Behavioral weight-loss interventions decrease urinary incontinence

The multi-center, randomized clinical trial was conducted at UCSF, Brown University and the University of Alabama in Birmingham. The results support the inclusion of weight reduction as a first-line treatment for incontinence for overweight and obese women, according to Leslee L. Subak, MD, lead author on the study and associate professor in the obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences; urology, and epidemiology and biostatistics departments at UCSF.

“It has been well documented that behavioral weight-loss interventions decrease the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, improve control of high blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and improve mood and quality of life,” Subak said. “Our results suggest that a decrease in urinary incontinence can now be added to the extensive list of health benefits associated with weight loss.”

Read more on UCSF News Office

FDA said consumers shouldn't take the weight-loss pill Venom Hyperdrive 3.0

Venom Hyperdrive 3.0, marketed by California-based Applied Lifescience Research Industries Inc., contains sibutramine, a chemical that can put people at risk for addiction and can increase peoples blood pressure and heart rate, according to a press release issued Tuesday by the FDA. Consumers who have the product should stop taking it immediately and contact their doctor if they are experiencing any adverse health effects, the agency said. Applied Lifescience Research initiated a recall of the product in late December after the FDA said the dietary supplement contained sibutramine, according to the agency's press release.


The FDA's announcement comes about a month after the agency said more than 60 weight-loss products were tainted with powerful ingredients, including those used in antiseizure medications and some chemicals suspected to cause cancer.

Venom Hyperdrive 3.0 comes in red plastic bottles and can be found in retail stores in the U.S., as well as in Canada, Poland, Sweden, Hungary, South Africa, the Netherlands, Australia, France and the United Kingdom.

Applied Lifescience Research's Web site says only "trace" amounts of sibutramine can be found in the product, the FDA said, but the agency's analysis showed Venom Hyperdrive contains a significant amount.

"Nowhere do we state that Venom Hyperdrive contained trace amounts of subutramine," said Charles Weller, general counsel for Applied Lifescience Research. He added that the company's Web site only mentioned that trace amounts of sibutramine weren't harmful, not that trace amounts were in the product.

Mr. Weller said the company had begun replacing Venom Hyperdrive 3.0 about six months ago with a newer version. He said the company isn't certain how the sibutramine got into the original product, but said he believes it was contaminated by raw-material suppliers in China.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

High-intensity, three-minute workout dramatically improves your metabolism in just two weeks

Professor James Timmons worked with a team of researchers from Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh, Scotland, to investigate the effect of 'high-intensity interval training' (HIT) on the metabolic prowess of sixteen sedentary male volunteers. He said, "The risk of developing cardiovascular disease and type two diabetes is substantially reduced through regular physical activity.

Unfortunately, many people feel they simply don't have the time to follow current exercise guidelines. What we have found is that doing a few intense muscle exercises, each lasting only about 30 seconds, dramatically improves your metabolism in just two weeks."

Current exercise guidelines suggest that people should perform moderate to vigorous aerobic and resistance exercise for several hours per week. While these guidelines are very worthwhile in principle, Timmons suggests that a lack of compliance indicates the need for an alternative, "Current guidelines, with regards to designing exercise regimes to yield the best health outcomes, may not be optimal and certainly require further discussion. The low volume, high intensity training utilized in our study substantially improved both insulin action and glucose clearance in otherwise sedentary young males and this indicates that we do not yet fully appreciate the traditional connection between exercise and diabetes".

The subjects in this trial used exercise bikes to perform a quick sprint at their highest possible intensity. In principle, however, any highly vigorous activity carried out a few days per week should achieve the same protective metabolic improvements. Timmons added, "This novel approach may help people to lead a healthier life, improve the future health of the population and save the health service millions of pounds simply by making it easier for people to find the time to exercise".

Source: Medical News Today

Several studies have hinted that green tea provides a boost to exercise-induced weight loss

Another study, published in the February issue of the Journal of Nutrition, supports that link and shows that tummy fat may be the first to go. The study evaluated 132 obese adults. All consumed a diet that was consistent in daily calories and participated in 180 minutes a week of moderate-intensity exercise. They also drank a daily beverage containing 39 milligrams of caffeine, but one group consumed green tea with 625 milligrams of catechins, an antioxidant that is the main component of green tea.

