common memory lapses, sometimes referred to as “senior moments,” may be due to rising blood glucose levels, according to a study in the December 2008 Annals of Neurology.

“This is news even for people without diabetes since blood glucose levels tend to rise as we grow older. Whether through physical exercise, diet or drugs, our research suggests that improving glucose metabolism could help some of us avert the cognitive slide that occurs in many of us as we age,” said lead researcher Scott A. Small, M.D., associate professor of neurology in the Sergievsky Center and in the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain at Columbia University Medical Center.

Researchers discovered that blood sugar can affect the dentate gyrus, an area of the brain within the hippocampus that is involved in memory and learning.

“Beyond the obvious conclusion that preventing late-life disease would benefit the aging hippocampus, our findings suggest that maintaining blood sugar levels, even in the absence of diabetes, could help maintain aspects of cognitive health. More specifically, our findings predict that any intervention that causes a decrease in blood glucose should increase dentate gyrus function and would therefore be cognitively beneficial,” said Dr. Small.

Previous research conducted by Dr. Small has shown that physical exercise causes an improvement in dentate gyrus function.

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