To Keep the Weight Off, Keep Tracking Your Diet

NEW ORLEANS — Keeping track of the foods you eat is an important strategy for weight loss, but continuing to monitor what you eat is also important to prevent regaining that weight. Now, a new study finds that stopping food tracking is linked to re-gaining weight. In order to prevent re-gaining weight, people should make an effort 4 months after starting a diet to refocus on food tracking, according to the study, presented here today (Nov. 13) at the American Heart Association's annual meeting called the Scientific Sessions. The researchers found that people tended to stop dietary monitoring after about 4 months, and that this was followed by regaining weight, said Qianheng Ma, a public health researcher at the University of Pittsburgh and the lead author of the study. [Here's Why It's So Hard to Maintain Weight Loss] The effects of food tracking, or "dietary self-monitoring," on weight loss have been well-studied, and the technique is a key component of what researchers call the "standard behavioral treatment" for people who want to lose weight and keep it off, Ma told Live Science. This type of treatment is the most effective non-medical approach to weight loss, according to the study. In the study, the researchers looked at data from 137 people who had participated in a one-year weight loss intervention called EMPOWER. The majority of the people in the study were white women. The participants were, on average, 51 years old and had a BMI of 34.1 (people with a BMI of 30 or higher are generally considered obese). The people in the study were asked to weigh themselves regularly with a digital scale that uploaded data in real time and to monitor their diet using a smartphone app. Although everyone in the study initially lost weight, nearly three-quarters of the people in the study ultimately regained some of that weight. In addition, 62 percent of the participants stopped tracking what they were eating at some point during the study. The researchers found that a greater percentage of the people who regained weight had stopped tracking what they ate, compared with those who were able to maintain their weight. [Special Report: The Science of Weight Loss] The average time that people to tracked their diet before they stopped was 126 days,— in other words, they were about four months into their diet when they stopped, Ma told Live Science. It's unclear why food tracking stopped at this point, she added. People did not begin gaining weight immediately after they stopped tracking what they ate, the researchers noted. Rather, people started to gain weight, on average, about 2 months after they stopped tracking their food, the study found. Now that the researchers have identified the point at which people tend to stop tracking their food, they intend to study whether strategically reminding people to keep tracking will help them to keep the weight off, Ma said.

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Marijuana Use May Weaken Your Heart Muscle

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Marijuana use may be linked to a weakened heart muscle, a new studyfinds. Researchers found that people who used marijuana were twice as likely to later develop a heart condition called transient ventricular regional ballooning (TVRB) than those who did not use marijuana. TVRB is a form of cardiomyopathy, which is a sudden weakening of the heart muscle that can mimic symptoms of a heart attack. The symptoms can include chest pain, dizziness and shortness of breath, but the condition is often temporary. The most surprising finding from the study was that the marijuana users in the study were the opposite of the people that TVRB tends to strike in several ways, said Dr. Amitoj Singh, a co-author of the study and the chief cardiology fellow at St. Luke’s University Health Network in Pennsylvania. The condition tends to develop in post-menopausal women, he said. In the study, the marijuana users who developed TVRB were 44 years old, on average, and 36 percent were men. Among the non-marijuana users in the study who developed TVRB, the average age was 66, and just 8 percent were men. [10 Amazing Facts About Your Heart] None of the people in the study who had used marijuana died from the heart condition after being admitted to the hospital, so the study does not link marijuana use to deaths, Singh told Live Science. However, people "should be aware that certain cardiovascular abnormalities and complications can occur from marijuana use," he said. In the study, the researchers looked at data from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample database, which includes data from community hospitals in 44 states. The researchers found 33,343 admissions for TVRB between 2003 and 2011, and that 210 of these patients had either reported that they had used marijuana, or had a marker of the drug in their urine. After the researchers took into account a number of factors linked with TVRB, such as depression and anxiety disorders, the link between marijuana use and TVRB held, they said. It isn't clear how the link may work. TVRB has only recently been recognized as a health condition, Singh said. Some research shows that that high levels of stress hormones are linked to the development of the condition. Moreover, studies have shown that stress hormone levels in the urine increase in people who smoke marijuana, he said. [7 Foods Your Heart Will Hate] The researchers noted that their study was retrospective, and cannot establish that marijuana maybe be a cause of TVRB. Furthermore, the researchers did not have information on how long patients had been using marijuana, how much of the drug they used, or how that marijuana was ingested. (Marijuana can be smoked, or consumed in edible products, such as brownies or candies.) Singh emphasized that he does not discount studies that have shown some of marijuana's positive effects of people's health. However, the drug needs much more study, he told Live Science. "We don't know everything about marijuana."

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How Eating Right in Middle Age Can Set You Up For Long Life

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NEW ORLEANS — The foods you eat during middle age may affect how long you live, a new study finds.

Several food groups appeared to be linked to a lower risk of dying in the study participants about 20 years down the line, said Dr. Nilay Shah, an internal medicine resident at the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute and the lead author of the study. Shah presented his findings here today (Nov. 13) at the American Heart Association's annual meeting called the Scientific Sessions.

These food groups were predominantly fruits, nuts, whole grains and vegetables, Shah added.

The findings suggest that it's important for people who are healthy and fairly young to be very mindful of their diet, Shah told Live Science. A person's diet earlier in life appears to play a role in their health later on, he said.

In the study, the researchers looked at data from about 11,000 men and women in Dallas who completed a three-day food diary at some point between 1987 and 1999. The people in the study were 47 years old, on average, when they started the study, and none of them had had a heart attack or stroke before the study began.

The researchers looked at how many of the participants died over an average follow-up period of 18 years. [The Odds of Dying from Shark Attacks, Tsunamis & Dozens of Other Causes]

Specific diets, such as the DASH diet and the Mediterranean diet, were found to have no associations with a person's risk of death, Shah told Live Science. However, when the researchers looked at the data more closely, they found that individual components of these diets did play a role, Shah said. 

Specifically, Shah and his colleagues found that following certain aspects of the Mediterranean diet — specifically eating fruit, nuts and whole grains — was associated with a lower risk of death from heart disease over the study period. People who ate more than the median amounts of these foods had a lower risk of dying from heart disease than people who ate less than the median amounts, according to the study.

In addition, the vegetable component of the DASH diet was associated with a lower risk of death from any cause: The study participants who ate thehighest amounts of vegetables had a lower risk of dying during the study period than those who ate the lowest amounts, the researchers found.

The DASH diet, or "Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension," is recommended by the American Heart Association for lowering high blood pressure, or reducing the risk of developing high blood pressure in the first place. The diet plan is rich in whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and includes low-fat dairy and lean meats, poultry and fish. The diet also emphasizes keeping your sodium intake low. [Why Is Too Much Salt Bad for You?]

Outside of specific food groups, the researchers also looked at how muchadded solid fats people ate. (Foods such as cakes and cookies and fried foods are high in added solid fats.) They found that the participants who ate the highest amounts of added solid fats had a triple the risk of dying from any cause during the study period compared with those who at the lowest amounts. The highest amount of added solid fat was defined as more than 34 percent of a person's daily caloric intake came from added solid fat.

Shah noted that one limitation of the study is that the researchers only assessed the participants' diets one time, at the onset of the study. However, previous research suggests that the diet a person eats when they are middle-aged tends to persists for many years, Shah said.

The findings have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

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Gunmen kill vigilante, trader in Anambra

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Tony Okafor, Awka

Gunmen operating on two motorcycles on Saturday reportedly killed a vigilante and a trader at Nkpor in Anambra State.

They threw one of the victims was into a well.

The victims were identified as Uzochukwu Ezeme (the vigilante) and Chibuzor Ajaetu, a 34-year-old trader.

They were said to have died after the gunmen opened fire on them, killing one instantly and throwing the other into a well, where he died.

Tears flowed freely in Okpuno Akauzor village in Umusiome on Saturday when the body of Ezeme, one of the victims was brought out from the well where he was dumped by his assailants.

Another victim, identified as Ibegbulam, was said to be receiving treatment in a hospital at Nkpor.

Ibegbunam, who was the third victim, said that the gunmen attacked them unprovoked.

He said, “We escaped the scene with bullet wounds and hid in a bush. But a mobile phone belonging to Ezeme rang and the gunmen traced him and shot him again half dead and threw him into a 60 feet local well, where he died.”

Ibegbunam, who narrated the incident from his sick bed, further said, “I covered myself with leaves while in pains in the bush until our assailants left before I managed to make a distress call to relations who came to rescue me and brought me to this hospital.”

It was gathered that the victims were on their way to respond to an invitation by some youths to settle a land dispute between them and another community when they met their death.

The dispute, it was learnt, had claimed the lives of two policemen and a pregnant woman in 2013 and led to the destruction of many houses.

 When contacted, the Anambra State Police Public Relations Officer, Mrs. Nkiru Nwode, confirmed the incident.

While stressing that no arrest had been made, Nwode said the perpetrators would be arrested and punished

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