Bad mood, negative emotions make you distrustful, finds study

Washington D.C., May 20: While a dairy-rich diet is helpful in meeting the body's calcium requirement, outcomes of a large international study links eating at least two daily servings of dairy with lower risks of diabetes and high blood pressure.

The dairy-rich diet also proved to lower the cluster of factors that heighten cardiovascular disease risk (metabolic syndrome). The study was published online in journal BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care.

The observed associations were strongest for full-fat dairy products, the findings indicated.

Previously published research has suggested that higher dairy intake is associated with a lower risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, and metabolic syndrome. But these studies have tended to focus on North America and Europe to the exclusion of other regions of the world.

To see whether these associations might also be found in a broader range of countries, the researchers drew on people taking part in the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study.

Participants were all aged between 35 and 70 and came from 21 countries: Argentina; Bangladesh; Brazil; Canada; Chile; China; Colombia; India; Iran; Malaysia; Palestine; Pakistan; Philippines, Poland; South Africa; Saudi Arabia; Sweden; Tanzania; Turkey; United Arab Emirates; and Zimbabwe.

Usual dietary intake over the previous 12 months was assessed by means of Food Frequency Questionnaires. Dairy products included milk, yogurt, yogurt drinks, cheese and dishes prepared with dairy products, and were classified as full or low fat (1-2 percent).

Butter and cream were assessed separately as these are not commonly eaten in some of the countries studied.

Information on personal medical history, use of prescription medicines, educational attainment, smoking and measurements of weight, height, waist circumference, blood pressure and fasting blood glucose were also collected.

Data on all five components of the metabolic syndrome were available for nearly 113,000 people: blood pressure above 130/85 mm Hg; waist circumference above 80 cm; low levels of (beneficial) high-density cholesterol (less than 1-1.3 mmol/l); blood fats (triglycerides) of more than 1.7 mmol/dl; and fasting blood glucose of 5.5 mmol/l or more.

Average daily total dairy consumption was 179 g, with full-fat accounting for around double the amount of low fat: 124.5+ vs 65 g.

Some 46, 667 people had metabolic syndrome--defined as having at least 3 of the 5 components.

Total dairy and full-fat dairy, but not low-fat dairy, was associated with a lower prevalence of most components of metabolic syndrome, with the size of the association greatest in those countries with normally low dairy intakes.

At least 2 servings a day of total dairy were associated with a 24 percent lower risk of metabolic syndrome, rising to 28 percent for full-fat dairy alone, compared with no daily dairy intake.

The health of nearly 190,000 participants was tracked for an average of nine years, during which time 13,640 people developed high blood pressure and 5351 developed diabetes.

At least 2 servings a day of total dairy was associated with a 11-12 percent lower risk of both conditions, rising to a 13-14 percent lower risk for 3 daily servings. The associations were stronger for full fat than they were for low-fat dairy.

This is an observational study, and as such can't establish the cause. Food frequency questionnaires are also subject to recall, and changes in metabolic syndrome weren't measured over time, all of which may have influenced the findings.

Nevertheless, the researchers suggest: "If our findings are confirmed in sufficiently large and long term trials, then increasing dairy consumption may represent a feasible and low-cost approach to reducing [metabolic syndrome], hypertension, diabetes, and ultimately cardiovascular disease events worldwide."

Leading physicians are celebrating a small dose of good news that arrived Tuesday about dexamethasone, a cheap and widely used steroid shown to be able to save lives among COVID-19 patients, but also cautioning against releasing study results by press release during a global health emergency, like in the case of the latest dexamethasone study by University of Oxford.

"It will be great news if dexamethasone, a cheap steroid, really does cut deaths by one-third in ventilated patients with COVID19, but after all the retractions and walk backs, it is unacceptable to tout study results by press release without releasing the paper", Atul Gawande, surgeon and CEO of Haven Healthcare, tweeted.

"Bottom line is, good news," Dr. Fauci, America's foremost infectious diseases expert told a US newswire on Tuesday, soon after the dexamethasone results were announced in the UK.

Fauci, who has long championed the therapeutics-first view said that dexamethasone is a "significant improvement" in the available therapeutic options currently available.

On Medical Twitter and Facebook, doctors broadly agree that dexamethasone use aligns well with the way COVID19 attacks the body's immune system. Fauci said the results in the Oxford study make "perfect sense" in that context.

"We should see the number of people who actually survive go up, if the study holds up," virologist and epidemiologist Dr. Joseph Fair told a television network.

Global coronavirus cases crossed 8 million on Tuesday. In the US, Texas and Florida are facing a new wave of cases after lifting lockdown orders earlier than medical experts recommended. Amidst the relentless graph upwards, the dexamethasone study results injected hope for better survival rates among those most seriously ill.

