ISLAMABAD – Reducing sugar intake has a small but significant effect on body weight in adults, researchers say.
Although the effect is relatively small, the findings provide some support for international guidelines to cut sugar intake to less than 10 percent of total energy to help reduce the global obesity epidemic.
Excessive sugar in the diet has been linked to obesity, and a higher risk of chronic diseases. The most consistent association has been between a high intake of sugar sweetened beverages and the development of obesity, but not all studies have reported a statistically significant link.
The World Health Organization has suggested that intake of “free sugars” should be less than 10 percent of total energy intake, but no upper safe limit has been agreed.
So a team of researchers at the University of Otago and Riddet Institute in New Zealand analysed the results of 71 studies of sugar intake and body fatness to summarise evidence on the association between intake of dietary sugars and body weight in both adults and children.
Free sugars were defined as sugars that are added to foods by the manufacturer, cook, or consumer; plus those naturally present in honey, syrups, and fruit juices.
Differences in study design and quality were taken into account to minimise bias.
They found that advice to reduce free sugars was associated with an average 0.8 kg reduction in weight, while advice to increase intake was associated with a corresponding 0.75 kg increase.
This parallel effect, they suggest, seems be due to an altered energy intake, since replacing sugars with other carbohydrates did not result in any change in body weight.
The evidence was also less consistent in children, mainly due to poor compliance to dietary advice. However, for sugar sweetened beverages, the risk of being overweight or obese increased among children with the highest intake compared with those with the lowest intake.
According to the authors of the study, given the many causes of obesity, it is unsurprising that the effect of reducing intake is relatively small, and they point out that some other unmeasured factors may explain some or all of this effect.
But they add “the overall consistency of the findings, regardless of study type, is reassuring.” They also acknowledge that the extent to which population based advice to reduce sugars might reduce risk of obesity “cannot be extrapolated from the present findings, because few data from the studies lasted longer than ten weeks.”
They concluded that “when considering the rapid weight gain that occurs after an increased intake of sugars, it seems reasonable to conclude that advice relating to sugars intake is a relevant component of a strategy to reduce the high risk of overweight and obesity in most countries.”
Eating your greens can make you more optimistic: Study
People who eat plenty of fruit and vegetables tend to be more optimistic about the future, according to Harvard scientists. Scientists have discovered that optimistic people have higher levels of plant compounds called carotenoids in their blood.
A commonly-known carotenoid is beta-carotene, a pigment found in high levels in orange fruit and veg and green, leafy vegetables, the `Daily Mail` reported.
Previous studies have shown that high blood levels of antioxidants - of which carotenoids are one form - may be a marker of good health.
Antioxidants help keep other molecules in the body from producing free radicals, which can damage cells and contribute to disease.
“Individuals with greater optimism tended to have greater levels of carotenoids such as beta-carotene,” said lead investigator Julia Boehm, of the Harvard School of Public Health.
“This is the first study of its kind to report a relationship between optimism and healthier levels of carotenoid concentrations,” she added. One theory is that antioxidants might have a de-stressing effect.
The current study evaluated blood concentrations of nine different antioxidants, including carotenoids such as beta-carotene and vitamin E in nearly 1,000 American men and women ages 25 to 74.
Participants filled out a questionnaire about their life attitudes and provided blood samples to the researchers, according to the report in Psychosomatic Medicine. They also measured the degree of optimism in the same group.
Researchers found that people who were more optimistic had up to a 13 per cent increase in carotenoid concentrations in their blood compared with people who were less optimistic.
The researchers believe that higher levels of fruit and vegetable consumption among more optimistic people may at least partially explain the results.
They found that people who ate two or fewer servings of fruits and vegetables a day were significantly less optimistic than people who ate three or more servings a day. They added that the relationship between optimism and carotenoid levels was only partially explained by the fact that more optimistic people tended to engage in healthier behaviours such as eating fruits and vegetables and avoiding cigarette smoking.
Last year, scientists at Warwick University found that people who ate seven portions of fruit and veg a day are the happiest. The study found that those who ate around eight portions of fruit and vegetables a day had an average score that was one point higher than people who did not eat any.
Middle-aged women cope with burnout in different ways
Middle-aged women cope with burnout, which is caused by a prolonged exposure to stress, in different ways, says a Swedish study. Burnout involves emotional, physical and mental exhaustion, manifesting as poor sleep, depression, anxiety, even cardiovascular and immune disorders among other symptoms.
Contrary to a previous study showing burnout to be stable over time, researchers from the Karolinska Institute, Sweden, were able demonstrate that women respond to and cope with burnout in different ways, the Journal of Women`s Health reports.
Some middle-aged women had high levels of burnout followed by recovery, whereas others had increasing, decreasing, or stable levels over a nine-year period, according to a Karolinska statement.
The authors explored how these patterns related to changes in work-related and other types of stress in the women’s lives and individual personality factors.
The findings are based on a nine-year study of burnout in middle-aged working women, undertaken by Annika Evolahti, Daniel Hultell and Aila Collins, from Karolinska Institute.