Latest news with #AmericanDiet
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
The #1 Food You Should Limit to Help Lower Triglycerides, According to Dietitians
Reviewed by Dietitian Karen Ansel, M.S., RDNSugary drinks are the top source of added sugars in the American diet. Their sugar can increase triglycerides, which are blood fats that raise heart disease risk. They may also increase blood sugar and belly fat and crowd out more nutritious it comes to heart health, most people focus on cholesterol. But triglycerides are just as important. Triglycerides are a type of fat in the blood that our bodies use for energy. High triglycerides can raise your risk of heart disease by leading to a buildup of small, cholesterol-rich particles in the artery walls. This can trigger inflammation and contribute to artery-blocking plaque formation. Cutting back on fat might seem like the obvious first choice. However, one of the top contributors to high triglycerides is actually sugar-sweetened drinks, like soda, sweet tea, syrup-spiked coffees and sports drinks. The link is so strong that research has found that people who drink just 12 ounces of sugar-sweetened beverages per day are 48% more likely to have elevated triglycerides. That's a lot! So, we spoke to registered dietitians to find out how cutting back on sugar-sweetened drinks can help lower high triglycerides. Here's what they told us, plus realistic strategies to improve your triglycerides for a healthier heart. Research has found that high sugar-sweetened beverage consumption is strongly linked to insulin resistance. That may sound like it's just a blood sugar issue, but insulin resistance may also influence triglyceride levels. How so? While sugary drinks are loaded with sugar, they rarely contain fat, protein or fiber to help slow glucose digestion and absorption. As a result, glucose is quickly absorbed into the bloodstream, resulting in a rapid spike in blood sugar and insulin. Over time, this can lead to insulin resistance, which alters lipid metabolism, leading to high triglycerides, low HDL-cholesterol and increased small, dense LDL-cholesterol particles. All of these can set the stage for heart disease. Even though triglycerides are a type of fat, they're formed primarily from eating excess carbohydrates and sugars. Consider what happens after drinking a 12-ounce can of cola. Its 37 grams of pure sugar are far more than your body can handle in one sitting, especially when combined with other carbohydrates and sugars from a meal or snack. What does the body do with all that sugar? 'Excess sugar is stored in the body as glycogen. Once these stores are full, our liver converts excess sugar into fatty acids, and combined with other molecules, they form triglycerides,' explains Melissa Jaeger, RD, LD. Many sweetened beverages are made with high fructose corn syrup, which may be even more harmful to your blood fat and glucose levels than table sugar. In one study, adults who drank three fructose-rich beverages daily for 10 weeks had higher levels of triglyceride-transporting particles in their bloodstreams than volunteers who consumed the same amount of glucose-rich drinks. What, exactly, makes fructose so problematic? When we consume excessive amounts of fructose, like from HFCS-sweetened drinks, the liver turns all that fructose into fat through a process called de novo lipogenesis. This happens when there is more sugar available than the liver can store as carbohydrate, and it occurs more rapidly with fructose than with glucose consumption. Deep belly fat, known as visceral fat, can spell all kinds of trouble for your health. Visceral fat releases fat into the bloodstream quickly, whereas fat stored under the skin (like in the hips or thighs) is stored and released much more slowly. This makes abdominal fat especially harmful, increasing the risk for numerous metabolic health conditions, including elevated triglycerides. Research has found that greater added sugar intake may be a powerful driver of visceral fat storage. For instance, one study found people who consumed lots of added sugars from sugar-sweetened beverages and other sources were 27% more likely to have abdominal obesity and were also 28% more prone to obesity. Sugar-sweetened beverages are our top source of added sugars, delivering an estimated 21% of our total sugar intake. One important reason: 'It's easy to over-consume calories from sugary drinks,' says Mandy Tyler, RD, CSSD. 'Although they may taste refreshing, they don't tend to fill you up.' Consider how you feel after eating a piece of cake versus drinking a glass of sweet tea. It's much quicker—and easier—to drink that sugar in liquid form. 'While our bodies may use some of the sugar in drinks for an immediate source of energy, these drinks also deliver extra calories with little to no nutritional value,' says Jaeger. Sugary drinks like soda, sweet tea, energy drinks, sugary lattes and even some fruit-flavored beverages often replace healthier options like water, milk or nutrient-rich smoothies. Limit or avoid alcohol: 'When you drink alcohol, your liver puts fat-burning on hold to process the alcohol first,' explains Katie Schimmelpfenning, RD, LD. 'That slowdown can cause more fat, especially triglycerides, to build up in your blood.' Get regular physical activity: Physical activity, especially aerobic exercise, helps to lower triglycerides by improving glucose and fat metabolism. Not sure where to start? 