Medical research comes through for us
I was reading my morning papers yesterday, The Wall Street Journal (hard-copy edition) and the New York Times breaking news (on my Kindle). I came across a June 23, 2011, WSJ article titled "You Say Potato, Scale Says Uh-Oh." It detailed a recent research study online in a prominent medical journal. The premise was what you choose to eat will determine what happens to your weight over a four-year period.
The overall conclusion, once again, is picking healthier items for your diet leads to less weight gain. Most American adults gain a pound a year, but if they add a serving of French Fries on a daily basis, they'll gain more (3.35 pounds). The NEJM said the participants in three huge studies (a total of 120,877 U.S. men and women who were free of chronic diseases and non-obese at the start of the studies), gained most if the extra item was potato chips, and lost weight if it was yogurt. The list, after chips, in deceasing correlation to weight gain included potatoes, sugar-sweetened beverages and unprocessed red meat or processed meat.
Negative numbers were noted for the addition of vegetables, whole grains, fruits, nuts and then yogurt. Other lifestyle influences were examined. If one of the subjects exercised regularly, they lost weight; if they watched much TV, they gained pounds.
So what's new here? Huge studies over lengthy time periods + a few different conclusions.
The study's co-author, Dr. Walter Willet, the chairman of Epidemiology and Nutrition at Harvard's School of Public Health was interviewed on NPR New's program "All Things Considered." He commented that highly refined foods-sugar-added beverages and potatoes, white rice and white bread-were related to greater weight gain. The presumption is these foods are rapidly broken down into sugar, absorbed and then quickly removed by the action of insulin. So if you eat these things, in a short while you're hungry again.
high-protein Greek-style yogurt
Nuts have fat, but keep us satiated for a prolonged time. Yogurt was a surprise to the research group (we're talking about natural yogurt without added sugar) and the mechanism for its influence on weight is unclear, but may relate to the healthy bacteria included.
The bottom line may be just because some foods contain fat, doesn't necessarily mean they'll be fattening. On the other hand, foods that keep us satisfied for a longer time may help us control our overall calorie intake over the long haul.