Healthy Fast Food Choices?

It may be easier than it once was to find quick-service choices that fit into a healthy dietary pattern.

Fast food restaurants are relatively inexpensive, consistent, quick, familiar, and, for the most part, challenging places to eat if one wants to follow a healthy diet.

Leptin Discovery

More than 20 years after the discovery of the so-called “obesity hormone” leptin, a team at Tufts may have at last found this important compound’s target in the brain. In the 1960s, researchers made a surprising discovery: There was a biological mechanism behind the ravenous appetites of obese mice. Labs around the world immediately set out to find out what was making these mice so hungry.

Body Weight and Heart Health

Weight alone does not necessarily predict cardiovascular health.

Excess body weight increases risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD), as well as type 2 diabetes, certain cancers, and many other illnesses. However, not everyone who is overweight or obese develops these illnesses; and simply having a “normal” body weight or body mass index (BMI)–a measure of body weight relative to height–is no guarantee of low risk.

Too Much Sitting at Home Linked to Risk of Death

A recent review of prospective data published in the American Journal of Epidemiology provides one more excellent reason to get up and get moving. The study analyzed data from over 127,000 American men and women with a median age of around 20 years and followed up for 21 years.

Fabulous Fermented Foods

These trendy (but ancient) foods have potential health benefits.

Fermented foods may be the oldest “new” food trend around. The process is as old as civilization itself, and fermented foods are consumed in nearly every culture in the world. While researchers attempt to tease out how the changes caused by fermentation actually impact health, many not-fully-substantiated health claims are being made. Let’s take a look at what we know, and don’t know, about these promising (and tasty) foods.

The Impact of School Food Policies

Childhood obesity in the U.S. has more than tripled since the 1970s. According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 1 in 5 school-age children and young people (6 to 19 years) in the United States is classified as obese. What’s more, studies show that most children and adolescents don’t meet dietary recommendations, and metabolic problems like diabetes and high blood pressure are showing up earlier than ever before. “Eating healthier from a younger age can help prevent the onset of diet-related disease,” says Renata Micha, PhD, a research associate professor at Tufts’ Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy who researches the impact of school food policies. “Most of our eating habits are developed early in life. The sooner you start eating healthier, the greater the health benefits you will accrue over time.”

Red Lentils with Lime and Cilantro