Nutrition Review

A new Brigham Young University study adds our social relationships to the "short list" of factors that predict a person's odds of living or dying. In the journal PLoS Medicine, BYU professors Julianne Holt-Lunstad and Timothy Smith report that social connections -- friends, family, neighbors or colleagues -- improve our odds of survival by 50 percent.

If you're happy and you know it, thank your friends—and their friends. And while you're at it, their friends' friends. But if you're sad, hold the blame. Researchers from Harvard Medical School and the University of California, San Diego have found that "happiness" is not the result solely of a cloistered journey filled with individually tailored self-help techniques.

The more people used an interactive weight management website, the more weight loss they maintained, according to a Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research study published online in the open access Journal of Medical Internet Research.

Melinda Sothern, PhD, CEP, Professor of Public Health and Director of Health Promotion at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, will present evidence that supports relationships seen in adolescents between insulin sensitivity and fatty liver, belly fat, and total body fat and identifies additional potential early markers of insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome in healthy 7-9 year-old children, including fat in muscle cells, blood pressure, physical activity, and birth weight.

A new study from American Cancer Society researchers finds it's not just how much physical activity you get, but how much time you spend sitting that can affect your risk of death.

Our bones have much greater influence on the rest of our bodies than they are often given credit for, according to two new studies in the July 23 issue of Cell, a Cell Press publication. Both studies offer new insights into the interplay between bone and blood sugar, based on signals sent via insulin and a bone-derived hormone known as osteocalcin.

In a joint study, scientists from The Scripps Research Institute and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard University have uncovered a novel mechanism that dramatically increases insulin sensitivity and reduces the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Two papers presented at an international obesity conference yesterday have found that a range of the most popular weight loss supplements available on the market are no more effective than a placebo. Neither of the studies, presented at the International Congress on Obesity in Stockholm, Sweden, have yet to be published. According to the author of one of the papers, the science backing a variety of weight loss supplements is lacking.

Research to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB), the foremost society for research into all aspects of eating and drinking behavior, finds that prolonged exposure to a high fat diet is correlated with changes in the brain chemical dopamine...

Scientists have shown that when either lean or obese individuals exercise after eating a high fat meal, their fats are broken down and oxidized in skeletal muscle, making them healthier.