More Fat Stats

Researchers at the Beltsville (Md.) Human Nutrition Research Center have just released data on fat-consumption trends over the past 3 decades, based upon a representative survey of the U.S. population. The good news is that overall fat intake is down--from a high of about 45 percent of calories in the late '70s, to about 37 percent of calories today. However, despite the message that saturated fats tend to be the least healthy, the new data show that even today, more than half of U.S. adults derive 10 to 15 % of their calories from sat fats. Younger adults--those 20 to 50 years old--consumed the highest quantities--on average, more than 100 grams per day among men, and more than 75 grams per day among women.

What's the biggest contributor of fats to the adult diet? Desserts, at 11%, should come as no surprise. However, it turns out that pizza, burritos, and tacos were equally big contributors. Next on the list--above bacon even: regular salad dressings, butter, and margarines.

Source: "Levels and Sources of Fat in the Diets of Adults" by Alanna J. Moshfegh, Joseph D. Goldman and Randy P. LaComb, at the Experimental Biology '07 meeting this week in Washington, D.C.

No Flavor? It's Scents-less

You know how foods taste strange, or indeed, rather flavor-less when you have a head cold? Well, some people are born with a permanent genetic impairment that prevents their nose from ever picking up scents, volatile cues that are critical to experiencing a food's full flavor. Over the past year, Washington, D.C., physician Robert I. Henkin, began homing in on what underlies the problem for most afflicted individuals. Two days ago, the genial neurologist reported his findings--and a partial cure--at the Experimental Biology '07 meeting, in Washington, D.C.

For most of his patients, their scentsless existence traces to a lack of growth factors in nasal mucus. These proteins are needed to support the health of sensory cells in tissue lining the inside of the nose. In their absence, those sensory cells can become impaired or disappear, he noted.

Afflicted individuals can sense that there are odors around, and their general intensity, but can't distinguish between them, Henkin explains. Their taste buds work fine, so they can detect salt, sweet, bitter, and sour. But they'd never discern the difference between a strawberry flavor and straight sugar, because the primary berry essence is a scent.

Once he realized what was missing in the mucus, Henkin's team at the Taste and Smell Clinic began treating people with drugs--generally phosphodiesterase inhibitors--that help the body make adequate amounts of the missing proteins. Months may go by before nasal secretions become anywhere near replete enough to rescue scent-sensing cells. Once they do, his patients suddenly find themselves bathed in a complex world of strange, wondrous, and often enticing odors.

At the meeting, Henkin reported data from the first 25 patients treated. Even with long-term drug therapy, their mucus growth-factor concentrations never reached normal levels, he told me, "but they get close to it." More to the point, these people get to lead richer, safer lives. Indeed, he notes, some patients had become sickened in the past by not detecting the smell of spoiled foods.

After our talk, I tried to imagine a world devoid of the smells of coffee, chocolate, newly mown grass, or a freshly bathed infant. Who would willingly give that up?

Which explains why Henkin's patients tend to stick with their drug therapy, despite the side effects it can bring, such as increased anxiety or a racing heart rate.

Oh, he did mention one additional therapeutic drawback: weight gain. It seems that once his patients wake up the world of smells, the flavors of their foods can seduce them into downing larger portions.

Weighty Stat

An estimated two-thirds of Americans are deemed overweight or obese. How heavy is that? Astoundingly massive, according to molecular physiologist Ronald M. Evans of the Salk Institute. Sum up all of the excess, he says, and you'll find that the U.S. population is "6.5 billion pounds overweight."

Source: Evans' Fritz Lipmann lecture, this morning, at Experimental Biology '07.

Mushrooming Immunity

Worried about a cold or some other infection? Maybe you should stock up on mushrooms.

These fungi can significantly enhance the body's immune response, according to a pair of fascinating talks I sat through today at the Experimental Biology '07 meeting. Although the reported experiments had been conducted in animals, the researchers acknowledged that their work had been prodded by hopes that the same will hold true in humans. And the fungi that proved especially potent in this regard? Those prosaic white buttons that account for 90 percent of the fungi eaten in the United States.

Dayong Wu and his colleagues at USDA's Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston described his group's work with young-adult mice. They added a dry powder made from button mushrooms to the rodents' diet for 10 weeks in quantities that amounted to either 2% or 10% of the animals' meals. Other mice got just the unadulterated chow. When later stimulated with a compound that challenges the immune system, mushroom-treated mice had a more robust response. They produced higher amounts of certain immune agents known as cytokines (including some interferon and interleukin molecules and tumor-necrosis-factor alpha).

The finding suggests that for the elderly or others who might have weakened immune systems, one might enlist mushrooms as a dietary agent to shore up the body's defense against infections.