'Consider going for a walk during lunch, taking the stairs, parking farther away at the grocery store or enjoying a family walk after dinner,' suggests Taylor McClelland Newman, M.S., RD, LD. Eat more fiber-rich foods: 'Fiber helps lower triglycerides by slowing digestion and reducing fat and sugar absorption,' says Schimmelpfenning. Eating high-fiber foods with each meal and snack can help you hit the recommended daily 25 to 38 grams. Add in fatty fish: The American Heart Association recommends eating at least two 3-ounce servings of fatty fish like salmon, mackerel, herring, anchovies and sardines weekly. Research reveals their long-chain omega-3 fats, EPA and DHA, may help reduce triglycerides. Regularly drinking sugar-sweetened beverages can be a major contributor to high triglycerides. Their excessive sugar can elevate triglycerides by increasing blood sugar, insulin and belly fat and by providing more sugar and fructose than your body can efficiently metabolize in one sitting. In addition, sugary drinks are easy to consume in excess and usually replace more nutritious alternatives. That doesn't mean you can never enjoy a small glass of sweet tea or a soda. But limiting sugary drinks, combined with lifestyle changes like limiting or avoiding alcohol, exercising and eating more fatty fish and fiber-rich foods, can help keep your triglycerides in check and protect your heart. Read the original article on EATINGWELL
South China Morning Post
21-05-2025
- Health
- South China Morning Post
How do ultra-processed foods affect health? Blood, urine markers may help show the impacts
Molecules in blood and urine may reveal how much energy a person consumes from ultra-processed foods, a key step to understanding the impact of the products that make up nearly 60 per cent of the American diet, a new study finds. It is the first time that scientists have identified biological markers that can indicate higher or lower intake of the foods, which are linked to a host of health problems, said Erikka Loftfield, a National Cancer Institute researcher who led the study published earlier this week in the journal PLOS Medicine. 'It can potentially give us some clues as to what the underlying biology might be between an ultra-processed food association and a health outcome,' Loftfield said. Ultra-processed foods – such as instant noodles, sugary cereals, carbonated soft drinks, potato and tortilla chips and frozen pizzas – are products created through industrial processes with ingredients such as additives, colours and preservatives not found in home kitchens. They are ubiquitous in the United States and elsewhere, but studying their health impacts is hard because it is difficult to accurately track what people eat. Potato and tortilla chips, an ultra-processed food, are displayed in a pharmacy in New York. Photo: AP Typical nutrition studies rely on recall: asking people what they ate during a certain period. But such reports are notoriously unreliable because people do not remember everything they ate, or they record it inaccurately.
New York Times
21-05-2025
- Health
- New York Times
American Breakfast Cereals Are Becoming Less Healthy, Study Finds
Breakfast cereals, a heavily marketed, highly processed mainstay of the American diet, especially among children, are becoming less healthy, filled with increasing amounts of sugar, fat and sodium, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Network Open. The study also found that cereals' protein and fiber content — nutrients essential for a healthy diet — have been in decline. The findings, based on an analysis of 1,200 new or reformulated cereal products introduced in the United States between 2010 and 2023, are likely to add fuel to the ongoing debate about the relationship between processed food, mounting childhood obesity and the rising prevalence of chronic diseases. The debate has gained greater prominence in the months since health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. began using the federal bully pulpit to excoriate ultra-processed foods as part of his 'Make America Healthy Again' campaign. Mr. Kennedy, who has declared that 'sugar is poison,' last month announced that the Department of Health and Human Services would work to remove some artificial dyes from the U.S. food supply, citing concerns about their impact on children's health. Shuoli Zhao, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Kentucky and a co-author of the new study, said the findings were especially notable given evolving consumer awareness about the links between excess consumption of sugar, salt and saturated fat and chronic conditions like diabetes, hypertension and cancer. 'What's most surprising to me is that the healthy claims made on the front of these products and the nutritional facts on the back are actually going in the opposite direction,' he said. The analysis, based on data gathered by the marketing consultancy Mintel, did not identify brand names, nor did it capture information on purchasing and consumption habits. The vast majority of the 1,200 products it analyzed were relaunches of existing cereals, including so-called reformulations that alter a product's taste or nutritional content, Professor Zhao said. The study found that the total fat content per serving of newly launched breakfast cereals increased nearly 34 percent between 2010 and 2023, and sodium content climbed by 32 percent. Sugar content in the newly introduced products rose by nearly 11 percent, according to the analysis. So-called ready-to-eat cereals are the most commonly consumed food product among children aged 5 to 12, according to Department of Agriculture data, and nearly a third of all American children eat cereal each morning. In contrast, only 15 percent of children have fruit with their breakfast, and just 10 percent consume eggs, according to the data. Kellogg Company, General Mills and Post Holdings, the three largest makers of breakfast cereals in the United States, did not respond to requests for comment. Peter Lurie, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nutrition advocacy group that was not involved in the study, said he was surprised to learn that large food companies have not made a more concerted effort to reduce the sugar, salt and fat content of their breakfast cereals. 