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