A low-carbohydrate diet may be better than a low-fat diet plus the weight-loss drug orlistat for its effect on helping lower blood pressure, a new study in Monday’s Archives of Internal Medicine said.
Reseachers in U.S. picked up 146 overweight or obese adults who were randomly assigned to a low-carbohydrate diet or orlistat with a low-fat diet.
The average age of the study participants was 52 and the average body-mass index was 39 (30 and over is considered obese). Orlistat was marketed as Xenical, a prescription medication, and Alli, available over the counter.
The low-carb diet began with a carbohydrate intake of less than 20 grams of carbohydrates a day. The group taking orlistat received a 120-milligram dose of the drug three times daily and got less than 30 percent of their calories from fat.
Over 48 weeks, the low-carbohydrate group lost 9.5 percent of their body weight, while the orlistat group lost 8.5 percent. Insulin and glucose markers improved only in the low-carb group, and there was a significant drop in blood pressure in the low-carb group compared to the orlistat group. Similar reductions were seen for diastolic blood pressure.
“Weight loss was similar but substantial in both groups we studied, but blood pressure improved more in the low-carb dieters,” said study author Dr. William Yancy Jr., an associate professor of medicine at Duke University Medical Center and a staff physician at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Durham, N.C.
“There are options out there. Pick a diet you think you could stick to better, and work with your physician to help you target the right intervention for you,” he advised.
Yancy said the blood pressure and cholesterol drops might have been even more impressive if people had stayed on their medications, but as they lost weight and normalized these readings, the doctors took them off blood-pressure and cholesterol drugs.
Obesity is a significant inducement to many illnesses, including heart disease, stroke, diabetes and many cancers.
“There are many paths to weight loss,” said registered dietitian Karen Congro, director of the Wellness for Life Program at The Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York City. What often makes the difference in whether or not a diet is successful, she said, is whether or not there’s a counseling and support component to the plan.
These studies show that you don’t necessarily need to get to your “ideal body weight” to make substantial improvements to your health, she said. Losing 5 percent to 10 percent of your body weight can make positive changes in blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose control.
“If it can make you a healthier person, then a diet is a success,” said Congro. ]]>
Coffee is “a rich and wonderful elixir”, says a professor, adding the alkaloid caffeine does no harm to our heart.
“For most of us, drinking coffee is not a good habit. It silts up our body with toxins and causes cancer. But, it is just a stereotype that has stuck with us,” Dr Stephen Alexander– an Associate Professor of Molecular Pharmacology at the University of Nottingham told Mail Online website.
Coffee does not only taste good, it also does us some good, said Dr Alexander who has been studying coffee and its constituent drug, caffeine, for more than 20 years.
He said a research recently on mice proved that coffee can reverse the effects of Alzheimer’s. The disease damages the brain by encouraging it to overproduce a protein known as beta-amyloid, which causes a person to lose his memory and one by one, all of their faculties. Coffee astonishingly reversed the build-up of this beta-amyloid protein in the brains of experimental mice.
Dr Alexander then presented other health benefits that coffee can provide. He said coffee can help stave off Parkinson’s disease and other forms of dementia. It also temporarily boosts short-term memory. Since it helps focus the mind, regular coffee drinkers appear to be better at reasoning. What’s more, a study carried out at the University of California has discovered that women aged above 80 performed significantly better on cognitive tests if they were lifelong coffee drinkers; other studies have found coffee can help ward off Type 2 diabetes, as well as reducing the risk of developing gallstones and other gallbladder diseases.
The author is a regular coffee drinker and he recommends readers to drink a few cups of strong black coffee a day.
True, coffee can slightly raise blood pressure and may make us a bit anxious in larger doses. But with so many health benefits, perhaps the author’s recommendation is not a bad recipe! ]]>
George Helwig, head chocolatier at “Fassbender & Rausch – Chocolatiers at Gendarmenmarkt” creates a model of Berlin’s landmark TV Tower out of chocolate in the northern German city of Peine. (Xinhua/AFP Photo) ]]>
More and more Western fast food chains are making their presence felt in China. But typical Chinese food has been added into the menu. And what they offer here might be very much different from the menu items in any other country in the world.
Today there’s a new item being unveiled at KFC, which is the most popular overseas franchise operation in China. What is it like?
Starting Monday, Shao-bing, or Chinese-style pancakes, is being sold at KFC. It’s the newest item being offered at KFC aimed specifically at the Chinese market.
Ms. Xu is buying for her family the new Shaobing which is a puffy sesame pastry stuffed with pork, egg, veggies and mayonnaise. The original Shaobing doesn’t have the above ingredients, but Ms. Xu likes the new kind anyway.
“Pretty good. It’s crispy. Not bad at all. Kind of like thousand-layered pancake,” said Xu.
Alex is an international kind of guy who is enjoying his breakfast in a KFC chain store in central Beijing.