'It's extraordinary that, at a time when Americans are becoming more health conscious, a product often marketed as offering a healthy start to one's day is actually getting less healthy,' he said. Although the category is not inherently unhealthy, many nutritionists take a jaundiced view of American breakfast cereals given the sky-high sugar content of some products, like Lucky Charms and Cap'n Crunch. Dr. Josephine Connolly-Schoonen, executive director of the nutrition division at Stony Brook Medicine, said the findings of the study highlighted the dilemma many parents face when navigating supermarket aisles. 'It reinforces my belief that the food marketplace is very confusing, and that's not by accident,' said Dr. Connolly-Schoonen, who was not involved with the study. 'The food industry engineers the confusion.' Her breakfast recommendations to parents include overnight oats, fruit, eggs, peanut butter and whole grain breads. 'We need to continue to try to break through the noise and give very strong messages about what is healthy, and that includes whole foods; foods that look like they did when they were alive,' she said. Some of the cynicism voiced by nutrition experts stems from the fact that many food companies offer healthier versions of the same cereal brands in Canada and in Europe. More recently, the sugar and sodium content of breakfast cereals served in American schools has also been declining, a result of federal legislation passed in 2010 that set new nutrition standards for the meals, which sustain 14 million students each day. Stricter limits on sugar content go into effect this summer, and the standards tighten even further in 2027, according to the School Nutrition Association. Diane Pratt-Heavner, a spokeswoman for the association, said she hoped food companies would begin voluntarily offering those healthier school-based products to the general public. 'If we're encouraging kids to eat healthier at school,' she said, 'then we want them to be eating healthier at home too.'
The Independent
20-05-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Markers in blood and urine may reveal how much ultraprocessed food we are eating
Molecules in blood and urine may reveal how much energy a person consumes from ultraprocessed foods, a key step to understanding the impact of the products that make up nearly 60% of the American diet, a new study finds. It's the first time that scientists have identified biological markers that can indicate higher or lower intake of the foods, which are linked to a host of health problems, said Erikka Loftfield, a National Cancer Institute researcher who led the study published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Medicine. 'It can potentially give us some clues as to what the underlying biology might be between an ultraprocessed food association and a health outcome,' Loftfield said. Ultraprocessed foods – sugary cereals, sodas, chips, frozen pizzas and more – are products created through industrial processes with ingredients such as additives, colors and preservatives not found in home kitchens. They're ubiquitous in the U.S. and elsewhere, but studying their health impacts is hard because it's difficult to accurately track what people eat. Typical nutrition studies rely on recall: asking people what they ate during a certain period. But such reports are notoriously unreliable because people don't remember everything they ate, or they record it inaccurately. 'There's a need for both a more objective measure and potentially also a more accurate measure,' Loftfield explained. To create the new scores, Loftfield and her colleagues examined data from an existing study of more than 1,000 older U.S. adults who were AARP members. More than 700 of them had provided blood and urine samples, as well as detailed dietary recall reports, collected over a year. The scientists found that hundreds of metabolites – products of digestion and other processes – corresponded to the percentage of energy a person consumes from ultraprocessed foods. From those, they devised a score of 28 blood markers and up to 33 urine markers that reliably predicted ultraprocessed food intake in people consuming typical diets. 'We found this signature that was sort of predictive of this dietary pattern that's high in ultraprocessed food and not just a specific food item here and there,' she said. A few of the markers, notably two amino acids and a carbohydrate, showed up at least 60 times out of 100 testing iterations. One marker showed a potential link between a diet high in ultraprocessed foods and type 2 diabetes, the study found. To confirm the findings, Loftfield measured the scoring tool with participants in a carefully controlled 2019 National Institutes of Health study of ultraprocessed foods. In that study, 20 adults went to live for a month at an NIH center. They received diets of ultraprocessed and unprocessed foods matched for calories, sugar, fat, fiber and macronutrients for two weeks each and were told to eat as much as they liked. Loftfield's team found that they could use the metabolite scores to tell when the individual participants were eating a lot of ultraprocessed foods and when they weren't eating those foods. The results suggested the markers were 'valid at the individual level,' Loftfield said. It's still early research, but identifying blood and urine markers to predict ultraprocessed foods consumption is 'a major scientific advance,' said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, director of the Food Is Medicine Institute at Tufts University, who was not involved in the study. 