General Nutrition

Popular coverage of diet and weight-loss strategies often summarizes the bottom line with a twist on President Bill Clintons campaign mantra, Its the economy, stupid. When it comes to managing your weight, as this line of thinking goes, Its the calories, stupid.But a new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition challenges this conventional wisdom. It builds on earlier work that suggests all calories are not the same, says Dariush Mozaffarian, MD, DrPH, dean of Tufts Friedman School and senior author of the study. All foods have complex mechanisms that help or hinder weight long-term. The simple math of calories in versus calories burned is true if youre testing food in a test tube. But human beings are not just inert buckets to put calories in.

A newly published followup to findings from a study of the so-called Mediterranean diet adds to the evidence that such an eating pattern, especially when it includes nuts and olive oil, may help protect the aging brain. Results from a subgroup of the Spanish PREDIMED study showed that those assigned to a Mediterranean diet held steady in cognition while a control group declined. While previous observational studies have linked a traditional Mediterranean-style dietary pattern to cognitive protection, this is the first such evidence from a large randomized clinical trial.

Eating a more plant-based diet could reduce your risk of colorectal cancer-and especially so if it includes regular consumption of fish. Surprisingly, the latest findings from the Adventist Health Study-2 report that pescovegetarians-people who are otherwise vegetarians but also eat fish at least once a month-were at the lowest risk of such cancers. Adding fish to a vegetarian diet was associated with less risk than any other type of vegetarian diet, including a vegan regimen.

Reduced sodium or low sodium-The term reduced means a product has 25% less sodium than the same food with a normal amount, so a reduced sodium choice is better than a conventional one. But even reduced sodium foods may be higher in sodium than those labeled low sodium, which can contain no more than 140 milligrams per serving. A reduced sodium can of beans, for example, should contain 25% less than the 311 milligrams of sodium found in a serving-233 milligrams, more than the low sodium limit. Check the Nutrition Facts panel to see what youre really getting.

The USDA has specific rules governing the use of familiar terms such as fresh and free range when labeling meat and poultry products:

A trip to the supermarket can feel like running a gauntlet of buzzwords. This product promises its reduced sodium, while that one is natural and gluten-free. Is a food made with extra fiber better than excellent source of fiber, or vice versa? Just how low in calories does a food have to be to boast that its low-calorie-and should you pick that label over one thats lower calorie or light?

Americans are snacking more than ever, and for the first time in years the trend favors indulgent over healthier snacks. Data from market-research firm IRI showed sales for indulgent snacks rose 3.1% in 2014 compared to the previous year, while healthier snack choices rose only 2.5%. IRI reported that 59% of consumers say they indulge when they snack, with splurges on fatty, salty and sugary snacks such as jerky, baked goods and the fast-growing category of refrigerated meat and cheese wraps. The firm attributed the trend to efforts by food marketers to make indulgent snacks more permissible by making claims about fiber content, energy benefits and natural and hormone-free products.

Emeril Lagasse and Bobby Flay may not know best, at least when it comes to your waistline. If you try to emulate your favorite celebrity chefs, according to findings in the journal Appetite, those cooking shows may be making you fat. Cornell University researchers reported that women who get their recipes from TV cooking programs and cooked from scratch weighed an average 11 pounds more than those who watched but didnt follow up in the kitchen. (Most studies show people who cook from scratch are less likely to be overweight.) Cooking recipes from TV shows was also associated with a higher BMI, 27.48 versus 25.66, among the studys 501 women, ages 20-35. Cooking from scratch with recipes sourced from print or online, however, was not associated with greater weight or BMI.

Consumers looking for more of the healthy monounsaturated fats found in olive oil may soon be able to reach for a handful of peanuts. USDA and Oklahoma State University scientists have cultivated a new Spanish peanut variety, dubbed OL, that is high in oleic acid, the monounsaturated fat touted in the so-called Mediterranean diet. The new peanut, which will go into commercial production later this year, also has a longer shelf life and is resistant to Sclerotinia blight, a soilborne fungal disease blamed for crop losses of up to 50% in some areas. About half the fat in regular peanuts is monounsaturated, primarily oleic acid; previously developed high-oleic varieties have boosted that to over 80%. (For more on peanuts health benefits, see story in this issue.)

An apple a day doesnt really help keep the doctor away, according to research in a special April Fools issue of JAMA Internal Medicine. The light-hearted but genuine study looked at data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) on almost 8,400 people. There was no significant difference between non-apple eaters and those eating at least one small apple per day in keeping the doctor away, defined as more than one self-reported visit to a physician during the past year. The same was true of overnight hospital stays and visits to a mental health professional, although apple eaters were slightly less likely to need prescription medications.For a serious look at the health benefits of apples, see our January 2013 issue.