Want to be Healthy; Restrict Sugar & Salt

Sugar and salt are damaging the health of Americans by raising blood pressure and cholesterol -- and regulation may be the only way to help, researchers agree.

Two reports published on Tuesday take aim at the much-loved ingredients and add to a growing body of scientific opinion that Americans won't be able to eat more healthily without help from the food industry.

Americans have been eating more and more sugar and salt in recent decades and most of it is not sprinkled on food. It is in the burgers, sodas and processed foods that are hastily gobbled by adults and children alike, the reports show.

Education efforts to help Americans cut down on salt have not worked and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration should start regulating the industry to help remove it from food, a panel at the Institute of Medicine said.

Regulators and the food industry agree that Americans cannot give up salt cold-turkey and will have to be gradually weaned off it. Sodium adds flavor and texture to food to make it palatable and can extend its shelf life.

In another study Dr. Miriam Vos of Emory School of Medicine in Georgia and colleagues found that the more sugar people ate, the worse their cholesterol levels.

"Just like eating a high-fat diet can increase your levels of triglycerides and high cholesterol, eating sugar can also affect those same lipids," Vos said in a statement.

Studies have shown Americans are eating and drinking far more sugar than in years past. The use of processed sugar products like high fructose corn syrup can be linked directly to diabetes rates.

The food and restaurant industry has been lobbying for self-regulation, arguing that Americans need to control their own eating habits. But the science shows it is difficult to eat a typical American diet without consuming too much salt and sugar.

MANDATORY POLICY

The trend points in one direction: more regulation of food.

While a move to limit sugar is not imminent, Iowa Senator Tom Harkin and Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut said they would push the FDA to crack down on salt, which clearly contributes to an epidemic of high blood pressure.

"What we're all hoping is this is going to be federal policy so it becomes mandatory. I think slow and steady is the right way to go," Dr. Alice Lichtenstein of the American Heart Association said in a telephone interview.

"If across the board reductions in sodium in our food supply become law, then I think a gradual, stepwise approach is probably best in the long run to ensure that it actually happens and there is acceptance from the people."

New York City, which has banned smoking and artificial trans-fats in restaurants, has pledged to coordinate a nationwide effort to reduce salt in restaurant and packaged foods by 25 percent over five years.

As for sugar, California state Senator Dean Florez introduced legislation in February to tax sodas and other sugar-sweetened drinks and use the proceeds to bankroll programs to fight childhood obesity.

California has also imposed menu-labeling rules and banned trans-fats in restaurants and on soda sales in public schools.

The American Beverage Association, whose members include Coca-Cola (KO.N) and Kraft Foods (KFT.N) have strongly, and successfully, opposed efforts to tax soda.

However the food industry has been more amenable to offering lower-salt foods and the FDA suggests it will work with manufacturers to make the transition painless.

The Obama Administration and Congress have shown strong appetites for regulating the food and restaurant industry. Newhealthcare reform legislation requires large chain restaurants to give calorie counts on menus.

(Additional reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; editing by Chris Wilson)

Speed of eating 'key to obesity'

BBC

Slow down!

Wolfing down meals may be enough to nearly double a person's risk of being overweight, Japanese research suggests.
Osaka University scientists looked at the eating habits of 3,000 people and reported their findings in the British Medical Journal.
Problems in signalling systems which tell the body when to stop eating may be partly responsible, said a UK nutrition expert.
He said deliberately slowing down at mealtimes might impact on weight.

