By Anna Brillon on September 14, 2011.

An award-winning app recognized by the Cleanweb Hackathon transforms ordinary produce shops into a virtual marketplace. Named ‘Freshlist,’ this app created by Joshua Rosen and Hoa Hyun gives fruit and vegetable sellers an effective means of making sales. At the same time, Freshlist also helps buyers find what they’re looking for, at a location that is most convenient for them to access.

This article titled “Jamie Oliver calls for global action to tackle obesity” was written by Robin McKie, for The Observer on Saturday 3rd September 2011 23.07 UTC

Levels of obesity across the globe are reaching epidemic proportions, according to medical experts. Now the crisis is to be the focus of a major debate at a UN medical conference in New York.

A coalition of nutrition and health experts – ranging from celebrity chef Jamie Oliver to former government chief scientist Sir David King – are urging western nations to play a key role in halting the dramatic rise in numbers of obese people across the planet.

“There seems to be a trend with developing countries wanting to follow in the footsteps of the western world, and copy their patterns of fast food and consumerism,” Oliver told the One Young World conference in Switzerland on Friday. The phenomenon was a particular problem in India, South America and the Middle East, he said. Oliver added: “Pre-packed convenience food is seen as a symbol of being ‘modern’ in developing countries, but the problems it causes are long-term, and costly.” “Diet-related diseases are two of the top five causes of premature death for people under 60 years old. They look set to create an absolute catastrophe over the next 30 to 40 years if nothing changes.”

Oliver’s aim is to encourage heads of state and the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, to “sit up and take notice” at a summit on non-communicable disease in New York on 20 September. He called for a “global movement to make obesity a human rights issue” and urged a million people to sign a petition. Oliver also urged countries to hold on to their national dishes, and for recipes to pass from generation to generation, saying: “I believe that together we can make some real noise ahead of this meeting of experts.”

The attempt to generate a global debate on the crisis is backed by King, who wrote in the Lancet recently: “We need changes in many aspects of our environment to avoid the morbid consequences of overweight and obesity. This change will require global political leadership across public policy, considerably broader than that of health policy, and far better monitoring.”

King also called for the issue to be a major focus for debate at the UN summit. “By 2050, 60% of men and 50% of women could be clinically obese,” he wrote. “Without action, obesity-related diseases will cost the UK £45bn a year. Research and action should therefore be undertaken to avoid what could develop into a massive problem, not just for the UK, but also globally.”

The danger posed by rising obesity numbers has been highlighted by the World Health Organisation (WHO). “It is not uncommon to find under-nutrition and obesity existing side-by-side within the same country, within the same community, and the same household,” it states. According to WHO, 65% of the world’s population now lives in countries where overweight and obesity kills more people than underweight. However, it is the latter problem that attracts the headlines because it poses an immediate and life-threatening danger.

“With our western-style diets, our biggest problems are a direct result of what the experts call ‘bad feeding’ – which basically means eating a load of rubbish, highly processed food that’s jammed full of salt, fats, sugars, additives, and cheap processed meats,” Oliver said. “Governments around the world like it when food is cheap and shops are full, but they’re achieving this by allowing big businesses to pump out this sort of food and drink in mass volumes.”

Several factors are blamed on the rise of obesity: these include an increase in car use, shifts away from manual labour, the rise in urban living and the availability of cheap, high-calorie convenience foods.King stressed that the current obesity epidemic was not caused by people being lazy or overeating and highlighted previous research which showed that individuals had much less choice in the matter of their weight than they would assume.

“Our biology has stepped out of kilter with society,” he said. “Most adults in the UK are already overweight and modern living ensures every generation is heavier than the last. This is known as passive obesity.”

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

Aug. 19, 2011 — Eating or drinking protein after exercise can help muscle recovery and growth, experts agree. What’s still debated is which proteins work best.

Whey protein appears to be better than casein protein, according to new research that looked at exercisers doing resistance training. “A whey protein shake would probably be better than a casein protein shake,” says researcher Daniel W.D. West, a PhD student at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

And a separate study shows that protein that includes a higher concentration of the amino acid leucine works better than protein with lower concentrations. It looked exercisers who did aerobic workouts. “It appears more leucine is beneficial in the context of muscle recovery,” says researcher Stefan M. Pasiakos, PhD, a research physiologist with the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine. Both studies are published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Why Protein After Exercise?

As you exercise, muscles undergo a cycle of breakdown during the workout followed by remodeling and growth afterward. Recently, high-protein drinks have become more popular. They are used during and after exercise to get the best muscle growth and recovery. Researchers have been studying which combination of proteins is most helpful.

