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The Top Trending Diet and Exercise Searches of 2019 – Yahoo Lifestyle

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The year is drawing to a close, and with that comes a wrap ofthe fitness and diet choices that ruled the web and influenced our health decisions for 12 months. To find out which workouts and diets shined bright in 2019, Google studied an aggregation of trillions of searches on its platform and combined it with data from Google Trends. The result? The top trending searches that had a high spike in traffic over a sustained period in 2019.

Popular favorites like the keto ultra diet and plank exercises made Googles Year in Search report along with newer breakout trends like the Dr. Sebi diet. Whether weight loss is at the top of your 2020 goals or youre exercising for the first time, check out the popular workout and diet searches from 2019.

Working Out While Traveling: How You Can Do a Total-Body Workout in Your Hotel Room

Workouts that saw a spike in 2019 were medicine ball workouts, flat stomach workouts, mirror workouts, the Bikini Body Guide workout andbody groove workouts a workout routine that relies on dance moves to help exercisers burn off calories.Bungee workouts, plank exercises and themanduu exercisea concept that uses electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) for a custom exercise experience also topped the list.Theone punch man workout, an anime-inspired workout, was also among the most searched work out terms.

A few diet regimens also saw a search increasein 2019. The intermittent fasting diet, 1200 calories diet, keto ultra diet and the GOLO diet were all common searches. The Dubrow diet, Sirtfood diet, endomorph diet,Dr. Sebi diet, Noom diet and the no carbs no sugar diet were also included in Google's list. Before embarking on any popular diet though you should be warned,many popular diets with have hidden side effects.

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December 12th, 2019 at 12:46 pm

10 Years of Fertility Advances – NYT Parenting – NYT Parenting

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How a decade of major discoveries has dramatically changed how we think about conception.

On July 24, 2003, Robert G. Edwards, a physiologist who pioneered the in vitro fertilization technique, made the following remark: I wanted to find out exactly who was in charge, whether it was God himself or whether it was scientists in the laboratory, adding, It was us.

Since the first I.V.F. baby was born in 1978 25 years before Dr. Edwards made that statement and 32 years before he would win the Nobel Prize in Medicine for developing the technique the seemingly supernatural ability to unite sperm and eggs outside the body and implant them directly into the womb has been heralded as the most remarkable achievement in fertility to date. Its allowed millions of babies to be born that otherwise would not have been born; I think its been revolutionary, said Dr. Mindy Christianson, M.D., medical director of the Johns Hopkins Fertility Center.

Now, as this decade comes to a close, what kinds of major advancements in fertility science have we seen since 2010? While were still a far cry from a future in which a woman can analyze her egg reserve with the tap of a smartphone, or in which a man can get a running tally of his sperm count with the flick of a smartwatch, the past 10 years have been no less remarkable than decades past. Here are some of the biggest breakthroughs in fertility since 2010.

Scientists have been able to easily freeze embryos and sperm for decades, but it wasnt until 2012 that egg freezing went from an experimental procedure to a promising insurance policy for thousands of women in the United States, including cancer patients, single women and those who want or need to delay having children. The ability to successfully freeze eggs over the last 10 years has been one of the bigger, if not the biggest, achievement, Dr. Christianson said.

This is largely because of the development of a flash-freezing technique called vitrification. Previously, human eggs which are the largest cells in the human body and hold a lot of water were challenging to freeze because ice crystals would develop and damage the cell. But with vitrification, experts can freeze the cells so quickly that ice crystals dont have a chance to form.

[Wait, is that another ad for egg freezing?]

I.V.F. is expensive, not to mention emotionally and physically taxing. Its important, then, that providers select the best and most competent embryos from the petri dish in the lab to implant into the womb. While experts have for more than 10 years been able to scan the genetic material of these rudimentary cells for signs that they might fail to implant or result in miscarriage or birth defects, genetic testing of embryos has become more mainstream, affordable and reliable in the past decade.

When I was still in training seven or eight years ago, Dr. Christianson said, it was cost-prohibitive for most patients to do genetic testing of their embryos. Today, she said, companies charge per embryo, making it much more affordable.

Another advancement that has allowed providers to select the most robust embryos to implant: the ability to grow them in the lab until they reach what is called the blastocyst stage (which occurs five or six days after fertilization). If an embryo is healthy enough to survive until this stage outside the body, the thinking goes, it has a higher chance of sticking around after implantation. Such advances in selecting the best embryos have also allowed providers to transfer just one, rather than multiple, embryos into the womb at a time, reducing the risk of twins or more and thereby reducing risk in the pregnancy.

With the right embryo, most women will have a very high chance of live birth, and were able to decrease that risk of multiples, Dr. Christianson said. So I think thats one of the revolutionary breakthroughs.

[Read more about I.V.F. and what it costs.]

Before the 2010s, the only parenting options for women who didnt have a uterus or who couldnt carry a pregnancy were adoption or surrogacy. But in 2013, doctors in Sweden made history after a 35-year-old patient, who had had a uterus from a 61-year-old woman transplanted, gave birth to a healthy boy. In 2016, doctors in Brazil advanced the technique even further, announcing that a 32-year-old woman had given birth with a uterus that had been transplanted from a deceased donor.

While these breakthroughs are huge for reproductive science, Dr. Christianson said, uterine transplants are also expensive. Its the only transplant we know of that is for a one-time use to make a baby and then you dont need the transplant anymore, she said. So while this procedure is revolutionary for the right type of patient, it most likely wont become mainstream.

One of the biggest achievements for male infertility, said Dr. Peter Schlegel, M.D., urologist in chief at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center and president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, has been in the treatment of those with severe infertility. Particularly in men who produce little to no sperm, he said, or who had previously been rendered sterile because of treatments like chemotherapy.

