Nutrition advice backed by research from the past year that might help shape better eating habits for the new year.
Below are some
of our readers’ favorite nutrition stories from the past year, packed
with information that may help you eat better in 2019.
How a Low-Carb Diet Might Help You Maintain a Healthy Weight
By Anahad O’Connor
A large new study published in the journal BMJ
in November found that overweight adults who cut carbohydrates from
their diets and replaced them with fat sharply increased their
metabolisms. After five months on the diet, they burned roughly 250
calories more per day than people who ate a high-carb, low-fat diet,
suggesting that restricting carb intake could help people maintain their
weight loss more easily.
The new
research is unlikely to end the decades-long debate over the best diet
for weight loss. But it provides strong new evidence that all calories
are not metabolically alike to the body. And it suggests that the
popular advice on weight loss promoted by health authorities — count
calories, reduce portion sizes and lower your fat intake — might be
outdated. Read more >>>
The Key to Weight Loss Is Diet Quality, Not Quantity, a New Study Finds
By Anahad O’Connor
A
study published in February in JAMA found that people who cut back on
added sugar, refined grains and highly processed foods while
concentrating on eating plenty of vegetables and whole foods — without
worrying about counting calories or limiting portion sizes — lost
significant amounts of weight over the course of a year.
The research lends strong support to the
notion that diet quality, not quantity, is what helps people lose and
manage their weight most easily in the long run. It also suggests that
health authorities should shift away from telling the public to obsess
over calories and instead encourage Americans to avoid processed foods
that are made with refined starches and added sugar, like bagels, white
bread, refined flour and sugary snacks and beverages, said Dr. Dariush
Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition
Science and Policy at Tufts University. Read more>>>
Which Kinds of Foods Make Us Fat?
For a diet study published this summer in Cell Metabolism, researchers randomly assigned one of 29 different diets to hundreds of adult male mice. Some diets supplied up to 80 percent of their calories in the form of saturated and unsaturated fats, with few carbohydrates; others included little fat and consisted largely of refined carbohydrates, mostly from grains and corn syrup, although in some variations the carbs came from sugar.
Yet other diets were characterized by
extremely high or low percentages of protein. The mice stayed on the
same diet for three months — estimated to be the equivalent of roughly
nine human years — while being allowed to eat and move about their cages
at will. The mice were then measured by weight and body composition,
and their brain tissue was examined for evidence of altered gene
activity.
Only some of the mice became obese — almost every one of which had been on a high-fat diet. Read more>>>
When We Eat, or Don’t Eat, May Be Critical for Health
By Anahad O’Connor
Nutrition
scientists have long debated the best diet for optimal health. But now
some experts believe that it’s not just what we eat that’s critical for
good health, but when we eat it.
A growing body
of research suggests that our bodies function optimally when we align
our eating patterns with our circadian rhythms, the innate 24-hour
cycles that tell our bodies when to wake up, when to eat and when to
fall asleep. Studies show that chronically disrupting this rhythm — by
eating late meals or nibbling on midnight snacks, for example — could be
a recipe for weight gain and metabolic trouble. Read more>>>
How to Stop Eating Sugar
By David Leonhardt
If
you’re like most Americans, you eat more sugar than is good for you.
But it’s entirely possible to eat less sugar without sacrificing much —
if any — of the pleasures of eating. Surprising as it may sound, many
people who have cut back on sugar say they find their new eating habits
more pleasurable than their old ones. This guide will walk you through
why sugar matters, how you can make smart food choices to reduce sugar
consumption, and how you can keep your life sweet, even without so many
sweets. Read more>>>
Is Eating Deli Meats Really That Bad for You?
By Roni Caryn Rabin
Meat
and poultry are excellent sources of protein, B vitamins and certain
minerals, but consuming even small amounts of processed meat increases
the risk of colorectal cancer.
“We
see a 4 percent increase in the risk of cancer even at 15 grams a day,
which is a single slice of ham on a sandwich,” said Dr. Nigel Brockton,
director of research for the American Institute for Cancer Research.
Eating a more typical serving of 50 grams of processed meat a day would
increase the risk of colorectal cancer by 18 percent, a 2011 review of studies found. Read more>>>