Blueberries in your daily diet helps your skin look younger

Recent studies showed that people who ate 1 cup of blueberries a day performed 5% better in motor function skills than those who ate no blueberries. They are packed with flavinoids, tannins, antioxidants, phytochemcials, iron, manganese, Vitamin C, and vitamin E - all of which can help prevent serious illness and disease. When it comes to looking younger, blueberries can‘t be beat! It seems that inflammation is a major cause of skin aging and wrinkling so, once again, the powerful anti inflammatory properties of blueberries come into play. In fact, the world renowned dermatologist Dr. Nicholas Perricone recommends including blueberries in your daily diet in order to help you skin look younger.

Adult obesity rates increased in 16 states during the past year

The new report breaks down obesity rates and anti-obesity initiatives by state, regions, and ethnic groups and also documents the rise in obesity-related diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure. In the past year, obesity rates rose in 16 states and fell in none, according to the eighth annual "F As In Fat" report, prepared jointly by the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Twelve states now have obesity rates of 30% or more, led by Mississippi at 34.4%, the report says. That's up from a single state over 30% four years ago. But the report does offer a glimmer of hope: It marks the first time that there were fewer than 20 states with increasing adult obesity rates. Source: WebMD

Death of an Arizona resident is linked to Europe's sprout-related Escherichia coli O104:H4 outbreak

The CDC confirmed that the Arizona patient had the same strain of E. coli that has swept Europe. More than 4,100 people in Europe and North America have been infected in two outbreaks of E. coli infection, one centered in northern Germany and one focused around the French city of Bordeaux. Five of the US patients had traveled to Germany before they got sick, and one was a close contact of a Michigan patient who had HUS, a serious kidney disorder. The Arizona Department of Health Services had previously said that the patient is a man older than 65 who died in mid June after he was hospitalized for HUS, according to a Jun 24 report from the Arizona Republic. An imported lot of fenugreek seeds which was used to grow sprouts imported from Egypt by a German importer is the most common likely link," the European Food Safety Authority said in a statement this week.

Strict 600 calorie-a-day diet reverses Type 2 diabetes in a week

According to study leader Rod Taylor, he and his colleagues studied 11 patients who had had diabetes for several years after developing the condition later in life. At the beginning of the study, patients weighed an average of 220 pounds. At the end of the eight-week period, they had dropped an average of 33 pounds and were diabetes free. Prof Taylor explained that too much fat "clogged up" the operation of the pancreas at a cellular level, preventing normal secretion of insulin which regulates blood sugar. When this fat was removed - by way of the diet - normal function resumed. He said: "This is a radical change in understanding Type 2 diabetes. It will change how we can explain it to people newly diagnosed with the condition. "While it has long been believed that someone with Type 2 diabetes will always have the disease, and that it will steadily get worse, we have shown that we can reverse the condition."

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

GI News—July 2011

• Being healthy on the inside no matter what number you see on the scales
• ‘New cure for diabetes’ shout the headlines ... Dr Alan Barclay investigates
• The scoop on loving low GI lentils
• Prof Jennie Brand-Miller on insulin sensitivity
• Reduced fat intake may reduce diabetes risk without weight loss
  

‘It’s what's inside that counts’ applies to the food we eat as well as having a kind heart suggests Nicole Senior busting the myth that ‘all fat people are unhealthy’. ‘We need to put nutrition and health as a priority over the obsessive quest for ‘the body beautiful,’ she writes. We gave her space in Food for Thought to expand on this with tips on staying healthy on the inside no matter what number you see on the scales. Plus there are all our usual features in this issue including three delicious recipes from the GI News Kitchen to try.

Good eating, good health and good reading.

Editor: Philippa Sandall
Web management and design: Alan Barclay, PhD

Food for Thought

Nicole Senior on being healthy on the inside


Nicole Senior

In Eat to Beat Cholesterol, I wrote: ‘Some people are genetically programmed to be larger and the effort to slim down substantially is unrealistic. If this is you, be as healthy as you can. You are better off being fat and enjoying a healthy diet than being fat and eating badly. The same goes for physical activity – you are better off being fat and fit, than a fat couch potato.’

What this boils down to is that if you are larger it doesn’t mean you are – or have to be – unhealthy. As my Mum reminded me the other day, ‘It’s what inside that counts.’ Eating the right foods and exercising regularly can balance the health ledger in your favour and give you better numbers ‘on the inside’ too – your BGLs, cholesterol and blood pressure.

We also need to put nutrition and health as a priority over the obsessive quest for ‘the body beautiful’. Happiness, contentment and wellbeing are more than what size clothing we wear. Here are my tips to be healthy on the inside.

Choose top-quality fuel This simply means you give your body the fuel it needs to protect your health and improve your performance in every aspect of life. In fuel for motor vehicles, octane level is important; in fuel for people, nutrient density is the key. Nutrient-dense foods offer more ‘bang for your kilojoule buck’.

Balance the fuel mix The fuel mix you put into your body is just as important as race fuel in a Formula One car. You need it to be balanced between the food groups and nutrients to give you the right mix of power and endurance. Eating to be healthy on the inside you need to:

• Power up with protein – Lean red meat, pork, chicken, fish, seafood, eggs and legumes (beans, lentils and chickpeas).
• Re-fuel with carbs (look for the low GI ones) – Grain foods such as low GI grainy breads and breakfast cereals, pasta, noodles, low GI rice like basmati or Doongara Clever Rice and starchy vegetables like lower GI potatoes (Carisma or Nicola), orange-fleshed sweet potato, corn, carrots, butternut pumpkin and parsnips.
• Rust-proof with fruit and veg – Tomatoes, onions, broccoli, mushrooms, lettuce, capsicum, celery, zucchini (courgettes), peas, cabbage, beans and beetroot etc. Fruit and berries such as apples, oranges, bananas, pears, grapes, kiwifruit, plums, nectarines, rockmelon, papaya (paw paw), mango and strawberries etc.
• Reinforce your frame with good dairy foods – Reduced fat milk, yoghurt, cheese and custard.
• Grease the machine with the right oils – Sunflower, olive and canola oils; spreads like margarine or peanut butter; nuts and seeds, and avocado.
• Prevent overheating with fluids – Water, juice, cordial, tea and weak coffee
  

And remember, your body was designed to move, so move it and keep it in working order to give yourself the strength and fitness to cope with whatever life throws at you. Cars, sedentary jobs, technology and the quest for convenience have all made it easier to do very little. If you want to be active, you usually have to plan to make it happen. Apart from not smoking, being physically active is the most powerful step you can take for being healthy on the inside.

News Briefs

Little evidence that increasing soy improves BGLs
In a meta-analysis in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition evaluating the effects of soy foods and supplements on glycemic control Dr Suzanne Ho and colleagues conclude that: ‘there was not a significant overall effect of soy intake on improvements of fasting glucose and insulin concentrations; however, a favorable change in fasting glucose concentrations was observed in studies that used whole soy foods.’

Reduced fat intake may reduce diabetes risk without weight loss
‘What is important about this study,’ says Prof Barbara Gower, ‘is that the results suggest that diet quality, not quantity, can make a difference in risk for type 2 diabetes.’ The researchers provided 69 healthy overweight individuals with one of two calorically identical diets for eight weeks – either a reduced carbohydrate, higher fat diet (43% carbohydrate, 39% fat), or a standard diet of 55% carbohydrate and 27% fat. At the end of the study, those on the lower-fat diet had significantly higher insulin secretion and better glucose tolerance and tended to have higher insulin sensitivity. The researchers took into account any minor fluctuations in weight during the study, and provided participants with the amount of food necessary to maintain weight.

Tossing and turning? You may need to up your high GI carbs



Eating high GI and high GL meals increased the availability of tryptophan in healthy volunteers reports a study in the British Journal of Nutrition. ‘These findings may have clinical relevance for management of conditions where increased serotonin production is considered beneficial, primarily for promotion of sleep in patients with insomnia). Specific research would be required to assess the risk–benefit of using high-GI meals to promote sleep against current strategies for clinical management of insomnia,’ conclude the authors. ‘It’s still early days,’ says Prof Jennie-Brand-Miller, ‘and needs to be confirmed by larger, long-term studies before recommending people with sleep problems, many of whom may well have diabetes or pre-diabetes, start experimenting with high GI meals.’

Does it matter where your protein comes from?
‘In the small amount of literature available there is no striking evidence that the one protein source is preferable to another in weight-reducing programs. However, animal proteins, especially those from dairy, seem to support better muscle protein synthesis than plant proteins. This could potentially enhance energy expenditure, but no conclusion can be drawn from the scant evidence. Some studies, but not all, demonstrate the higher satiating effect of whey and fish proteins than other protein sources.’ Nutrition, Metabolism & Cardiovascular Diseases.

Enjoy pears
Juicy, sweet pears are one of the world’s most loved fruits (we are all fans here) and this year’s Australian crop is a bumper one. ‘The past few seasons have brought anguish for many growers with the Black Saturday bushfires, flooding and inclement weather almost decimating crops,’ says fourth generation grower Gary Godwill. ‘To get pears to harvest this year we battled rain and flooding, and had our pickers wading through water just to get to the trees. However, we’ve been rewarded with the early Williams’ pear crop up by 60% compared to last year and the current Packham’s harvest expected to be large and one of best quality crops we’ve ever seen.’



Pears (GI38) are a healthy snack rich in fibre and vitamin C. They have a low GI because they are high in fibre and most of their sugar is fructose. Although the flavour of a fresh pear on its own is hard to beat, here are some tips to up your intake:

• Poach or bake them in a light syrup or red wine with a touch of cardamom.
• Think outside the square by baking them with spices, roasting them with meat, or adding them to bruschetta.
• Toss firmer pears in salads with walnuts and greens (witlof and rocket go well).
• Pop softer pears into a soup or smoothie for added flavour.
  

Bookshelf: The CSIRO and Baker IDI Diabetes Diet and Lifestyle Plan



CSIRO and Baker IDI joined forces with Julie Gibbs’ ever-creative team at Penguin Australia to produce this attractive guide to managing type 2 diabetes (or reducing your risk of getting it). They offer two dietary approaches – Option 1 is a higher protein plan; Option 2 has a little less protein and a little more carbohydrate – and four kilojoule-restricted plans. To get you started, there are 6-week (6500kJ) plans for both Option 1 and Option 2 and around 80 recipes, many photographed.

The recipes don’t come with a familiar nutritional analysis, instead they tell you the units (based on kilojoules) of protein, vegetables, ‘bread’ (by this they mean starchy vegetables and grains), fats, dairy and fruit per serve. If you find counting your carbs the best way to manage your BGLs and spread your carbs evenly over the day, you’ll find this approach novel as the ‘bread’, ‘dairy’ and ‘fruit’ units are based on kilojoules not that familiar 10–15 gram carb exchange.

We asked Alan Barclay if this would matter. ‘It’s not that different in the real world to 10–15 gram carb exchanges – and probably both models would achieve similar results. But it won’t work for those counting grams of carbs of course, like those using insulin pumps.’