Diet & Fitness

No wonder there's an obesity crisis. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 80 percent of Americans fail to meet the federal government's physical activity recommendations.

The findings, which are based on data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a yearly phone survey of adults over 18, were recently published in the CDC journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The U.S. government's Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommends that adults walk for at least 2.5 hours per week or jog for at least one hour and 15 minutes a week. In addition to the aerobic exercise, the guidelines recommend Americans complete push-ups, sit-ups or other muscle-strengthening activities on two or more days per week.

According to the report, more people are getting in the suggested amounts of aerobic exercise than are participating in the suggested amount of muscle-strengthening activity.

Researchers in New Jersey say that they have discovered potentially dangerous levels of lead in white rice that has been imported to the United States from various locations around the world.

Dr. Tsanagurayi Tongesayi, an environmental chemistry professor at Monmouth University, said that his team's findings are especially worrisome for Asian-Americans who consume large amounts of rice, and infants and children who are more sensitive to the effects of lead.

Tongesayi added:

"Such findings present a situation that is particularly worrisome given that infants and children are especially vulnerable to the effects of lead poisoning. For infants and children, the daily exposure levels from eating the rice products analyzed in this study would be 30-60 times higher than the FDA's provisional total tolerable intake (PTTI) levels."

The researchers analyzed samples of rice imported to the U.S. from Asia, Europe, and South America, and found that the rice contained between 6 and 12 milligrams per kilogram of lead. This surpasses the Food and Drug Administration's allowable levels.

The highest levels of lead were found in rice imported from Taiwan and China. Significantly high levels of lead were also found in rice imported from the Czech Republic, Bhutan, Italy, India, and Thailand.

A new study suggests that genetic traits may predispose some people to being less motivated for physical hard work, meaning laziness could be written into our DNA.

Scientists were able to selectively breed rats that were either extremely active or extremely lazy, and state that this indicates that genetics plays a role in humans' willingness to exercise.

Study co-author Frank Booth, a professor at Missouri University, says:

According to a new study from researchers at Arcadia University in Glenside, Penn., children who are given bigger plates at meals are more likely to help themselves to larger amounts of food.

For the study, researchers tested 41 kids at a Philadelphia elementary school and examined the relationship between plate size and calories consumed. Lead researcher Katherine DiSantis said:

"We found that children served themselves about 90 more calories when they used the large plate at lunch [compared to a small plate]."

She adds that they often did not finish their second helpings and noted that "they ate approximately half of every additional calorie served themselves."

Scientists from Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center tested the potentially harmful effect of foods and flavors on the DNA of cells and found that liquid smoke flavoring, black and green teas, and coffee activated the highest levels of a gene, p53, that's linked with cancer.

When DNA is damaged, the p53 gene becomes activated. It's gene product makes repair proteins that mend DA. The higher the levels of DNA damage, the more p53 becomes activated.

Scott Kern, M.D. a professor of Oncology and Pathology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, says:

"We don't know much about the foods we eat and how they affect cells in our bodies. But it's clear that plants contain many compounds that are meant to deter humans and animals from eating them, like cellulose in stems and bitter-tasting tannins in leaves and beans we use to make teas and coffees, and their impact needs to be assessed."

Kern and colleagues discovered that liquid smoke flavoring, black and green teas, and coffee showed up to nearly a 30-fold increase in p53 activity, which is on part with tests of p53 activity caused by a chemotherapy drug called etoposide.

The strongest p53 activity was also discovered in two chemicals: pyrogallol and gallic acid. Pyrogallol is commonly found in smoked foods, but is also found in cigarette smoke, hair dye, tea, coffee, bread crust, roasted malt and cocoa powder. Gallic acid, which is a variant of pyrogallol, is found in teas and coffees.

A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that many parents are feeding babies solid foods earlier than the recommended age of six months. Introducing solid foods too soon has been linked with an increased risk of obesity and diabetes, and some chronic diseases.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends solid foods to be introduced at six months old. For the survey, the CDC surveyed 1,334 new mothers.

The study found that 93 percent of American mothers feed their babies solid foods before six months. 40 percent try solids before four months old, and 9 percent introduce solids before 4 weeks old.

The researchers also discovered that poorer, younger and less well educated mothers were more likely to introduce solids too early.

Some of the reasons for this are believed to be that formula is considered as an expensive option, and the myth that babies sleep better if fed solids.

