Todays Newsbites

Worried about drinking enough water? Our Special Report on hydration in the June newsletter should help. And there's also this update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, published just after we went to press: Most Americans are getting roughly enough fluids, though only about a third comes in the healthiest form of plain water.

Even just walking to the bus stop or train station might help commuters control their weight, according to a large British study.

Does buying organic food really turn you into a jerk? That was the popular interpretation of a widely publicized 2013 study that linked exposure to organic food to "moral licensing" - making self-righteous consumers more judgmental and less inclined to help others. But a new attempt to replicate those findings concluded that "organic food exposure has little to no effect on moral judgments and prosocial behavior."

The American Society for Nutritions 2016 Scientist, Clinician, Educator/Mentor and Young Investigator Awards, presented at the groups annual meeting, included honors for four faculty at Tufts' Friedman School.

Your fancy fitness-tracking gizmo probably isnt measuring your calorie expenditure very accurately. A new Japanese study in JAMA Internal Medicine compared a dozen such devices, including the popular Fitbit and Jawbone, with two "gold standard" laboratory methods of measuring energy expenditure.

Dont count on extra vitamin D to improve arthritis in your knees. Although some observational studies have suggested that vitamin D supplements might benefit knee osteoarthritis, a new clinical trial published in JAMA proved disappointing.

Nearly 60% of calories consumed by average Americans come from "ultra-processed" foods, according to a new study published in BMJ Open. Researchers from the University of So Paulo in Brazil, along with Dariush Mozaffarian, MD, DrPH, dean of Tufts' Friedman School, analyzed what 9,317 people reported eating in a 24-hour span.

Two faculty at Tufts' Friedman School have been named to Thomson Reuters' list of the World's Most Influential Scientific Minds. The listing identifies scientists in 21 fields who published the most papers between 2003 and 2014 cited highly by other scientists. Named to the list were Dariush Mozaffarian, MD, DrPH, and Jeffrey B. Blumberg, PhD.

Keeping your kitchen uncluttered and calm might help prevent you from munching empty calories. A recent Cornell University experiment, published in Environment and Behavior, compared the snacking habits of 100 young women.

Losing even a modest amount of weight could reduce your risk of osteoarthritis, a new Dutch study suggests. Researchers followed 353 overweight and obese women, average age 56, for two and a half years.