HumanaNatura

Even a lazy Sunday and nearly empty fridge can be used to create a healthy and inspiring meal. This one is a red onion, julienne carrot, and tomato omelet with mixed greens and berries…garnished with pistachios, parsley, paprika, coriander, black pepper, and anise. Go ahead, dabble…

A new study by Pennsylvania State University offers important guidance for staying slim once we achieve an optimal body weight. The new research examined practices used by more than 1100 formerly overweight people to keep weight off after successful dieting. They found that those most likely to stay slim used one or more of four key strategies: 1) a diet rich in low-fat proteins, 2) a consistent exercise program, 3) personal rewards for meeting diet and exercise goals, and 4) regular reminders of the benefits of weight management. Importantly, the new research highlights that these important weight maintenance strategies are different from those most apt to help people during successful transitions to a healthy weight. Learn more about the new research at Keep It Off.

A new study presented at this week’s American Diabetes Association conference casts further suspicion on the health effects of diet sodas. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Texas, tracked the diet soda consumption of almost 500 adults over nearly ten years. It found that regular diet soda consumption was closely linked with increased waistlines and weight gain. A related study reported at the conference found that lab mice fed aspartame, a common diet soda sweetener, had significantly elevated blood glucose levels – suggesting a possible causal link for the Texas study results. Both studies come on the heels of recent findings linking diet soda with higher stroke and heart attack risk, and increased cravings for sweets. Learn more about the new study and find links to the earlier research at Diet Soda & Weight Gain, all suggesting it may be time for a diet soda coda.

If you think you can out-exercise a bad diet, think again. A new study of lifestyle interventions for adult-onset diabetes suggests that diet is far more important than exercise in mitigating this growing chronic health problem. The new study, published this past week in the Lancet, followed almost 600 patients diagnosed with Type-2 diabetes. It found that dietary changes produced the largest physiological improvements across the treatment regimens studied. While adding exercise did not improve diabetes treatment, the lead researcher emphasized that “individuals who exercise have reduced rates of cancer, reduced mortality, and other benefits from exercising, such as enhanced sense of well being…but dietary change should be the focus of your lifestyle intervention” when seeking diabetes control. Learn more about the new study at Diabetes Treatment Study.

An interesting but perhaps not surprising new study by Harvard Medical School has found that fried potatoes are the most fatal food, if your goal is to maintain a healthy adult body weight over time. The new and quite large longitudinal study looked at daily food consumption across more than 100,000 women and men over twenty years, permitting new weight-gain calculations for various foods. As should be clear to everyone by now, unnatural insulin and hunger-inspiring carbohydrate foods dominate the list of the most weight-advancing things to eat. French fries finished first, closely followed by potato chips, with sweetened beverages and other starches and refined carbohydrates such as white bread, white rice, low-fiber breakfast cereal, candy, and desserts in close pursuit. Importantly, also near the top of weight-advancing foods are red meats, which are limited to 25% of protein intake on the HumanaNatura natural diet plan. Learn more about the new study and see how your foods of choice rank at Long Term Weight Gain.