Extra fruit may not ward off hunger

Drinking fruit juice adds calories

NEW YORK, Dec 1, (RTRS): The idea that filling up on fruits and vegetables will cut one’s appetite for higher-calorie fare did not pan out in a new study; in fact, adding fruit juice before meals boosted hunger and weight gain for some participants.

Eating apples and grapes before lunch helped people feel fuller and eat slightly less than when they drank an equivalent amount of fruit juice as an appetizer in the experiment. However, putting volunteers on a fruit- and vegetable-heavy diet for months made no long-term difference in their assessments of their own hunger and fullness, researchers found.

Some doctors have hoped that encouraging people to eat greater volumes of fruits and veggies, which are less “energy-dense” than burgers and pizza, might help them feel full for longer and prevent overeating and weight gain.

But the new study suggests loading up on more carrots, broccoli and oranges every day won’t ward off hunger over the long run. And having fruit in beverage form simply added calories to the day’s tally without displacing any.

The findings follow results from the same trial showing 34 participants - some overweight or obese, some a healthy weight — gained between 3.5 and 5 pounds when they were given eight weeks of fruit juice to incorporate into their diet. Heavier participants, in particular, also gained weight when they received extra fresh fruit and vegetables.

“If you tell people to add anything to their diet, you’re going to potentially have no weight loss, or weight gain, even with fruits and vegetables,” said before and during a hot flash or other menopausal symptom. Next, the women were encouraged to spend 15 minutes twice a day tensing and relaxing muscles from head to toe. Gradually, women learned how to decrease the time needed to relax by focusing on controlled breathing and not tensing the muscles. Toward the end of the study, the women were instructed to practice relaxation 20 times a day in 30-second sessions. The final “homework” exercise required the women to use these breathing and relaxation skills to quickly relax during a hot flash situation.

At the beginning of the study, all the participants experienced an average of 10 hot flashes a day. After three months, researchers report in the journal product.

Pfizer Inc.’s Lipitor and the generic versions on the US market are taken by millions of patients. The cholesterol-lowering Barbara Rolls, chair of nutritional sciences at The Pennsylvania State University in University Park.

“You need to be careful to make sure that you emphasize substitution, not just, ‘ Eat more of this or that,’” Rolls, who was not involved in the new research, told Reuters Health.

That’s especially true for beverages, she said, since the body regulates hunger and thirst differently - and people often don’t think to eat less to make up for juice or other calorie-filled beverages.

Richard Mattes from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, and his colleagues found that when they fed volunteers a regular lunch of all-you-can-eat macaroni and cheese, they ate an average of 785 or 821 calories of it, depending on the day.

When the same participants started a meal with fresh and dried fruit, then went on to the main course, they ended up eating 678 calories of lunch, the fruit course included. When they started with fruit juice instead, the volunteers took in a total of 891 calories.

People ate about 400 more calories, on average, during the test day when they started lunch with juice, compared to when they started with solid fruit, according to the findings published in the International Journal of Obesity.

But those results in favor of fresh and dried fruit did not hold up over the longer-term, Mattes and his team found. When the researchers provided the volunteers with 400 to 550 calories of either fruits and vegetables or fruit juice each day for eight weeks, there was no change in how they rated their hunger or fullness at regular intervals during each test period. Menopause, the applied relaxation group had an average of four flashes a day while the comparison group averaged eight.

The researchers also found modest improvements in quality of life measures, including sleep problems and aches and pains, among women in the relaxation group, while the comparison group reported no changes.

Innes and other researchers said the mechanism behind mind-body therapies and their effect on menopausal symptoms is not completely understood, but it could be linked to the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for “fight or flight” responses as well as basic functions like heart rate, blood pressure and sweating. medicine brought Pfizer $13 billion in annual sales at its peak, but it got US generic competition last Nov 30. (AFP) Court to rule on suits: The US Supreme Court Friday agreed to consider an appeal to a lawsuit against a generic drug maker, which argues it should not have been penalized for side effects of a drug it didn’t design.

Generic drugs are copies of brand name drugs, sold at a lower price after the patent runs out.

The nation’s top court already ruled the makers of these low-cost drugs could not be sued for failing to notify users of side effects, in a June 2011 decision that noted that the law requires them to reproduce the information on the brand-name manufacturer’s label.

Karen Bartlett, who spent months in a coma and suffers serious long-term consequences after taking a generic anti-inflammatory drug for her shoulder pain, sued Mutual Pharmaceutical, the maker of the drug, claiming a flaw in the drug caused her injuries.

A court awarded her $21 million in damages to compensate for suffering.

Based on the Supreme Court’s previous ruling, the pharmaceutical company is appealing the decision.

The court said it will hear arguments in March, with a decision likely by June. (AFP)