Back To Basics: Making sense of healthy and unhealthy fats
Ready, steady, go: making sense of food labels
If people are going to make informed decisions about what they eat, they need to know the contents of the food they buy. Food manufacturers and supermarkets are starting to get the message, with some adopting the ‘traffic light’ system of labelling on the front of food packs. How do we interpret food labels and help our patients to make sense of what they mean so they can eat more healthily?
Oily Fish and Omega-3 Fats – Making Sense of the Latest Evidence
What’s on the Menu? Eating Out with Diabetes and Heart Disease
Learning to accept and live with a chronic condition such as diabetes or coronary heart disease (CHD) is as crucial a part of treatment as medications. As eating outside the home is increasingly a feature of today’s society, it is important that patients with diabetes or CHD feel able to enjoy meals out without any feelings of guilt. In this article, we suggest practical tips for helping patients with diabetes and heart disease to eat out healthily.
Stub it out: Optimising Smoking Cessation
Smoking will be banned in public places in England and Wales next year, in line with bans already in place in Scotland and Ireland. PCTs are likely to experience an increase in demand from smokers accessing services to help them quit. It is estimated that there will be around a 50% increase over normal demand from three months before the date of implementation, with the government predicting that around 600,000 people will decide to quit as a result of the legislation. The seasonal nature of stop smoking attempts means that the period between January and April is already a very busy time. This article reviews what practices can do to ensure they are well prepared.
Functional Foods: More Than Just Good To Eat
There has been a flurry of interest in functional foods over the past few months. Health claims range from lowering cholesterol to improving vitality. Functional foods have been popular in the Far East for many years but only arrived in the UK six years ago. They are now the most rapidly growing sector of the food industry, with estimates suggesting we currently spend around £1 million on them every day. To make informed choices, consumers and health professionals need to know the truth behind the hype. In this article we review the range of functional foods now available, take a look at the evidence for their claims and explore the pros and cons of using them.
Apples and Pears: Targeting Abdominal Obesity
Healthcare professionals spend a great deal of their time screening for, and treating, silent killer diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidaemia but often ignore the primary cause of these conditions, which is often – quite literally – staring them in the face. Obesity can be seen without the need to use any fancy gadgets – we simply need to use our eyes each time we see a patient. There are essentially two main body shapes – apples and pears – each associated with different distributions of body fat. Pearshaped people carry most of their excess fat around the hips, buttocks and thighs. Apples carry most of their excess body fat around the middle; this is known as central obesity and is much riskier for diabetes and cardiovascular disease. In this article we review why central obesity matters, how to measure it and management strategies.
The role of dietary fibre in optimising health
The gastrointestinal tract plays a vital – and sometimes overlooked – role in maintaining overall health. Dietary fibre, eaten as part of a balanced diet, helps to ensure effective functioning of the intestines and can offer benefit in terms of the prevention and treatment of a number of health problems. As levels of obesity in the population continue to escalate, research has shown that dietary fibre has an important role in satisfying appetite and in weight management, in addition to playing a potential role in controlling insulin levels.
Plant Sterols and Stanols: Further Options in Lowering Cholesterol
It is now 10 years since the introduction of the first cholesterol-lowering spread in the UK. There is now an expanding range of products including yoghurts, spreads and milk which include the active ingredients – plant sterols and stanols. With the increasing media focus and advertising spent on these so-called ‘functional food’ products, what advice should we be giving to our patients?
Facing up to the Challenge of Childhood Obesity
In a recent report on childhood obesity, the British Medical Association described the significant increase in levels of childhood obesity as a ’cause for great concern’ and stated that healthcare professionals have a pivotal role to play in tackling this epidemic. It is estimated that there are now approximately 1 million obese children under the age of 16 in the UK and numbers are increasing annually. In this article, we review the impact of this growing epidemic, the underlying causes and how healthcare professionals can help.
Faddy diets: fact or fiction?
An estimated two-thirds of the population are thinking about, or trying to lose weight at any time. To meet this demand, there is a growing range of commercial and ‘fad’ diets available but, unfortunately, very little research to indicate what works and what doesn’t. This article looks at some of the more popular fad and commercial diets you may be asked about in clinic, giving you the information you need to have a discussion about the pros and cons of different weight loss methods with your patients, to help them lose weight and keep it off. The key finding seems to be – if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!
Portion size: how much is enough?
The prevalence of obesity in the UK continues to rise. The Health Survey for England 2003 reported that nearly one in four (23%) of men and women were obese, compared to only 13% and 16%, respectively, in 1993. Obesity increases the risk of developing diseases such as diabetes, coronary heart disease (CHD) and some cancers, and can adversely affect the management of these conditions. So there is obviously a major incentive for primary healthcare professionals to support patients in dealing with this important risk factor. In this article, we look at the simple step of encouraging people to control the size of the portions of food that they eat.