“They have a kind of spicy shrimp burger, which is not something you can find in KFC in London or Paris or in New York. They have some kind of salad, like corn. I don’t think they would have that locally back in the States,” said Alex.
KFC’s country-specific menu also includes porridge and You-tiao, or fried dough-sticks, which you’ve never seen before in other KFCs around the world.
Some customers say they prefer the well-known overseas brand to local restaurants for its clean environment and fresh materials.
And KFC is not the only enterprise to approach this strategy of localizing its set menu. If you visit a Starbucks in China, you will find red tea during Chinese New Year and Zongzi, or a type of sticky rice dessert, during the Duanwu or Dragonboat Festival, all typical Chinese food passed down from thousands of years ago. Even Papa John’s came out with pizza using traditional Chinese ingredients.
As long as there’s demand, overseas fast-food chains plan to roll out even more Chinese-style menu items.
“We often come out with new products, pretty much once a month. They sell well,” said the manager of a KFC chain store.
However, some customers complained about the high price of the new products. For example, each Shaobing costs 10 yuan, or almost 1. 5 US dollars. That’s five times more expensive than local products.
One the other hand, KFC’s biggest rival McDonald’s maintains an essentially uniform menu everywhere in the world, while giving a discount to the price.
Experts say the Chinese market is huge and it welcomes new attempts. But it never changes the nature of the western kind of food.
Duan Fugen is the secretary general of Shanghai Restaurants Association.
“I believe that adding some variety won’t change the main items offered on the menu. There are risks involved. It’s not a certainty that the new item suited to China’s taste will be popular. Only time can tell which business strategy will succeed,” said Duan.
Duan Fugen says Chinese restaurant chains are also learning from foreign fast-food groups. They are improving service quality and management method to face the fierce competition.
After a recent revamp, Kafe Peranakan (°¢ÄǺ¹ÂíÀ´Î÷ÑÇ·çζ²Í°É) is an even more comfortable place to try tasty Malaysian and Southeast Asian food. Their Teh Tarik (hot tea) still smells fragrant, has an easy taste and warms up the stomach. Acar Acar is an interesting salad with chunks of cucumber, carrot and shallots marinated in a sweet and sour mix of sugar and vinegar. It works well as a degreaser for the Bak Kut Teh, a pork ribs herbal soup.
The stir-fried prawns with shrimp paste, Tom Yam Kung soup, and Nasik Lemak dry chicken curry with coconut milk rice are all stand-outs. The restaurant also offers nice iced drinks, such as the Bubur Chacha, sago mixed fruits with coconut milk and a range of new fruit drinks, including pawpaw with milk.
The renovation made a few small changes to the 2nd floor of the restaurant: sofas next to the window now have high backs, while the tables near the inside walls are divided by wooden screens with flowery carvings.
Peranakan refers to descendants of late 18th Century Chinese immigrants to Malaysia, also known as Straits Chinese. The restaurant offers classic Southeast Asian dishes and is frequented by Malaysian and other expats.
The average bill is 70 yuan a head. If you take a copy of the China Daily and spend more than 100 yuan, you will get a free coconut and mango-flavored jelly.
Daily 10 am-midnight. 17 Kuntai International Center, Chaoyangmenwai Dajie, Chaoyang district. 5879-0370. ³¯ÑôÇø³¯Íâ´ó½ÖÀ¥Ì©¹ú¼ÊÖÐÐÄÄϲà17ºÅ ]]>
Forget “Classic” or “New” Coke. In Japan, you can soon have your cola flavored with green tea or basil.
Green tea-flavored Coca-Cola will hit Japanese stores on Monday, Coca Cola (Japan) Co spokesman Katsuya Sato said yesterday. It contains tea antioxidants called catechins, leaves a slight green tea aftertaste and is mainly targeted at health-conscious women in their 20s and 30s, Sato said.
Rival Pepsi Cola is countering with another exotic cola – Japanese basil-flavored “Pepsi Shiso,” which hits stores in late June. ]]>
A contestant cooks at the innovative cooking contest held in Yangzhou city, east China’s Jiangsu Province, May 19, 2009. Over 100 contestants took part in the innovative cooking contest in Yangzhou on Tuesday. (Xinhua/Wang Zhuo) ]]>
An Egyptian merchant displays his watermelons that piled into the shape of a pyramid in the major melon market in Cairo, Egypt, May 9, 2009. (Xinhua/Wissam Nassar) ]]>
It was hailed as a superfood that could fight breast cancer, strengthen bones and ease the menopause. Once thought of as exotic, today soya can be found in a variety of guises on supermarket shelves, from dairy-free milk and yogurt to vegan cheese and tofu.
Soya was first cultivated in China, where it was used as medicine and in cooking. Last year, more than one million tons of it were imported to the UK. However, there is mounting evidence that soya could, in fact, pose a serious health risk.