After 12 weeks, the participants drinking the green tea had greater loss, 4.4 pounds compared with just more than 2 pounds in the control group. The green-tea group also had larger declines in total abdominal fat, subcutaneous abdominal fat and triglycerides.

How green tea works its magic is not completely understood, but scientists believe it speeds the rate at which fat is broken down in the body. It may also help the body's sensitivity to insulin, lowering the risk of diabetes. The study was conducted by researchers at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University as well as research centers in Florida and Japan.

Another study on green tea, also featured in this issue of the Journal of Nutrition, shows that drinking plentiful amounts of the beverage over many years may have a subtle influence in decreasing the risk of breast cancer. The study examined almost 7,000 women, ages 20 to 74, in China. The women were evaluated for breast-cancer incidence and consumption of green tea. Compared with nondrinkers, women who drank green tea had a slightly decreased risk of breast cancer. The benefit was strongest for women who drank the most green tea over longer periods of time.

Source: Denverpost

The adenovirus can lead to massive weight gain

Previous studies have shown that chickens and mice infected with the bug put on weight more quickly than uninfected animals - even when they do not eat more.
Now human studies show that almost a third of obese adults carry the virus compared with 11 per cent of lean men and women. Professor Nikhil Dhurandhar, who led the research, said the bug continues to add weight gain long after those infected recover from their cough or cold. He told BBC2's Horizon programme, to be shown at 9pm tonight: 'This virus goes to the lungs and spreads through the body.

'It goes to various organs and tissues such as the liver, kidney, brain and fat tissue.'When this virus goes to fat tissue it replicates, making more copies of itself and in the process increases the number of new fat cells, which may explain why the fat tissue expands and why people get fat when they are infected with this virus.' The professor, from Pennington Biomedical Research Centre in Louisiana, said victims could remain infectious for up to three months. 'But people could be fat for reasons other than viral infections so it's really pointless to try to avoid fat people to avoid infection,' he said.

Learning more about adenovirus's role in weight gain could speed the development of an antiobesity vaccine, or drugs to tackle the condition. British obesity experts, however, dismissed evidence of a link with adenovirus as 'sparse'. Tam Fry, of the Child Growth Foundation, said: 'You are much more likely to pick up the flu than obesity. In general, obesity is down to eating more than you need and not exercising as much as you should.'

Dr. Ian Campbell, a GP and medical director of the charity Weight Concern, said: 'A virus will never be the reason for why we have an obesity epidemic. 'There are far too many other factors, starting with our calorie intake exceeding our expenditure, and that's because we live such sedentary lives. 'Our dietary habits have changed beyond belief and I don't believe that's the effect of a viral infection - it is the fault of the commercial expansion of companies making unhealthy foods.' Professor Colin Waine, past president of the National Obesity Forum, said: 'What we don't want to lose sight of is that if people can lose 5 to 10 per cent of their weight, the benefits on health are disproportionately good.'

A documentary also features research which could explain why dieters feel permanently hungry and often regain the weight they have lost. Dr Rudy Leibel, from Columbia University in New York, said individuals have a ' natural body weight' to which they are programmed to return after dieting. So naturally overweight people who diet will always suffer hunger pangs, even if they become lean and healthy. 'Individuals have a biology which determines how tall or short they will be and how skinny or fat they will be, and wishing it one way or the other really cannot change it that much.'

Source: DailyMail.co.uk

OR-Live will premiere a Sleeve Gastrectomy on February 4, 2009

OR-Live will premiere a Sleeve Gastrectomy on February 4, 7:00 PM CST From Davenport, IA. Having already had a malfunctioning gastric band removed, and apprehensive about undergoing a complicated gastric bypass procedure, Ken Croken was looking for another surgical weight loss option. The potential side effects of the Roux-en-Y procedure troubled me," said Croken, vice president of corporate communications and marketing for Genesis Health


System. "And while I felt capable of losing weight, I felt very pessimistic about my ability to maintain a healthy weight for the long term without surgical intervention of some kind."Croken found an alternative, one now offered by his own employer, in a procedure called a sleeve gastrectomy. His surgery will be broadcast on http://www.or-live.com/, premiering Wednesday, Feb. 4, at 7 p.m. CST. The live panel webcast will include Croken, surgeon Matthew Christophersen, M.D., FACS, Medical Director of the Genesis Center for Bariatric Surgery and a partner in the Davenport Surgical Group, and Teresa Fraker, Nurse Manager of the Genesis Center for Bariatric Surgery.