A technique called micro-TESE which was developed in the late 1990s, improved in the 2000s and more popularized in the past decade, Dr. Schlegel said involves identifying areas of the testicle that have the best sperm production and microsurgically removing those sperm for use with assisted reproductive technologies like I.V.F.

A lot of those men are now considered treatable, Dr. Schlegel said, whereas before, our understanding of how and whether you could treat them was pretty limited.

[What to know about male infertility.]

Intrauterine devices have had a decidedly rocky past. The first known IUD-like device for humans, developed in 1909, reportedly involved inserting a ring made of silkworm gut seriously into the uterus. Since then, IUDs have advanced from silkworm rings wrapped entirely in silver (which, surprise, turned womens gums blackish-blue) to countless variations of loops, coils and plastic Ts. In the 1970s, the Dalkon Shield IUD was infamously pulled from the market after its poor design increased womens risk of infection and infertility. But in the late 1980s and early 2000s, the IUD regained popularity with the Food and Drug Administrations approval of the copper ParaGard and levonorgestrel-releasing Mirena.

It wasnt until 12 years later, in 2013, that the F.D.A. approved the next IUD, the Skyla, which is a low-dose hormonal option. In 2015 and 2016, the agency approved even lower-dose options the Liletta and the Kyleena. These IUDS have really revolutionized contraception because theyre highly effective and they are very well tolerated, Dr. Christianson said.

They are also valuable therapies for women with certain conditions, like heavy uterine bleeding, which in the past was mainly treated by performing a hysterectomy. Less women are undergoing hysterectomies because their symptoms can be treated with an IUD, Dr. Christianson said.

For women who cant freeze their eggs, like prepubescent girls or women who suddenly need cancer treatment, ovarian tissue freezing has offered a chance for them to preserve their ovaries for later reimplantation and use. The procedure has been available for about 20 years, Dr. Christianson said, but within the past 10 years, there have been several advances in the technique and more live births as a result.

Because most people who have frozen ovarian tissue havent needed to use it yet, the procedure is still considered experimental. Hopefully at some point the experimental label will be lifted, Dr. Christianson said.

Its perhaps not surprising that diet, sleep and exercise play a role in fertility. And while scientists are still in the early stages of sussing out how the food we eat and the sleep and exercise we get translate to prolificacy, recent albeit limited evidence is offering more clues.

A 2018 review from scientists from Harvard University, for instance, found that folic acid, vitamin B-12, omega-3 fatty acids and a Mediterranean diet were linked with better fertility in women, while unhealthy diets, like those high in trans fats, red and processed meats, added sugars and sugar-sweetened beverages, were associated with worse fertility. In men, similarly, researchers have found that those who follow healthy diets tend to have better fertility, while those with diets high in saturated and trans fats are worse off.

There is also budding evidence about how exercise and sleep affect virility in men, Dr. Schlegel said and some of the results seem counterintuitive. Moderate exercise, for instance, seems to be beneficial, but when those men exercise more vigorously such as by cycling for more than five hours per week, he said their sperm counts can be reduced by nearly half. Men who get six to eight hours of sleep per night tend to have better sperm production and fertility than those who get more or less, Dr. Schlegel said.

While many of these studies are promising, most are based on observational data, Dr. Schlegel said, so its not yet clear why researchers are seeing such associations, or whether changes to diet, sleep and exercise can really alter your fertility in the first place.

[Does stress actually affect fertility?]

For the bulk of the past century, fertile and pregnant women have been excluded from most clinical trials over fears of potential harms to future or current pregnancies. But as a result, there is a huge gap in knowledge about how safe and effective certain drugs are for women in general (case in point, the thalidomide debacle of the 1950s and 1960s).

More recently, there has been a major push for better representation of women in medical research.

For womens health in general, I think that this is a breakthrough, Dr. Christianson said. When we look at cardiology studies and other types of studies, a lot of times theres been more men than women. So I think focusing studies on women has been revolutionary for womens health.

While the textbook signs and symptoms of pre-eclampsia have been well understood high blood pressure, protein in the urine, swelling, headache, trouble breathing and more scientists still dont understand what causes the condition, and diagnosing it and predicting those who will develop it are challenging. Similarly, the most effective treatment for pre-eclampsia is also the least satisfying one delivery.

But research in recent years has helped improve our understanding of how the condition progresses in the body, said Dr. Ananth Karumanchi, M.D., a professor of medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. And that research has led to development of the first blood test which has been widely used abroad that can accurately diagnose the condition in women who have pre-eclampsia. While the test has not yet been approved in the United States, Dr. Karumanchi said that its development was a big deal because it might lead to new therapies for pre-eclampsia within the next decade.

The definition of pre-eclampsia was revised in 2014, based on new evidence, to capture women who have the condition but who dont have only the classic signs, like high blood pressure and protein in their urine. Now, for instance, it is well understood that some women may have only organ problems, such as with their liver or kidneys, before high blood pressure and protein in the urine set in.

New research has also offered clues on how women who are high risk might thwart the condition completely. A double-blind, placebo-controlled trial published in 2017, for example, found that taking 150 milligrams of aspirin daily from 11 to 14 weeks of pregnancy through the 36th week could reduce the chances of developing pre-eclampsia. Though because high doses of aspirin can also be associated with certain risks to a pregnancy, like pregnancy loss or certain birth defects, you should never start taking it without consulting your doctor.

In the past, a cervical cancer diagnosis might have meant the end of your ability to conceive, because standard treatment was to remove all or part of the uterus. But recent advances in fertility-conserving surgeries have given cancer patients more options. A procedure called a trachelectomy, for instance, which has been around for decades but has become more commonly used in recent years, allows doctors to remove only the cervix in patients who have cervical cancer. And as a result, shes able to preserve her uterus for future pregnancy, Dr. Christianson said.

