Avocados May Help Manage Obesity, Prevent Diabetes

 

Your guacamole may hold the key to managing obesity and helping delay or prevent diabetes, according to a new study by a University of Guelph research team.

For the first time, researchers led by Prof. Paul Spagnuolo have shown how a compound found only in avocados can inhibit cellular processes that normally lead to diabetes. In safety testing in humans, the team also found that the substance was absorbed into the blood with no adverse effects in the kidney, liver or muscle.

The study was recently published in the journal Molecular Nutrition and Food Research.

About one in four Canadians is obese, a chronic condition that is a leading cause of Type 2 diabetes. Insulin resistance in diabetic patients means their bodies are unable to properly remove glucose from the blood.

Those complications can arise when mitochondria, or the energy powerhouses in the body's cells, are unable to burn fatty acids completely.

Normally, fatty acid oxidation allows the body to burn fats. Obesity or diabetes hinders that process, leading to incomplete oxidation.

 

The U of G researchers discovered that avocatin B (AvoB), a fat molecule found only in avocados, counters incomplete oxidation in skeletal muscle and the pancreas to reduce insulin resistance.

In their study, the team fed mice high-fat diets for eight weeks to induce obesity and insulin resistance. For the next five weeks, they added AvoB to the high-fat diets of half of the mice.

The treated mice weighed significantly less than those in the control group, showing slower weight gain. More important, said Spagnuolo, the treated mice showed greater insulin sensitivity, meaning that their bodies were able to absorb and burn blood glucose and improve their response to insulin.

In a human clinical study, AvoB given as a dietary supplement to participants eating a typical western diet was absorbed safely into their blood without affecting the kidney, liver or skeletal muscle. The team also saw reductions in weight in human subjects, although Spagnuolo said the result was not statistically significant.

Having demonstrated its safety in humans, they plan to conduct clinical trials to test AvoB's efficacy in treating metabolic ailments in people.

Spagnuolo said the safety trial helped the team to determine just how much AvoB to include in the supplement formulation.

 

Having received Health Canada approval for the compound as a human supplement, he will begin selling it in powder and pill forms as soon as 2020 through SP Nutraceuticals Inc., a Burlington, Ont.-based natural health products company.

He said eating avocados alone would likely be ineffective, as the amount of natural avocatin B varies widely in the fruit and we still do not fully understand exactly how it is digested and absorbed when we consume a whole avocado.

Although avocados have been touted as a weight-loss food, Spagnuolo said more study is needed. He said a healthy diet and exercise are recommended to prevent metabolic disorders leading to obesity or diabetes.

PhD student Nawaz Ahmed, lead author of the paper, said, "We advocate healthy eating and exercise as solutions to the problem, but that's difficult for some people. We've known this for decades, and obesity and diabetes are still a significant health problem."

In earlier work funded by the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Spagnuolo has studied the potential use of avocatin B for treating acute myeloid leukemia.

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Materials provided by University of Guelph. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Sweetened drinks represented 62% of children's drink sales in 2018

 

Fruit drinks and flavored waters that contain added sugars and/or low-calorie (diet) sweeteners dominated sales of drinks intended for children in 2018, making up 62 percent of the $2.2 billion in total children's drink sales, according to Children's Drink FACTS 2019, a new report from the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at the University of Connecticut.

 

 

In contrast, the report -- funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation -- found that healthier drinks, such as 100 percent juice, represented just 38 percent of children's drink sales that year. The report also found that companies spent $20.7 million to advertise children's drinks with added sugars in 2018, primarily to kids under age 12.

 

Some companies have developed drinks that may be healthier for children, such as juice and water blends that do not contain added sweeteners, and these companies have begun to advertise them to parents and children, researchers say. However, common nutrition-related claims and images of fruit on packages of sugary fruit drinks and flavored waters make it difficult for parents to easily identify the healthier drinks for their children.

 

"Beverage companies have said they want to be part of the solution to childhood obesity, but they continue to market sugar-sweetened children's drinks directly to young children on TV and through packages designed to get their attention in the store," said Jennifer L. Harris, PhD, MBA, lead study author and the Rudd Center's director of Marketing Initiatives. "Parents may be surprised to know that pediatricians, dentists, and other nutrition experts recommend against serving any of these drinks to children.

 

Researchers assessed the top-selling brands of children's drinks -- including 34 sweetened drinks (fruit drinks, flavored waters, and drink mixes) and 33 drinks without added sweeteners (100 percent juice, juice-water blends, and one sparkling water) -- analyzing sales, advertising spending, children's exposure to TV advertising, nutritional content, and product packaging. Brands with at least $10 million in sales in 2018 were included.

 

Confusing Package Claims and Hidden Low-Calorie Sweeteners

 

Study authors also say that package claims on sweetened children's drinks and similarities between claims on sweetened and unsweetened drinks can confuse parents about their nutritional content. Sugar-sweetened children's fruit drinks typically contained just 5 percent juice or less, but according to the report, 80 percent of those packages included images of fruit and 60 percent claimed to have "less" or "low" sugar or "no high fructose corn syrup." Children's drinks with and without added sweeteners also had similar package sizes and types, flavor names, use of fruit imagery, and front-of-package claims for products.

 

 

In addition, low-calorie sweeteners, such as sucralose and stevia, were found in 74 percent of children's sweetened drinks, including drinks that also contained added sugars, but there was no mention of low-calorie sweeteners on the front of packages.

 

"You shouldn't have to be a nutritionist to figure out whether or not a product is healthy for your child," said Maria Romo-Palafox, PhD, RD, study author and assistant professor of Nutrition and Dietetics at Saint Louis University.

