SATURDAY, Feb. 4 (HealthDay News) — All the food and beverages
served at Super Bowl parties can make it a challenging day for people who
made a New Year’s resolution to lose weight.

“We know January is the start of lots of new diets. But, then February
starts and the first weekend is Super Bowl Sunday, one of the biggest
eating days all year,” Alenka Ravnik-List, a registered dietitian and
diabetes program coordinator at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York
City, said in a center news release.

“Hours in front of the television can test our willpower. Too often
people with good intentions will fail,” she added.

However, by following a few rules you’ll be able to limit the impact
Super Bowl Sunday has on your diet plans, Ravnik-List said.

Start by making sure you eat breakfast on game day. Research has shown
that people who skip breakfast tend to eat more food than usual at the
next meal and munch on high-calorie snacks to ward off hunger. It’s also a
good idea to have a light lunch so you won’t be famished by the time the
game starts.

The game doesn’t begin until after 6 p.m., so that gives you plenty of
time to get out for some exercise that day. During half time, take a walk
around the block or toss a football around in the yard.

Use a medium-sized plate, about eight to nine inches wide, in order to
limit the amount of food you eat. Half the plate should be loaded with
colorful vegetables and the other half with lean protein and whole grain
starches. If you suspect your Super Bowl party hosts won’t offer
vegetables or other healthy snacks such as popcorn, bring your own,
Ravnik-List suggested.

If you drink alcoholic beverages, choose those with fewer calories and
carbohydrates, such as light beer, champagne or dry wine. For mixed
drinks, use sugar-free mixes such as diet soda, diet tonic, club soda or
seltzer.

Instead of chips, use nutritious choices such as broccoli, carrots,
celery and tomato grapes for dips. Try lighter versions of your favorite
dips. Don’t sit within an arm’s length of the chip and dip bowls or other
snacks that you can’t resist.

Limit what you eat during the actual football game. Try to eat only
during half-time and have a small snack after the first and third
quarters, Ravnik-List suggested.

More information

The American Academy of Family Physicians offers

nutrition advice .

Copyright © 2012HealthDay. All rights reserved.

(Reuters) – People who eat lots of magnesium-rich foods such as leafy green vegetables, nuts and beans have fewer strokes, according to an international analysis covering some 250,000 people.

But the authors of the study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, stopped short of recommending people take a daily magnesium supplement because their analysis focused on magnesium in food — and it may be another aspect of the food that is responsible for their finding.

“Dietary magnesium intake is inversely associated with risk of stroke, specifically ischemic stroke,” wrote lead author Susanna Larsson, a professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.

The results suggest that people eat a healthy diet with “magnesium-rich foods such as green leafy vegetables, nuts, beans and whole grains,” she added.

Larsson and her colleagues combed through research databases spanning the last 45 years to find studies that tracked how much magnesium people took and how many of them had a stroke over time.

In seven studies published in the past 14 years, about 250,000 people in the United States, Europe and Asia were followed for an average of 11.5 years. About 6,500 of them, or three percent, had a stroke in the time they were followed.

For every extra 100 milligrams of magnesium a person ate per day, their risk of an ischemic stroke — the most common kind, typically caused by a blood clot — fell by nine percent.

The median magnesium intake for U.S. citizens included in the analysis was 242 milligrams a day. The United States recommends that men and women over age 31 eat 420 and 320 milligrams of magnesium daily, respectively.

Most of the studies allowed the researchers to rule out other factors, such as family history.

But Larsson told Reuters Health in an email that she could not say whether other aspects of what the people ate partially or entirely explained the finding.

More in-depth studies are needed before researchers can say that the magnesium was what actually reduced the stroke risk, she added.

Other experts said the results were consistent with dietary recommendations.

“It’s a diet that’s rich in fruits, vegetables and grains. Those are things that have low sodium, high potassium and high magnesium,” said Larry Goldstein, director of the stroke center at the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina.

“It’s again the diet per se, not any one individual component of the diet.” SOURCE: http://bit.ly/AhalBY

(Reporting from New York by Andrew Seaman at Reuters Health; Editing by Elaine Lies and Yoko Nishikawa)

MONDAY, Nov. 28 (HealthDay News) —
Heart function improved in obese people with type 2 diabetes who ate a
very low-calorie diet, a small new study says.

Researchers measured body-mass index (BMI) and used MRI to analyze
heart function and pericardial fat in 15 obese people (seven men and eight
women) with type 2 diabetes before and four months after they started
consuming a 500-calorie-per-day diet.

Pericardial fat collects around the heart and can harm cardiac
function.

Their diabetes improved immediately after cutting calories, according
to the study.

Four months after the participants began the low-calorie diet, average
BMI fell from 35.3 to 27.5 (statistical obesity begins at a BMI of 30),
and pericardial fat decreased from 39 milliliters (ml) to 31 ml.

A key measure of diastolic heart function fell to healthier levels, as
well, the study found. Diastolic heart function involves that period of
the heart beat when the ventricles are filling up with blood. Poor
diastolic heart function can lead to congestive heart failure.

After another 14 months of follow-up when the participants ate a
regular diet, average BMI increased to 31.7, but pericardial fat only rose
slightly to 32 ml and E/A ratio was 1.06.

The study was to be presented Monday at the annual meeting of the
Radiological Society of North America.

“Our results show that 16 weeks of caloric restriction improved heart
function in these patients,” lead author Dr. Sebastiaan Hammer, of Leiden
University Medical Center in the Netherlands, said in an RSNA news
release. “More importantly, despite regain of weight, these beneficial
cardiovascular effects were persistent over the long term.”

While the results are promising and showed that lifestyle interventions
appeared to provide more significant heart benefits than medication in
these patients, obese people should not try to go on a very low-calorie
diet on their own. It has to be done under medical supervision, Hammer
noted.

Because this study was presented at a medical meeting, the data and
conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a
peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases
has more about diabetes treatments.

Copyright © 2011HealthDay. All rights reserved.