Hot MedFax

So we've tried the Fit Bit to see how much we exercise (and how many calories we burn when we do it).  Weight Watchers offers devices that count the points you rack up, entitling you to eat more.     But what about a necklace that hears what you eat to help you track of it?  Sounds quite bizarre but a new study is proving that it may work. Carrots and apples not only taste different. They make distinct sounds when chewed. This may seem like unnecessary knowledge, but it’s not in the laboratory of University at Buffalo computer scientist Wenyao Xu, who is creating a library that catalogues the unique sounds that foods make as we bite, grind and swallow them, according to newswise.com. The library is part of a software package that supports AutoDietary, a high-tech, food-tracking necklace being developed by Xu and researchers at Northeastern University in China. “There is no shortage of wearable devices that tell us how many calories we burn, but c...

I knew it.  Eating is bad for you. At least, snakes think so. According to a new study, researchers have found that along with the benefits of eating, there’s a price to pay. This price is oxidative damage—damage caused by an increase in chemically reactive molecules containing oxygen that result in harm to cells and DNA. This harm is severe enough that it’s believed that its accumulation over time contributes to aging. Surprisingly, says Stahlschmidt, this cost of eating has been gravely overlooked. “It seemed like this is a hidden piece of the puzzle that no one had investigated that might be really important, for lots of reasons” Stahlschmidt says at newswise.com. The team worked with the corn snake Pantherophis guttatus, a commonly studied snake that can be fed one mouse every two weeks. Because the corn snake’s digestion and metabolism has been well-studied, the team knew exactly when to draw blood at peak digestion and post-absorption times. This enabled...

So you thought you were eating healthy.  Whole-grain toast for breakfast.   Salad for lunch.  Fat free cookies for dessert at dinner. Hold the phone. Did you know many breads and cereals are made with refined whole grains?  Here's how to know if the bread you're buying is nutrious.  If the  label reads “bleached” or “unbleached enriched wheat flour," it's refined grain.  So what? This processing strips the grain of its full nutritional benefit, according to Sheryl Kraft at yahoo.com.  She suggests that, instead,you look for a label that offers “100%   whole-grain.”   This gives you the germ, endosperm and bran — a nutritional powerhouse, she writes. Now, to salads.  Salads are great of course -- full of green things for great fiber.  But don't forget all the stuff you put in them (did you know Burger King's dressings have more fat and calories than a Whopper Jr.?).   Cheese (like me), tuna or chicken salad loaded wit...

Yet one more reason to hate video games.  According to a new study , they make teens cheat and eat more after playing them. "Playing violent video games not only increases aggression, it also leads to less self-control and more cheating," newswise.com reports. Researchers found that teens who played violent video games ate more chocolate and were more likely to steal raffle tickets in a lab experiment than were teens who played nonviolent games.  (I don't need any more reasons to eat chocolate!) "The effects were strongest in teens who scored high on a measure of moral disengagement – the ability to convince yourself that ethical standards don’t apply to you in a particular situation," the Web site notes. Another recent study, this one on violence in films, can also be related to video games.   Research showed that people who simply see a gun, or even a picture of a gun, are more aggressive toward others. “When people play violent video games, they sho...

Finally!  It's okay to gain a few pounds.  In fact, it's even recommended! For older folks, that is.  A new study has found that some overweight older adults don’t need to lose weight to extend their lives, but they could risk an earlier death if they pack on more pounds. So it's not all good. But as I've observed with both my parents, my dad who's always been overweight, and my mother, who was not, each began losing a lot of weight in their 80s. My mother even became thinner than I ever remembered her.  The same thing happened with my grandmother, always a round little thing.  In her 80s, right before she died, she was down to skin and bones. Is it because elderly people don't care about eating anymore?  Or, as in my grandmother's taste, they lose their sense of taste and smell?  It's not clear. But the nationwide study found that people who were slightly overweight in their 50s "but kept their weight relatively stable were the most likel...

So you've tried to get your kids to eat their fruits and veggies and if they didn't, oh well.  But a new study is showing that what kids eat when they're growing up is vital to their health long-term. Of course, the study was done on fruit flies but scientists promise it applies to us.  And the big surprise?  Protein is more important than sugar ;-).   In a finding that could very well have application to human beings, researchers "discovered that a larval diet that’s predominantly protein is better than a diet of sugar when it comes to the reproduction and development of the next generation of the small flies, which count human-like metabolism among their many biological similarities." Mother flies that grew up eating protein gave birth to more offspring and these infant flies were healthier and stronger than females grown as larvae on a diet that mostly included sugar, according to newswise.com. The doctors on the research team lambasted our current d...

OK.  So you're determined to eat healthier. Why not have some chcken?  A broiled chicken leg, thigh, and a breast -- that should do it. Not.  People are eating healthier, it's true.  But they're eating more.  According to reuters.com, people are eating large portions of healthy food, thinking it doesn't matter. But calories are calories.  "People think (healthier food) is lower in calories," Pierre Chandon, a marketing professor at the INSEAD Social Science Research Center in France, told Reuters' Kerry Grens, and they "tend to consume more of it." Portion sizes have become larger over the years, as have plate sizes.  I purposely went out and bought smaller plates so less food looks like more (and you actually eat less).  Now when I go to a restaurant and see the heaping amounts of food on the (huge) plate, I sometimes want to send it back, but more often, just take half home.  In an interesting study, Grens reports, participants w...