The traditional prescriptions for a healthy life� Sensible diet, exercise and weight control, extend life by reducing signaling through a specific pathway in the brain, according to Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers who discovered the connection while studying long-lived mice.

They said their findings underscore the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle and may also offer promising research directions for understanding and treating diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Morris F. White and his colleagues published their findings in the July 20, 2007, issue of the journal Science. Akiko Taguchi and Lynn Wartschow in White’s laboratory in the Division of Endocrinology at Children�s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School were co-authors of the research article.

In their experiments, the researchers sought to understand the role of the insulin-like signaling pathway in extending lifespan. This pathway governs growth and metabolic processes in cells throughout the body. The pathway is activated when insulin and insulin-like growth factor-1 switch on proteins inside the cell called insulin receptor substrates (Irs).

Other researchers had shown that reducing the activity of the pathway in roundworms and fruitflies extends lifespan. Despite those tantalizing clues, White said, The idea that insulin reduces lifespan is difficult to reconcile with decades of clinical practice and scientific investigation to treat diabetes.

In fact, based on our work on one of the insulin receptor substrates, Irs2, in liver and pancreatic beta cells, we thought more Irs2 would be good for you, said White. It reduces the amount of insulin needed in the body to control blood glucose, and it promotes growth, survival and insulin secretion from pancreatic beta cells.

In earlier work, the researchers had found that knocking out both copies of the Irs2 gene in mice reduces brain growth and produces diabetes due to pancreatic beta cell failure. However, in the new study, when the researchers knocked out only one copy of the gene, they found the mice lived 18 percent longer than normal mice.

Because reducing insulin-like signaling in the neurons of roundworms and fruitflies extends their lifespan, the researchers decided to examine what would happen when they knocked out one or both copies of the Irs2 gene only in the brains of mice.

Mice lacking one copy of the Irs2 gene in brain cells also showed an 18 percent longer lifespan, and the near complete deletion of brain Irs2 had a similar effect. �What�s more, the animals lived longer, even though they had characteristics that should shorten their lives�such as being overweight and having higher insulin levels in the blood,� said White. The traditional prescriptions for a healthy lifesensible diet, exercise and weight control�extend life by reducing signaling through a specific pathway in the brain, according to Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers who discovered the connection while studying long-lived mice.

However, both sets of Irs2 knockout mice exhibited other characteristics that marked them as healthier, said White. They were more active as they aged, and their glucose metabolism resembled that of younger mice. The researchers also found that after eating, their brains showed higher levels of superoxide dismutase, an antioxidant enzyme that protects cells from damage by highly reactive chemicals called free radicals.

Our findings put a mechanism behind what your mother told when you were growing up eat a good diet and exercise, and it will keep you healthy,� said White. Diet, exercise and lower weight keep your peripheral tissues sensitive to insulin. That reduces the amount and duration of insulin secretion needed to keep your glucose under control when you eat. Therefore, the brain is exposed to less insulin. Since insulin turns on Irs2 in the brain, that means lower Irs2 activity, which we’ve linked to longer lifespan in the mouse.

White and his colleagues are planning their next studies to better understand how healthy aging and lifespan are coordinated by Irs2 signaling pathways in the body and the brain. White speculated that the insulin-like signaling pathway in the brain might promote age-related brain diseases.

We are beginning to appreciate that obesity, insulin resistance, and high blood insulin levels are connected to Alzheimer�s disease, Huntington�s disease, and dementias in general, he said. It might be that, in people who are genetically predisposed to these diseases, too much insulin overactivates Irs2 in the brain and accelerates disease progression. Thus, insulin resistance and higher insulin levels might be the environmental influences that promote these diseases, he said.

Looking to make a change and lose some weight? I have reviewed the top diet on the internet and you can go and read over 200 comments people have made about why this diet has worked well for them, as well as some of the problems.

Tags: Akiko Taguchi, Alzheimer's disease, Alzheimer�s disease, Boston, brain diseases, brain growth, Children�s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School, dementias, diabetes, Division of Endocrinology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Huntington�s disease, insulin resistance, investigator, lifespan, Lynn Wartschow, Morris F. White, obesity, reactive chemicals

We all know that many people fail on their diets and often wonder why. Well there is a number of factors that affect whether a diet will work or will not. I thought I would pull some info from a KLTV article from today and will paraphrase the details.

About one in three American adults is trying to lose weight at any given time, and while their track record for trying is good, their track record for succeeding is not.

Within five years, most dieters will regain the weight they lost. And, after five years, they may even weigh more than when they started the original weight-loss effort, some studies have found.

But weight-loss researchers have begun to uncover insights into what makes some dieters succeed while others fail. While there are no hard-and-fast rules that work for everyone, there are ways to maximize your success the next time you decide to drop those excess pounds — maybe for good.

A strategy for success begins with getting realistic, experts say.

Unrealistic Goals
“Cause number-one [for failure] is setting too unrealistic of goals, losing too much too fast,” said Barbel Knauper, an associate professor of psychology at McGill University in Montreal. Instead of trying to lose, say, 15 pounds in a month — very unrealistic — most experts suggest a slow, steady loss, about one or two pounds a week.

