General Nutrition

Bugs Bunny, always depicted munching on a carrot, may have been onto something. Researchers have found that carrot consumption not only helps insure an adequate intake of a variety of important nutrients and fiber, but may also reduce your risk of chronic disease.

Dagwood Bumstead, the comic-strip character famed for his sandwiches, might want to check his blood pressure. A new analysis of national dietary data by USDA researchers reports that sandwiches account for one-fifth of average sodium intake, a key contributor to hypertension

If a little is good, most Americans are accustomed to thinking, more must be better and a lot must be better still. When it comes to vitamins and minerals, however, it is possible to get too much of a good thing-especially if some of your nutrients are coming from pills instead of food.Remember that most of your vitamin and mineral needs can be safely met by a thoughtful diet, cautions Irwin H. Rosenberg, MD, editor of the Tufts Health & Nutrition Letter. The use of so-called dietary supplements will always be associated with some degree of risk.

New Years brings a brief boost in popularity for black-eyed peas, the key ingredient in the traditional Southern celebratory dish of Hoppin John. But if youre looking for a nutritional bargain, black-eyed peas (aka cowpeas) should be a year-round staple in your pantry.

Q. I read in your newsletter that older people may need more protein than the recommended 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight to maintain muscle mass as they age. How much more, at age 75, might I need? Is 1.0 gram per kilogram of body weight too much?

Q. What are the pros and cons of eating raw fish, as in sushi?

A small pilot study at Tufts Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA) raises the intriguing possibility that following a new behavioral weight-loss program for six months can in turn reprogram your brains food cravings. The first-of-its-kind study used MRI scans of the brains addiction center to see changes in the response to healthy and unhealthy food. The scans showed that it is possible to train the brain to reverse cravings and temptation for unhealthy food, replacing former cravings with temptation for healthy food.

After youve reached a certain age, does eating right really matter? As a reader of this newsletter, you might take it for granted that the answer is, Yes, of course!-after all, you subscribe to a publication whose tagline is Living healthier longer. But exactly how does nutrition affect the health of older individuals?

A recent headline-grabbing study seemed to settle the issue of low-carb versus low-fat diets definitively, reporting that a low-carb diet was not only more effective for weight loss, but also better for cardiovascular risk factors. In the yearlong study of 148 obese volunteers, those assigned to a low-carbohydrate regimen lost nearly eight pounds more and showed greater improvements in triglycerides, HDL cholesterol and a standard risk score for heart disease than a low-fat group. Both groups saw similar decreases in unhealthy LDL cholesterol. Researchers said the cardiovascular findings were notable because of concerns that low-carb diets might boost unhealthy cholesterol levels as dieters substitute fats for carbohydrates.

The ancient Egyptians were onto something when they paid their pyramid-building crews with onions, and placed onions in the tombs of their pharaohs. In the Biblical account of the Exodus, onions are among the Egyptian foods the children of Israel miss. In ancient Greece, Olympians prepared for the games by drinking onion juice and rubbing their bodies with onions.