In a second study, Sanhong Yu and her colleagues at Penn State University tested the ability of five mushrooms widely available in U.S. groceries--including crimini and shitake species--to similarly rev up the immune response of activated macrophages. These are a type of white blood cells that are important immune-system players.

All of the fungi proved helpful, Yu reported. But the really big performer? White button mushrooms!

Yu's team then fed these mushrooms as 2% of the diet to mice for a month and showed that when challenged with a synthetic infection, the animals' immune systems again performed more heroically than if they had been dining on mushroom-free chow.

Who knew? Up to now, I'd always thought of mushrooms as more of a garnish for salads than as a health food.

Bittersweet Stat

Fruits are sweet because they're naturally endowed with sugars. Natural sweeteners lace even milk and various vegetable juices. However, most sugar in the diet has been deliberately added, whether it's to sweeten corn flakes or soft drinks. Boys 14 to 18 years old down the most such added sugar--a whopping 142.6 grams per day, FDA scientists reported today.

That's 21 percent of the energy consumed by boys this age. It amounts to some 570 calories per day, and is equivalent to 35.7 teaspoons of table sugar.

Beverages, especially soft drinks, accounted for most of this added dietary sugar.

Source: Kathleen C. Ellwood, et al. of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in College Park, Md., at the Experimental Biology '07 meeting, in Washington, D.C.

Health Promotions?

James O. Hill is president-elect of the American Society of Nutrition and director of human nutrition at the University of Colorado. Today, at his society's annual meeting--part of EB '07--Hill floated an interesting idea: Find ways to reward people for moving toward a healthier weight.

Two-thirds of Americans can afford to lose a little--or a lot--of weight, he noted. Clinics can treat the excessively heavy, but don't do much for the simply pudgy. Moreover, even people who successfully shed extra pounds usually put them back on again in the next few months or years. The trouble, Hill said, was society hasn't really crafted effective positive feedbacks, incentive structures that encourage exercise and discourage overeating. At least no feedbacks that were stronger than our biology's innate craving to eat and avoid labor.

One proposal he offered was to have people rewarded in the workplace for staying healthy, such as at a near-optimum weight. He noted that many jobs had a dress code. That's based only as aesthetics. How much better, he suggested, to link career advancement or bonus pay to maintaining health, not just pressed shirts and shined shoes.

An intriguing idea.

But not one, I suspect, that will win much favor.

I can imagine all sorts of lawsuits from people who suffer genetic conditions that affect weight or other health issues. Or who have jobs that compromise health at the same time they're being threatened with reduced compensation for poor health. And who decides what constitutes health...or even the ideal weight for any individual?

Although I support Hill's basic thesis, I guess I'd prefer to see society work out carrots to promote health by individuals--not a battery of sticks.

Tea Time for Fido?

Excess pounds can contribute to the development of insulin resistance, a prediabetic change, in many people. Obesity triggers changes in dogs that are "nearly identical to that seen in the obese human," notes Samuel Serisier of the Ecole Veterinaire de Nantes (France). However, a commercial dietary supplement derived from green tea can restore much of the insulin sensitivity in such animals, he reported today at Experimental Biology '07. a meeting in Washington, D.C.

Serisier's team recruited 10 volunteers. These obese canines had already developed insulin resistance, a condition where their bodies had begun to ignore the presence of insulin--a hormone needed to shepherd energy into cells.

For 12 weeks, six of the pooches received 80 milligrams of a powdered green-tea extract per kilogram of body weight along with their normal day's food rations. The daily supplement provided the animals a dose of catechins--a class of plant-derived antioxidants--equivalent to what humans would derive from drinking 3 cups of tea. The remaining animals received just their normal chow.

At the end of 3 months, insulin sensitivity had improved by 60 percent in the tea-supplemented dogs, Serisier noted; no change occurred in the unsupplemented animals. Green-tea-catechin supplementation had no impact on weight, food-intake, or body composition (i.e. percent body fat and lean tissue). Treatment was linkeed, however, with a 30 percent drop in serum triglycerides, fatty substances that can contribute to clogged arteries.

The findings would seem to offer a simple treatment to boost the health of pudgy pets. Better still, of course, would be to see that man's and woman's best friends get plenty of exercise and a low-calorie diet until they reach their ideal weight. Not only would that also improve insulin resistance, but also ensure that pet owners get off their duffs for a little extra, much-needed exercise.

Finally, don't attempt to treat your pooch with regular green tea. The brew is rich in caffeine, a compound that can prove lethal to dogs.

Fat Stat

Vegetable oils are a type of dietary fat. Did you know that 16 percent of the oil in the typical American's diet--the most from any source--comes from eating potato chips?

Source: Federal data reported today by Jessica Sieber, Department of Nutrition, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, at the Experimental Biology '07 meeting, in Washington, D.C.