There’s definitely a lot more to pumpkins beyond the marketing and hype around them in the fall season. They are actually a superfood! Not convinced? Watch the video and then share in comments if you’re now a pumpkin fan.
Studies suggest vegan diet boosts vaccine efficacy and reduces COVID-related morbidity and mortality
“A solid vaccination program is lifesaving, essential, and insufficient,” begins the commentary “Shoring Up Vaccine Efficacy,” which appears today in the American Journal of Medicine. The authors say that in addition to vaccinations, health care workers should recommend plant-based diets to help patients improve their health and decrease vulnerability to COVID-19.
The authors point to a new study of health care workers whose immune response to the Pfizer vaccine was inversely associated with waist circumference. A 2021 study of health care workers in six countries revealed that those following largely plant-based diets had 73% lower odds of developing moderate-to-severe COVID-19, compared with those following other diets.
“This benefit may come from the fact that plant-based diets are associated with significantly lower body weight, lower risk of hypertension, lower plasma lipid levels, and lower risk of diabetes,” says Saray Stancic, MD, director of medical education of the nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and faculty member of Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. “A healthy vegan diet can benefit a large group of individuals who fail to respond adequately to vaccination yet do not have a classic immunosuppression condition.”
Dr. Stancic authored the commentary with Josh Cullimore, MBChB, MPH, of Brighton and Hove Clinical Commissioning Group in the UK, and Neal Barnard, MD, of the Physicians Committee.
“As of November 18, 2020, more than 60% of COVID-19 hospitalizations were attributable to obesity, hypertension, diabetes, or heart failure,” Dr. Stancic says. “We are suggesting, perhaps surprisingly, that a key, but neglected, part of our immunization strategy should be shoring up the cardiometabolic health of the patient to the extent possible.”
To improve health and decrease vulnerability to COVID-19 and other illness, the authors suggest three key strategies:
Doctors should encourage patients to improve underlying health conditions, including adopting healthful dietary habits, particularly a renewed emphasis on vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and legumes, and plant-based diets. This recommendation aligns with the June 2021 American Medical Association policy urging governmental leaders to encourage individuals with underlying health conditions associated with COVID-19 morbidity and mortality to see their doctors to institute (or resume) appropriate treatment for those underlying conditions.
Medical practitioners should refer appropriate patients to registered dietitians as a matter of medical urgency. They should provide nutrition information and code nutrition messaging into their electronic medical records to be automatically given to patients at check out.
Hospitals should provide information about good nutrition to patients, families, visitors, and staff, and should model it with the foods they serve.
“To make an immunization program work, convincing people to roll up their sleeves for initial immunization and boosters as necessary is one key step,” Dr. Stancic says. “Improving their ability to respond to the vaccine is another. Evidence strongly suggests that urgently addressing underlying health conditions with, for starters, a healthier diet would not only reduce the likelihood of severe infection and death; over time it may also help vaccines to work better.”
Eating your daily calories within a consistent window of 8-10 hours is a powerful strategy to prevent and manage chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease, according to a new manuscript published in the Endocrine Society’s journal, Endocrine Reviews.
Time-restricted eating is a type of intermittent fasting that limits your food intake to a certain number of hours each day. Intermittent fasting is one of the most popular diet trends, and people are using it to lose weight, improve their health and simplify their lifestyles.
“People who are trying to lose weight and live a healthier lifestyle should pay more attention to when they eat as well as what they eat. Time-restricted eating is an easy-to-follow and effective dietary strategy that requires less mental math than counting calories,” said Satchidananda Panda, Ph.D., of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif. “Intermittent fasting can improve sleep and a person’s quality of life as well as reduce the risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease.”
In the manuscript, the researchers explore the science behind time-restricted eating, recent clinical studies and the scope for future research to better understand its health benefits. Recent research has revealed that genes, hormones and metabolism rise and fall at different times of the 24-hour day. Aligning our daily habit of when we eat with the body’s internal clock can optimize health and reduce the risk or disease burden of chronic conditions like diabetes, heart disease and liver disease.
“Eating at random times breaks the synchrony of our internal program and make us prone to diseases,” said Panda. “Intermittent fasting is a lifestyle that anyone can adopt. It can help eliminate health disparities and lets everyone live a healthy and fulfilling life.”
Other authors of the study include: Emily Manoogian of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies; Lisa Chow of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minn.; Pam Taub of the University of California, San Diego, in La Jolla, Calif.; and Blandine Laferrère of the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York, N.Y.
The study received funding from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), the National Institute on Aging, the National Cancer Institute, the Larry l. Hillblom Foundation, the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance, the U.S. Department of Defense and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Missing out on the recommended seven or more hours of sleep per night could lead to more opportunities to make poorer snacking choices than those made by people who meet shut-eye guidelines, a new study suggests.
The analysis of data on almost 20,000 American adults showed a link between not meeting sleep recommendations and eating more snack-related carbohydrates, added sugar, fats and caffeine.
It turns out that the favored non-meal food categories – salty snacks and sweets and non-alcoholic drinks – are the same among adults regardless of sleep habits, but those getting less sleep tend to eat more snack calories in a day overall.
The research also revealed what appears to be a popular American habit not influenced by how much we sleep: snacking at night.
“Not only are we not sleeping when we stay up late, but we’re doing all these obesity-related behaviors: lack of physical activity, increased screen time, food choices that we’re consuming as snacks and not as meals. So it creates this bigger impact of meeting or not meeting sleep recommendations.”
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society recommend that adults sleep seven hours or longer per night on a regular basis to promote optimal health. Getting less sleep than recommended is associated with higher risk for a number of health problems, including weight gain and obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease.
“We know lack of sleep is linked to obesity from a broader scale, but it’s all these little behaviors that are anchored around how that happens,” Taylor said.
The survey collects 24-hour dietary recalls from each participant – detailing not just what, but when, all food was consumed – and questions people about their average amount of nightly sleep during the work week.
The Ohio State team divided participants into those who either did or didn’t meet sleep recommendations based on whether they reported sleeping seven or more hours or fewer than seven hours each night. Using U.S. Department of Agriculture databases, the researchers estimated participants’ snack-related nutrient intake and categorized all snacks into food groups. Three snacking time frames were established for the analysis: 2:00-11:59 a.m. for morning, noon-5:59 p.m. for afternoon, and 6 p.m.-1:59 a.m. for evening.
Statistical analysis showed that almost everyone – 95.5% – ate at least one snack a day, and over 50% of snacking calories among all participants came from two broad categories that included soda and energy drinks and chips, pretzels, cookies and pastries.
Compared to participants who slept seven or more hours a night, those who did not meet sleep recommendations were more likely to eat a morning snack and less likely to eat an afternoon snack, and ate higher quantities of snacks with more calories and less nutritional value.
Though there are lots of physiological factors at play in sleep’s relationship to health, Taylor said changing behavior by avoiding the nightly nosh in particular could help adults not only meet the sleep guidelines, but also improve their diet.
“Meeting sleep recommendations helps us meet that specific need for sleep related to our health, but is also tied to not doing the things that can harm health,” said Taylor, a registered dietitian. “The longer we’re awake, the more opportunities we have to eat. And at night, those calories are coming from snacks and sweets. Every time we make those decisions, we’re introducing calories and items related to increased risk for chronic disease, and we’re not getting whole grains, fruits and vegetables.
“Even if you’re in bed and trying to fall asleep, at least you’re not in the kitchen eating – so if you can get yourself to bed, that’s a starting point.”
Co-authors of the study include Emily Potosky, Randy Wexler and Keeley Pratt, all of Ohio State.
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