Source: MedicalNewsToday

Study suggests dieting may not be the best way to lose weight

Learn to relax instead, research shows. At the end of a two-year study, women who followed a programme of yoga and meditation had lost weight and kept it off, while those who focused purely on exercise and nutrition had not. The 'relaxed' women were also generally happier and healthier at the end of the study. Experts believe that reducing stress stops cravings for fatty foods and sweets.


The team at the University of Otago in New Zealand divided 225 overweight women into three groups, according to the paper in the journal Preventive Medicine.
The first group took part in yoga, meditation, and positive visualisation.
The second group focused on physical exercise and nutrition, while the third received nutrition information in the post.

Study co-author Dr Caroline Horwath said all three groups of women had successfully prevented any weight gain. But 'the most striking results' were in the first group --they had an average weight loss of five and a half pounds (2.5kg). Dr Horwath added: 'At the two-year mark, these women were the only ones to maintain the psychological and medical symptom improvements.
'The positive results are exciting, given the limited long-term success of traditional dieting approaches. 'By learning and practising relaxation techniques as part of a wider lifestyle change programme, women have effective tools to manage stress and emotions without resorting to unhealthy eating.'

The study suggests dieting may not be the best way to lose weight.
And Dr Horwath said that helping women 'break free from chronic dieting' is the key to better long-term health. The researchers also found that the volunteers with a 'weight-focused mindset' were more likely to lose interest in the study and drop out early.

Source: Dailymail.co.uk

The duodenal switch, a procedure intended for super obese patients

A less popular form of weight loss surgery appears to be better than the standard type currently done in most centers. For so-called “super obese” patients, it could mean a better result.It’s called the biliopancreatic diverserion with duodenal switch. Like the older surgery, called the roux-en-y bypass (roo-en-y) gastric bypass surgery, it cuts the stomach and diverts the intestine. But this does it differently, resulting in a greater amount of excess body weight that is lost.

You wouldn’t know it now, but Emilio Vingna piano, at 5 foot 8 inches tall, used to weigh 380 pounds. “Very difficult sleeping, very difficult time breathing, very difficult time functioning on every and any level just because you are carting around excess weight. I didn’t think I would reach 50 years old uh because of uh the amount of strain on your heart and respiratory system as a whole,” says Emilio. But he’s lost 200 pounds, thanks to this lesser known surgery more commonly called the duodenal switch—a procedure intended for super obese patients.

Obesity is 30 and over. A super-obese person is classified as having a body mass index of at least 50. In the duodenal switch, roughly one half of the stomach is permanently removed. The stomach is then connected to the last 8 feet of small intestine. The remainder of the small intestine is connected from the end of the small bowel to merge and form a common channel where food mixes with digestive enzymes.

Dr. Mitchell Roslyn, Chief of Bariatric Surgery at Lenox Hill Hospital, says “A gastric bypass is predominantly an “eat less” operation that has some malabsorption. The duodenal switch is both a strong “eat less” operation as well as a strong malabsorption operation. And by malabsorption, I mean more food is passed and less calories are absorbed.”Now, new research shows a greater weight loss with the duodenal switch: 173.5 lb versus 118.0 lb with gastric bypass at 36 months after surgery. But there are downsides to the procedure: The duodenal switch is a substantially "bigger" operation than the gastric bypass. It’s technically more complex, it permanently removes a portion of the stomach, making it irreversible, and there are significant nutritional risks.

“We really reserve our duodenal switches for people who have real strong weight problems and also have a fairly high degree of education both in life and about the operation so they understand the importance of supplements and follow up. And even that’s not perfect,” says Dr. Roslyn. The duodenal switch has, in every way, given Emilio a new life.“I can bend over and tie my shoelaces relatively easily, I can walk up many flights of stairs without becoming breathless, I can go play baseball with my son. You know everything has been changed dramatically,” says Emilio. One in 400 U.S. adults classify as super-obese—again a BMI greater than 50.

