Category: Nutrition

Foods rich in this vitamin will improve muscle mass and prevent age-related muscle loss.

People with the best muscle mass tend to get lots of vitamin C, a study reveals.

Vitamin C is found in vegetables like red bell pepper and broccoli, citrus fruits including oranges, berries, cantaloupe, melon, and kiwi.

Vitamin C is crucial for building muscle and maintaining it as we get older, particularly over the age of 50.

Losing skeletal muscle mass is typical in older people which often results in a condition called sarcopenia.

Sarcopenia or muscles wasting can even effect persons in their 30s and those who have an inactive life.

The symptoms are decline in muscle size and function, weakness, difficulty with movement, poor balance, and so poor quality of life.

Professor Ailsa Welch, the study’s lead author, said:

“As people age, they lose skeletal muscle mass and strength.

People over 50 lose up to one percent of their skeletal muscle mass each year, and this loss is thought to affect more than 50 million people worldwide.

It’s a big problem, because it can lead to frailty and other poor outcomes such as sarcopenia, physical disability, type-2 diabetes, reduced quality of life and death.

We know that Vitamin C consumption is linked with skeletal muscle mass.

It helps defend the cells and tissues that make up the body from potentially harmful free radical substances.

Unopposed these free radicals can contribute to the destruction of muscle, thus speeding up age-related decline.

But until now, few studies have investigated the importance of Vitamin C intake for older people.

We wanted to find out whether people eating more Vitamin C had more muscle mass than other people.”

Researchers analysed data on 13,000 adult aged between 42 and 82 who participated in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition study.

Along with calculating the participants’ skeletal muscle mass, their blood vitamin C levels were tested and their vitamin C intake was estimated using a seven-day food record.

Dr Richard Hayhoe, study co-author, said:

“We studied a large sample of older Norfolk residents and found that people with the highest amounts of vitamin C in their diet or blood had the greatest estimated skeletal muscle mass, compared to those with the lowest amounts.

We are very excited by our findings as they suggest that dietary vitamin C is important for muscle health in older men and women and may be useful for preventing age-related muscle loss.

This is particularly significant as Vitamin C is readily available in fruits and vegetables, or supplements, so improving intake of this vitamin is relatively straightforward.

We found that nearly 60 percent of men and 50 percent of women participants were not consuming as much Vitamin C as they should, according to the European Food Safety Agency recommendations.

We’re not talking about people needing mega-doses.

Eating a citrus fruit, such as an orange, each day and having a vegetable side to a meal will be sufficient for most people.”

The study was published in Journal of Nutrition (Lewis et al., 2020).

One way of brewing coffee increases the chance of heart attacks while another leads to longevity.

Methods for brewing coffee can strongly influence the risk of heart disease and life expectancy.

According to scientists, the healthiest way to make a coffee is a filtered brew because it lowers the risk of death from cardiovascular disease and heart attacks.

Unlike filtered coffee, an unfiltered brew is linked to more heart attacks and death from heart disease.

Professor Dag S. Thelle, study co-author, said:

“Our study provides strong and convincing evidence of a link between coffee brewing methods, heart attacks and longevity.

Unfiltered coffee contains substances which increase blood cholesterol.

Using a filter removes these and makes heart attacks and premature death less likely.”

Coffee is not only a popular drink but also the most commonly used stimulant and most likely the safest one.

Professor Thelle, through his work 30 years ago, found that coffee consumption elevates levels of total cholesterol and the “bad” cholesterol (low-density lipoprotein) in such a way that can damage the heart.

With more research, Professor Thelle and colleagues detected substances such as diterpenes kahweol and cafestol in coffee, that are responsible for the damage but can be removed by a filter.

In contrast to filtered coffee, a cup of unfiltered coffee has a 30 times higher amount of lipid-raising diterpenes kahweol and cafestol.

Professor Thelle siad:

“We wondered whether this effect on cholesterol would result in more heart attacks and death from heart disease.

But it was unethical to do a trial randomising people to drink coffee or not.

So we set up a large population study and several decades later we are reporting the results.”

They enrolled more than half a million healthy Norwegian adults from 1985 to 2003.

Their data show that drinking coffee was generally a safe habit and actually a filtered brew was healthier compared to not having coffee.

Drinking filtered coffee was associated with a decreased risk of death from any cause by 15 percent.

It also reduced the risk of dying from heart disease by 20 percent in women and 12 percent in men.

