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Pantothenate acid, also known as vitamin B5, stimulated the production of brown fat in both cell cultures and mice, a new study finds. "We identified [pantothenate acid] as an effective [brown fat] activator that can prevent obesity and may represent a promising strategy for the clinical treatment of obesity and related metabolic diseases," the researchers wrote. Unlike the more common white fat, brown fat burns calories to produce heat. Under particular conditions, white fat can be converted to brown fat. Scientists have been investigating the behavior of brown fat and methods of converting white fat in hope of finding treatments...

Eating a larger proportion of protein while dieting leads to better food choices and helps avoid the loss of muscle mass, according to a study. An analysis of pooled data from multiple weight-loss trials shows that increasing the amount of protein even slightly, from 18 percent of a person's food intake to 20 percent, has a substantial impact on the quality of the food choices made by the person. In addition, the researchers found a moderately higher intake of protein provided another benefit to the dieters: a reduced loss of lean body mass often associated with weight loss. Weight-loss regimens...

aren Solomon’s new cookbook, “Cured Meat, Smoked Fish & Pickled Eggs: Recipes and Techniques for Preserving Protein-Packed Foods,” is, on the one hand, very Jewish. Ashkenazi Jews have been at the forefront of food preservation for generations and will appreciate recipes for gravlax, several types of herring and “Killer Smoked Fish Salad.” The book also has recipes for prosciutto made from duck, and for pastrami that Solomon considers one of her top crowd-pleasers. “People just love it,” she said. “There are certain things I make that make people really happy. Bacon tops the list, but that pastrami recipe is right...

Talk about a paleo diet. Scientists have uncovered the last meal of a frozen hunter who died 5,300 years ago in the Alps. The stomach contents of the corpse, widely known as Oetzi the Iceman, offer a snapshot of what ancient Europeans ate more than five millennia ago, researchers said. On the menu, described Thursday in the journal Current Biology, were the fat and meat of a wild goat, meat of a red deer and whole wheat seeds, which Oetzi ate shortly before his death. Traces of fern leaves and spores were also discovered in Oetzi's stomach. Scientists think he...

An impressive array of brainpower —“Fat? Blame your genes, say doctors” —“Overweight? Maybe you really can blame your genes” —“Blame your genes for obesity” Headlines such as these have become a staple of science and health journalism. Are they right? Are obese people really helpless victims of their genes? Let us begin by distinguishing between “monogenic” obesity and what scientists call “common” obesity. Monogenic obesity, as the name implies, is caused by a mutation in a single gene, which is inherited in a Mendelian fashion, just as conditions such as sickle-cell anemia and cystic fibrosis are. In the case of...

In the second half of the 20th century, conventional wisdom in the medical community held that overconsumption of saturated fats — the kind found in milk, cheese, meats and butter — was dangerous. And so, between 1968 and 1973, a well-planned, well-executed study involving more than 9,000 patients was performed to test this widely accepted relationship between diet and heart disease. The results of the Minnesota Coronary Experiment were notable for two reasons. First, the findings contradicted much of what was believed at the time: The study demonstrated that people who ate a diet rich in saturated fats did not...

Scientists from the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment (HEP) in Tübingen have studied the Neanderthals' diet. Based on the isotope composition in the collagen from the prehistoric humans' bones, they were able to show that, while the Neanderthals' diet consisted primarily of large plant eaters such at mammoths and rhinoceroses, it also included vegetarian food. The associated studies were recently published in the scientific journals Journal of Human Evolution and Quaternary International. The paleo-diet is one of the new trends among nutrition-conscious people -- but what exactly did the meal plan of our extinct ancestors include? "We have...

The paleo diet could lead to rapid weight gain and increased susceptibility to diabetes, a new study has found, but the findings were attacked as "comic" by devotees of the caveman-style diet. Warning the public to avoid "putting faith in so-called fad diets", researchers at Melbourne University said the low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet had been tested on mice for just eight weeks and found to cause weight gains of 15 percent and health complications. [...] The study was published in the journal Nutrition and Diabetes. But the findings were disregarded by fans of the diet, including celebrity chef Pete Evans, who...