Bad eating planning
Another pitfall, Knauper said, is a lack of advance planning before social situations. “If people were making ‘when, where, how’ plans, they would be more likely to adhere to their goal,” he said. For instance, you might say to yourself, ‘When I go out for dinner tonight with friends, I won’t order a large entree, but a smaller one. And I’ll stick with my choice even if they pressure me to eat more.’”

Socializing is one of the top three reasons people eventually fail with a diet, said Dr. Michael Dansinger, an assistant professor of medicine at Tufts-New England Medical Center, in Boston.

Feeling deprived of certain foods
The other two? “Feelings of deprivation or boredom with the current eating plan,” Dansinger said, “and the healthy foods often seem to be less available, require more preparation or cost more than the unhealthy foods.”

Portion size and the effect of exercise
Still another pitfall, Knauper said, is that people often underestimate the number of calories in foods and overestimate the number of calories burned through exercise.

In one study, Knauper asked 132 women trying to lose weight on their own to tell him their strategies — their dieting “rules,” so to speak. In all, the 132 dieters offered 895 rules, with each woman listing an average of nearly seven.

Then his research team followed the women to see which rules worked. Overall, adherence to the self-set rules was low. But the ones deemed most effective were the simplest — reducing calories and increasing exercise. Other rules that worked included: decreasing sugar intake; increasing consumption of fruits and vegetables, vitamins and water; watching less TV; and eating at home more often.

If you’ve tried unsuccessfully to diet many times, Dansinger suggests getting a “coach.” A coach can be your doctor, another health professional, or a friend who’ll hold you accountable to your goals, he said. He also suggests recording your intake of calories every day, limiting calories, and exercising seven hours a week, including cardiovascular and weight workouts.

In a 2005 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dansinger also found that adherence to a weight-loss plan — any plan — is more important than the diet regimen itself. He compared people on Weight Watchers, Atkins, Zone and Ornish diets and found no substantial weight-loss differences at one year, regardless of the diet. The amount of weight lost ranged from 4.6 to 7.3 pounds.

So what can we learn from this study? Well I believe that it is most important to look sometimes at your weight loss plan as a bit of a high wire act where you always need to be loose and able to move one way or another but at the same time focused on whee you are and where you are going. Although most diets fail there is no way to fail if you change your lifestyle and attitude about food and exercise.

Tags: American Medical Association, associate professor, associate professor of psychology, Barbel Knauper, Boston, coach, Dansinger, food, KLTV, McGill University in Montreal, Michael Dansinger, Montreal, professor of medicine, professor of psychology, the Journal of the American Medical Association, Tufts-New England Medical Center

Growing up we used to eat blueberries fresh out of the backyard everyday in August as we had a bunch of blueberry bushes back there. One thing that I find is that now I eat a lot less really fresh fruit and more store bought fruit but I just ran into this article on how good blueberries are and thought I would pull a bit out of it to remind us all of the great thing that blueberries are.

The health benefits of blueberries have made the news in recent years. Some of the reported benefits of eating blueberries include improved vision, cleared arteries, strengthened blood vessels, enhanced memory, stopped urinary tract infections and reversed age-related physical and mental declines.

According to LSU AgCenter nutritionist Beth Reames, blueberries and other brightly colored berries contain vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber and phytochemicals that help protect against disease, including certain cancers and heart disease.

Phytochemicals are nonnutritive substances in plants that promote health and prevent chronic disease. Antioxidants are phytochemicals that help neutralize harmful byproducts of metabolism called free radicals that contribute to heart disease and other diseases.
Blueberries are nature’s number one source of antioxidants among fresh fruits and vegetables according to the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston. Anthocyanins, the pigments giving blueberries their deep blue hue, act as antioxidants, which may provide many health benefits.

Blueberries also are a low-calorie food – only 40 calories per 1/2 cup. Blueberries are low in fat, sodium-free and a source of fiber, beta-carotene, vitamin C and potassium.

Blueberries contain compounds that may help to prevent urinary tract infections (UTIs), The compounds, called condensed tannins, can keep the bacteria responsible for UTIs from attaching to the linings of the urinary and digestive tracts.

Reames says to look for berries that are dark blue, with a frosty bloom. Store fresh blueberries in your refrigerator for up to two weeks, and wash them just before you use them; washing and then storing makes them mushy. Loose-pack frozen blueberries are available year-round, and you can use them in any recipe that calls for fresh blueberries. Since they are washed, they can be used right from the package.

Fresh blueberries should be plump and firm with a dark blue color and waxy, silvery “bloom.” Sweetness varies by variety. Blueberries do not ripen after harvest, so as soon as you buy them, you can eat them. One pint of berries will provide four to five servings of fresh uncooked fruit.

Just like any other fruit we know that fruit is better fresher then frozen so go out and pick some fruit if you are in a place where that is possible

Tags: Beth Reames, Boston, C, cancers, heart disease, low-calorie food, LSU AgCenter nutritionist, Tufts University in Boston, urinary tract infections, USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging