Here is diet advice from five leading scientific journals that can help you maintain your health, prevent disease, and enjoy a healthy lifestyle.
- Diet tip 1: "Cutting carbs" may help trim your waistline and maintain your vision. Researchers at Tufts University analyzed the dietary habits of 4,099 people with age-related macular degeneration and found that participants who ate a diet with the most refined carbohydrates, such as cookies, candy, pasta, white bread, and crackers, were 17% more likely to go blind than those who consumed a diet with the least refined carbohydrates. Try eating complex carbohydrates like brown rice and wheat bread. From the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vol. 86, p. 1210.
- Diet tip 2: Some research suggests that the antioxidant lycopene, which is found in abundance in tomatoes, may help prevent certain cancers. But after reviewing more than 140 related studies, the FDA gave its lowest "strength of evidence" rating to this claim. Don't give up on tomatoes, though. They are an excellent source of vitamins C and A, and eating a diet rich in antioxidants has other health benefits. From the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, vol. 99, p. 1074.
- Diet tip 3: The key to weight loss may be old-fashioned calorie cutting and exercise -- plus realistic expectations. A review of 80 studies found that weight-loss programs that focused on only exercise were ineffective after six months whereas people who dieted and didn't exercise lost 5–9% of their starting weight within six months. Keeping the pounds off was another story: After four years, a modest 3-6% reduction was sustained -- and only through consistent dieting and exercise. From the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, vol. 107, p. 1755.
- Diet tip 4: According to the Physicians Health Study, which recorded the dietary habits of over 21,000 male physicians for almost 20 years, men who ate whole-grain cereal every day were 28% less likely to develop heart failure over the course of the study than men who did not eat whole-grain cereal. The authors recommend that people look for "100% whole-grain" cereal that has at least 4 g of whole grain per serving. From the Archives of Internal Medicine, vol. 167, p. 2080.
• Diet tip 5: Excess uric acid, which causes gout and may play a role in chronic conditions like high blood pressure, may be linked to sugar consumption -- but only in men. A dietary study of 4,073 men and women over 18 years of age found that men who consumed the most sugary drinks had high levels of uric acid; notably, sugar did not boost levels in women, possibly because estrogen is protective. If you've got a sweet tooth, try fruit juice; it doesn't increase uric acid. From the journal Hypertension, vol. 50, p. 306.
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