You are what you eat, and so were your ancient ancestors. But figuring out what they actually dined on has been no easy task. There are no Pleistocene cookbooks to consult. Instead, scientists must sift through an assortment of clues, from the chemical traces in fossilized bones to the scratch marks on prehistoric digging sticks. Scientists have long recognized that the diets of our ancestors went through a profound shift with the addition of meat. But in the September issue of The Quarterly Review of Biology, researchers argue that another item added to the menu was just as important: carbohydrates,...

Jeb Bush had a paleo-friendly power luncheon at the ‘21’ Club Friday afternoon during a New York fund-raising trip. The presumptive GOP presidential candidate has reportedly lost a whopping 30 pounds in the run-up to an expected campaign run.

ATLANTA, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- A new survey by anthropologists calls into question the scientific and historical justification for the paleo diet. Early man, they say, was an opportunist, not a nutritionist or dieter. By now, most people have heard of the paleo diet. The popular diet is named for the Paleolithic Age, the expansive period of prehistory characterized by so-called cavemen and primitive stone tools. Its followers forgo grains and processed foods in favor of meat, fish and vegetables. Its emphasis on protein and whole foods isn't without merit, but its genesis is based on the idea that humans...

Paleo is my shepherd, I shall not want carbs It maketh me to lie down with leafy greens, it leads me to drink gallons of water it refreshes my gut flora It guides me along nutritional paths for health’s sake Even though I walk through the valley of chocolate I will fear no eclair For thou art with me thy whey protein and thy reduced portions they comfort me You prepare a table before me in the presence of my trainers You anoint my head with fish oil my cup overflows. Surely glucagon and Omega-3s will follow me all the...

Scientists led by Dr David Fairlie from the University of Queensland, Australia, have found abnormal amounts of an inflammatory protein called PAR2 in the fat tissues of overweight and obese rats and humans. PAR2 is also increased on the surfaces of human immune cells by common fatty acids in the diet. When obese rats on a diet high in sugar and fat were given a new oral drug that binds to PAR2, the inflammation-causing properties of this protein were blocked, as were other effects of the high-fat and high-sugar diet, including obesity itself. "This important new finding links obesity and...

Eating too much protein could be as dangerous as smoking for middle-aged people, a scientific study has found. Research which tracked thousands of adults for nearly 20 years found that people who eat a diet rich in animal protein are four times more likely to die of cancer than someone with a low protein diet. The risk is nearly as high as the danger of developing cancer by smoking 20 cigarettes each day. […] The US study found that people with a high protein diet were 74 percent more likely to die of any cause within the study period than...

"I've been preaching this since long before Gary Taubes' books came out. That's because I have a colleague who studies the physiology of insulin. From what I know, Taubes is right. A quote re Dietary Incorrectness at Powerline:...Taubes disputes the connection between dietary fat and high cholesterol. He challenges the thesis that dietary fat is detrimental to our health. He rejects a balanced diet. He advocates a high-fat diet. He opposes dieting. He doesn’t object to exercise, but he asserts that it makes you hungry. It’s almost funny. He is the dietary equivalent of politically incorrect.

Cooksey v. Futrell, et al. Can the government throw you in jail for offering advice on the Internet about what food people should buy at the grocery store? That is exactly the claim made by the North Carolina Board of Dietetics/Nutrition. In December 2011, diabetic blogger Steve Cooksey started a Dear Abby-style advice column on his popular blog (www.diabetes-warrior.net) to answer reader questions. One month later, the State Board informed Steve that he could not give readers advice on diet, whether for free or for compensation, because doing so constituted the unlicensed, and thus criminal, practice of dietetics. The State...

A blogger in North Carolina has been threatened with jail time for “practicing nutrition without a license” by writing about his experiences with diabetes and telling readers what types of food he was eating. It was in January when the North Carolina Board of Dietetics and Nutrition told blogger Steve Cooksey, who writes at diabetes-warrior.net, that it was investigating him for providing nutrition care services without a license. Cooksey was accused of violating Chapter 90, Article 25 of the North Carolina General Statutes, which makes it a misdemeanor to “practice dietetics or nutrition” without state permission – a license. According...