5 Foods that can increase your appetite

1- Diet Soda: The artificial sweeteners in diet soda may distort appetite, leaving us craving extra-sweet and unhealthy treats. They may also damage brain cells involved in feelings of fullness, while the lack of real sugar could also stop us from feeling full.

Alternative: Fizzy drinks with fruits

2- Fried Chicken:  It's a source of saturated fat which slowly tells your mind that your satiated which is why one or two are not enough and by the time you feel full, you had already too much.

Alternative: Oven baked chicken

3-Noodles: They are a source of MSG (monosodium glutamate) which was linked to an increase in insulin levels. Insulin's role is to decrease blood sugar level when it's high so the massive increase in insulin will lead to a massive drop in glucose level which will make us eat more food

Alternative: brown rice and vegetables

4-Tortilla chips and salsa : Also a source of MSG-> high insulin-> low glucose-> eating more food

Alternative: endives and guacamole dip

5-White bagel:  The sugar content will cause a surge in insulin level-> decrease in sugar -> eating more food

Alternative: whole wheat bagel

High sugar foods can make you stupid

Findings of a UCLA study on rats suggests that fructose slows down the brain and memory functions and too much sweetness can also prevent learning. In other words what you eat affect how you think. Apparently, eating too much fructose could block insulin's ability to regulate how cells use and store sugar for the energy required for processing thoughts and emotions. However, adding omega 3 rich food sources like salmon, walnuts and flaxseeds can counteract the harmful effect.


Take home message for all students studying for their finals: Drinking too much soda and eating too much sweets for as little as six weeks may make impact your grades !

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A fish a day keeps the doctor away

Speakers at the EuroPRevent 2012 meeting agreed that people, whether healthy or having cardiovascular disease (CVD), would benefit from regular consumption of oily fish. Omega-3 fatty acids are important essential nutrients to human health, and they have not only cardiovascular benefits but also they increase brain and immune health.

A lot of people opt for taking omega 3 supplements, however, over the counter brands contain different concentrations of omega 3 and there's a risk people may not be receiving sufficient intakes. Eating fatty fish such as salmon, sardines, herring and trout may prove more beneficial than taking capsules of omega-3. In fact, fish contain all sorts of other nutrients like vitamin D, selenium and iodine that may also be beneficial against CVD. Moreover, there is no definite proof that the benefits from eating fish come from the omega-3.

The latest European Guidelines on Cardiovascular Disease Prevention in Clinical Practice, also launched at the EuroPRevent 2012 meeting, recommend that people should eat fish at least twice a week, one meal of which should be oily fish.

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Why low birth weight babies become obese?

It is well documented that low birth weight babies are more at risk of becoming obese later in youth if they had the liberty to eat as much as they want. A new study recently published in the Journal of Neuroscience Research found that in low-birth-weight babies, the level of the appetite-producing neuropeptides in the brain is higher, which results to a natural tendency among these children to consume more calories to catch up in growth and make up for the decrease in nutrition while in the womb. Hence, if the amount of food is not controlled it might lead to childhood obesity.

Low birth weight can be caused by malnutrition due to a mother's homelessness or hunger or her desire not to gain too much weight during pregnancy. Additional causes include illness or infection, a reduction in placental blood, smoking, or use of alcohol or drugs during pregnancy.

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