'With more research, these metabolic signatures can begin to untangle the biologic pathways and harms of UPF and also differences in health effects of specific UPF food groups, processing methods and additives,' he said. Loftfield said she hopes to apply the tool to existing studies where blood and urine samples are available to track, for instance, the effect of consuming ultraprocessed foods on cancer risk. At a time when support for government research is being cut, funding remains uncertain. 'There's a lot of interest across the board — scientifically, public interest, political interest — in the question of: Does ultraprocessed food impact health and, if so, how?' she said. 'How can we fund the studies that need to be done to answer these questions in a timely way?' ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Associated Press
20-05-2025
- Health
- Associated Press
Markers in blood and urine may reveal how much ultraprocessed food we are eating
Molecules in blood and urine may reveal how much energy a person consumes from ultraprocessed foods, a key step to understanding the impact of the products that make up nearly 60% of the American diet, a new study finds. It's the first time that scientists have identified biological markers that can indicate higher or lower intake of the foods, which are linked to a host of health problems, said Erikka Loftfield, a National Cancer Institute researcher who led the study published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Medicine. 'It can potentially give us some clues as to what the underlying biology might be between an ultraprocessed food association and a health outcome,' Loftfield said. Ultraprocessed foods – sugary cereals, sodas, chips, frozen pizzas and more – are products created through industrial processes with ingredients such as additives, colors and preservatives not found in home kitchens. They're ubiquitous in the U.S. and elsewhere, but studying their health impacts is hard because it's difficult to accurately track what people eat. Typical nutrition studies rely on recall: asking people what they ate during a certain period. But such reports are notoriously unreliable because people don't remember everything they ate, or they record it inaccurately. 'There's a need for both a more objective measure and potentially also a more accurate measure,' Loftfield explained. To create the new scores, Loftfield and her colleagues examined data from an existing study of more than 1,000 older U.S. adults who were AARP members. More than 700 of them had provided blood and urine samples, as well as detailed dietary recall reports, collected over a year. The scientists found that hundreds of metabolites – products of digestion and other processes – corresponded to the percentage of energy a person consumes from ultraprocessed foods. From those, they devised a score of 28 blood markers and up to 33 urine markers that reliably predicted ultraprocessed food intake in people consuming typical diets. 'We found this signature that was sort of predictive of this dietary pattern that's high in ultraprocessed food and not just a specific food item here and there,' she said. A few of the markers, notably two amino acids and a carbohydrate, showed up at least 60 times out of 100 testing iterations. One marker showed a potential link between a diet high in ultraprocessed foods and type 2 diabetes, the study found. To confirm the findings, Loftfield measured the scoring tool with participants in a carefully controlled 2019 National Institutes of Health study of ultraprocessed foods. In that study, 20 adults went to live for a month at an NIH center. They received diets of ultraprocessed and unprocessed foods matched for calories, sugar, fat, fiber and macronutrients for two weeks each and were told to eat as much as they liked. Loftfield's team found that they could use the metabolite scores to tell when the individual participants were eating a lot of ultraprocessed foods and when they weren't eating those foods. The results suggested the markers were 'valid at the individual level,' Loftfield said. It's still early research, but identifying blood and urine markers to predict ultraprocessed foods consumption is 'a major scientific advance,' said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, director of the Food Is Medicine Institute at Tufts University, who was not involved in the study. 'With more research, these metabolic signatures can begin to untangle the biologic pathways and harms of UPF and also differences in health effects of specific UPF food groups, processing methods and additives,' he said. Loftfield said she hopes to apply the tool to existing studies where blood and urine samples are available to track, for instance, the effect of consuming ultraprocessed foods on cancer risk. At a time when support for government research is being cut, funding remains uncertain. 'There's a lot of interest across the board — scientifically, public interest, political interest — in the question of: Does ultraprocessed food impact health and, if so, how?' she said. 'How can we fund the studies that need to be done to answer these questions in a timely way?' ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