 

"The fronts of the packages make children's drinks look healthy, but there's no way to know which ones have added sugars or low-calorie sweeteners reading the front. You have to read the nutrition facts panel on the back and you have to know the names of low-calorie sweeteners, such as acesulfame potassium and sucralose, to realize they are in the product," she added.

 

This report follows a consensus statement released in September by health and nutrition experts that recommended that children under age 5 should not consume any drinks with added sugars or low-calorie sweeteners, and that they should consume limited amounts of 100 percent juice.

Other Key Findings

Positive Outcomes

 

Beverage manufacturers made some progress in developing and advertising healthier drinks for children.

•More companies sold unsweetened juice-water blends, which are healthier than sweetened children's drinks and contain only juice and water. The majority contain less than 50 calories in one box or pouch.

•With the exception of one sugar-sweetened children's fruit drink, licensed characters only appeared on children's drinks without added sweeteners (primarily 100 percent juice) -- a significant improvement compared to 2014.

•Kraft Heinz was the only company to advertise sugar-sweetened drinks directly to children on children's TV, including Kool Aid Jammers and Capri Sun Roarin' Waters.

Opportunities for Improvement

However, companies continued to extensively promote sweetened children's drinks, and many children's drinks were high in sugar despite healthy-sounding claims.

•Children ages 2 to 11 saw more than twice as many TV ads for children's sweetened drinks than for children's drinks without added sweeteners.

•One-third of all children's fruit drinks contained 16 grams or more of sugar per serving -- equivalent to 4 teaspoons, which is more than half of the maximum amount of added sugars experts recommend for children per day.

•Of the 100 percent juice children's drinks studied, only 4 of 13 came in appropriate sized boxes or pouches for a toddler (age 1 to 3 years). Some contained more than 6 ounces of juice, which is the maximum recommended daily amount for preschoolers (age 4 to 6 years).

Report recommendations include:

•Beverage manufacturers should clearly indicate that products contain added sugars and/or low-calorie sweeteners and the percent juice content on the front of children's drink packages.

•The Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI) -- the voluntary, industry self-regulatory program -- should establish nutrition standards that conform with health expert recommendations. Specifically, drinks with added sugars and/or low-calorie sweeteners should not be advertised directly to children.

•The U.S. Food and Drug Administration could require that products with nutrition-related claims on packages meet minimum nutrition standards and prohibit the use of fruit and vegetable images on drink product packages that contain little or no juice.

•State and local taxes on sugary drinks should include children's fruit drinks and flavored waters to raise the price and discourage purchases.

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Materials provided by UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Study champions inland fisheries as rural nutrition hero

Synthesizing new data and assessment methods is showing how freshwater fish is an invisible superhero in the global challenge to feed poor rural populations in many areas of the world.

But there's a problem: Invisibility is the wrong superpower.

 

Researchers from Michigan State University (MSU) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations have pulled together the most recent data and innovative approaches to measuring and communicating the impact inland fisheries have on food security, sustainability and economies. Fish harvests from the world's rivers, streams, floodplains, wetlands, lakes, inland seas, canals, reservoirs and even rice fields can seem like forgotten, poor relatives of the better documented global fisheries in the oceans.

 

Yet in "A fresh look at inland fisheries and their role in food security and livelihoods" in the latest edition of Fish and Fisheries, scientists Abigail Bennett and Simon Funge-Smith (FAO), both members of MSU's Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, point out the power the world's freshwater fisheries hold. Collating new assessments -- for example modeling fish catch from household food consumption data, basin-level estimates and extrapolation from data-rich case studies -- all reinforce the conclusion that inland fisheries catch is greater than current estimates, perhaps between 21 to 51%.

 

Now enough data has been compiled to generate a global economic valuation of inland fisheries. The economic value of reported global inland catch (in terms of first-sale value) is estimated at $24 billion. That's approximately 24% of estimated first-sale value for marine fisheries even though total inland catch is only about 13% of marine catch. These new values suggest that the first landing prices of inland fish are higher than the average for marine fish, indicating their importance in local rural economies.

 

"Inland fisheries are providing crucial micronutrients and animal-source protein to sustain some 159 million people -- sometimes the only protein accessible and affordable to them," said Bennett, an assistant professor of fisheries at CSIS. "At the same time, as we're worried food production systems are threatened by climate change, agricultural runoff, habitat alteration from hydropower development and other alternative uses of freshwater. We need to be looking more closely at the efficiency of inland fisheries in respect to land, water and energy use."

 

The paper explores the scope of freshwater fish, and the difficulties in getting accurate representation of impact. What is clear is those who depend on the operations -- particularly women who are underrepresented both in fishing and post-harvest work like fish trade and processing -- are at risk both in access to work, and health and safety risks.

 

 

The paper outlines the known and unknown factors of inland fisheries, and the need to better quantify that which is currently compelling anecdotes. It also points out the tantalizing aspects of this sector of fishing -- freshwater fish is one of the only accessible source of animal food to many of the poor, and it can be harvested fruitfully at a small scale, often without needing motor-powered boats and can have low-tech processing. Ninety-five percent of inland fisheries catch comes from developing countries, and 43 percent comes from low-income food-insecure countries.

 

To manage and sustain those benefits, the authors note it is critical to continue to improve methods for understanding of how much inland fish is being caught and how catches are changing over time.

 

"Even though inland fisheries catch equals 12% of global fish production (not accounting for underreporting), in particular places these catches are absolutely crucial to survival," Funge-Smith said. "Improving assessment methods is key toward ending the vicious cycle in which data gaps lead to inland fisheries being undervalued in policy discussions, and lack of policy support undermines important data tracking systems."

 

 

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Materials provided by Michigan State University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.