The old wives' tale about chewing everything 20 times might be true - if you did take a bit more time eating, it could have an impact
Professor Ian McDonald
Nottingham University
The latest study looked at the relationship between eating speed, feelings of "fullness" and being overweight.
Just under half of the 3,000 volunteers told researchers they tended to eat quickly.
Compared with those who did not eat quickly, fast-eating men were 84% more likely to be overweight, and women were just over twice as likely.
Those, who, in addition to wolfing down their meals, tended to eat until they felt full, were more than three times more likely to be overweight.
Stomach signals
Professor Ian McDonald, from the University of Nottingham, said that there were a number of reasons why eating fast could be bad for your weight.
He said it could interfere with a signalling system which tells your brain to stop eating because your stomach is swelling up.
He said: "If you eat quickly you basically fill your stomach before your gastric feedback has a chance to start developing - you can overfill the thing."
He said that rushing meals was a behaviour that might have been learned in infancy, and could be reversed, although this might not be easy.
"The old wives' tale about chewing everything 20 times might be true - if you did take a bit more time eating, it could have an impact."
'Biological imperative
In an accompanying editorial, Australian researchers Dr Elizabeth Denney-Wilson and Dr Karen Campbell, said that a mechanism that helps make us fat today may, until relatively recently, have been an evolutionary advantage, helping us grab more food when resources were scarce.
They said that, if possible, children should be encouraged to eat slowly, and allowed to stop when they felt full up at mealtimes.
Dr Jason Halford, Director of the Kissileff Human Ingestive Behaviour Laboratory at the University of Liverpool, said that the way we eat was slowly being seen as a key area in obesity research, especially since the publication of studies highlighting a genetic variant linked to "feelings of fullness".
His own work, recently published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, found that anti-obesity drug sibutramine worked by slowing down the rate at which obese patients ate.
He said: "What the Japanese research shows is that individual differences in eating behaviour underlie over-consumption of food and are linked to obesity.
"Other research has found evidence of this in childhood, suggesting that it could be inherited or learned at a very early age."
He said that there was no evidence yet that trying to slow down mealtimes for children would have an impact on future obesity rates.

Goan adults are far more overweightthan other Indians

PANAJI: Goan adults are far more overweightthan other Indians and this is causing a serious concern among health professionals. And when it comes to being obese, Goan women outdo the men.

The percentage of women who are overweight or obese is 27, much higher than the all India figure of 14.8%. The men are not far behind though, with 20.8% of Goan men being obese or overweight, again higher than the all India percentage of 12.1. This has been revealed by the Health Intelligence Bureau report, 2007, of the Directorate of Health Services.

The year of reference for the data is 2005-06 and it reveals the nutritional status of adults (age 15 to 49).
"Obesity is a growing disease among Goans. It is a silent killer," said Dr Digambar Naik from Vrundavan Hospital, Mapusa. Naik added that 60% of the patients above the age of 40 who come to the hospital are obese, with a body mass index (BMI) of more than 30.

"Abdominal obesity is a problem in Goa and about one-third of the adult population is obese," said Dr Rufino Monteiro from Vintage Hospital, Panaji.

A person with a BMI between 25 and 35 is deemed obese or overweight and those with BMI of 35 and above are considered to be morbidly obese.

"The socio-economic status in Goa being the highest in the country, we have the additional burden of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular ailments and cancer, which are linked to sedentary lifestyles that lead to obesity," said Goa Medical College’s preventive and social medicine associate professor Dr Jagdish Cacodcar.

'Feeling fat' worse than actually being fat

Tuesday, 24 June , 2008, 10:23


London: Adolescents who think they are too fat seem to be worse off than their counterparts who are really obese, according to an extensive survey.

The Robert Koch Institute in Germany surveyed nearly 7,000 boys and girls between 11 and 17. They were asked about self-assessment, ranging from "far too thin" to "far too fat.”

For more news, analysis | For more Science and Medicine news

The survey, published in the German journal Deutsches Aerzteblatt International, established that about three quarters of adolescents were of normal weight. Yet, 55 percent of girls and under 36 percent of boys thought they were "too fat".

Only about 18 percent of adolescents were actually overweight, while 7-8 percent were underweight.

The quality of life is lower in obese adolescents. However, this correlates to a large extent with self-evaluation. If adolescents think they are "far too fat", they forfeit a lot of their quality of life, whatever their actual weight.

This is particularly marked with girls. On the other hand, if they consider their weight "just right", their quality of life is the same as if they were of normal weight, even if this is not true.

The proportion of adolescents who think they are overweight has been increasing more rapidly in recent years than the proportion of those who really are overweight.

In an accompanying editorial, lead researcher Johannes Hebebrand points out that adolescents are exposed to considerable social pressure to be thin.

He said it was remarkable that as many as 40 percent of the subjects thought that their weight was right, in spite of the ideal of slimness and the stigma of being overweight.