Lifestyle | Sunstone Online

Labels on Sugary Drinks Really May Make a Difference

Here is an interesting study that many parents will find important. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have found that simple food label warnings on soda makes teenagers much more likely to avoid these sugary drinks. Researchers used an online survey to see what drinks 2000 participants most loved. The participants were between 12 and 18 and were from diverse backgrounds.

The beverages either had no label on them, or one of five warning labels. One featured the calorie content and four had various types of warning labels. 77% of the people who didn’t see a label said they would select a sugary drink in a hypothetical situation they were given. When there was a health warning on the drink, participants were 8-16% less likely to take it.

62% of the participants also said that they would support having warning labels on sugary drinks. As Dr. Eric VanEpps, a researcher at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, said, “ The influence of warning labels on the purchasing intentions of teenagers in this study highlights the need for nutrition information at the point of purchase to help people make healthier choices.”

He continued, “This study shows that warning labels can affect teenagers’ beverage preferences, and future research will be needed to determine whether these labels are similarly effective in more typical purchasing environments.”

Their findings appear in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine and could certainly influence policy decisions about labeling drinks.

Back to School Fashion

As long as we’re focusing on the back to school adventure, we figured we’d offer some cute fashion tips. We all want to look great as the school year starts – whether we are dressing the kids or dressing ourselves. Here are some suggestions for back to school style that won’t break the bank.

Great Back to School Tips

Learn the best back to school tips to keep you organized and to keep your cool as you head back into the classroom.

How Much Exercise Do You Really Need?

Yes, exercise is good for the heart and the energy level – but how much do you really need to get the full benefit? And how long do you need to sweat it out to feel the difference? You’ll be happy to hear what Dr. Thijs Eijsvogels and Dr. Paul Thompson have to say on the issue.

They compared the results of various amounts of exercise and various exercises to try to answer these questions. They found that the smallest amount of exercise that will still make a difference in your health…is only about 105 minutes a week. This is a shocking amount compared to what the NHS guidelines suggest, recommending 150 minutes of moderate activity each week.

While the researchers did agree with the Danish research which suggested that increasing your exercise helped with mortality benefits – they found that doing more than 240 minutes a week had no added health benefits.

They explained, “We agree that any dose of exercise is better than physical inactivity and did not intend to discourage individuals from pursuing more exercise. Performance of vigorous exercise is an effective way to reduce the risk for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. However, the dose-response relationship between exercise and cardiovascular health appears to be different for moderate-intensity vs vigorous-intensity activities.”

Thumb Sucking Just Might Be Good for Your Kid

Many parents worry about their children and their thumb sucking or nail biting. But it’s possible that you should worry no longer, and here’s why. Scientists have actually found that children who sucked their thumbs or bit their names were more than 20% less likely to have allergies as adults.

What?

It gets even better. The scientists from the University of Otaga in New Zealand found that for children who both sucked their thumbs and bit their nails – the risk was of having allergies was down to a third. The idea is that children who are engaging in these activities are ingesting bacteria living under their nails which can strengthen their immune systems and make them less prone to allergies.

This study did not show, however, a reduced risk for asthma or hay fever.

The study was conducted with the records of 1,037 women and men who were followed from the time they were children in the early 1990s as part of a New Zealand health study. Professor Bob Hancox studied the finger prick test they underwent at the age of 13 and again at 32 to check for allergies. As Professor Hancox said about the study, recently published in the journal Pediatrics: “The findings support the “hygiene hypothesis”, which suggests that being exposed to microbes reduces your risk of developing allergies.”

Stephanie Lynch, a medical student involved in the project cautioned, “I wouldn’t tell children to go out and suck their thumbs but it may just give a little peace of mind to parents and take the stress out.”

A New Way to Curb Cravings?

A new powdered food supplement just might end your cravings. Too good to be true? Scientists from Imperial College London and the University of Glasgow had 20 volunteers drink a milkshake that either had an ingredient called inulin-propionate ester in it, or a type of fibre called inulin. Participants then had an MRI scan where they were shown pictures of low and high calorie foods.

The researchers found that, when the volunteers had consumed the milkshake with the inulin-propionate ester, they had less activity in the brain in the area of reward when looking at the high calorie foods. Those participants also rated high calorie foods as less appealing.

There was a second part to the study, as well, where participants were given a bowl of pasta and told to eat as much as they wanted. With the inulin-propionate ester they at 10% less pasta than did those participants who drank the milkshake with the inulin alone.

As Professor Gary Frost, senior author of the study from the Department of Medicine at Imperial, said, “Our previous findings showed that people who ate this ingredient gained less weight – but we did not know why. This study is filling in a missing bit of the jigsaw – and shows that this supplement can decrease activity in brain areas associated with food reward at the same time as reducing the amount of food they eat.”

Claire Byrne, a PhD researcher also from the Department of Medicine, explained how this could be a good food additive. As she said, “If we add this to foods it could reduce the urge to consume high calorie foods.”

Adding to the discussion was Dr Douglas Morrison, author of the paper from the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre at the University of Glasgow. He said “This study illustrates very nicely that signals produced by the gut microbiota are important for appetite regulation and food choice. This study also sheds new light on how diet, the gut microbiome and health are inextricably linked adding to our understanding of how feeding our gut microbes with dietary fibre is important for healthy living.”