Similarly, there has been a push in recent years to treat endometrial cancer more conservatively, Dr. Christianson said, by trying hormonal therapies before removing the uterus.

Julia Calderone is a senior staff editor for NYT Parenting. Follow her @juliacalderone.

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NYT Parenting provides guidance and support to new and expecting parents. We publish evidence-based guides and developmental milestones backed by the journalistic rigor of The New York Times. Our reporting helps you make decisions for your family, and our essays tell personal stories about all the ways you can become a parent and live a full life with children.

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December 12th, 2019 at 12:46 pm

More and More Very Young Children Across the Nation Lack Health Insurance. Guess How Texas Fares. – Dallas Observer

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Nearly a fifth of the nations youngestuninsured children live in Texas, a stark reminder that the state has some of the most restrictive policies in the nation governing healthcare benefits for its most vulnerable residents.

More than 8% of Texan children under the age of 6 are not insured, according to a report released Wednesday by Georgetown University researchers. Thats almost double the national rate.

The report is not surprising. A similar report, released in October, found that Texas had the highest uninsured rate in the nation among all children up to age 18.

Still, Elisabeth Wright Burak, one of the report's authors, called the study's results very sobering, citing the recent reversal in a decade-long trend of falling uninsured rates.

Texas' increasing rate of uninsured small children mirrors a national trend, which has policy experts like Burak worried. The last few years have been a period of strong economic expansion, when more people would typically seek health insurance.

But since 2016, Texas' uninsured rate among young children increased by a percentage point.

They already have a lot of uninsured kids, and theyre going in the wrong direction, Burak said, referring to states like Texas during a webcast announcing the report.Medicaid enrollment has been linked to a variety of better outcomes later in life, from financial security to college completion, she added.

Only Alaska has a higher uninsured rate among children under age 6, a consequence of that states large population of indigenous people, who are far more likely to be uninsured. Texas problem, however, can be traced directly to decisions by state policymakers.

Whether children are insured depends on their parents. Those who can't afford it often obtain coverage through government programs like Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program, and participation by parents in these programs has been linked to a variety of better outcomes for their children later in life, from financial security to college completion, Burak said.

Texas is one of 14 states where policymakers have elected to not accept federal funding to expand Medicaid coverage to more low-income families. Young children are more likely to be covered in states that have adopted the Medicaid expansion,Burakadded.

The crisis disproportionately impacts Hispanic families. Nearly 15% of Hispanic minors in Texas are uninsured, according to a separate report by the Georgetown researchers.

The Trump administration recently published changes to the "public charge" rule this year, which would allow immigration officials to consider enrollment in Medicaid when reviewing applications for green cards. The changes were blocked by federal judges after several states filed suit, but two of those injunctions have been lifted in recent weeks, paving the way for an eventual implementation of the rule change.

Around a quarter of Texas children have at least one parent who is not a citizen, according to theCenter for Public Policy Priorities, an Austin-based policy institute. The latest numbers on low insurance rates among Hispanic children reinforce reports of the impending rule's "chilling effect." Immigrants, reports say, are forgoing lawful benefits out of fear of later being denied citizenship.

The state has put up other roadblocks as well. According to research by the center, participation in the state's Medicaid and CHIP programs has dropped in recent years, a result of cuts in outreach funding and new rules that add extensive red tape to the programs' enrollment process.

The cost of paying for care of the uninsured ultimately falls on taxpayers. In 2018 alone, the Parkland Health and Hospital System gave out more than $1 billion in un-reimbursed care. A third of its budget comes from local property taxes.

The hospital stations social workers and financial counselors in its maternity wards to assist uninsured mothers in accessing benefits, saidBart Ensley, the hospital's director of patient access.

"We try to do what we can to help," he said.The hospital is expanding pediatric care to community clinics across the Dallas area to make follow-up appointments more convenient.

David Murphy, a researcher at the think tank Child Trends, explained to the Observer earlier this year how a lack of health insurance can create mounting problems for young kids, from irregular visits to the pediatrician to missed immunizations.

When children don't have that regular check-in with a pediatrician or family practice provider, issues around sleep, diet, exercise those kinds of things that are really important to stay healthy and to do well in school those can suffer, he said.

Lucas Manfield is an editorial fellow at the Observer. He's a former software developer and a recent graduate of Columbia Journalism School.

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More and More Very Young Children Across the Nation Lack Health Insurance. Guess How Texas Fares. - Dallas Observer

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December 12th, 2019 at 12:46 pm

Fitness: Five expert tips for staying in shape over the festive season – Express

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2. Drink lots of water

What would party season be without a festive tipple or two? Dont deny yourself that glass of bubbly - or the deluxe hot chocolate with lashings of cream - but do remember to regularly drink water.

Drinking plenty of water not only suppresses appetite; it also boosts your metabolism, helping you to digest the festive treats faster and more efficiently, Virtue said.

3. Optimise your workout

If youre particularly short on time over the Christmas season, plan a more intensive workout to get the most of your workout window, suggested Virtue.

Try VIIT (variable intensity interval training) to target all the muscles in your body, as well as the various energy systems; this will improve strength and endurance, while burning more calories.

Whatever your preferred exercise is, there are ways to increase your gains in a shorter workout time.

For example, when practicing yoga, intersperse your poses with quick blasts of cardio, or practice poses whilst holding weights for extra burn. If you prefer strength-training, try increasing your weights - this will induce muscle fatigue faster, shortening your workout time, said Virtue.

