A reduction in carbohydrate consumption can promote the loss of belly fat, even with little or no weight loss, according to a new study.

When paired with weight loss, however, a moderately-reduced carbohydrate diet can help achieve a reduction of total body fat.

University of Alabama researchers say that these changes could help reduce the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, stroke and coronary artery disease, which can all be spurred by excess abdominal fat.

Lead researcher Barbara Gower, PhD, a professor of nutrition sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and her team observed 69 overweight but healthy men and women over a period of 16 weeks.

Participants either received a low-fat diet or a reduced-carb diet.  The low-fat diet contained 55 percent of calories from carbohydrates and 27 percent from fat, while the reduced-carb diet contained 43 percent calories from carbohydrates and 39 percent calories from fat.  Protein made up the remaining 18 percent of calories in each diet.

Over the course of 16 weeks, the reduced-carb diet resulted in a 15 percent greater loss of deep abdominal fat than the low-fat diet.

“A modest reduction in carbohydrate-containing foods may help [dieters] preferentially lose fat, rather than lean tissue,” Gower said in a press release. “The moderately reduced carbohydrate diet allows a variety of foods to meet personal preferences.”

The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society.

Recently, I read a study that claims that fat people can be just as healthy as slim people, as long as they have no chronic health problems.

The study, which followed 6,000 obese people over a 16 year period, concluded that fat can indeed by healthy based on results that indicated that the overweight people lived just as long and had less heart problems than their slim counterparts.

Personally, I wouldn’t put much weight (no pun intended) behind this study. I think it’s sending a terrible message to the public.

Ask any doctor, and they’ll tell you: health-wise, it’s not okay to be obese. Excluding cardiovascular problems, there are still many other chronic diseases associated with being overweight.

People who are overweight are at greater risk for type 2 diabetes, which can take many years to develop, or arthritis, among other problems. All of these issues can have a severely negative impact on quality of life and longevity.

The fact is, medically, it is necessary for all humans to strive to be at an ideal body weight. Sure, there are plenty of skinny, sick people out there, but their health issues would probably be compounded if they had excess body weight to deal with as well.

One good thing that the study did recommend was that obese people keep up an active lifestyle. I agree that maintaining a fitness regimen can help in many ways, including aiding with weight loss.

It’s not okay to settle for being above a healthy weight. People should all fight to reach their ideal weight. Trust me, I’m certainly familiar with that fight myself, and I hope my efforts will pay off in the end.

A new study finds a strong association between red meat consumption, especially when the meat is processed, and an increased risk of type 2 diabetes.

The study also indicates that replacing red meat with other proteins, such as low-fat dairy, nuts or whole grains, can significantly lower that risk.

Harvard researchers analyzed data from over 100,000 people followed for an average of 20 years, as well as looking at data from existing studies. They found, after adjusting for age, body mass index and other lifestyle factors, that a daily 100-gram serving of unprocessed red meat could increase the risk of type-2 diabetes by 19 percent. A hundred grams is about the size of a deck of cards.

A serving half that size of processed meat, such as a hot dog or two slices of bacon, was associated with a 51 percent increased risk.

“Clearly, the results from this study have huge public health implications given the rising type 2 diabetes epidemic and increasing consumption of red meats worldwide,” said senior author Frank Hu. “The good news is that such troubling risk factors can be offset by swapping red meat for a healthier protein.”

For example, a person who substitutes their daily serving of meat with nuts can lower his or her risk of type 2 diabetes by 21 percent. Low-fat dairy is associated with a 17 percent lowered risk, and whole grains decreases the risk by 23 percent.

Based on the findings, the researchers advise to minimize consumption of processed red meat like hot dogs, bacon, sausage and deli meats, which generally have high levels of sodium and nitrates, and reduce consumption of unprocessed red meat.

If possible, red meat should be replaced with healthier choices, such as nuts, whole grains, low-fat dairy products, fish or beans, the researchers said.

