ISLAMABAD  – High-fat, high-sugar foods not only cause obesity and promote heart disease, but they can also contribute to conditions like osteoporosis by weakening bones, according to researchers.
If this trend continues, this overlooked ‘silent robber’ will begin to cripple large numbers of at-risk baby boomers, said researchers at the University of Michigan and the Alberta Bone and Joint Health Institute.
While this high-fat, high-sugar diet trend and the subsequent risk of osteoporosis are climbing frighteningly fast, there’s hope, said Ron Zernicke, dean of U-M’s School of Kinesiology and a professor of orthopedic surgery and biomedical engineering.
The medical community and the public can reverse this trend by confronting the problem head-on and immediately, through diet, exercise and, in some cases, medication.
Today, about a quarter of America’s two-to-five-year-olds and a third of its school-age children, including adolescents, are obese or overweight. “Boomers themselves-the oldest now 66-have reached the stage in life when they’re most susceptible to bone and joint disorders,” Zernicke said.
Consider these sobering statistics: the U.S. surgeon general forecasts that by 2020, half of Americans over 50 will develop or be at risk for osteoporosis of the hip. This is particularly bad news for women, who develop osteoporosis at two-to-three times the rate of men.
“One in three women will break a hip due to osteoporosis by age of 85, and about 20 percent will die within a year of the fracture. Right now, roughly 12 million Americans over 50 have osteoporosis,” said Cy Frank, executive director of the Alberta Bone and Joint Health Institute and an orthopedic surgeon practicing in Calgary.
Sugar and fat weaken the bones in two ways. First, diets high in saturated fats and sugar block calcium absorption. Instead, calcium needed for healthy bones washes through the body in our urine. Second, saturated fats tend to form insoluble ‘soaps,’ which coat the intestines and can block necessary calcium from bones. Again, calcium passes through the body unused. The result? Excessive junk food layers fat onto a weakened skeleton that struggles to support the extra weight, Zernicke said. Osteoporosis, the so-called ‘silent thief’ because it shows no symptoms, robs bones of tissue and leaves thousands of tiny pores in the bones. Porous bones can break with little stress. Treating osteoporosis fractures costs approximately 18 billion dollars a year-a cost experts predict will double by 2025.
Diet and exercise are primary preventions against osteoporosis, Frank said. A growing child near puberty rapidly lays down new bone. Healthy foods and physical activity optimize bone growth and accumulation, which lowers the likelihood of osteoporosis fractures later in life.
Again, healthy diet, exercise and medication to slow bone loss, if necessary, can reduce the likelihood of osteoporosis fractures. A healthy, balanced diet includes vegetables, fruit and whole grains, and limits saturated fats, salt and sugar.
But prevention goes beyond diet and exercise. It’s critical to manage the environment that influences food choices. Eliminating junk food from places charged with promoting healthy lifestyles-schools, recreational centers, hospitals-would also help.
Chicken soup can really help fight cold
Researchers have found that a compound found in chicken soup - carnosine - helps the body’s immune system to fight the early stages of flu. But this benefit ended as soon as the soup was excreted from the body, they wrote in the American Journal of Therapeutics.
Chicken soup’s benefits have been identified before. Over a decade ago, Dr Stephen Rennard, of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, wanted to find out why his wife’s recipe for chicken soup was so healing.
Using blood samples from volunteers, he showed that the soup inhibited the movement of the most common type of white blood cell, neutrophils, which defend against infection.
Dr Rennard theorised that by inhibiting the migration of these infection-fighting cells in the body, chicken soup helps reduce upper respiratory cold symptoms. But he couldn’t identify the exact ingredients in the soup that made it effective against colds, the Daily Mail reported. The tested soup contained chicken, onions, sweet potatoes, parsnips, turnips, carrots, celery stems, parsley, salt and pepper.
The researchers also found many commercial soups had a similar inhibitory effect. It is probable that the combination of nutrients worked in synergy to provide the beneficial effect. Another study, from Miami, looked at how consuming it affected airflow and mucus in the noses of 15 volunteers who drank cold water, hot water or chicken soup.
It proved what ENT surgeons (experts in the upper airways, including the larynx) have long known: hot fluids help increase the movement of nasal mucus. This in turn clears the airways, easing congestion.
But soup did a better job than the hot water as it also improves the function of protective cilia, the tiny hairlike projections in the nose that prevent contagions from entering the body. Also, researchers at the University of Nebraska found the combination of vegetables and poultry in soup could help alleviate respiratory tract inflammation that results in feeling bunged-up.
All nutrients have some involvement in the complex workings of the immune system.  Evidence suggests that organosulfides (naturally occurring chemicals found in garlic and onions), together with Vitamin D, stimulate production of immune cells called macrophage, while Vitamin C has an influence on both levels of neutrophils, and another type of immune chemical, interferon.
Vitamin A and carotenoids, found in carrots (a common ingredient of bouillon, the base of any good stock), help antibody production, while Vitamin E and zinc can influence the concentration of lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell.
Men benefit most from eating dark chocolate
Eating dark chocolate can protect men against heart disease and stroke, scientists have claimed. The benefits include anti-clotting effects which are activated within two hours in both sexes, and with greater impact in men, the Daily Mail reported.
Having a piece of chocolate a day - not just at Christmas - could be the secret to staying heart healthy, according to scientists at the University of Aberdeen Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health.
Lead researcher Dr Baukje de Roos, from the Rowett Institute, said: “It’s an acute effect in the body that men and women both benefit from, but it’s more diluted in women.” “These findings are not a carte blanche to eat chocolates as they are extremely rich in fat and sugar.
“But probably eating a little bit of dark chocolate containing at least 70 per cent cocoa every day is going to do more good than harm,” she added. The scientists from the Rowett, who joined together with the Institute of Food Research in Norwich, studied what happened in the blood of 42 healthy volunteers, 26 women and 16 men, after they ate dark chocolate specially boosted with cocoa extract.
They were investigating the effect on blood clotting, the result of over-activity of platelets that stick together blocking blood vessels that can lead to heart attacks and strokes. Compounds called flavanols which are found in cocoa, tea and apples, appear have a beneficial effect on platelet function - and they are higher in cocoa-rich chocolate.
Long associated as a woman’s favourite treat, epitomised by the famous Milk Tray ads, chocolate has been found to reduce the risk of deadly blood clots. The platelet function of people eating the enriched dark chocolate was compared with platelet function in those who had eaten dark chocolate - with a lower cocoa and flavanol content - and white chocolate.
Blood and urine samples were taken and then analysed two hours and six hours after chocolate consumption. The scientists were looking at a range of platelet function tests such as platelet activation - a reversible process where platelets are starting to get stressed and sticky - and platelet aggregation - an irreversible process when sticky platelets clump together.
They discovered the specially enriched dark chocolate significantly decreased both platelet activation and aggregation in men, but only cut platelet aggregation in women. The strongest effects were seen two hours after the chocolate had been eaten, the report said.
Researchers also measured bleeding time - which shortens as platelets become stickier. They found that the specially enriched dark chocolate significantly increased bleeding time after six hours in both men and women, possibly caused by the metabolites that our bodies produce from flavanols.