Experts claim soya foods might lower testosterone levels in men, hamper thyroid function, cause weight gain and disrupt hormones.
Hailing from the same family as beans, peas and lentils, soybeans are crushed to form soybean meal, which is then used to make edible soya products.
It contains all the essential amino acids to build protein in our bodies, and many vegetarians opt for soy products as a way of upping their daily protein intake.
Surprisingly, according to food-industry estimates, it is also found in 60 per cent of processed foods, adding bulk, flavour and texture.
Breakfast cereals, cereal bars and biscuits, cheese, cakes, dairy desserts, gravies, noodles, pastries, soups, sausage casings, sauces and sandwich spreads, to name just a few, often contain soya.
It appears on food labels as ’soya flour’, ‘hydrolysed vegetable protein’, ’soy protein isolate’, ‘protein concentrate’, ‘textured vegetable protein’, ‘vegetable oil’, ‘plant sterols’, or the emulsifier ‘lecithin’.
Millions believe it to be a healthy option, providing protein with no saturated fat and without the risk of raising cholesterol levels. Yet it seems the very properties that made soya so attractive could also make it a health threat.
The soya plant boasts high levels of phytoestrogens that mimic the action of the body’s own oestrogen. And 100g of tofu contains 12.9mg of phytoestrogens, while 100g of soya yogurt or soya milk contains 11.8mg.
Dr Margaret Ritchie, an expert in phytoestrogens at the University of St Andrews, explains: ‘These oestrogen-like chemicals are up to 20,000 times weaker than natural oestrogen. If a woman is low in oestrogen, as in the menopause, the extra oestrogen absorbed when soya is eaten can help relieve menopausal symptoms.’
It may also reduce the impact of the body’s own oestrogen on breast and womb tissue, protecting against breast and uterine cancers, which are triggered by the hormone.
However, according to recent studies published in the Journal Of Nutrition, soya baby formula could cause problems in male infants.
Research at Edinburgh University into the effects of soya milk on young male monkeys found it interfered with testosterone levels, prompting concerns over fertility and disease in grown men.
Furthermore, studies in Japan suggest a high intake of soy-based products can disrupt the thyroid gland, leading to weight gain, fatigue and mood problems.
Marilyn Glenville, nutritionist and author of the Nutritional Health Handbook For Women, says: ‘Soya can block the uptake of the chemical iodine which is needed for a healthy thyroid. Turnips, cabbage, peanuts and pine nuts have similar effects. If you are diagnosed with a thyroid problem, you’ll be told to restrict your intake of all these foods.’
She adds: ‘The soya in soy burgers and sausages and added as flavour enhancers is highly processed. The soya-bean fibre is removed and the residue is soaked in an aluminium tank, then treated with chemicals such as nitrates, which some studies have linked to cancer.’
Glenville recommends reducing overall intake of processed foods and increasing intake of wholefoods.
The British Nutrition Foundation recommends adding traditional soya-bean products such as tofu, tamari, miso and tempeh to a healthy and varied diet.
‘Don’t overdo it,’ warns Glenville. ‘It is healthy in small quantities, but could be unhealthy if eaten in excess.’ One small portion, about 30g, a day is ideal.
And as there is evidence linking GM soya to a raised allergy risk, ensure any soya products you buy are organic and therefore GM free.
Food prices are still at high level in developing countries despite an improved global cereal supply situation and a sharp decline in international food prices, UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in its latest Crop Prospects and Food Situation report published here on Thursday.
This is creating further hardship for millions of poor people already suffering from hunger and undernourishment, the Rome-based organization said.
This year’s world cereal production is forecast to decline by 3percent from the 2008 record, but it would still be the second largest crop ever, according to FAO’s first 2009 forecast.
Most of the decrease is expected to be in wheat, mainly due to a significant reduction in plantings in developed countries in response to lower international prices. In developing countries, cereal output could remain close to last year’s good level.
Food emergencies persist in 32 countries, despite good 2008 cereal crops in many of the countries normally most at risk of food insecurity, the report said.
Cereal prices in developing countries remain generally very high — in some cases at record levels, FAO said. Worst affected are the urban poor and food-deficit farmers who are dependent on the market to access food.
Moreover, the global economic recession is drying up remittances from family members working abroad that often sustain the food consumption levels of vulnerable households.
An analysis of domestic food prices for 58 developing countries shows that in around 80 percent of the cases, food prices are higher than 12 months ago, and in around 40 percent of the cases, the prices are higher than three months ago. In 17 percent of the cases, the latest price quotations are the highest on record.
The situation is most dramatic in sub-Saharan Africa. Domestic prices of rice are much higher than 12 months earlier in all countries analyzed, while prices of maize, millet and sorghum are higher in 89 percent of the countries in the region compared to a year earlier.
Food prices remain at high levels in other regions as well, particularly in Asia for rice and in Central and South America formaize and wheat, the FAO said. ]]>