Problems like diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol were more frequently improved with the duodenal switch than with gastric bypass. In the study one of 198 duodenal switch patients and none of the gastric bypass patients experiencing 30-day mortality. The one 90-day mortality in the duodenal switch group (0.5%) was presumed to be due to a pulmonary embolism three days after being discharged on postoperative day three.

However, it is necessary to take a number of nutritional supplements after the operation than after gastric bypass. These include:

- Multivitamins (usually twice per day)

- Iron supplements (usually twice per day)

- Calcium (usually twice per day)

- DAKE’s (fat-soluble vitamins) usually 3 times per day Additionally, there are some very significant side effects that accompany this procedure, including:

- Frequent soft bowel movements (up to 4-6 per day)

- Frequent passing of foul-smelling gas

- Change in body odor • Gas pains and bloating

- Hair loss

- Intolerance of certain foods (varies from person to person)

Source: Empowered Doctor

The Chopsticks Diet, chopsticks helps you eat less and lose weight

Says Kimiko Barber, author of The Chopsticks Diet.
The human brain takes 20 minutes to register what the stomach contains, so using chopsticks slows a person's consumption, leaving them feeling satisfied while eating less, Barber said. Chopsticks users also take smaller bites, which means food tends to be chewed more, making it easier to digest, she told The Daily Telegraph in a story published Saturday.




In Britain alone, an estimated 10 million people -- 24 percent of the population -- are clinically obese, The Telegraph reported, noting a third of the country is expected to qualify as obese by 2012 if eating habits remain the same. Doctors say obesity contributes to heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and many cancers.

Source: UPI.com

The no-diet diet: Eat, Drink And Be Gorgeous

This diet is revolutionary. It is realistic, attainable and sustainable. It is taking America by storm and is winging its way towards you fast. And it's so simple that you'll wonder why no one has come up with it before.
It is the no-diet diet, described in a tremendous book, allowing women to enjoy a lifestyle that enables us to eat foodstuffs we had believed, for the past two decades or so, to be off-limits.
The book is called Eat, Drink And Be Gorgeous and has been written by Esther Blum, a woman who is about to become as famous in the diet and fitness industries as Martha Stewart is in the world of home decoration, or Oprah Winfrey in the world of self-help.

Blum is a registered dietitian and certified nutritionist who is urging women brow-beaten by misleading science, peddled by quacks after a quick buck, to forget fasts and ditch the detox. Hers is a realistic mantra that understands not only that the more extreme a diet or fitness regime, the more destined we are to fail, but also how damaging to our bodies and our minds these restrictive, faddy, excluding-everything-but-brown-rice-and-lemon-juice diktats really are.

Blum has been endorsed by celebrities including Sarah Jessica Parker, Sharon Stone and Teri Hatcher - three teeny-weeny women who have found, as they have got older, that punishing regimes have a tendency to pile years on to a woman's face and that they really need to be gentler on themselves. We all know that self-denial followed by failure followed by guilt followed by over-indulgence is a vicious cycle. The diet and fitness industries want you to fail: when you find you can't keep up the daily power-walks and the skin brushing and the banishing of dairy for four months, you go for a quick fix instead, which means you throw money at the problem.

A revolutionary philosophy
But there is another way. This is how the non- diet diet works. First, you learn to accept you are flawed.'A little self-acceptance,' says Blum, a delightfully un-neurotic New Yorker, 'goes a long way to softening our own critical voice, which can serve as a barrier to helping us reach our goals.Just because we do not have Madonna's willpower does not make us weak or bad or lacking. Blum's revolutionary philosophy is that the dieting industry has got it wrong. We need food. Much of what has, until now, been deemed bad and naughty is, she assures us, quite the opposite. Blum cheerfully admits her relationship with chocolate goes deep, and understands that ours does, too.

Rather than making eating chocolate as shameful as if you started injecting heroin, Blum lists its beneficial nutritional qualities - it contains phenylethylamine, which releases endorphins in your brain, making you feel happy, as well as serotonin, theobromine and anandamide, all of which increase circulation and elevate mood. She recommends we eat one ounce of dark chocolate every day. Blum urges us to forget what we have ever been told about good and bad foods, with her second rule being that we women should all be eating full-fat food. Hurrah! 'We live in a fat-free culture. Women have done their bodies a disservice because we have disrupted our hormones to a phenomenal degree,' she says. She explains that we need cholesterol to make oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone, the hormones that regulate our moods. Starving our bodies prevents our hormones from working properly, making us prone to depression.