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December 12th, 2019 at 12:46 pm

Doctor says diet, exercise are more important than hair dye when it comes to breast cancer – FOX 5 DC

Posted: December 11, 2019 at 8:50 pm


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Hair dye & chemical straighteners may increase risk of breast cancer

Hair products are part of a billion dollar beauty industry and new information reveals that using hair dye and chemical hair straighteners may increase the risk of developing breast cancer.

Some women are opting for nonpermanent hair color and relaxers amid news of a study that found women who use permanent hair dye and chemical straighteners may be at an increased risk of developing breast cancer, but doctors say you might have better success preventing breast cancer through diet and exercise changes.

According to the studyat the National Institutes of Health, higher breast cancer risk was associated with hair dye use, and the effects appeared to be stronger in African American womenparticularly those who are frequent users of the dyes and chemical straighteners.

At Renees Touch salon, Renee Montgomery has been using the CHI hair dye brandwhich does not include harsh chemicals like ammonia--but says she was still concerned when she heard about the new study.

"So many of my clients actually have color and have straighteners or relaxers in their hair, so I was very concerned," said Montgomery.

The study used data from 46,709 women and found that women who regularly used hair dye were 9 percentmore likely to develop breast cancer, but among women who used permanent hair dye every five to eight weeks, that risk increased to 60 percent for black womencompared to eight percent for white women.

"If you look at the number of African Americans in the study, it's very small compared to the number of Caucasians, so I don't know how accurate that would be if you applied it to a bigger population, said Julie R. Nangia, MD, from Baylor College of Medicines cancer center.

Nangia said more studies need to be done before shell recommend drastic haircare changes.

"I don't think I would recommend to my patients for them to stop using hair dye because of this study," said Nangia.

Montgomery said she personally avoids chemical straighteners and opts for a flat iron.

Nangia said if you want to avoid breast cancer, there are other factors to look at. Studies show alcohol use and not exercising have a much higher association with increased breast cancer risk.

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Doctor says diet, exercise are more important than hair dye when it comes to breast cancer - FOX 5 DC

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December 11th, 2019 at 8:50 pm

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Everything you need to know about the F-factor diet – Times of India

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With a majority of the world obsessing over their body by trying to become the best version of themselves, many diet fads are at their disposal to help them achieve their dream body. Paleolithic diet, ketogenic diet, raw food diet, and liquid diet are all examples of health fads that arose in the wake of health and wellness. And now, another fad called the F-factor diet seems to be making head turns with its new approach to weight loss.

Created by dietitian Tanya Zuckerbrot, the F-factor diet is a weight loss plan that focuses on consuming foods high in fiber, lean protein, and complex carbs. It is distinct from other weight loss plans as it allows eating out, drinking alcohol occasionally, eating carbs, and spending less time exercising. The idea of the F-factor diet is to be able to enjoy the small joys of life as it increases the sustainability of the diet and also makes it easier to follow. The main sources of fiber are fruits, vegetables, pulses, and whole grains.

By increasing the quantity of fiber, you are kept satiated for longer, thus preventing the feeling of deprivation. The lean protein helps in maintaining muscle mass without providing too many carbs and fats, and the relatively low carb intake prevents excess calorie storage. The F-factor diet is meant to be followed in three phases. In the first phase (jump starting weight loss), you have to eat fewer than 35 grams of net carbs a day over three servings of carbs. In the second phase (continued weight loss), you have to eat fewer than 75 grams of net carbs a day over six servings of carbs. In the final phase (maintenance eating), you have to eat fewer than 125 grams of net carbs a day over nine servings of carbs.

In the past, research has found a link between a high fiber diet and weight loss to such an extent that fiber has been shown to even prevent obesity and chronic diseases. It is slowly digested, therefore it stays in the body for longer, keeping you full for longer and preventing eating in between meals. A study showed that for people suffering from obesity or excess weight, fiber was the most important dietary requirement regardless of calorie or macronutrient intake. While there isnt much research to prove the caliber of the F-factor diet, previous studies are in favour of it.

The F-factor diet doesnt give as much importance to exercise like other diets to, for it may increase hunger and make you eat more. Exercise is an important factor to aid weight loss, and without it, your efforts might be hindered. Excess fiber can not only cause digestive issues like gas, cramping, and bloating, but it may make you ignore other important nutrients like protein and fat, which also make you lose calories.

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Everything you need to know about the F-factor diet - Times of India

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December 11th, 2019 at 8:50 pm

Embodied: Deconstructing Diet Culture And The Science Behind It – WUNC

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If you have ever been on a diet, you know the pure vulnerability of getting weighed at the doctors office. Standing on that old metal scale with your shoes off, you might avert your eyes, as if that would prevent the nurse from saying the number out loud as they write it down. But what if weight did not play such an active role in determining your health?

On this edition of Embodied host Anita Rao examines 'The Health At Every Size Movement' with Christy Harrison, anti-diet registered dietitian, nutritionist and certified intuitive eating counselor, Dr. Louise Metz, and Mirna Valerio, former teacher-turned-sponsored athlete.

Some of the research presented in this show challenges a lot of what we have been told about health and our bodies...possibly even what you have heard from your medical provider. We invite you to listen with an open mind. Linked at the end of this page are studies referenced in the show. This conversation is not a substitute for personal medical advice.

On todays episode of our ongoing series Embodied: Sex Relationships and Your Health, we deconstruct diet culture by examining the holes in the science which props it up. The medical field has puzzled over the obesity epidemic for years with little progress. According to a growing field of doctors and health practitioners, weight is not the end-all-be-all indicator of health. Data shows that a higher body weight is correlated with diseases like osteoarthritis, cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes, but correlation does not imply causation.

