Obesity

Posted on Obesity

Which promotes greater metabolic health, almonds or potatoes? Rigorous, randomized trial weighs in

Which promote greater metabolic health, almonds or potatoes?
Which promote greater metabolic health, almonds or potatoes?


White potatoes — especially French fries — are often described in nutrition research literature and dietary guidance statements as having associations with obesogenic diets and as increasing chronic disease risk based on observational research findings. However, there is limited evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) testing cause-and-effect relationships. Now, an RCT published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition demonstrates that adding a 300-calorie serving of French fries to one’s typical diet every day for a month does not result in differential weight gain or other biomarker changes associated with impaired blood sugar regulation compared to adding an isocaloric daily serving of almonds, generally considered a healthy snack option.

“In our School of Public Health at Indiana University-Bloomington and in my own work, we adhere to a slogan: ‘It’s About Knowing.’ Because conjecture is good, but knowing is better,” says David Allison, PhD, the study’s principal investigator. “The way we come to know is through rigorous, randomized controlled trials. Based on our RCT findings, there is no statistically significantevidence of differential effects between consuming a typical 300-calorie serving of French fries daily and a 300-calorie serving of almonds daily when it comes to weight gain or markers of type 2 diabetes risk, at least in the short term.”

Changes in body composition (i.e., body fat mass), body weight, fasting glucose and fasting insulin levels at the end of the one-month trial were comparable across the French fry and almond intervention groups and were not clinically significant. As expected, given the difference in carbohydrate content between the French fries and almonds, acute peak blood glucose and insulin levels were higher after consuming the French fries. However, these levels were not elevated beyond a normal range, and this difference did not have an apparent impact on any other glucoregulatory biomarkers.

“Our results show two food items identified previously for opposite associations with health outcomes had no differences in effects on the health outcomes we measured,” notes study co-author Daniel Smith, PhD. “Nutrition recommendations that focus primarily on single foods in isolation may be missing the mark. A more effective approach to dietary guidance is likely one that takes total diet, lifestyle and individual needs and risk factors into account.”

Study Design, Strengths, and Limitations

A group of 180 adult men and women were randomized to one of three treatment groups for 30 days, with 165 completing the study. The three arms included an additional 300 kilocalories/day from one of the three food items (below) and participants were asked to add the specific food item into their “normal daily diet.”

  • Almonds: approximately 1/3 of a cup of almonds, roasted and salted
  • Standard French fries: approximately the size of a medium serving
  • French fries with herb/spice mix: approximately the size of a medium serving, prepared with oregano, basil, garlic, onion and rosemary

Instructions were provided regarding storage and preparation methods of food items for all participants. Participants were simply asked to incorporate the specific food item into their normal daily diet. They were not instructed to compensate for these added calories in any way.

Body composition (body fat mass), body weight, blood sugar, insulin and hemoglobin A1c were measured at baseline and at study completion. A subset of five participants also completed post-meal evaluations to assess short-term blood sugar response.

The study’s strengths include its randomized controlled trial design, considered the gold standard in identifying causal relationships, as well as the standardization of the study foods’ preparation, presentation and convenience. Its limitations include the fact that it was a free-living study, limiting researchers’ control over the participants’ diets; however, such a study design also allows for real-world data collection. It also excluded participants with type 2 diabetes, limiting the application of the findings to individuals without the disease. Additionally, the study did not include an analysis of energy (calorie) intake, nor were satiety data collected, making it unclear exactly how the varied snack intakes affected calorie intake overall.

Posted on Cognitive dysfunction, Obesity

Greater body fat a risk factor for reduced thinking and memory ability

Sonia Anand


Lead author Sonia Anand is a professor of medicine of McMaster University’s Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine and a vascular medicine specialist at Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS). CREDIT McMaster University

 A new study has found that greater body fat is a risk factor for reduced cognitive function, such as processing speed, in adults.

Even when the researchers took cardiovascular risk factors (such as diabetes or high blood pressure) or vascular brain injury into account, the association between body fat and lower cognitive scores remained. This suggests other not yet confirmed pathways that linked excess body fat to reduced cognitive function.

In the study, 9,166 participants were measured by bioelectrical impedance analysis to assess their total body fat.

As well, 6,733 of the participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to measure abdominal fat packed around the organs known as visceral fat, and the MRI also assessed vascular brain injury – areas in the brain affected by reduced blood flow to the brain.


“Our results suggest that strategies to prevent or reduce having too much body fat may preserve cognitive function,” said lead author Sonia Anand, a professor of medicine of McMaster University’s Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine and a vascular medicine specialist at Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS). She is also a senior scientist of the Population Health Research Institute of McMaster and HHS.