World Health Organization chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan welcomed the results from the randomised control trial.

Dr Eugene Gu, Founder and CEO of CoolQuit tweeted that he is "genuinely impressed" with the UK dexamethasone trial. This may be a "game changer", he wrote.

"There's no conflict of interest as dexamethasone is a generic steroid. The mechanism of action makes sense because steroids can reduce cytokine storms and overactive immune systems that makes COVID-19 so deadly. The number needed to treat is 8 ventilated patients which is great."

The Oxford study found that dexamethasone reduced deaths by 35 percent in patients who needed treatment with breathing machines and by 20 percent in those only needing supplemental oxygen. Dexamethasone was one of 5 drugs studied in a large clinical trial in the United Kingdom named RECOVERY, short for Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy.

Peter Horby, chief investigator of the University of Oxford clinical trial, said dexamethasone is the first drug to be shown to improve survival in COVID-19. Details of the study have not been released. The trial organisers said they made their announcement via a news release because of "the public health importance of these results." According to Horby's public comments, there was a lot of initial resistance to studying steroids.

During the study, 2,104 patients were randomly selected to be given 6 milligrams of dexamethasone once a day (either by mouth or by intravenous injection) for 10 days. That group was compared with 4,321 patients who received the usual care alone.

Researchers estimated that dexamethasone would prevent one death for every eight patients treated while on ventilators and one for every 25 patients on extra oxygen alone.

UK experts have called the study results a breakthrough in the fight against the virus. The researchers have promised they would publish the results soon.

Birmingham, Feb 7: According to a new study, social media users are more likely to eat healthy or junk food after getting influenced by their peer group.

The research published in the scientific journal 'Appetite' found that study participants ate an extra fifth of a portion of fruit and vegetables themselves for every portion they thought their social media peers ate. So, if they believed their friends got their 'five a day' of fruit and veg, they were likely to eat an extra portion themselves.

On the other hand, Facebook users were found to consume an extra portion of unhealthy snack foods and sugary drinks for every three portions they believed their online social circles did.
The findings suggested that people eat around a third more junk food if they think their friends also indulge in the same.

The Aston University researchers said the findings provide the first evidence to suggest our online social circles could be implicitly influencing our eating habits, with important implications for using 'nudge' techniques on social media to encourage healthy eating.

Researchers asked 369 university students to estimate the amount of fruit, vegetables, 'energy-dense snacks' and sugary drinks their Facebook peers consumed on a daily basis.

The information was cross-referenced with the participants' own actual eating habits and showed that those who felt their social circles 'approved' of eating junk food consumed significantly more themselves. Meanwhile, those who thought their friends ate a healthy diet ate more portions of fruit and veg. Their perceptions could have come from seeing friends' posts about the food and drink they consumed, or simply a general impression of their overall health.

There was no significant link between the participants' eating habits and their Body Mass Index (BMI), a standard measure of healthy weight, however. The researchers said the next stage of their work would track a participant group over time to see whether the influence of social media on eating habits had a longer-term impact on weight.

The most recent figures from the NHS's Health Survey for England showed that in 2018 only 28 percent of adults were eating the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables per day. In Wales, this was 24 percent, in Scotland 22 percent and in Northern Ireland around 20 percent. Children and young people across the UK had even lower levels of fruit and veg consumption.

Aston University health psychology Ph.D. student Lily Hawkins, who led the study alongside supervisor Dr. Jason Thomas, said: "This study suggests we may be influenced by our social peers more than we realize when choosing certain foods. We seem to be subconsciously accounting for how others behave when making our own food choices. So if we believe our friends are eating plenty of fruit and veg we're more likely to eat fruit and veg ourselves. On the other hand, if we feel they're happy to consume lots of snacks and sugary drinks, it can give us a license to overeat foods that are bad for our health. The implication is that we can use social media as a tool to 'nudge' each other's eating behavior within friendship groups, and potentially use this knowledge as a tool for public health interventions."

"With children and young people spending a huge amount of time interacting with peers and influencers via social media, the important new findings from this study could help shape how we deliver interventions that help them adopt healthy eating habits from a young age and stick with them for life," said professor Claire Farrow.

A dietitian called Aisling Pigott further mentioned that "Research such as this demonstrates how we are influenced by online perceptions about how others eat. The promotion of positive health messages across social media, which are focused on promoting healthy choices and non-restrictive relationships with food and body, could nudge people into making positive decisions around the food they eat."

"We do have to be mindful of the importance of 'nudging' positive behaviors and not 'shaming' food choices on social media as a health intervention. We know that generating guilt around food is not particularly helpful when it comes to lifestyle change and maintenance," Aisling added.