Benefits of Eating Better Aren't Always Visible
Even when they didn't lose weight, people saw health improvements with improved diets
Welcome back to your weekly dose of wisdom and wellness, written by Wise & Well’s editor, Robert Roy Britt. Below you’ll find several informative and actionable stories by our team of journalists, topical experts and practicing professionals. First, a brief news bite:
Improving your diet can confer health benefits even if you don’t lose weight, assuming that was an objective. In a new analysis of clinical trial data on overweight and obese people, 28% of participants who switched to a healthy diet didn’t lose weight but most of them still saw “significant improvements” to various health markers. Others in the trial eating a healthy diet lost weight and improved their health markers.
Independent of weight reduction, study participants showed significant improvements in cardiometabolic markers, including higher HDL cholesterol (the healthy type of cholesterol), lower levels of leptin (the hormone that signals hunger), and less visceral fat (belly fat found deep inside the abdominal cavity, sometimes wrapping around organs).
“We have been conditioned to equate weight loss with health, and weight loss-resistant individuals are often labeled as failures,” said the study’s lead author Anat Yaskolka Meir, PhD, a research fellow in epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Our findings reframe how we define clinical success. People who do not lose weight can improve their metabolism and reduce their long-term risk for disease. That’s a message of hope, not failure.”
Participants were randomly assigned to one of several diets for 18 to 24 months, with variations of the Mediterranean diet and low-carbohydrate diets proving most beneficial.
“This novel finding shows that some people may be biologically wired to respond differently to the same diet,” said study team member Iris Shai, PhD, an adjunct professor of nutrition at Harvard Chan School. “This isn’t just about willpower or discipline — it’s about biology. And now we’re getting close to understanding it.”
The research, funded by the German Research Foundation and others, was detailed this week in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
Now, this week’s feature stories:
The Reason You’re Still Tired After Your Vacation
We get tired. Frustrated. Stressed. We need time off. We take a week, if we’re lucky. Then that first day back? Miserable, right? This writer, a nurse, knows all about the problem, and the crux of it is that we think we’re just tired, frustrated and stressed. In reality, we’re suffering burnout, a condition that a) can’t be cured in a week and b) deserves a whole lot more respect if we’re all gonna survive this modern life. By Andrea Romeo RN, BN
To Reduce Clutter, Start with Self-Awareness
If you pay close attention to most of the advice about how to remove clutter, two things are evident: One, you probably have a lot of clutter; two, the advice isn’t helpful. It’s offered up by people who’ve mastered the art, and that ain’t most of us. This psychologist explains why the common advice doesn’t help, and what you really need to do to tidy up your existence. By Gail Post, Ph.D.
Can Weight Loss Drugs Help Osteoarthritis Sufferers?
Name-brand drugs in high demand for weight loss and diabetes are showing positive effects on osteoarthritis. This physician lays out the current research and the promising future, in which arthritis of the joints, common with aging and linked to obesity, could become far more treatable without joint-replacement surgery, which is no minor procedure, and which does not always go well. By Stephen Schimpff MD, MACP
Dementia Flows from Plumbing Problems in the Brain
Every day, your brain fills up with toxic chemicals and bits of harmful detritus, the effluent of thinking and doing, the cost of cognition. If you are healthy and sleep well, a natural sewage disposal system kicks in overnight and cleans and clears your mind while you’re zonked. Poor sleep and aging muck with the system, though. New science helps us understand what’s going on and how to keep the system funtioning properly. By Robert Roy Britt
Taking Vitamin D Might Keep You Younger Longer
Vitamins supplements are rarely needed by people with healthy diet and no underlying health conditions that beg specific needs. But a lot of people—due to poor diets or latitude issues—don’t get enough vitamin D, which is vital to a well-functioning body. New research adds a potential additional benefit, suggesting a protective effect deep down in your cells. By
Annie Foley
My Problems with the Man Hug
I grew up back before men started hugging, and I’ve never really learned how to do it properly. As I asked around, I found that other men, young and old, struggle with the man hug (which seems to be a uniquely American thing, btw). The science of hugging (there is some, though not a lot) helps explain why the man hug is so choreographically challenging and emotionally loaded—ingredients for anxiety. By Robert Roy Britt
I hope we’ve helped make your tomorrow a little better than today.
Cheers,
Rob