She added that “the effect of increased body fat persisted even after adjusting for its effect on increasing cardiovascular risk factors like diabetes and high blood pressure, as well as vascular brain injury, which should prompt researchers to investigate which other pathways may link excess fat to reduced cognitive function.”

Co-author Eric Smith, a neurologist, scientist and an associate professor of clinical neurosciences at the University of Calgary, said that “preserving cognitive function is one of the best ways to prevent dementia in old age. This study suggests that one of the ways that good nutrition and physical activity prevent dementia may be by maintaining healthy weight and body fat percentage.”

Smith is head of the brain core lab for the two population cohorts used for this new analysis– the Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Minds (CAHHM) and PURE Mind- a sub-study of the large, international Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiological (PURE) study.

The participants were in the age range of 30 to 75 with an average age of about 58. Just over 56% were women; they all lived in either Canada or Poland. The majority were White European origin, with about 16% other ethnic backgrounds. Individuals with known cardiovascular disease were excluded.

Posted on Diabetes, Obesity

Diabetes and Obesity – Harnessing intestinal cells to treat endocrine disorders?

Enteroendocrine cells growing in intestinal organoids


Using a newly developed protocol, Daniel Zeve, MD, and David Breault, MD, have been able to derive human enteroendocrine cells from human intestinal stem cells. They are shown here growing in a 3-D intestinal organoid . CREDIT Daniel Zeve, Boston Children’s Hospital

Enteroendocrine cells punch above their weight. Comprising just about 1 percent of intestinal cells, they produce, as a group, around 15 different hormones. These not only regulate intestinal function and digestion, but also influence metabolic functions like insulin secretion and appetite regulation.

A new technology platform developed at Boston Children’s could set the stage for tapping enteroendocrine (EE) cells to reverse diabetes, obesity, and gastrointestinal conditions like inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome. The platform, described in the journal Nature Communications, is designed to identify drugs that could expand EE numbers, get them to produce more of the needed hormones, or both.

“There’s been interest in exploiting human intestinal stem cells and EE cells to treat disease,” says David Breault, MD, PhD, associate chief of the Division of Endocrinology at Boston Children’s. “But the field is still in a nascent stage. This will open new avenues of discovery.”

Expanding enteroendocrine cells

Breault is founder and director of the Gastrointestinal Organoid Core, based jointly in the Divisions of Endocrinology and Gastroenterology at Boston Children’s. He and the study’s lead investigator, Daniel Zeve, MD, PhD, obtained tissue from intestinal biopsies of patients at Boston Children’s, housed in a biorepository, and from adult GI patients at Massachusetts General Hospital.

From the patient samples, the researchers isolated the intestinal crypts, the “valleys” between intestinal villi where many intestinal stem cells reside. From the intestinal stem cells, they created organoids, three-dimensional mini-organs that replicate the biology of the duodenum and rectum. These locations house relatively large numbers of hormone-producing cells. These organoids then became their platform for systematic testing of libraries of drugs.

“We tried a variety of small molecules with the goal of making more EE cells and/or more hormones,” says Zeve, an attending physician in endocrinology and a member of Breault’s lab.

The system identified three chemicals that, used in different combinations, drove the formation of EE cells and the production of six different hormones: somatostatin, serotonin, glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP), cholecystokinin, peptide YY, and glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1).

Focus on diabetes

While others have tried to expand populations of EE cells, the new protocols are more efficient and avoid the need to use genetic techniques. Breault and Zeve have filed a U.S. patent application and now hope to scale up their platform for high-throughput drug testing. Their goal is to find FDA-approved compounds that have the same effect as their small molecules.

They are particularly interested in finding an oral drug that would enable people with type 1 diabetes to make insulin, or enable people with obesity to lose weight by getting them to produce GLP-1 to help regulate appetite and food intake. Drugs that mimic GLP-1 activity have been approved for weight loss and are frequently prescribed for type 2 diabetes. However, they have side effects, including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, increased risk of respiratory infections, headaches, and possibly pancreatitis.

Breault and Zeve may also investigate medications to induce production of GIP, cholecystokinin, and peptide YY for diabetes and weight management.

Posted on Diabetes, Diet, Obesity

Apple Cider Vinegar: Science-Backed Benefits

Apple Cider Vinegar: Science-Backed Benefits - YouTube


Apple cider vinegar has been touted as a natural remedy for everything from better health to weight loss. There is scientific evidence to support many of these claims. In this video, I share what the research has to say about apple cider vinegar’s ability to…

-control blood sugar

-improve insulin sensitivity

-reduce belly fat

-lower cholesterol