Researchers warn that feeding solids to babies before they are six months old could increase their risk of developing chronic diseases such as diabetes and celiac disease. They also are afraid that introducing solids too early may also increase a child's risk of obesity later in life.

It seems, however, that a lot of the blame for early feeding of solid foods lies not just on mothers, but on their doctors. Kelley Scanlon, lead author and lead epidemiologist in the nutrition branch of the division of nutrition, physical activity and obsesity at the CDC, noted:

"Fifty per cent said that their health care provider told them it was time to introduce solid food. That, for us, indicates that health care providers need to provide clearer guidance and really support women in carrying out the recommendation."

As it turns out, clogged arteries are not a modern-day phenomenon after all. According to researchers who recently embarked on the largest ever hunt for clogged arteries in ancient mummies, people had the condition even as far back as 4,000 years ago.

Researchers say that the findings suggest that heart disease may be a more natural part of human aging than being directly tied to modern risk factors like eating fatty foods, smoking, and not exercising.

Dr. Randall Thompson, the study's lead author and a cardiologist at St. Luke's Mid-America Heart Institute in Kansas City, said:

"Heart disease has been stalking mankind for over 4,000 years all over the globe."

CT scans of 137 mummies showed evidence of atherosclerosis, aka hardened arteries, in one third of those that were examined, including those from ancient people who were thought to have lived healthy lifestyles. More than half of the mummies in the study were from Egypt, while the rest were from a combination of Peru, southwest America, and Alaska's Aleutian islands. All were from about 3800 B.C. to 1900 A.D.

The mummies that were found to have clogged arteries were older at the time of their death than those mummies who were not found to have clogged arteries. Those with clogged arteries were about 43-years-old on average, versus 32 for those without the condition.

A new study from the Mayo Clinic suggests that weight loss study participants who received financial incentives were much more likely to follow the weight loss program strictly, and the researchers noticed a reduction in the body weight when compared to particpants who did not receive any incentisves.

Participants in this study were employees of Mayo Clinic, or their dependents within the age range of 18 to 63 with a body mass index of 30-39.9 kg/m2. They were divided into four groups. Two of the four groups received financial incentives, and two did not.

An adult with a BMI of 30 or more is considered to be obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The participants were told to achieve the goal of losing 4 pounds per month up to a predetermined weight. The researchers kept track of the participants' body weight for nearly one year. Participants in the incentive group were told they would receive $20 per month if they achieved their goal, and those who failed to reach their goal would need to pay $20 each month that gets into the bonus pool. Participants in the incentive groups who finished the study were entitled to win the pool by lottery.

The researchers found that 62 percent of participants in the incentive group achieved their goal, compared to just 26 percent in the non-incentive group. The mean weight in the incentive group was 9.08 pounds, while the mean weight for the non-incentive group was 2.34 pounds.

According to a new study published today in the journal Nature, diets that are high in salt worsen diseases caused by abnormal immune response. In the study, mice fed high-salt diets had a more severe version of an animal form of multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease which affects the central nervous system.

In autoimmune diseases, which include illnesses such as asthma and psoriasis, the system that protects the body from invaders wrongly attacks healthy cells. Autoimmune diseases affect as many as 23.5 million people in the U.S., according to the National Institutes of Health, and their prevalence is rising, although it is not clear why. Scientists suggest it may be due to a combination of genes and environment.

David Hafler, chairman of the department of neurology at Yale School of Medicine of New Haven, Conn., and a study author, said:

“It’s very clear in experimental models in animals that there’s a dramatic effect going from low salt to high salt."

The researchers next step is to investigate a low-salt diet in people.

According to a new government report, children in the United States are now consuming fewer calories each day than they did 12 years ago, which is good news in the war on childhood obesity.

Even better news is that between 1999 and 2010, most boys and girls between the ages of 2 and 19 began getting more of their daily calories from muscle building proteins and fewer from carbohydrates, which can easily encourage weight gain when eaten to excess.

The report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention based its findings on dietary data obtained from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

The results signify a step in the right direction for the U.S., where 17 percent of all children and adolescents are obese. Obesity in childhood is linked to numerous health problems later in life, including diabetes and heart disease.

According to the report, boys' daily calorie consumption on average fell from 2,258 calories in 1999-2000 to about 2,100 on average in 2009-2010. Similarly, girls' caloric intake fell form 1,831 calories to 1,755 during the same time periods.