History of Diet Culture

Christy Harrison is an anti-diet registered dietitian, nutritionist and certified intuitive eating counselor. After spending much of her life engaged in disordered eating, she found her way out of diet culture. She calls it The Life Thief and defines it as a system of beliefs that worships thinness and equates it to health and moral virtue; promotes weight loss as a means of attaining higher moral and health status; demonizes certain foods and food groups and ways of eating while elevating others; and oppresses people who don't match up with its supposed picture of health and well-being.

In her forthcoming book, Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating (Little, Brown Spark/2019), she traces diet cultures history as far back as ancient Greece and the societys moralistic arguments against fatness.

This was because of the belief system that ancient Greeks had about balance and moderation and all things being seen as a virtue, she says. So fatness was seen as an imbalance to be, quote unquote, corrected.

Though that perspective fell out of vogue for centuries after the fall of Rome, it began to reemerge in the mid-19th century culture, still long before the medical world propagated weight stigma.

Ideas about the value of different bodies and of different people was really in the foreground and that started to lead to a demonization of fatness, she says. Early evolutionary biologists who are working around [the turn of the 19th century] started to point to fatness as a mark of, quote unquote, evolutionary inferiority because people who had more fat on their bodies were supposedly women and people of color and groups that were being demonized at the time.

Harrison says the societal association of fatness with disenfranchised groups like women and people of color attributed to the convergence of weight stigma and medicine. As patients increasingly demanded to be weighed by their doctors and be put on diets, medical professionals bent to their demands. She also points to the emerging life insurance industry as a factor in medicalizing weight stigma.

The life insurance industry, of course, is geared towards making money and making sure that they're having people in their insurance pool who are going to live the longest. And so they're doing this research to determine who's a bigger risk. And they found from their early research in wealthy, white middle-aged men that it seemed to be the larger-bodied men were dying sooner. And so they started to relay this information to doctors. They started to kind of coalesce behind a campaign of telling people not to be fat and having people lose weight as a way of supposedly reducing health risks. The risks are really it was about reducing monetary risks from the insurance industry.

The Obesity Epidemic

The research these early insurance companies conducted relied on measuring body mass index, or BMI. The scale categorizes people as underweight, normal or healthy weight, overweight or obese. BMI is a persons weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters. It was developed in the 1830s by an astronomer as a statistical exercise.

Dr. Louise Metz says it is a problematic way to categorize health. She is a board-certified internal medicine physician specializing in eating disorders and gender-related care. She founded Mosaic Comprehensive Care in Chapel Hill, and it is a weight-inclusive health center.

[BMI] was designed for populations, not for individuals, and was not designed to define health in any way. And then moving on later to the modern age, it was used to begin to define health somewhere in the 1900s, Metz says. And then later on in the late 90s, what we found is that these arbitrary categories for BMI were suddenly changed. So the definitions of obesity and overweight were suddenly decreased and 29 million people suddenly became quote, overweight or obese overnight. And these changes really were not based in any research that shows that there was a direct link between these BMI categories and health.

[BMI] was designed for populations, not for individuals, and was not designed to define health in any way.

The measure is still used today to track changing body weight at a national level. Medical professionals and insurance companies use BMI as a measure of a persons health. Harrison says this contributed to the declaration of an obesity epidemic.

Many other researchers who are in the so-called field of obesity research are financed and funded by the pharmaceutical industry, [and] the pharmaceutical industry [is funded] by the diet industry, Harrison says. Many of them have their own diet plans and programs that they are selling and have this financing that's coming from people with a vested interest in making Americans fear weight gain and think that their body size is a problem.

Weight and Health: Correlation vs. Causation

Still, the CDC links higher body weight to a range of health consequences like high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes, coronary artery disease and osteoarthritis. There is ample evidence that weight and these health consequences are correlated, but Harrison and Metz caution against implicating weight alone.

We don't have proof that it's the body size causing these health conditions. So there are several other mediators of that. So one could be cardiovascular fitness. We have some data to show that that could be a mediator between body size and health, Metz says. There's one study that looked at this and found that in people who have low cardiovascular fitness levels, mortality rates were higher with higher BMIs. But [in] individuals who had higher cardiovascular fitness, we found that the mortality rates evened out across body size and that in fact, people who are quote overweight or obese and were active cardiovascularly had lower mortality rates in those with a normal BMI who were inactive.

For Type 2 diabetes, a disease widely believed to be preventable by avoiding weight gain, Metz says medical professionals are asking the wrong questions.

There are assumptions behind those questions, and that it is likely not the body size that is causing diabetes again, but there may be other mediators like genetics. So someone might be predisposed to have a higher body weight and have diabetes. And someone might be exposed to chronic dieting and weight cycling As well as weight stigma [that] are increasing the risk of conditions like diabetes.

Why Diets Dont Work

Harrison, Metz and any promoter of the Health At Every Size (HAES) movement will tell you that diets do not work. They are not designed to result in long-term weight loss, but instead trap people in cycles of weight fluctuation. This process is called weight-cycling, and there is evidence that it adversely affects health.

Weight-cycling is this repeated cycle of weight loss and regain that people undergo when they try to intentionally lose weight, Harrison says. And we see in the research that up to 98% of the time when people embark on weight loss efforts, they end up regaining all the weight they lost within five years, if not more. In fact, up to two thirds of people who embark on weight loss efforts may regained more weight than they lost.

Up to 98% of the time when people embark on weight loss efforts, they end up regaining all the weight they lost within five years, if not more.

People in larger bodies get started on this weight-cycling sometimes as early as childhood. A lifetime of dieting, HAES practitioners argue, contributes to poor health. Our bodies are not designed to diet, and Harrison has an explanation as to why the vast majority of people gain back the weight they lost and sometimes more.

Our bodies are wired to resist starvation. And they have all kinds of biological mechanisms that kick in in a situation of lack of food, right, because the body perceives that as famine, she explains. And so it will do things like turn down your fullness hormones so that you keep eating longer in the presence of food, ramp up your hunger hormones so that you're more likely to seek out food, turn down your body temperature so that you're not burning as much energy, reduce your reproductive function because that requires energy.

There's a million things, little things that your body does to help you survive in a situation of lack of food.

To counteract this, Metz never recommends intentional weight loss to her patients. From the HAES perspective, it is more important to focus on things like metabolic levels and other vital signs. As part of the weight-inclusive model at Mosaic, patients are not routinely weighed. If deemed necessary, like in adolescent growth or prescribing weight-determined medication, practitioners will privately weigh the patient and turn the face of the scale away if the patient does not wish to know their weight.

Weight change could be a symptom, and Metz acknowledges its importance when patients bring it to her attention. But overall, she references HAES research in justifying the mostly weight-neutral approach at her practice.

[The] study looked at women who were quote overweight or obese and assigned them either to a diet routine/diet plan or a non-diet Health at Every Size approach. And what they found in these two groups [is] that initially, at the six-month follow-up that they did see improvements in blood pressure, high cholesterol and an increase in engaging and exercise behaviors among both groups, she says. And they saw that weight went down in a diet group. But then if you followed them out to two years, we found that the folks in the diet group actually had all of those numbers revert back to their baseline, and they had no sustained health benefits from engaging in the diet. But in the non-diet group, we found that at two years, they had sustained improved health outcomes across the board, but no change in their weight.

Navigating Diet Culture as a Fat Athlete

Not everyone has access to a HAES practitioner. For people in larger bodies, the weight stigma baked into the medical field can prevent their doctors from seeing past their size and addressing underlying issues.

Mirna Valerio has experienced that firsthand. She is a former teacher-turned-sponsored athlete who runs marathons and ultramarathons. She gained some celebrity in the running community as a large black woman and avid trail runner. Even though she has been running regularly for over a decade, some people still question her validity as an athlete. Her book A Beautiful Work In Progress (Grand Harbor Press/2017) traces her rise as an avid marathon and ultramarathon runner.

Please do not ask me to exercise or to lose weight, she writes on her doctors intake forms. I'm a very, very active person. I run marathons and I work out four to six days a week. I know I'm overweight and I've been working at slow and permanent weight loss for the past five years. Please actually read my chart before you start talking about these things. I would highly appreciate it.

It works for her now, she says. Prefacing her appointments with that note will get most doctors to address her health concerns beyond weight. Still, people on the street question her health.

I'm fat. You don't need to tell me. You don't need to tell me with your body language, you don't need to tell me explicitly or implicitly, I already know that. So it doesn't help me to keep pointing that out, whether I'm out on the trail, whether I'm out on the road, whether I'm just trying to sit in and be me and exist in this world as I am.

She has not weighed herself in years, but her body size has stayed about the same since she started running seriously.

Metz says everyone can take this HAES approach to their own doctors, like Valerio did.

If you're going to your doctor, one thing is that you do not have to be weighed. It is your right to decline to be weighed, she says. And another helpful quote that we learned from Raegan Chastain she will say that if the doctor is recommending weight loss for a condition that you have and you don't think it's appropriate, you can ask Well, what would you recommend for someone in a smaller body? What testing or treatment would you recommend for someone who's thin?

On this edition of our recurring series Embodied: Sex, Relationships and Your Health, host Anita Rao talks with Harrison, Metz and Valerio about diet culture and the stigma larger-bodied people face from the examining room to the running trail.

Continued scholarly reading:

Mortality rates by BMI Review articles that summarize the literature Weight and correlation with metabolic profiles Weight bias in healthcare Cardiorespiratory fitness as a mediator of health

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This Guy Trained Like The Rock for 60 Days and Got Shredded – menshealth.com

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Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson has one of the most muscular physiques of all of Hollywood. The actor reportedly measures 6'5'' in height and weighs roughly 260 pounds. To stay in peak action star shape, he trains hard, combining intense weight room sessions with cardio and core workouts.

YouTuber Isaiah Photo, known for pulling stunts like hugging 1,000 trees to plant 20,000,000 more and storming Area 51, decided to try out the Rock's workout routine for 30 days. Isaiah, to be clear, isn't a fitness YouTuber, and describes himself as having a classic "dad bod" before the challenge begins. Don't try this yourselfand if you do, make sure to work with a coach or trainer to start to make sure you're using proper form for each exercise.

The YouTuber doesn't explain exactly where he got The Rock's workout split, which changes according to the role the actor is prepping for and other factors. Isiah could've followed this leg day routine from Johnson's strength coach, Dave Rienzi or this recent arm day workout posted to Instagram, for examplebut overall, the video follows a relatively normal plan. Mondays and Thursdays are back and bicep days, where he does deadlifts, pull ups, seated cable rows, face pulls, hammer curls, and dumbbell curls.

Tuesday and Fridays focused on the chest, triceps, and shoulders with bench presses, overhead presses, incline dumbbell presses, tricep pushdowns, overhead tricep extensions, and lateral raises.

Wednesday is his leg day, where he kills his quads, hamstrings and glutes with squats, Romanian deadlifts, leg presses, leg curls, and calf raises.

In addition to working out like The Rock, Isaiah also attempted to eat like him, which meant cutting out carbs, fats, and sugars, increasing protein intake, and eating 3,500 calories daily. Directly after every workout, he drank a protein shake, with another protein bar later in the day.

Initially, Isaiah planned to only work out like The Rock for a month, but after seeing so much improvement in his physique, the YouTuber decided to continue the challenge for another month, totaling 60 days.

Isaiah noted that the first 30 days he may have killed in in the gym, but was a little sloppy with his diet, drinking on the weekends and cheating with ice cream periodically, but for days 30 to 60 he promised to be perfect with his diet.

On day 39 Isaiah said, "Not having sugar in literally anything is so hard. It's in literally everything we eat." He continued, "I'm getting so sick of tuna and hardboiled eggs, and just want to throw up at the thought of it."

Still, Isaiah got through it, and by day 48, he noticed that his workout routine and diet had became the norm, making his drastic lifestyle changes significantly easier towards the end of the challenge.

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More Bexar County Youth Are Being Diagnosed With Type 2 Diabetes, Prediabetes – Texas Public Radio

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THURSDAY at noon on "The Source" An estimated14%of Bexar County's population lives with Type 2 diabetes. This preventable disease typically presents later in life, but is being contracted by anincreasingnumber of young adults who are then at risk for severe health complications earlier in life.

Of the more than30 millionAmerican adults with diabetes, approximately90%live with Type 2, which is managed with diet, exercise and insulin.Approximately half a million Texans are still undiagnosed.

Risk factors include poor diet, obesity, sedentary lifestyle and prediabetes. Children diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes often have a family history with the disease.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 1 in 5 adolescents are living with prediabetes, defined as having blood sugar levels higher than normal but not yet at the threshold for an official Type 2 diabetes diagnosis.

Is there a public health strategy to combat the epidemic of Type 2 diabetes in Bexar County? Who is most at risk and what's being done to break the cycle?

What are the potential short and long term effects of Type 2 diabetes? Can it be reversed with healthier living? What does responsible treatment entail and how do individuals without health insurance manage?

What is to blame for the rising rates of Type 2 and prediabetes in young people? Could earlier identification and treatment help mitigate the disease?

The Texas Diabetes Institute is recruiting for diabetes-related clinical trials. Interested listeners can call 210-358-7200 for more information.

Guests:

"The Source" is a live call-in program airing Mondays through Thursdays from 12-1 p.m. Leave a message before the program at (210) 615-8982. During the live show, call 210-614-8980, email thesource@tpr.org or tweet @TPRSource.

*Audio for this interview will be available by 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, December 12.

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More Bexar County Youth Are Being Diagnosed With Type 2 Diabetes, Prediabetes - Texas Public Radio

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The pros and cons of keto cycling, according to health and medical experts – NBC News

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Fans of the high fat, low-carb keto diet praise its appetite-crushing benefit, which is why keto dieting is so popular for weight loss. But since we dont live in a keto-friendly world, the call of carb-rich fare from healthy options, like fruit, yogurt and oatmeal to less healthy foods, like pizza, French fries and dessert can make it hard to stick with the keto diet. Even if youre not craving carbs, a normal social activity, like dinner at a friends house, can pose problems. Enter keto cycling. In this fairly new approach, you cycle on and off the keto diet at various intervals. Though this may sound like the best of both worlds, there are some red flags you should know about.

The keto diet is designed to encourage your body to adapt to using fat instead of its preferred fuel source, glucose, which is the substance thats broken down from the carbohydrates you eat. Though it sounds simple enough, the process involves many biological modifications and it may take a few weeks for these changes to occur. Youll lose weight during this process initially mostly water weight as your body depletes its remaining carbohydrate stores (known as glycogen) and makes this adaptation.

The main challenge keto dieters face is the extreme carb limit, which is capped at about 5 percent to 10 percent of your daily calorie intake, or around 20 grams of carbohydrates per day, depending on your individual calorie level. This amount of carbs is less than the amount in a large banana and given that even non-starchy foods, like nuts and broccoli, contain some carbohydrate, youll reach the cap easily. That means doughy foods, like pizza, pasta and bagels, as well as sweets, are strictly off limits. Thats why keto cycling is so appealing.

Though it has no official definition and theres no actual science to back up its effectiveness, many people take it to mean following the keto diet for five or six days and then following a higher carb menu for a day or two. Besides the obvious benefit of being less rigid, adding back nutritious carbs, like fruit, beans and whole grains, can provide a spectrum of health-protecting substances, including fiber, which is often low on a typical keto menu.

According to the recently released National Lipid Associations scientific statement published in "The Journal of Clinical Lipidology", this type of eating pattern is difficult to maintain and while those who follow it often experience an initial weight loss advantage, over time, the keto diets weight loss benefits arent any better than a more balanced plan.

In theory, keto cycling might make it easier to follow this program, but according to Molly Devine, RD, owner and founder of MSD Nutrition Consulting and Eat Your Keto, the reality may be quite different. Few people have the ability to go on and off keto successfully, she says, explaining that the main challenge is intense cravings for carbs and sugar, which come back once you reintroduce these foods. In Devines experience, this is true whether you take a break for say, a holiday weekend, or even just a meal.

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For those who have struggled with sugar addiction and battled getting sugar out of their diet, following a strict ketogenic diet is the first time they don't feel overwhelmed by cravings due to the metabolic shift from glucose for fuel to ketones. Keto cycling or cheat meals are very challenging for this group because as soon as they get a taste of those foods, the cravings hit hard and they have a tough time getting back on the wagon, she explains.

Franziska Spritzler, RD, CDE, a writer and expert on the medical review board of dietdoctor.com agrees, but says it can depend on the person. She explains that some people do well knowing they can have a small scoop of ice cream or another non-keto treat on occasion and that planning for these non-keto foods can make it easier to stay on the keto diet and facilitate weight loss and better blood glucose control. But she admits that for other people, this approach can lead to intense carb cravings, making it difficult to return to the keto diet.