The lowest death rate was observed amongst participants who had 1 to 4 cups of filtered coffee daily.

Unfiltered coffee was linked to an increased risk of death from heart disease, heart attacks, and any cause compared to filtered brew.

Professor Thelle said:

“Our analysis shows that this was partly because of the cholesterol-increasing effect of unfiltered coffee.

For people who know they have high cholesterol levels and want to do something about it, stay away from unfiltered brew, including coffee made with a cafetière.

For everyone else, drink your coffee with a clear conscience and go for filtered.”

The study was published in European Journal of Preventive Cardiology (Tverdal et al., 2020).

Research reveals if the ‘sugar rush’ is real.

The so-called ‘sugar rush’ is a complete myth, new research finds.

Sugar has almost no effect on mood.

In fact, it makes people feel more tired and less alert.

Within 30 minutes of eating sugary foods, or other carbohydrate heavy foods, people feel more tired.

Within 60 minutes of eating sugar or other carbs, people feel less alert.

The conclusions come from a review of 31 separate studies including almost 1,300 people.

The studies looked at sugar’s effect on different aspects of mood, including alertness, depression, anger and fatigue.

The results showed that:

• Sugar had almost no effect on mood, no matter how much people consume.
• The idea of a sugar rush is a total myth.
• After eating sugar, people are less alert and more tired than those who had not consumed it.

Dr Konstantinos Mantantzis, the study’s first author, said:

“The idea that sugar can improve mood has been widely influential in popular culture, so much so that people all over the world consume sugary drinks to become more alert or combat fatigue.

Our findings very clearly indicate that such claims are not substantiated — if anything, sugar will probably make you feel worse.”

Dr Sandra Sünram-Lea, study co-author, said:

“The rise in obesity, diabetes and metabolic syndrome in recent years highlights the need for evidence-based dietary strategies to promote healthy lifestyle across the lifespan.

Our findings indicate that sugary drinks or snacks do not provide a quick ‘fuel refill’ to make us feel more alert.”

The study was published in the journal Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews (Mantantzis et al., 2019).

Moving to this diet can put brain health in jeopardy and increase the risk of nutrient deficiency.

A vegan diet can increase the risk of brain malnutrition and damage due to lack of essential nutrients, new research finds.

While a plant-based diet is an effective way to combat heart disease and cancer and it supports environmental sustainability, there are dangers.

Choline is mainly found in meat and, like omega-3 fatty acids, is an essential nutrient that has to be obtained from food.

This vitamin-like essential nutrient is also produced by the liver, but the amount is too small to fulfill the body’s requirements.

Choline is part of lecithin which is known for its effect in treating memory disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

Egg yolk, beef, fish, chicken, wheat germ, soy beans, dairy products, peanuts, almonds are good source of this nutrient and smaller amounts are found in broccoli, cauliflower, spinach and baked beans.

For example, 100g of cooked beef liver provides 431mg of choline, one boiled egg provides nearly 150mg of choline, and 100g cod fish provides 84mg of choline.

Whereas, 100g of broccoli contains 40mg of choline, 100g of baked beans contains 31mg, and a 100g of spinach contains 25mg of choline.

Promoting healthy plant-based foods to protect the environment is important, but restricting eggs, animal protein, and dairy can reduce choline and other essential nutrients.

According to the US Institute of Medicine the minimum daily intake of choline for men is 550mg and 425mg for women.

Pregnant and breastfeeding women require at least 450mg and 550mg choline per day respectively, due to the crucial role of this nutrient in infant development.

Despite these daily requirements, national dietary surveys show that choline intake on average is low in the US, Europe and Australia.

Choline is not only essential for brain health but also influences liver function as shortfalls in this nutrient can cause cell damage and irregularities in fat metabolism.

These insights come from a study authored by Dr Emma Derbyshire who said:

“This is….concerning given that current trends appear to be towards meat reduction and plant-based diets.”

Currently, choline is excluded from UK dietary guidelines, food composition databases and dietary surveys.

Dr Derbyshire said:

“Given the important physiological roles of choline and authorisation of certain health claims, it is questionable why choline has been overlooked for so long in the UK.

More needs to be done to educate healthcare professionals and consumers about the importance of a choline-rich diet, and how to achieve this.

If choline is not obtained in the levels needed from dietary sources per se then supplementation strategies will be required, especially in relation to key stages of the life cycle, such as pregnancy, when choline intakes are critical to infant development.”

The study was published in the journal BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health (Derbyshire, 2019).