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Growing evidence that highly processed and refined foods are the leading contributor to rising obesity rates in the Western world is backed by a year-long study of the dietary habits of 9,341 Australians.

Because so much of modern diets consist of highly processed and refined foods – which are low in protein – people are driven to consume more energy-dense foods until they satisfy their protein demand.

The researchers found that repeat SARS-CoV-2 infections contribute significant additional risk of adverse health conditions in multiple organ systems.

Such outcomes include hospitalization; disorders affecting the lungs, heart, brain, and the body’s blood, musculoskeletal and gastrointestinal systems; and even death. Reinfection also contributes to diabetes, kidney disease and mental health issues.

The findings are published Nov. 10 in Nature Medicine.

Stephen J. Carter, a cardiovascular physiologist at the Indiana University Bloomington School of Public Health, said that shorter, more intense workouts are better than longer, less intense workouts at lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease and reducing overall mortality rates.

One of Mr. Howell’s favorite full-body, no-equipment, time-efficient workouts is simple and can be scaled to any fitness level or ability.

The workout is: Five body weight squats, five push-ups and a 30-second plank — repeated six times, resting for no more than 30 seconds between rounds. If you can’t do a push-up on the floor, do it against a countertop or a stable bench. You can modify the plank by putting your knees on the floor or doing a standing plank by placing your forearms on the wall.

Summary: Based on the criteria set for tobacco addiction, a new study reports that highly-processed foods can be addictive.

Source: University of Michigan

“Of note, there is no biomarker in the brain that tells us whether something is addictive or not,” Gearhardt said. “Identifying that tobacco products were addictive really boiled down to these four criteria, (which) have stood up to decades of scientific evaluation. Highly processed foods meet every single one of these criteria.”

DiFeliceantonio said the ability of highly processed foods to rapidly deliver unnaturally high doses of refined carbohydrates and fat appear key to their addictive potential.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/49103

Hypothesis is a new effort to implement an old idea: A conversation layer over the entire web that works everywhere, without needing implementation by any underlying site.

Using annotation, this enables sentence-level note taking or critique on top of classroom reading, news, blogs, scientific articles, books, terms of service, ballot initiatives, legislation and more. Everything built is guided by Hypothesis' principles, in particular that it be free, open, neutral, and lasting to name a few.

The group feature is great for groups of students or researchers working together. Features include highlighting text, annotating specific text, or leaving page notes which are not anchored to any text. I see there are some independent mobile apps available too.

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The researchers focused on one particular fat found in the blood of the mice fed a ketogenic diet: palmitic acid, which is commonly found in animal fats and dairy products. Remarkably, mice fed a normal diet who were injected with palmitic acid also became more susceptible to sepsis.

In this study, Napier and colleagues learned that palmitic acid can trigger trained immunity. The fat acts as a "brief pulse of inflammation" that alters the function of stem cells in the mouse's bone marrow so that they produce more inflammatory innate immune cells in the future. This means that when the innate immune system encounters a second inflammation stimulus later on, it responds much more strongly. Sometimes, as in the case of sepsis, this response is too strong.

It's this double-edged sword where if you have exposure to high fat and then exposure to a disease where more inflammation exacerbates the disease, then it's a bad thing," says Napier. "But if you're in the context where you eat high fat and then you get an infection and more inflammation helps you clear infection quicker, it's a good thing.

Adding cinnamon to your coffee "doesn't have to be a seasonal tradition," and the benefits may have you making it a common occurrence, she continues. "Cinnamon boosts thermogenesis in the body, which in turn, results in more calories burned," Richards explains.

Patients who took a daily dose of the drug, baxdrostat, were able to reduce their blood pressure substantially, compared to a people who got a placebo, according to the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the American Heart Association annual meeting on Monday. The new type of oral medication works by targeting a hormone that regulates the amount of salt in the body.

The compound is called tetrataenite, and the fact that scientists have found a way to make it in a lab is a huge deal. If synthetic tetrataenite works in industrial applications, it could make green energy technologies significantly cheaper. It could also roil the market in rare earths, currently dominated by China, and create a seismic shift in the industrial balance between China and the West.