KH9UUMNGGQCG Did you know that eating dark chocolate, just a little every week, has been shown in studies to be good for your heart?  Eating dark chocolate, once or twice per week could protect you or at least, lower your risk for heart failure.  This good health news comes from the BBC news site.  Enjoy, while munching on a little piece of chocolate.  This comes from a recent study in the United States.  Studies show that it helps protect women, especially those in menopause.

“It found those eating chocolate once or twice a week cut the risk of developing heart failure by a third, but those eating it every day did not benefit. The Boston study, in a journal of the American Heart Association, looked at nearly 32,000 Swedish women aged between 48 and 83 over nine years. Dieticians say eating chocolate too often can be damaging and unhealthy. The study notes that one or two 19 to 30 gram servings of dark chocolate a week led to a 32% reduction in heart failure risk. This fell to 26% when one to three servings a month were eaten.

But those who ate chocolate every day did not appear to reduce their risk of heart failure at all.
Continue reading the main story

Whilst antioxidants in chocolate may be helpful to your heart, they can also be found in fruit and veg – foods which don’t come with the saturated fat and high calories”

The researchers conclude the protective effect of eating chocolate reduces as more or less is eaten than the optimum one to two servings a week.
‘Flavanoids‘

Too much chocolate is unhealthy because it contains high levels of sugar and fat which can make people put on weight, the researchers say.

But chocolate also contains high concentration of compounds called flavonoids which can lower blood pressure and protect against heart disease, previous studies have found.

The researchers behind this study say this is the first time long-term effects related specifically to heart failure have been shown.

Dr Murray Mittleman is study leader and director of the Cardiovascular Epidemiology Research Unit at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre in Boston.

He said: “You can’t ignore that chocolate is a relatively calorie-dense food and large amounts of habitual consumption is going to raise your risks for weight gain.

“But if you’re going to have a treat, dark chocolate is probably a good choice, as long as it’s in moderation,” Dr Mittleman said.
Cocoa content

Differences in chocolate quality will affect the study’s implications, the authors say. Higher cocoa content is associated with greater heart benefits.

Although the chocolate consumed by the Swedish women in the study was milk chocolate, it contained a high concentration of cocoa solids – about 30%.

This is equivalent to dark chocolate by UK standards.

Dark chocolate can contain as much as 75% cocoa while standard milk chocolate may have 25% or less cocoa.

Victoria Taylor, senior dietitian at the British Heart Foundation, said the study showed the importance of finding the right balance in our diets.

“Before you rip open those sweet treats, remember that whilst antioxidants in chocolate may be helpful to your heart, they can also be found in fruit and veg – foods which don’t come with the saturated fat and high calories that chocolate does,” she said.”

Source

We’ve been hearing it for years that sugar is bad for you.  Long ago, it was bad for you because it rots your teeth and causes cavities.  Then we heard it was bad for you because it made you gain weight.  After that, we slowly began to hear rumours that it actually fed cancers.  We now know also that consuming too much sugar and junk food will cause diabetes.  Now the latest health news updates are showing that sugar increases the risk factors for heart disease.  Sugar is the number one enemy and we should start eliminating it from our diets – sugars in all shapes and forms.

Americans who consumed more added sugars than the average adult were more likely to have risk factors for heart disease than those who consumed less than the average, a new study suggests.  Researchers at Emory University in Atlanta found that among the people they studied, those who ate the greatest amount of caloric sweeteners in processed or prepared foods and beverages had the lowest high-density lipoprotein, or HDL, known as the good cholesterol, and the highest blood triglyceride levels.

The results appear in Tuesday’s issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association found added sugars have no nutritional value, the researchers said.

“Just like eating a high-fat diet can increase your levels of triglycerides and high [density] cholesterol, eating sugar can also affect those same lipids,” study co-author Dr. Miriam Vos, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Emory School of Medicine, said in a news release. The researchers analyzed U.S. government nutritional data and blood lipid levels of 6,113 adult men and women between 1999 and 2006.
They found that within the sample group, those who ate the least sugar had the highest HDL and lowest triglyceride levels,
Sugar consumption within the group ranged from an average of three teaspoons of added sugars per day (12.6 grams) to 46 teaspoons per day (193 grams).
The average adult in the U.S. consumes the equivalent of 21.4 teaspoons, or 359 calories, of added sugars per day, according to the study.
Spot sugar on the label
The American Heart Association says too much sugar contributes to obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke.
Last August, the group said Americans need to cut back dramatically on sugar consumption.
It recommended women eat no more than 100 calories per day of added processed sugar, the equivalent of six teaspoons (25 grams), and men no more than 150 calories, or nine teaspoons (37.5 grams).
“If we are concerned about heart disease risk, then we also need to be paying attention to the amount of caloric sweeteners and added sugars in the foods we eat,” said the study’s lead author, Jean Welsh, a registered nurse.
The researchers said Americans are consuming more sugar than 30 years ago. Much of it comes from sweeteners added to increase the desirability of processed foods such as sugar-sweetened beverages, cereals and desserts.
Identifying added sugars on nutrition labels is the first step to reducing sugar intake, the U.S. government site womenshealth.gov suggest.

Added sugars can appear under terms such as:

•    Corn sweetener.
•    Corn syrup.
•    High-fructose corn syrup.
•    Dextrose.
•    Fructose.
•    Glucose.
•    Lactose.
•    Maltose.
•    Sucrose.
•    Honey.
•    Sugar.
•    Brown sugar.
•    Invert sugar.
•    Molasses.
•    Malt syrup.
•    Syrup.
But the industry group the Sugar Association told the health news website Health Day it “disputes the notion that sugar consumption has increased.”  It cited a U.S. Department of Agriculture report that claimed consumption of caloric sweeteners, including sugar, has decreased 9.7 per cent over the past decade.

The Sugar Association said the same advice holds for sugar as for all foods and beverages: consume in moderation.

Source:  CBC News

If you are a lover of fast food, but still want to lose or keep off the pounds, you are going to love this next diet, available at your local fast food restaurant, Taco Bell:  This article is from SmallbitesAndybellatti.com.

Taco Bell’s latest advertising project? The Taco Bell Drive-Thru Diet®.

Their spokesperson, a real-life dieter identified as Christine, claims to have lost 54 pounds over the course of two years “by choosing Fresco items from the Drive-Thru Diet® menu and making other sensible choices.”

As if the “other sensible choices” part wasn’t enough of a hint that there’s more to this than meets the eye, we then learn that Christine simply reduced her total caloric intake by 500 calories for a total of 1,250 calories a day.

It seems that even the folks at Taco Bell are aware this campaign is a bit of a stretch.

Not only does Christine herself share that “these results aren’t typical” and that “as you know,” (?) “the Drive-Thru Diet® menu is not a weight-loss program”, the Taco Bell website makes this statement:

“For a healthier lifestyle, pay attention to total calorie and fat intake and regular exercise. Fresco can help with calorie reductions of 20 to 100 per item compared to corresponding products on our regular menu. Not a low calorie food.”

This comes back to a point I often make on this blog — actual weight-loss can be done with almost any food.

In fact, this campaign reminds me of a similar one by Special K cereal a few years ago.  The gist was that Special K helped you lose weight, provided — of course — that you had a bowl of it as your lunch.

Christine could have consumed 1,250 calories worth of ice cream, french fries, and pizza and still have lost the weight.

The added challenge comes from achieving weight loss while meeting nutrient needs and providing the body with sufficient energy and care.

A 1,250-calorie diet of junk food will result in weight loss, but also in completely inadequate nutrient intakes.

It’s also worth pointing out that one can consume 320 calories in a half cup of premium ice cream or a salad chock-full of vegetables, dressed with one tablespoon of olive oil and generous amounts of lemon juice.

In that sense, all calories are most certainly NOT created equal!

Furthermore, while I understand what Taco Bell is trying to do here (reminding customers that their menu offers lower-calorie items), two things bother me:

1. This campaign is completely carried by a woman, once again reiterating the stereotype that only women care about managing their weight and seeking healthier options
2. All this talk of healthier options is a little silly when you consider that some Fresco items contain half a day’s worth of sodium

Rather than create this gimmick, why didn’t Taco Bell simply advertise their lower-calorie items with a “At Taco Bell, low calories are no problem”-ish campaign?

Source