Protein After Resistance Exercise

West and his colleagues wanted to see if one large dose of whey protein taken right after a workout would be better than several smaller doses, spaced out over time.The smaller doses of whey taken over a longer time period made the protein behave more like another protein, casein, he says. Both whey are casein are found in milk.”Casein is digested slowly,” West tells WebMD, “whereas whey is digested very rapidly.”They used the smaller doses of whey to mimic the casein. So the one-time dose of whey was compared to several doses of whey.

The researchers gave both the one-time dose and the repeated doses to eight men, average age 22, during two different workouts. The men took the protein after doing eight sets of eight to 10 repetitions on a leg extension machine.

”What we did in this study is compare whey — 25 grams — like [what is in] a typical protein shake — and compare it to 25 grams of whey, but ingested in little 2.5 gram shots.”Taking the large dose right after the workout worked better. The amino acid concentrations in the blood were higher after one big dose.

West speculates as to why. “Whey is high in leucine and the fact that it is rapidly digested means there is a rapid appearance of essential amino acids, including leucine,” he says. Those amino acids, he says, act as a signal to elevate muscle protein synthesis — crucial for ongoing growth, repair, and maintenance of muscles.

In the second study, Pasiakos and his team also looked at seven men and one woman. All were active duty military. The average age was 24 On two occasions, they rode an exercise bike for an hour at moderate intensity. During both workouts, they drank a high-protein beverage with 10 grams of protein. The concentration of the amino acid leucine in the drink was different for the two sessions. “One drink had about 19% leucine, the other 35%.” The muscle response to the higher concentration was 33% better, he says.

Protein After Exercise: Advice for Exercisers

The findings should be repeated in other research, says Felicia Stoler, RD, a nutritionist and exercise physiologist. She reviewed the study findings for WebMD but was not involved in either study.

The findings, she says, are not a reason to overdo protein after exercise. “Some protein for repair is good but not excess. I always have to caution about protein. People think they need way more than they do.”

According to a position paper issued in 2009 by the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Dietetic Association, daily protein for endurance and strength-trained athletes ranges from 0.5 to 0.8 grams per pound of body weight. A 120-pound person would need about 60 grams or more. A 150-pound person would need 75 grams or more. A serving of whey protein powder has about 23 grams of protein.

by Bob Calvin, MS, RD, CSSD, LD/N, CSCS and Denise Barry, RD
Performance Nutritionists – Athletes Performance

Mild traumatic brain injuries, or as they are more commonly known concussions, have been a hot topic lately within the sporting world. According to the Brain Injury Research Institute, headed by one of the leading researchers in the field, Dr. Julian Bailes, “approximately 1.6-3.8 million sports and recreation related concussions are estimated to occur annually in the United States” (1). As we are coming to learn this is a very serious matter that cannot be taken lightly.

When the brain undergoes a concussive impact or force, neurons, the main functional cells of the brain, are damaged. The neuron’s axon, or tail, undergoes swelling and detachment from soma, or cell body. Leakage of calcium and other chemical messengers into the synaptic space can then occur through damage in the axon’s membrane. This leakage can lead to disruptions in cellular metabolism, glucose utilization, neuron communication and ultimately apoptosis, or cell death (2).

This all sounds very grave, so you might be asking yourself, is there anything that can be done to protect against / minimize damage, or accelerate the healing process? According to the research, the answer may be yes, and may very well lie within that fish oil capsule you have sitting in your medicine cabinet.

Supplementing with omega-3 fatty acids post traumatic brain injury, particularly DHA (the most abundant omega-3 found in the neuronal membrane) has been shown to produce neuroprotective effects in rats. These essential omega-3 fats appear to enhance phospholipid production (the primary constituent of the cellular membrane), nerve growth and circulation, while at the same time combating chronic inflammation (2).

Do not let this information limit your omega-3 supplementation to post injury, as there is also compelling preliminary research in the rat model for supplementing prior to a potential injury. In a recent paper, Mills and colleagues showed that DHA supplementation prior to a traumatic brain injury in rats significantly reduced axonal injury and apoptosis while improving memory function when compared to controls (3).

This preliminary research in the animal model is quite convincing, nevertheless, more studies need to done on the human population to really determine the need and dosing for omega-3s. Currently, the most frequently recommended dose of supplemental omega-3 for overall health is 1-3 total grams of EPA/DHA per day (2). Now go take your fish oil!