Fat-free foods can also, perversely, make us fat. 'These products register in the body as carbohydrate,' Blum says, 'and can contribute to weight gain.Let's start with eggs. Don't believe the hype about eggs raising your cholesterol level. It isn't true. 'Eat the yolk and the white,' she says. 'Egg yolks contain more protein than the white, as well as lecithin and choline, which help the liver break down and metabolise cholesterol.And how about that old enemy of the woman on a diet, butter? She has a chapter entitled: Feel Like Buttah? Have Some Buttah! In it, she explains that saturated fats 'support bones, protect the liver from toxins, enhance the immune system, protect the heart muscle, and absorb omega-3s. In moderation, they don't cause heart disease, but do slow down the absorption of foods in your stomach, making you feel fuller for longer.

Just enjoy yourself
Most importantly, Blum points out that it is not the quantity of fat in your diet that could cause breast cancer, but the quality of fat. Fabulous fats - as well as dairy, these are found in grapeseed, olive oil, nuts and seeds - should take pride of place in your larder. Meanwhile, you should discard low-fat, low-cholesterol spreads and margarines that are regarded by Blum as 'frankenfats: the structure of margarine is not found in nature, so the body has a hard job breaking it down. 'This can lead to headaches, joint aches and a host of other problems.

Read more on The Daily Mail

People who binge on carbohydrate-rich foods might be fighting addiction

A diet high in simple carbohydrates from processed foods, such as white bread, sweets, fizzy drinks and syrups, causes obesity. He revealed that heavily processed carbohydrates lead to drastic increase in blood-sugar levels, which stimulated the same areas of the brain associated with addiction to nicotine and other drugs.

Thornley said that reducing sugar content in commonly consumed food items enforced by regulation could help get rid of the addiction and bring large public health benefits.In an interview to Britain's Daily Mail, Thorney said that the problem could be solved in the same way as cigarettes banning TV advertisements, taxing them and insisting on health warning labels, reports the NZPA. The paper is published in the journal Medical Hypotheses.

Source: NewKerala

Appesat (seaweed) could help in the battle against obesity

An expanding pill that tricks the brain into thinking the stomach is full.
The pill is taken at least half an hour before meals and works by reducing appetite so that smaller portions are eaten. As it swells, the pill, called Appesat, stretches the stomach wall, stimulating receptors that send a signal to the brain to say that the stomach is full. The effects are similar to those of a gastric balloon, an inflatable implant surgically inserted into the stomach and then filled with saline solution. The new pill simply needs to be swallowed with water. After a few hours, it gets broken down by acid in the stomach and is flushed out of the body as waste.

 

It has been approved as a medical device by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority, the government body that vets new treatments. Recent research predicted one in three adults in the UK will be obese by the time London stages the Olympic Games in 2012. Source: DailyMail.co.uk

Women size 24 or above are most miserable

Happiness, it seems, comes with curves, for a new poll has found that size 14 women are the happiest with their life and looks. According to the study, girls who wear the dress size rated their general happiness higher than any other with a quarter saying they were extremely happy. More than 43% of size 14 women also said they were as happy as they could be with their career, while almost a third say they couldn’t be more content with their love life. Second happiest were size 12s, followed by sizes 8, 16 and 10, reports the Sun.

A spokesman for Special K, which polled 3,000 women, said: “It’s great to discover that being a size zero wouldn’t necessarily bring you happiness. Size 14 woman are much more comfortable with their shape and have a happier outlook.” The poll found that women size 24 or above were most miserable, with nearly one in five “extremely unhappy” with life. Less than 4% were happy with their career, and one in ten were extremely unhappy with their lovelife, the study also found.

