Challenges to Healthy Eating for People With Diabetes in a Low-Income, Minority Neighborhood.

Challenges to Healthy Eating for People With Diabetes in a Low-Income, Minority Neighborhood.

Diabetes Care. 2013 Jul 22;
Breland JY, McAndrew LM, Gross RL, Leventhal H, Horowitz CR

OBJECTIVEThis study used qualitative interviews with black and Latino participants with diabetes to further understanding about types of foods eaten, food preparation, sources of foods and meals, communication with providers, and effects of race and ethnicity on eating in this population.RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODSResearchers recruited black and Latino adults from East Harlem, New York, to participate in four English and Spanish focus groups. Discussions were transcribed, coded, and analyzed to uncover prevalent themes, which were interpreted with the Common Sense Model of Self-Regulation.RESULTSThirty-seven adults with diabetes participated in four focus groups. The following four major themes emerged from the analyses: 1) The food environment limited participants’ access to healthy foods; 2) understanding of diabetes and communication with clinicians about healthy eating was limited and abstract; 3) the short-term, negative consequences of healthy eating outweighed the benefits; and 4) stress, in large part from poverty and discrimination, was seen as a causal factor for both poor eating and diabetes.CONCLUSIONSParticipants’ responses indicated that using healthy eating to control diabetes does not provide immediate, tangible results. Thus, these participants followed their own common sense to guide their diabetes management and improve their health. Clinicians may be better able to help patients eat healthfully if they consider these factors during medical visits. HubMed – eating

Autophagy: Eating up damaged lysosomes.

Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2013 Aug; 14(8): 465
Wrighton KH

HubMed – eating

The endocrinology of food intake.

Nat Rev Endocrinol. 2013 Jul 23;
Begg DP, Woods SC

Many questions must be considered with regard to consuming food, including when to eat, what to eat and how much to eat. Although eating is often thought to be a homeostatic behaviour, little evidence exists to suggest that eating is an automatic response to an acute shortage of energy. Instead, food intake can be considered as an integrated response over a prolonged period of time that maintains the levels of energy stored in adipocytes. When we eat is generally determined by habit, convenience or opportunity rather than need, and meals are preceded by a neurally-controlled coordinated secretion of numerous hormones that prime the digestive system for the anticipated caloric load. How much we eat is determined by satiation hormones that are secreted in response to ingested nutrients, and these signals are in turn modified by adiposity hormones that indicate the fat content of the body. In addition, many nonhomeostatic factors, including stress, learning, palatability and social influences, interact with other controllers of food intake. If a choice of food is available, what we eat is based on pleasure and past experience. This article reviews the hormones that mediate and influence these processes. HubMed – eating

Prospective Study of Breakfast Eating and Incident Coronary Heart Disease in a Cohort of Male US Health Professionals.

Circulation. 2013 Jul 23; 128(4): 337-43
Cahill LE, Chiuve SE, Mekary RA, Jensen MK, Flint AJ, Hu FB, Rimm EB

Among adults, skipping meals is associated with excess body weight, hypertension, insulin resistance, and elevated fasting lipid concentrations. However, it remains unknown whether specific eating habits regardless of dietary composition influence coronary heart disease (CHD) risk. The objective of this study was to prospectively examine eating habits and risk of CHD.Eating habits, including breakfast eating, were assessed in 1992 in 26 902 American men 45 to 82 years of age from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study who were free of cardiovascular disease and cancer. During 16 years of follow-up, 1527 incident CHD cases were diagnosed. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate relative risks and 95% confidence intervals for CHD, adjusted for demographic, diet, lifestyle, and other CHD risk factors. Men who skipped breakfast had a 27% higher risk of CHD compared with men who did not (relative risk, 1.27; 95% confidence interval, 1.06-1.53). Compared with men who did not eat late at night, those who ate late at night had a 55% higher CHD risk (relative risk, 1.55; 95% confidence interval, 1.05-2.29). These associations were mediated by body mass index, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and diabetes mellitus. No association was observed between eating frequency (times per day) and risk of CHD.Eating breakfast was associated with significantly lower CHD risk in this cohort of male health professionals. HubMed – eating

Notebook: Eating Disorders (CBS News)
Eating disorders like anorexia have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. Katie Couric says parents should send the right message to their childr…