Starting the day off with chocolate could have unexpected benefits
Researchers find time of day eating milk chocolate can impact regulation of body weight
2021-06-24
(Press-News.org) WHO Frank A. J. L. Scheer, PhD, MSc, Neuroscientist and Marta Garaulet, PhD, Visiting Scientist, both of the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders, Departments of Medicine and Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital. Drs. Scheer and Garaulet are co-corresponding authors of a new paper published in The FASEB Journal.
WHAT Eating milk chocolate every day may sound like a recipe for weight gain, but a new study of postmenopausal women has found that eating a concentrated amount of chocolate during a narrow window of time in the morning may help the body burn fat and decrease blood sugar levels.
To find out about the effects of eating milk chocolate at different times of day, researchers from the Brigham collaborated with investigators at the University of Murcia in Spain. Together, they conducted a randomized, controlled, cross-over trial of 19 postmenopausal women who consumed either 100g of chocolate in the morning (within one hour after waking time) or at night (within one hour before bedtime). They compared weight gain and many other measures to no chocolate intake.
Researchers report that among the women studied:
Morning or nighttime chocolate intake did not lead to weight gain;
Eating chocolate in the morning or in the evening can influence hunger and appetite, microbiota composition, sleep and more;
A high intake of chocolate during the morning hours could help to burn fat and reduce blood glucose levels.
Evening/night chocolate altered next-morning resting and exercise metabolism.
"Our findings highlight that not only 'what' but also 'when' we eat can impact physiological mechanisms involved in the regulation of body weight," said Scheer.
"Our volunteers did not gain weight despite increasing caloric intake. Our results show that chocolate reduced ad libitum energy intake, consistent with the observed reduction in hunger, appetite and the desire for sweets shown in previous studies," said Garaulet.
INFORMATION:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2021-06-24
Philadelphia, June 24, 2021 - Women with depression and other mood disorders are generally advised to continue taking antidepressant medications during pregnancy. The drugs are widely considered safe, but the effect of these medications on the unborn fetus has remained a topic of some concern. Now, researchers have found that maternal psychiatric conditions - but not the use of serotonin-selective reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) - increased the risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and developmental delay (DD) in offspring.
The study appears in Biological Psychiatry, published by Elsevier.
Previous studies had found links between SSRI use and ASD in offspring, and ASD is associated with disrupted serotonergic pathways. But the question of whether ...
2021-06-24
With age, a diet lacking in the essential amino acid tryptophan -- which has a key role in our mood, energy level and immune response -- makes the gut microbiome less protective and increases inflammation body-wide, investigators report.
In a normally reciprocal relationship that appears to go awry with age, sufficient tryptophan, which we consume in foods like milk, turkey, chicken and oats, helps keep our microbiota healthy.
A healthy microbiota in turn helps ensure that tryptophan mainly results in good things for us like producing the neurotransmitter serotonin, which reduces depression risk, and melatonin, which ...
2021-06-24
Working in the highly charged environment of COVID-19 has had a huge impact on the mental health of nurses, according to a new survey by researchers at the University of British Columbia and the Institute for Work & Health in Toronto.
The findings, described recently in the Annals of Epidemiology, is the first to compare Canadian nurses' mental health prior to and during the pandemic.
"Whether they worked in acute care settings, in community care or in long-term care homes, nurses experienced high rates of depression and anxiety as the pandemic accelerated," says lead researcher Dr. Farinaz Havaei, a professor of nursing at UBC who studies health systems and workplace psychological health and safety.
Prior to the pandemic, two out of 10 nurses reported that they ...
2021-06-24
TAMPA, Fla. (June 24, 2021) -- A newly published study by the END ...
2021-06-24
Researchers are calling for changes to working culture and conditions for junior doctors in the UK after their new research has highlighted a lack of access to clinical and emotional support.
The call comes as a University of Birmingham-led team of researchers, including experts from Keele University, University College London, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and the Universities of Leeds and Manchester, carried out a qualitative study using in-depth interviews with 21 NHS junior doctors.
All participants, 16 of whom were women ...
2021-06-24
**Note this is a special early release from the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2021). Please credit the conference if you use this story**
New research being presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) held online this year (9-12 July), suggests that one in 10 veterinary workers in the Netherlands carries strains of extended spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL)-producing bacteria compared to around one in 20 of the general Dutch population.
This higher prevalence could not be explained by known risk factors such as antibiotic use or recent travel, and it seems highly likely that occupational contact with animals in the animal healthcare setting may result in shedding and transmission ...
2021-06-24
**Note this is a special early release from the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2021). Please credit the conference if you use this story*
Irish doctors highlight potential complications following buttock augmentation that can result in hospitalisation in a case report being presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) held online this year (9-12 July). Dr Siobhan Quirke and colleagues from the St James Hospital in Dublin detail the case of a 29-year-old woman who was admitted to hospital with sepsis 14 months after a dermal filler injection.*
The exact ingredients of fillers vary by brand, but they all work to enlarge the buttocks, ...
2021-06-24
A new study to be presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) (9-12 July) and published this week in The Lancet Infectious Diseases shows that, for residents of long-term care homes for adults aged 65 years and over, a single dose of either the Pfizer or Astra Zeneca COVID-19 vaccine offers around 60% protection against infection from SARS-CoV-2. The study is by Dr Madhumita Shrotri and Dr Laura Shallcross, UCL Institute of Health Informatics, University College London, UK, and colleagues.
The greatest effects of SARS-CoV-2 have been in residents of long-term care facilities, who represent a small fraction of the general population but account for ...
2021-06-24
A new study by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers has given scientists their first look at the genomic landscape of tumors that have grown resistant to drugs targeting the abnormal KRASG12C protein. Their work shows that, far from adopting a common route to becoming resistant, the cells take a strikingly diverse set of avenues, often several at a time.
The findings, reported online today in the END ...
2021-06-24
A human genetic mechanism hijacked by SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus behind the COVID-19 pandemic, to help it spread also makes it vulnerable to a new class of drug candidates, a new study finds.
Led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, a research team showed that coronavirus reproduction in infected human cells requires chemical changes made by the human protein METTL3 to RNA, a key form of genetic material. Additional human proteins involved in the recognition of modified RNA, YTHDF1 and YTHDF3, were also found to be important to the process.
Published online in Genes and Development on June 24, the study showed for the first time that ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Starting the day off with chocolate could have unexpected benefits
Researchers find time of day eating milk chocolate can impact regulation of body weight
