Don’t be afraid of the potato – it can help you control weight

#eathealthy Don’t be afraid of the potato because, the concept that potatoes contribute to the bulging waistline, appears to now be a thing of the past. That can be discarded because scientists have, now, arrived at the decision that the potato, believed to be the nightmare of dieticians, is actually a great help to reduce a few kilos.
The vegetable is being labeled as "the miracle ingredient to fight obesity".
It seems extract of Irish potatoes, which are rich in polyphenols, have been found to reduce weight gain from a diet that is high in fat and refined carbohydrates – this is based on research conducted by scientists at McGill University. The researchers were surprised at the findings and, hence, repeated the experiment just to be sure.
Based on this study it can be sad that potato extracts could be a solution to prevent both obesity and type 2 diabetes. The investigators feel that the potato extract could be made available as a dietary supplement or simply as a cooking ingredient to be added in the kitchen.

Obesity is bad – we could lose up to eight years of our life because of this

Obesity is a word on everyone’s lips and all those who are obese try to find out how to lose weight and get rid of that unwanted tag. No one wants to become the center of attention in a crowd and airlines frown upon the obese – some airline have travel restrictions for this category of people.
A new report paints a terrible picture – it seems being severely obese can knock up to eight years off your life and cause decades of ill health. The analysis showed that being obese at a young age was more damaging to health and life expectancy.
The report is of a team of McGill University in Canada, and they have found that heart problems and type 2 diabetes were major sources of disability and death.
The report in the Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology had made use of a computer model to take various types of risks and calculate the impact of weight on life expectancy throughout life. It was revealed that in comparison with 20 to 39-year-olds with a healthy weight, severely obese men of the same age lost 8.4 years of life and women lost 6.1. Moreover, the men also spent 18.8 more years living in poor health while women spent 19.1 in that state.
In the age group of forties and fifties, the men lost 3.7 years and women 5.3 years to obesity while in the age group of 60s and 70s, men and women lost just one year of life to obesity – however, they had to face seven years of ill health.

New study reveals that carbs, not fats, result in diabetes and heart diseases

A new study conducted on 16 middle-aged, obese adults for 21 weeks and now published in the Nov. 21 journal PLOS ONE has revealed that the ancient concept that fats cause diabetes and heart disease can be thrown out of the window.
The study was funded by a grant from the Dairy Research Institute, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the Egg Nutrition Center, and the Robert C. and Veronica Atkins Foundation and the researchers have confirmed that the funders did not have any role in the design of the study or the decision to publish the findings.
The study has apparently shown that doubling the saturated fat in a person's diet does not drive up the levels of saturated fat in the blood but the carbohydrates does. As per the study, it was the carbohydrates that were to blame for increased levels of a type of fatty acid linked to heart disease and type-2 diabetes.
The general belief till now was that saturated fats from meat and dairy products were the main culprit in promoting heart disease and most health authorities never doubted this but maintained this stance.
But, in recent years, scientists have observed the ill effects of totally replacing saturated fat with carbohydrates, particularly the simple carbs that are found so commonly in processed foods.
Based on a 2009 analysis that was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition it was found that replacing saturated fats with carbs had no benefit towards reducing heart diseases. However, replacing the bad fats with polyunsaturated fats found in fish, olives and nuts did.