References:
Gail Hayes. CDC Announces Updated Information to help Physicians Recognize and Manage Concussions Early. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/media/pressrel/2007/r070607.htm?s_cid=mediarel_r070607. Accessed October 26, 2009.

Bailes, JE, Mills, JD. Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) Reduces Traumatic Axonal Injury in a Rodent Head Injury Model. Journal of Neurotrauma.

Mills JD, Hadley K, Bailes JE. Dietary supplementation with the omega-3 fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid in traumatic brain injury. Neurosurgery. 2011 Feb;68(2):474-81; discussion 481.

Skip the Diet Coke. Tea may be the ultimate weight-loss drink. When Taiwanese researchers studied more than 1,100 people over a 10-year period, they determined that those who drank black, green, or oolong tea one or more times a week had 20 percent less body fat than those who drank none. “Tea extracts may decrease intestinal glucose and lipid absorption, while increasing the basal metabolic rate,” says Chih-Hsing Wu, M.D., the lead author. Of course, when the researchers talk about tea, they don’t mean the sugar-laden stuff. Take yours as unsweetened as you can stand. 

Make your vitamin D supplement work even harder. Taking it with your biggest meal of the day boosts the vitamin’s absorption.

Not getting enough vitamin D? Instead of taking it on an empty stomach or with a light meal, down your vitamin D supplement with the biggest meal of the day. According to a recent study at the Cleveland Clinic, taking vitamin D with large meals can significantly boost its absorption. Researchers selected 17 men and women who had low levels of vitamin D, despite taking supplements, and instructed them to take their pill with their biggest meal. After two to three months, participants’ vitamin D levels had increased by 50%. Vitamin D deficiency is associated with high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis and some autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus erythematosis.

Clinical trials of vitamin D with calcium supplementation have demonstrated a benefit by reducing fractures related to osteoporosis. This is an evolving field of study with many more trials needed to show benefit or lack thereof as it relates to other conditions and diseases. Check with your doctor to find out if you should consider taking vitamin D supplements.

Stay full for longer: Include protein and complex carbs in every meal and snack. Think peanut butter on toast or turkey-Swiss roll-ups.

When it comes to successful dieting, what you eat is just as important as how much you eat. That’s because the two often go hand in hand. Choosing foods with protein and fiber can help keep you fuller for longer, so you’ll be less likely to snack. Anything that takes a longer time to digest will move more slowly through your system, giving you sustained energy and satiety. As we all know, being overly hungry can make us grumpy, irritable, anxious — and prone to gargantuan snack attacks. Try to include some protein and complex carbohydrates in each meal and snack.

The percentage of obese girls in the United States increased more than twice as much as the percentage of obese boys from 2003 to 2007, according to a study by researchers at the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). 

The study, Changes in State-Specific Childhood Obesity and Overweight Prevalence in the United States from 2003 to 2007,  is the first to examine changes in obesity and overweight prevalence rates on a state-by-state basis. It confirmed some previously known risk factors for obesity in children and found a relatively higher prevalence of obesity and overweight children and adolescents in the South.

The findings, published Monday in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, show that while obesity prevalence among all children increased by 10 percent nationwide from 14.8% in 2003 to 16.4% in 2007, it increased by 18% for female children.

States such as Mississippi, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana and Tennessee were in the top 20 percent of childhood obesity rates with prevalence exceeding 20%, while states such as Oregon and Wyoming in the Western region had the lowest obesity rates with a prevalence of about 10%. The geographic disparities in obesity prevalence increased between 2003 and 2007.

Children in several states in the South are at twice the risk of becoming obese than children in Oregon, which had the lowest prevalence rate said the study’s lead author, Dr. Gopal K. Singh, of HRSA’s Maternal and Child Health Bureau.

If geographic disparities continue to rise, they could have negative effects on any future efforts to reduce health inequalities, Singh added.

The study based on children aged 10 to 17 was the first to present geographic differences over time among individual states and used extensive individual, household, and neighborhood data from two large, nationally representative cross-sectional surveys conducted under the overall direction and sponsorship from HRSA and conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study also analyzed overweight prevalence among children and adolescents.

Study findings included the following:

• While overweight prevalence among the total population did not increase significantly between 2003 and 2007, it increased 9 percent among female children.

• Overweight prevalence varied from a low of 23.1 percent in Utah to a high of 44.5 percent in Mississippi.

• Obesity prevalence nearly doubled among female children in Arizona and Kansas.

The authors are recommending that prevention programs not only aim to reduce physical inactivity and screening time,  but also include policies that improve the broader social and physical environments that put children at higher risk of poor diet, inactivity and sedentary activities.