Healthy Food: Organic food keeps you healthy and slim - The Times of India

Organic food keeps you healthy and slim - The Times of India: "Fruit and vegetables grown without artificial fertilizers have significantly more key nutrients, including vitamin C.

As a result, going organic can extend average lifespan, typically by 25 days for men and 17 days for women.

'But a lucky few could live for many months longer and some for up to five years more,' suggest the researchers.

The University of Newcastle study argues it is on a par with the benefit for the country from the national breast cancer-screening programme, reports the Daily Mail.

It also suggests eating organic is likely to improve general health, highlighting the higher levels of compounds which encourage the body to burn fat. This can help devotees shed the pounds.

The conclusion challenges the Food Standards Agency, which has long dismissed the health gains of organic food.

Lead researcher Dr Kirsten Brandt, a senior lecturer in food quality and health, said, 'The figures represent a 'best guess' based on all available information. She suggested most people probably would not live any longer but a lucky few could add many months, and even up to five years, to their lives.'"

Junk food addicts show same brain activity as drug addicts - Yahoo!

Junk food addicts show same brain activity as drug addicts - Yahoo!:

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"'If food cues take on enhanced motivational properties in a manner analogous to drug cues, efforts to change the current food environment may be critical to successful weight loss and prevention efforts,' reads the study. 'Ubiquitous food advertising and the availability of inexpensive palatable foods may make it extremely difficult to adhere to healthier food choices because the omnipresent food cues trigger the reward system.'
Researchers from The Scripps Research Institute in Florida came to similar conclusions last year when they found that overconsumption of high-calorie foods can trigger addiction-like responses in the brain. The study, which used lab rats, could help in understanding obesity as a food addiction and in developing therapies for it, researchers said."

Fast food breakfast? Think twice about having that coffee - The Globe and Mail

Fast food breakfast? Think twice about having that coffee - The Globe and Mail by Erin Anderssen

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Researchers at the University of Guelph say that eating saturated fat makes it harder for the body to clear sugar from the blood - drinking coffee, even a couple of hours later, only makes that job harder.

"This shows that the effect of a high-fat meal can last for hours," said Marie-Soleil Beaudoin, a PhD student who conducted the study with University of Guelph professors Lindsay Robinson and Terry Graham.

In the study, published in the Journal of Nutrition, participants were given a special fat beverage, and then asked to eat a meal with a sugar drink six hours later. Typically, the body should produce insulin to remove sugar from the blood. (People with diabetes do not produce enough insulin.)

But with the high-fat beverage in their system, the blood sugar levels in participants were 32 per cent higher than those who had not consumed any fat.

And in the second part of the experiment, when participants were also asked to drink two cups of coffee five hours after the fatty drink and then down a sugar beverage, blood sugar levels were 65 per cent higher than the control group.

"Having sugar remain in our blood for long periods is unhealthy because it can take a toll on our organs," said Ms. Beaudoin, in a release from the university.

The study, she said, stresses the need for people at risk of diabetes or with the disease to avoid both high-fat foods and limit their caffeine.