A new study that came out this weekend shows that eating blueberries once a week reduces the chances of having high blood pressure by 10%. University of East Anglia and Harvard University ran the study together. The compound suspected of providing this protection is anthrocyanin, a flavanoid.
UEA-Bioactive compounds in berries can reduce high blood pressure
Other flavonoids reduce hypertension as previously shown:
The flavonoids present in tea, fruit juice, red wine and dark chocolate are already known to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.
So what other foods have high levels of anthocyanins besides blueberries and strawberries?
Anthocyanins belong to the bioactive family of compounds called flavonoids and are found in high amounts in black currants, raspberries, aubergines, blood orange juice and blueberries. Other flavonoids are found in many fruits, vegetables, grains and herbs.
In addition anthocyanins are found in: bilberries, blackberries, dark cherries, purple carrots, pomegranate, acai, purple sweet potatoes, purple cauliflower, black grapes and beets.
The study involved almost 200 thousand people and spanned 14 years.
In other nutrition news, organic milk is healthier for you especially now that the effects of GCC are setting in. What does climate change have to do with anything? Apparently, cold, wet summers impact the composition of factory farm milk increasing the saturated fats and reducing the good, omega-3 fats. But even more surprisingly, organic milk is more consistent in its composition than factory farm milk. This is according to a study by Newcastle University.
There is also a study out that affects how we approach weight loss. The bad news is about the 'big breakfast' diet. A study by Else-Kröner-Fresenius Center of Nutritional Medicine found that eating a big breakfast leads to eating more food during the day. While it did cut down on snacking mid-morning, people ate just as large a lunch and dinner as always meaning they took in more calories overall than when eating a smaller breakfast. Since its energy in minus energy out = weight gain (or loss) the big breakfast leads to long-term weight gain.
The group addressed previous research, which suggests that eating a big breakfast reduces total calorie intake over the day, and showed that this data is misleading. This earlier research only looked at the ratio of breakfast calories to daily calories and in Schusdziarra's study this ratio seems to be most affected by people eating less during the day. In other words their breakfast was proportionally, but not absolutely, bigger. So it seems that there is no magic and that, unfortunately, in the fight for weight-loss, eating a large breakfast must be counteracted by eating substantially less during the rest of the day.
And finally, race affects weight loss counseling with blacks receiving less counseling even when visiting black doctors according to John Hopkins.
Rather, black obese patients seeing white doctors were less likely to receive exercise counseling than white obese patients seeing white doctors. We also found that black obese patients seeing black doctors were less likely to receive weight reduction counseling than white obese patients seeing black doctors. This suggests that regardless of the physician’s race, black obese patients receive less weight-related counseling than white obese patients.