Setting aside intense cravings, there may be other risks of cycling on and off the keto diet. In one short-term, small study, researchers investigated the impact of following a strict keto diet for six days and then going off plan by consuming a drink containing 75 grams of carbohydrate. For reference, thats slightly less than the amount of carbs in two cans of soda. The damage: We saw a temporary increase in the levels of endothelial microparticles (sometimes called micro vesicles) in the blood, explains study co-author and Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia Jonathan P. Little. Endothelial cells are the single layer of cells that line and protect our blood vessels. Microparticles are small vesicles that get released from cells when they are inflamed or damaged, so finding an increase in endothelial microparticles tells us that the endothelial cells that line our blood vessels experienced some damage and inflammation when glucose spiked. Though he says that the increase in markers of blood vessel damage was temporary, the long-term impact remains unclear. We know that these endothelial microparticles are elevated in conditions such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes, which is why we were interested in measuring them, he explains.

Besides the potential for blood vessel inflammation, Little also cautions that the metabolic adaptations your body experiences on the keto diet means that youre relatively glucose intolerant, so a meal (or day) of high carb eating might not be the best plan. When you adapt to a ketogenic diet, you become a proficient fat burner and this occurs at the expense of carbohydrate metabolism. It probably isnt the best thing for your metabolism to throw carbohydrates (especially high glycemic index carbs in high amounts such as a glucose tolerance test drink that we used or a big 'cheat meal') into the mix if you are on a ketogenic diet, he says.

Devine agrees and shares concerns about the long-term risks of this approach. The benefits from a ketogenic diet are a one-way street, she says. You can get away with a high intake of dietary fats (including saturated fats) without the negative impact on risk factors for cardiovascular disease (specifically, particle size of LDL and triglycerides) only when these foods are not consumed in conjunction with refined carbs and sugars, explains Devine. In her view, going back and forth will cause more harm than benefit over time. I stress the importance of not cheating on a keto diet because once you start introducing sugars, the high-fat aspect can do more harm than good long-term.

Experts also caution about the risks to your emotional health with keto cycling. Starting keto with the idea that you can go off plan whenever you want and just jump right back in when you feel like it may be counterproductive for your weight, overall health and quality of life, explains Spritzler. Devine also notes that chronic yo-yo dieters may become less successful over time. In her experience, each keto hiatus can become longer and longer and as a result, its likely youll put the weight back on. At that point, the hurdles start to feel insurmountable, she says.

Despite the concerns, if you want to give keto cycling a try, experts recommend cycling in healthful sources of carbs instead of those craveable, heavily processed refined or sugary carbs. Think sweet potatoes, beans, milk and fruit over muffins, rolls and chips.

Its also a good idea to make a plan for your carb-heavy days so you get the most benefit. For example, Spritzler says you might eat them on a workout day. Pay attention to how you feel on the days you eat more carbs, she says. Some questions she suggests asking yourself: Do your energy levels drop or soar? Are you happier and satisfied or anxious and hungry? Does your sleep improve or worsen? Pay attention to your answers. If you feel better off eating carbs occasionally and it doesn't seem to interfere with your weight, keto cycling may be a good fit for you. On the other hand, many people do seem to benefit from staying consistently keto or alternating keto with low carb (around 30-60 grams of net carbs per day), she explains.

Whether you add in those higher carb days or not, your keto diet should focus on other principles of healthy eating. Devine says to emphasize whole foods, quality proteins and heart-healthy unsaturated fats, such as olive oil, avocado, nuts, seeds and fatty fish instead of processed saturated fats, like cheese and processed meats. Spritzler agrees that the focus should be on minimally processed foods and she suggests this simple framework: Consume adequate protein (3-6 ounces) at every meal, include vegetables at most if not all meals, and eat enough to feel full but not stuffed.

The prescriptive nature of total carb abstinence may be appealing to some, but for others, can feel unnecessarily rigid. Its important to get clear on where you fall in the spectrum and use that to guide your dietary decisions. Whether youre trying to lose weight or just get healthier, it also makes sense to think about the foods you enjoy and the way you like to cook and then pick a plan that lines up with your food and lifestyle values. Be real with yourself and identify some non-negotiable foods. If pasta is one of them, keto cycling might be preferable to keto, but you might want to try another approach altogether.

Remember that the keto diet isnt the be all end all even for weight loss. As Kevin C. Maki, co-author of the National Lipid Association Scientific Statement points out, the long-term health impact is unknown. While ketosis may have some benefits for reducing appetite, it may not be necessary to go to such extreme levels of carbohydrate restriction to lose weight and experience some of the other benefits, such as improving blood glucose excursions and triglyceride levels, says Maki, whos also an Adjunct Professor of the Department of Applied Health Science at the School of Public Health at Indiana University, Bloomington Indiana. He acknowledges that a keto-type diet for a limited period of time may work well for some people, but also points out the issues with long-term compliance. Our general view is that most people would be better off focusing on regular exercise (e.g., walking) and consuming a high quality diet that emphasizes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds, legumes, seafood and non-tropical oils, such as a Mediterranean diet pattern.

Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, Director of Womens Cardiovascular Prevention, Health and Wellness at Mount Sinai Heart, Fellow of the American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association, and spokesperson for the American Heart Associations Go Red for Women campaign, is also in favor of the Mediterranean diet over the keto diet or keto cycling approach. She says the Mediterranean diet has been shown to reduce the incidence of heart disease by as much as 30 percent and that weight loss and better blood sugar management can be achieved by boosting your vegetable intake and cutting way down on your consumption of overly processed carbs and sweets.

No matter which approach you go for, remember that the idea is to adopt healthier eating habits not just for the next few weeks or months, but for life, which is the real key to healthy and sustainable weight loss.

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