Calories in Food: How Can People Cut Calorie Density?

People can cut calorie density by reducing fat and adding vegetables and fruit whenever they can. So a pizza would have a bit less cheese and more veggies.

Having a low-calorie-dense soup or salad or even whole pieces of apple at the start of a meal helps to fill you up so you eat less at the next course. And you end up eating fewer calories at that meal.

I think of it as a win-win because you?re getting more food, more nutrient-rich food, you?re less hungry, and you?re managing your weight.

It?s hard to miss the first clue that explains insulin resistance. Roughly 80 percent of people with type 2 diabetes are overweight or obese.

?Excess body weight is by far the strongest risk factor for diabetes,? says Harvard?s JoAnn Manson, who heads the Division of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women?s Hospital in Boston. And the ?visceral? fat deep in your belly may boost the risk the most.

?If we could get people to a healthy weight, it could eliminate roughly half of all cases of diabetes,? says Manson. ?That?s the big picture.?

Obesity doesn?t explain why we all?no matter how fat or thin?have a greater risk of diabetes as we get older. And genes, smoking, exercise, and diet also play a role. But for most people, the trouble starts when they eat too many calories, day after day.

?Any excess calories you eat are eventually turned into fat that needs to be stored,? explains Kimber Stanhope, a molecular biologist at the University of California, Davis.

At first, the fat fits into your fat cells.

?Let?s say your body is doing a good job of being able to store the fat,? says Stanhope. ?But once your fat cells get too large, they?re less likely to continue to take up and retain more fat.?

Some obese people may never become insulin resistant (or diabetic) because their bodies keep making new fat cells.

?Maybe they?re just better at storing the fat because their fat cells can get bigger or they can make more fat cells,? notes Samuel. Others run out of storage room sooner. ?They start to run into problems when the fat starts to spill over,? he explains.

When there?s no more room at the inn, the body stashes the fat wherever it can.

?It?s called ectopic lipid,? says Stanhope. ?Fat is stored in tissues that aren?t supposed to be storing it?like the liver, muscle, and pancreas.?

Some scientists believe that misplaced fat is the key to insulin resistance. When insulin arrives at a cell, it signals a ?glucose transporter? to ferry blood sugar (glucose) into the cell. Ectopic fat may block the signal, suggest studies at Yale and elsewhere.

?We think the initial insult is ectopic lipid in muscle or the liver or both,? says Samuel.

Excess fat can also lead to low levels of chronic inflammation, which makes matters worse.

?When cells get overfat, some scientists call them ?angry fat? because they release inflammatory proteins,? explains Sheri Colberg, professor of human movement sciences at Old Do?minion University in Norfolk, Virginia.

In fact, some researchers contend that it?s the inflammatory proteins that keep insulin from working well.

Sources: Lancet 375: 2267, 2010. J. Clin. Invest. 116: 1793, 2006.

People with high levels of vitamin D in their blood may have no greater risk of pancreatic cancer, as an earlier study had suggested.

Researchers compared vitamin D levels taken roughly 14 years earlier in 451 people with and 1,167 people without pancreatic cancer. The risk was no higher in those with blood levels of 40 ng/mL or more than in those with lower levels, as a previous study had reported.

In fact, people with blood levels of at least 20 ng/mL had a 25 to 30 percent lower risk than those with lower levels.

What to do: Stick to recommended intakes of vitamin D (600 IU a day if you?re 50 or younger and 800 IU a day if you?re older). It?s too early to know whether vitamin D can lower or raise the risk of pancreatic cancer, but it?s reassuring that the potential harm isn?t showing up in all studies.

Source: Cancer Epidemiol. Biomarkers Prev. 21: 82, 2012.

Soft drinks, sports drinks, fruit drinks, energy drinks, coffee drinks, cupcakes, cookies, muffins, doughnuts, granola bars, chocolate, ice cream, sweetened yogurt, cereal, candy. The list of sweet temptations is endless.

The average American now consumes 22 to 28 teaspoons of added sugars a day?mostly high-fructose corn syrup and ordinary table sugar (sucrose). That?s 350 to 440 empty calories that few of us can afford.

How much added sugar is too much? Cutting back to 100 calories (6? teaspoons) a day for women and 150 calories (9? teaspoons) a day for men might mean slimmer waist-lines and a lower risk of disease.

Keeping salt on the low side is definitely important for preventing heart attacks and strokes, but that tends to happen automatically if you eat fruits, vegetables, and whole grains that have been minimally processed.

You still need to pay attention because you can find whole grains even at places like Whole Foods that are extremely high in salt even though they are marketed as healthy. If you go the processed, prepackaged route, you run the risk of a high salt intake. But if you prepare your own intact foods, most of the time your salt intake will be low.

Source: http://www.nutritionaction.com/daily-calories-in-food/how-can-people-cut-calorie-density

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