Source: MeDiCalGeek

Learn how to burn the right calories and getting the most out of your gym time

You walk, climb, cycle and sweat, but just can't get the result you want. "Most people are a figment of their imaginations, thinking how well or how much they burn in terms of calories," Bob Esquerre, a fitness trainer in Boca Raton, Fla., told Ivanhoe. Esquerre says you may feel like you've burned 900 calories in that hour-long spin class, but think again. "I may look like a wet rag, but in reality, my actual output of qualitative calories may be 510 plus or minus," he said.

Esquerre says people can over-exaggerate calorie burn by 50 percent. And Luis Alonso, a certified metabolic technician in Boca Raton, says don't trust those machines. "They're completely inaccurate," Alonso told Ivanhoe. "It's just a do-dad. It has nothing to do with your individual metabolism and how you burn calories."

To find your best calorie burning rate, he says a metabolic test is a must. The test measures aerobic base -- your optimum heart rate for efficiently burning fat. For Jodi Duprain, it's 158 beats a minute. At that intensity, she burns half of her calories from fat, which is the goal. A heart rate higher or lower won't allow her to burn as many calories from fat. "I work full-time; two kids at home," Duprain told Ivanhoe. "So when I'm here for my hour, I want to get the most I can out of that hour."

Esquerre says water is also vital. It helps your body burn fuel. It's also critical to frequently change the intensity and resistance of your workouts. "At some point, you have to be able to take that treadmill that's flat and give me a gradual incline to two degrees, to four degrees, to 10 degrees."

And one last tip -- don't lean on the machines. One study shows leaning can reduce calorie burn by 60 percent!

A metabolic test also measures anaerobic threshold -- the exercise point at which your body physically can't burn any more fat. Alonso says metabolic testing has recently become mobile and user-friendly and will revolutionize the fitness world as it makes its way into more centers.

Source: Ivanhoe

MBody free workout plan with specific exercise plans for each week, and fitness guidelines to achieve the maximum amount of fat loss and strength

The 10-page PDF document is available at: http://www.mbodystrength.com/ The workout plan has built-in flexibility to fit the requirements of beginners to experienced fitness enthusiasts,” stated Marcus Martinez, MBody’s founder and member. “We’d like to help people achieve their goals by using high-efficiency training methods, such as kettlebell exercises.”The entire MBody free workout plan only requires three pieces of equipment: two kettlebells and a pull-up bar.

It incorporates an increasingly difficult workout schedule as each week and month passes, enabling trainees to challenge themselves, constantly increasing their physical performance. The free workout plan utilizes three types of training methods: kettlebell, body-weight, and interval training. These three training routines incorporate full-body motions that enable trainees to maximize the results from each minute of a workout, burning fat and building functional strength during each exercise.

This is the first 12-week program available online through www.mbodystrength.com. The company is planning to launch a series of programs that will be customized to specific objectives, like fat loss, sports training, muscle building, functional strength, and training for recreational sports like water skiing. Workout plans will also be available for specific types of training, such as kettlebell, sandbag, ring training, interval training, free weight, and more.

Within two weeks of the free workout plan becoming available, it was downloaded hundreds of times by trainees in 16 different countries, including the United States, Russia, Indonesia, Australia, India, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Trainees ranged from beginners to soldiers and athletes.

“This free workout plan will enable anyone to achieve awesome improvements in physical performance and looks,” said Marcus Martinez. “MBody workout plans combined with our online exercise demonstrations should provide users with all the information they need to get into fantastic shape.”

Source: Huliq News

Dieting in the winter can weaken the immune system

Scientists have shown that having a healthy appetite in the winter protects against flu. People on strict calorie-controlled diets also take longer to recover from viral infections. Researchers are now advising people not to try to lose weight until spring arrives. Their findings support the popular idea that nourishing winter meals can stave off colds and bugs.

Dr Elizabeth Gardner of Michigan State University, who carried out the study, said: 'Our research shows that having a body ready to fight a virus will lead to a faster recovery and less severe effect. 'Adults can restrict their diet eight months out of the year, but during the four months of the flu season they need to bump it up. 'You need the reserves so your body is ready for any additional stress, including fighting a virus.' Dr Gardner believes that cutting down on food impairs the immune system and reduces the production of antibodies to fight infection.

The findings come from a study of mice infected with flu, published in the Journal of Nutrition.
Half of the mice were put on a diet where their calories were cut by 60 per cent, but with enough vitamin and mineral supplements to stay healthy. The rest were given normal food.

Those on the calorie-controlled diet were more likely to die during the first few days after infection than their well-fed counterparts. While the disease made both groups of mice less hungry, those on the diets took longer to recover and lost more weight.

Mice eating normal levels of food regained their appetites more
quickly and recovered faster. The researchers say the findings also apply to people - and that eating sensibly in the flu season can protect against viruses. Dr Gardner said: 'If you are exposed to a new strain of influenza, to which your body has not yet made adequate antibodies, your body relies on cells that will kill the virus. 'The natural killer cells are important in controlling the early stages of infection. 'Our studies show that calorically restricted mice have increased susceptibility to influenza, and their bodies are not prepared to produce the amount of natural killer cells needed to combat the stress of fighting an infection.'

The findings also suggest that even people who have had the flu vaccine need to eat properly.
Dr Gardner said: 'If the strain of flu a person is infected with is different from the strain in the flu vaccination, your body sees this as a primary infection and must produce antibodies to fight it off. 'A calorically restricted body is not as well prepared to do this and cannot control early infection, which impedes recovery.' Britain's leading influenza expert, Professor John Oxford of London Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry, said: 'I would go along with these findings.

'During the biggest outbreak of flu in history, in 1918, societies that were well nourished got through the pandemic better than those that weren't as well nourished.
'Mice are a good model for flu in people - the development of new vaccines is dependent on mice - so these findings are extremely interesting.' The flu season, now in full swing in the UK, normally lasts into February before the number of cases starts to drop dramatically.

Source: DailyMail.co.uk

The Flat-Belly Diet recommends Sassy water

The ingredients in Sassy water are so healthy, you should experience absolutely no side effects. Prevention editor-in-chief, Cynthia Sass, MPH, RD, and author of the bestselling book, The Flat-Belly Diet, recommends Sassy water as a means to jumpstart the Flat Belly diet, guaranteed to show results in just thirty-two days. Given the extreme interest, and the healthy benefit of the Flat Belly Diet, here is the Sassy water recipe, as near as we can find. We cannot completely guarantee the accuracy.

Sassy Water: 2 liters water (approximately 8 1/2 cups), 1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger, 1 medium cucumber sliced thinly and peeled, 1 medium lemon sliced thinly, 12 small spearmint leaves.

The Flat Belly Diet appears to be one of the most popular, effective and healthy diets in America. One week after releasing her book, the Flat Belly Diet became a best seller , for good reason. The diet is high in MUFA's, (Monounsaturated fatty acids), and is well backed by research that shows MUFA's target belly fat, and promote overall health. MUFA rich foods include all nuts, peanut butter, olives, dark chocolate, and all oils except palm and coconut oil.

The Flat Belly Diet mandates that you drink Sassy water for four days before beginning the diet. Sassy water soothes the GI tract, and helps the body eliminate water. During the first four days of the Flat Belly Diet, women are told to avoid foods that cause bloating – highly processed foods, white breads and pasta, salt, gas producing vegetables and fruits, and carbonated beverages. Chewing gum is also to be avoided for four days. The result of just drinking Sassy water has yielded seven pounds of weight loss in just four days. The healthy Flat Belly Diet then limits calories to 1600 calories a day, divided into four meals. It is a change of eating habits, designed to make sure you are never hungry. The meals include a MUFA food every four hours.

Researchers put nine overweight women on the Flat Belly Diet for twenty-eight days. The Flat Belly Diet resulted in a thirty-three percent weight loss. MRI images, before and after, excited researchers when they saw a definite reduction in belly fat, as well as an increase in overall better health, including lower cholesterol and blood pressure. Fat in the mid-section has repeatedly been shown to release a series of hormones that promote metabolic syndrome, a cluster of symptoms that ultimately causes diabetes, heart disease and possibly cancer.

We think the Flat Belly Diet is a great way to get a jump on the New Year. We are all tired of diets that either do not work, leave us hungry, or have unwanted and unhealthy effects . Better health and a slimmer waist are great goals for the New Year. Please consider the real benefits of the diet, rather than taking the Sassy water recipe as a quick fix for bloating. Eating right, combined with regular exercise, is the only sure way to keep belly fat off, and maintain good health.

Source: EmaxHealth