Diabetes has reached epidemic levels worldwide, affecting nearly 350 million adults. It affects 25.6 million adults in the United States alone.

The researchers say their findings may have some impact on U.S. dietary guidelines.

The study will be published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

A new study bucks traditional medical advice to simply “lose weight” in order to stave off diabetes.  According to the results of the study, increasing muscle mass may also lower a person’s risk of developing pre-diabetes symptoms.

UCLA researchers found that higher muscle mass (relative to body size) was related to better insulin sensitivity and lower risk of pre-diabetes as well as full-blown type 2 diabetes.

“Our findings represent a departure from the usual focus of clinicians, and their patients, on just losing weight to improve metabolic health,” said the study’s senior author, Preethi Srikanthan, MD.

“Instead, this research suggests a role for maintaining fitness and building muscle,” Srikanthan added. “This is a welcome message for many overweight patients who experience difficulty in achieving weight loss, as any effort to get moving and keep fit should be seen as laudable and contributing to metabolic change.”

According to the researchers, this means that doctors should be monitoring muscle mass as well as changes in waist circumference and BMI in regards to diabetes risk.  It also suggests a wider range of exercise interventions may be available in order to prevent diabetes.

The study was published in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).

Eating nuts can help manage type 2 diabetes and prevent further complications from the disease, according to a new study.

Canadian researchers report that consuming two ounces of nuts daily in the place of carbohydrates help control blood glucose and lipid levels in people with type 2 diabetes.

It didn’t matter whether the nuts were mixed, unsalted, raw or dry-roasted, the researchers said.

For the study, lead researcher David Jenkins and colleagues assigned three different nutritional supplements to people who suffered from type 2 diabetes.  One group was given muffins, another was given a mixture of nuts including almonds, pistachios, walnuts, pecans, cashews and macadamias, and the last group was given both muffins and nuts.

The group who received the nut-only supplement showed the greatest improvement in blood glucose control.  They also saw a reduction in LDL cholesterol.

Meanwhile, the group who simply ate muffins experienced no benefits, while the group who ate muffins and nuts also reduced their cholesterol levels.

Furthermore, nut consumption was not associated with weight gain.

“If anything, nuts appear to be well suited as part of weight-reducing diets,” Dr. Jenkins said.

“The study indicates that nuts can provide a specific food option for people with Type 2 diabetes wishing to reduce their carbohydrate intake,” he said.

The study was published in the journal Diabetes Care.

Off the heels of a test that claims to be able to predict early death from heart disease, a new test says it can predict early death from diabetes.

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center researchers have followed nearly 1,500 patients as part of a diabetes heart study for a period of 13 years.  As original study participants began to die, the researchers sought to understand why – and if there were any warning signs.

Diabetes, which affects more than 25 million Americans, puts people at an increased risk of developing heart and vascular disease.  At least 60 percent of diabetes patients ultimately die of a vascular event like heart attack or stroke.

Doctors have long known that a high coronary artery calcium (CAC) score is a strong indicator of coronary heart disease.  The score provides a measure of how much calcified “plaque” is present in the heart’s blood vessels.

The plaque is measured with a gated CT scan which takes about 10 minutes to perform.

Among diabetes patients, researchers found a wide range of CAC scores of the arteries and the heart, from individuals with none at all to those whose entire vessels were nearly completely calcified.

“We saw a dramatic risk of dying earlier in the people with highest levels of calcified plaque in their blood vessels,” said Donald Bowden, Ph.D., the director of the Center for Diabetes Research at Wake Forest Baptist and lead investigator, in a press release.

When comparing the group with the highest CAC scores to the group with lowest, the risk of dying was more than six times greater among those with high levels of calcified plaque, researchers found.

According to Bowden, the findings are important because diabetes is associated with many other medical problems, so it is crucial to identify who is at the highest risk and needs that most intensive medical monitoring and care.

“The striking magnitude of the risk suggests very strongly that other research samples should be evaluated, especially in individuals with diabetes,” he said.

The study was published in the journal Diabetes Care.