Nutrition Review

Women who have higher levels of the appetite-controlling hormone leptin have fewer symptoms of depression, and this apparent inverse relationship is not related to body mass index (BMI), a new study finds. The results are being presented at The Endocrine Society's 93rd Annual Meeting in Boston.

Yo-yo dieters may be healthier and live longer than those who stay obese, a new Ohio University study in mice suggests. Mice that switched between a high-fat and low-fat diet every four weeks during their approximate two-year lifespan lived about 25 percent longer and had better blood glucose levels than obese animals that ate a high-fat diet. The yo-yo dieters also lived about as long as a control group of mice steadily fed a low-fat diet.

British scientists have found a new strain of the "superbug" MRSA in milk from cows and in swab samples from humans and say it cannot be detected with standard tests. Researchers said the find was "worrying" but added it was unlikely that the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bug, which is resistant to some antibiotics, could cause infections by getting into the food chain via milk.

Severe deficiency of the vitamins and minerals required for life is relatively uncommon in developed nations, but modest deficiency is very common and often not taken seriously. A new research published online in the FASEB Journal, however, may change this thinking as it examines moderate selenium and vitamin K deficiency to show how damage accumulates over time as a result of vitamin and mineral loss, leading to age-related diseases.

New findings out of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center reveal that a common test may be useful in predicting early death in individuals with diabetes. The study appears in the May issue of Diabetes Care.

A family of naturally occurring plant compounds could help prevent or delay memory loss associated with Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen).Beta-carboline alkaloids could potentially be used in therapeutic drugs to stop, or at least slow down, the progressively debilitating effects of Alzheimer's, according to the study published recently in the scientific journal Public Library of Science (PLoS) One.

For Alesandra Rain, it all started with sleeplessness. In 1993 she was having marital troubles and her business wasn't doing well. Anxiety kept her up at night, so her general practitioner prescribed sleeping pills.

Being overweight and resistant to insulin constitute a greater risk for fatty liver than was previously thought, according to a study from Linköping University in Sweden that is now being published in the journal Annals of Medicine.

Virginia Commonwealth University researchers have found that nutrient supplementation, like the kind that is found in leafy greens, spinach and lettuce, may reduce the damage to the heart caused by a powerful anti-cancer drug. Since the 1960s, the anti-cancer drug doxorubicin has remained a top choice for chemotherapy because of its superior efficacy to fight cancer. However, the drug is known to lead to permanent heart damage.

Omega 3 fatty acids may be beneficial for more than just the heart. Researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine have found at a molecular level a potential therapeutic benefit from these dietary supplements for treating alcohol abuse and psychiatric disorders.