Low Dairy Consumption Tied to Early Menopause

by Dr Alex Jimenez | Diets, Fitness

Women in their early 40s with the highest intake of vitamin D and calcium from food sources may have a lower than average risk of starting menopause before age 45, a recent study suggests.

Taking vitamin D or calcium in supplement form had no benefit in the large study of U.S. nurses, the study team writes in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, and there may be other substances in dairy foods that also contribute to their apparent protective effect.

“Early menopause can have substantial health impacts for women. It increases their risk of cardiovascular disease and early cognitive decline and osteoporosis,” lead author Alexandra Purdue-Smithe told Reuters Health.

In addition, as women are delaying having kids into their later reproductive years, having early menopause can have a substantial impact on their ability to conceive as they wish, which can have psychological and financial consequences, said Purdue-Smithe, an epidemiologist with the School of Public Health and Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

“Given that (early menopause) affects roughly 10 percent of women in the U.S. and other Western populations, it felt like a worthwhile problem to start investigating and seeing if there are any potentially modifiable risk factors for it,” she said.

Menopause, when a woman stops menstruating and her levels of hormones like estrogen decline, typically happens between the ages of 45 and 55. Menopause before age 45 is considered “early.”

Vitamin D may be involved in some of the hormonal mechanisms of early menopause, but little is known about how dietary vitamin D and calcium affect the risk, Purdue-Smithe and her colleagues write.

They analyzed data from the Nurses’ Health Study II, a long-term study of more than 100,000 U.S. registered nurses who were 25 to 42 years old in 1989 when they began answering health questionnaires every two years.

The questionnaires were designed to assess the nurses’ lifestyles, behaviors and overall health. Questions about diet were asked five times over 20 years. Researchers followed the participants until 2011, by which time 2,041 women experienced early menopause.

“The women who consumed the most vitamin D from food sources had a 17 percent lower risk of having early menopause as compared to women who consumed the least,” Purdue-Smithe said. The researchers found this association only with dairy sources of vitamin D, like milk, not with non-dairy sources like oily fish.

Women who consumed the most calcium from food sources were also about 13 percent less likely to experience early menopause compared to women who consumed the least calcium, and once again, only dairy foods seemed to provide a benefit.

“Our next direction is to look at actual individual dairy foods and see if there’s something else going on with dairy itself,” Purdue-Smithe said.

The study team also found that taking high doses of calcium in supplement form was associated with a higher risk of early menopause. But the researchers speculate that these women might have been diagnosed with osteoporosis or other conditions that are also risk factors for early menopause.

“Most of what is known about the relationship between calcium and Vitamin D and women’s issues is related to bone health,” said Sandra Arevalo, a dietitian and director of the Nutrition Services and Community Outreach for Community Pediatrics at Montefiore Medical Center in New York.

Lack of Vitamin D and calcium in a woman’s diet, mainly as age progresses, increases her risk of low bone mineral density, osteoporosis and bone fractures, said Arevalo, who wasn’t involved in the study.

The top 10 food sources of calcium are low-fat yogurt, low-fat cheese, sardines, calcium-fortified soy milk, calcium-fortified orange juice, salmon, calcium fortified ready-to-eat cereal, turnips, kale and bok choi, she noted in an email.

The top 10 sources of Vitamin D are cod liver oil, swordfish, salmon, tuna fish, vitamin D fortified orange juice, low-fat vitamin D-fortified milk, yogurt, fortified margarine, sardines and liver, Arevalo said.

Two Weeks On The Couch Can Trigger Body’s Decline

by Dr Alex Jimenez | Diets, Fitness

Taking a short break from an active lifestyle may do more harm than most people might think, a new study warns.

Just two weeks of sedentary behavior can cause healthy, young people to start losing muscle and develop fat around their organs. And this can increase their risk for conditions such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes that could eventually lead to a premature death, British researchers report.

“What’s alarming about this study is that it was done in healthy volunteers. They were not patients or overweight or had risks for type 2 diabetes,” said lead researcher Kelly Bowden-Davies, from the Institute of Aging and Chronic Disease at the University of Liverpool.

“In 14 days we see small, but significant, changes in markers that predispose people to risk,” she said.

In the study, people were asked to limit their physical activity for two weeks. This included taking the elevator instead of the stairs, taking a bus instead of walking and staying at home more than usual, Bowden-Davies said.

After two weeks of a sedentary life, participants lost nearly a pound of lean muscle mass and gained body fat. The increase in body fat tended to be in the belly, a major risk factor for developing chronic diseases.

In addition, fitness levels dropped sharply, and participants were not able to run for as long or at the same intensity as they had before, the researchers found.

Mitochondrial function, which is the ability of cells to regulate energy, also dropped, but the change was not statistically significant, the study authors noted.

