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The latest fight for Americas tastebuds- and dining-out dollars-is being waged with equal parts Angus beef and marketing hype. The trade journal Advertising Age called it Battle of the Big Burgers. Bill Mount, an advertising executive and blogger, commented on one fast-food chains latest volley, Im lovin it. Carls Jr. always brings automatic weapons to a knife fight.

Along-term followup to the Diabetes Prevention Program trial has good news for the estimated 57 million Americans with high blood-sugar levels that put them in danger of developing diabetes: Intensive lifestyle changes aimed at modest weight loss reduced the rate of developing type 2 diabetes by 34% compared with a control group in people at high risk for the disease. Reducing dietary fat and calories, exercising such as walking about 150 minutes weekly and losing weight also proved more effective in diabetes prevention than metformin, an oral diabetes drug.

Could your hip bones use a little tofu? Scientists report that moderate intake of soy-at least the amount found in about 1.75 ounces of tofu-was associated with reduced risk of hip fractures among women in the Singapore Chinese Health Study. Thats an amount of soy higher than the low levels of consumption in the West, noted lead researcher Woon-Puay Koh, MD, of the National University of Singapore.

In light of a recent review questioning the link between saturated-fat intake and heart disease (May 2010 Healthlet-ter), another new meta-analysis suggests the key to heart health may be what you eat instead of saturated fats. If you replace saturated fats such as butter with processed carbohy-drates, you may be no better off. But replacing saturated fats with polyunsaturated fats such as those in liquid vegetable oils reduced the risk of a coronary heart disease-related event by 19%.

The process of refining brown rice into white rice strips away healthy nutrients and fiber, while raising the grains glycemic index. According to a new study, refining rice may also make it a contributor to diabetes risk.

The good HDL cholesterol, already known to help protect against heart disease, might also reduce your risk of cancer. A new metaanalysis of 24 randomized controlled trials finds that cancer risk dropped 36% for every 10 mg/dl higher increment of HDL cholesterol.

Extra weight is a key risk factor for urinary incontinence, but a new study suggests that dietary factors may play a role beyond putting on pounds. Women who consumed the most calories were almost three times as likely to suffer urinary incontinence. The association remained even after adjusting for weight, and in fact was stronger among lean women.

Are refined carbohydrates worse than saturated fat? Thats the provocative headline of a recent American Journal of Clinical Nutrition editorial commenting on a large new Danish study of diet and heart-attack risk. Author Frank B. Hu, MD, PhD, of the Harvard School of Public Health, explains how, for decades, the diet-heart paradigm thats been the driving force behind dietary recommendations has emphasized the heart-health dangers of saturated fat and cholesterol. Thats led to a decrease in Americans total and saturated fat intake, while carbohydrate consumption went up. Until recently, Dr. Hu adds, the role of carbohydrates in cardiovascular disease has received scant attention.

Can your body really absorb the vitamin D in fortified orange juice, given that the vitamin dissolves in fat (as in fortified milk) but not water? A new study says it can, adding fortified OJ to the limited list of significant food and beverage sources of vitamin D.

Vitamin D, known to be crucial to bone health, may also boost the muscle strength necessary for seniors to perform daily tasks. New research presented at the recent Experimental Biology conference reports that elderly people with higher blood levels of the sunshine vitamin are more likely to have better physical function.