“Globally, people are becoming more and more inactive due to technology, public transport, escalators and elevators, and machines that do what we used to do day to day,” Bowden-Davies said.

The good news is that after going back to an active lifestyle, all these changes were reversed and returned to normal within two weeks, she said.

“The negative effect of an inactive lifestyle can be reversed when we become active again,” Bowden-Davies said.

Going to the gym a couple of times a week, however, won’t reverse the trends of an otherwise sedentary life, she said. Exercise is good, but you need to be active all day, which includes being on your feet and taking walk breaks, Bowden-Davies said.

The problem is more severe in older people who have a sedentary lifestyle and are probably in worse shape than younger people, she said. But it’s never too late to change your lifestyle and see improvements in your health.

The findings were to be presented Wednesday at the European Congress on Obesity, in Porto, Portugal. Research presented at meetings is considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

According to Dr. Minisha Sood, an endocrinologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, “We’ve known all along that being sedentary will increase the risk of gaining fat and losing muscle, and overall poorer health.” Sood was not involved with the new study but is familiar with the findings.

“What’s novel about this study is that it emphasizes how little time it takes of a sedentary life to start to see those changes,” she added.

But Sood wasn’t sure that going back to an active lifestyle would reverse all of the damage a sedentary period causes. Some of these changes may be permanent, she said.

“If your goal is to be in optimal health, you shouldn’t have a sedentary lifestyle,” Sood said. “An active lifestyle is one where physical activity is built into the day, throughout the day.”

In addition, different types of exercise — like resistance training to counter the aging of muscle and cardio training to increase stamina — are important, Sood said.

“The point is not to hit the gym once or twice a week, but to build an active lifestyle where you are taking walks outside and not sitting all day,” she said.

For the study, Bowden-Davies and her colleagues collected data on 28 healthy, physically active people, average age 25, with a normal body weight. The participants walked an average of 10,000 steps per day and all wore an armband that kept track of their physical activity.

At the start of the study, participants were given a medical checkup that included measuring fat and muscle mass, mitochondrial function and physical fitness.

The exam was done two weeks later after the participants had reduced their physical activity by more than 80 percent, to around 1,500 steps per day.

In addition, the participants kept a journal of what and how much they ate to ensure there were no changes in diet throughout the study, Bowden-Davies said.

Swallowable Balloons Work to Curb Obesity: Study

by Dr Alex Jimenez | Diets, Fitness

Weight-loss balloons swallowed rather than surgically inserted in the stomach were shown to be safe and effective in preliminary trials, according to findings unveiled Thursday at a medical conference.

So-called intragastric balloons have been used for decades to help obese patients shed unwanted pounds. Inflated with water, the devices curb hunger and make it easier to diet by inducing a feeling of fullness.

Up to now, however, they could only be implanted in the stomach surgically, a costly procedure requiring general anesthesia or sedation.

In a small trial led by Roberta Ienca, a researcher in experimental medicine at Sapienza University in Rome, 42 obese patients — 29 men and 13 women — were fitted with balloons that were swallowed before being inflated with liquid.

“A catheter is attached to the balloon, which is folded into a capsule,” Ienca explained to AFP.

A doctor fills the balloon via the tiny tube, which is then removed via the mouth with a tug. “This process takes just a few seconds,” she added.

The body-mass index (BMI) of the volunteers varied between 30 and 45. The threshold for obesity is a BMI of 30.

The balloons remained in the stomach for 16 weeks, during which time patients were put on a low-carbohydrate, low-calorie diet.

At the end of that time, an internal release valve automatically opens and drains the balloon, which is then excreted.

On average, volunteers shed more than 33 pounds, which amounted to 31 percent of excess weight.

No serious side effects were reported.

After the trial, patients were transitioned to a Mediterranean diet, heavy on vegetables and olive oil, and light on protein and starch.

The new technique “appears to be a safe and effective weight-loss method,” Ienca commented in a statement.

Because the swallowable balloon “does not require endoscopy, surgery or anaesthesia, this may make it suitable for a larger population of obese patients not responding to diet or lifestyle treatment.”

It could also lead to significant cost savings, she added.

“In itself, gastric balloons are not a long-term solution for weight loss,” Simon Cork, a researcher in investigative medicine at Imperial College London who was not involved in the study, commented after reviewing the results.

“Nevertheless, gastric balloons are still useful for some patients, and the introduction of a device which doesn’t require surgery to implant is a positive step forward.”

Developed by US-based Allurion Technologies, the system is already marketed in Europe in France, Italy, Spain, Belgium and Greece. It is also available in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

The company intends to begin the FDA approval process in the United States soon, Ienca said.

The findings were presented at the European Congress on Obesity in Porto, Portugal, which runs through May 20.