Emma McGowan NatureCity author & contributor

Central obesity is one of the main risk factors of metabolic syndrome and is often accompanied by high blood pressure, elevated glucose levels and high cholesterol. A recent study has found that the Indian herb Caralluma fimbriata may help overweight and obese people reduce their waist size by 2.6 inches.

Thirty-three overweight or obese adults participated in the study. For 12 weeks, half of the group took 500 mg of Caralluma fimbriata extract twice daily. The other half took a placebo. All of the participants had their exercise and dietary intake closely controlled and monitored throughout the study period.

At the conclusion of the study, the supplement group lost an average of 2.6 inches from their waistlines while the placebo group had only a 1 inch loss.

It is believed that compounds found in Caralluma fimbriata called pregnane glycosides are responsible for its appetite suppressing properties.

The study was conducted by researchers at Victoria University in Australia. It was published in the June 2013 issue of Complementary Therapies in Medicine.

Caralluma fimbriata has traditionally been used in Indian folk remedies as an appetite suppressant and has been the subject of at least two human trial and six safety studies. It has been deemed GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) and is also kosher, halal, and organic.

Emma McGowan NatureCity author & contributor

Skipping breakfast has been shown to be associated with a higher risk of obesity. A recent study suggests that eating a high-protein breakfast may help people keep the weight down by increasing feelings of satiety (feeling “full”), reducing activity in the part of the brain that deals with hunger hormones, and lowering the amount of evening snacking.

The study included 20 overweight or obese women between the ages of 18 and 20 who normally skipped breakfast. For six days, one third of the group skipped breakfast, one third ate a normal-protein breakfast of cereal, and the last third ate a high-protein breakfast of eggs and lean beef.

All of the breakfasts had 350 calories and the same amount of fiber, dietary fat, energy density, and sugar.

On the seventh day, all of the participants underwent a 10 hour testing day which included appetite and satiety questionnaires, MRI brain scans, dinner, and evening snacking.

The researchers found that both breakfast groups showed higher levels of satiety and reduced hunger hormones, but that the high-protein group had stronger results. Additionally, only the high-protein group consumed fewer high-fat, high-sugar snacks in the evening.

This study was conducted by researchers at the University of Missouri. It was published in the April 2013 issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Eating breakfast isn’t the only way to improve feelings of satiety and lose weight. Previous studies have linked olive oil consumption, eating carbohydrates at night, taking algae supplements, and increasing fiber intake with weight loss benefits.

Emma McGowan NatureCity author & contributor

A recent study has found that young people between the ages of 18 and 25 are not consuming the recommended three daily servings of dairy products. As a result, they are three times more likely to develop metabolic syndrome.

Metabolic syndrome is defined as having at least three of the following risk factors: abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol and high triglycerides. It is on the rise in the US and puts people at higher risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

The study included 339 Mexican students between the ages of 18 and 25. They were asked to fill out a food frequency questionnaire. The researchers then assessed them for metabolic syndrome risk factors, controlling for sex, age, physical activity, and family medical history.

They found that only 25% of the participants were getting the recommended amount of dairy from their diet. For the 75% not getting the recommended amount, the prevalence of metabolic syndrome and its risk factors was 2.6 to 4.1 times higher.

Previous studies have shown that dairy products protect against obesity. Scientists are as yet unsure of the mechanism behind this, although they believe it is linked to the calcium and/or the proteins found in dairy products.

The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Illinois and published in the January 2013 issue of Food and Nutrition Sciences.

Dairy consumption has also been linked to bone health, diabetes prevention, weight loss, and improved mental function. If you’re looking to add more dairy to your diet, you may want to stick to the low-fat dairy products as the high fat content of “whole milk” products could reduce the positive benefits.

Scott Greenberg, NatureCity author & contributor

Satiety is the feeling of being full. The faster a person reaches the point of satiety, the less they will eat, which could result in weight loss. According to a series of three interconnected studies, olive oil – specifically the aroma oils in olive oil – has the highest satiety effect when compared to lard, butterfat, and rapeseed oil.

For a period of three months, the participants ate 500 grams of low-fat yogurt enriched with one of the four fats or oils daily for three months. The researchers measured levels of serotonin (a hormone that is a sign of satiety) in the participants and found higher levels in the olive oil group.

The olive oil group also reported feeling physically fuller than the other groups.

The researchers were surprised by the results, as rapeseed oil and olive oil contain very similar fatty acids. This led them to conduct another study in which half of the group was given yogurt with olive oil aroma compounds and the other half was given a placebo of plain yogurt.

At the conclusion of this second study, the researchers noted that the olive oil group consumed the same number of calories as in the previous study, but that the control group consumed 176 more calories daily. The control group also had less serotonin in their blood.

For the third study, the researchers investigated which aroma substances in olive oil were causing the satiety effect. They found that Hexanal and E2-Hexanal both lower the rate of absorption of glucose, which extends the amount of time until a person feels hungry again. Italian olive oil was found to have the highest amount of those two substances when compared with olive oil from Spain, Greece, and Australia.

The study was conducted by researchers at Technische Universität München and the University of Vienna. It was published by the Technische Universität München on March 14, 2013.

Olive oil has been used in folk remedies for years to treat dry scalp, earaches and dry skin. Recent research suggests that it may help prevent colon cancer and reduce cholesterol. If you want to add more olive oil to your diet, it can be as simple as eating a spoonful daily. If eating olive oil by the spoonful doesn’t appeal to you, consider substituting olive oil for butter in your daily diet: you can use it for cooking, put it on bread, or use it as a salad dressing.

Sarah McGowan-Freije, NatureCity author & contributor

For most people, attempts to lose weight revolve around a combination of dietary changes and an increase in exercise. However, a new study suggests that it’s not only what you eat but when you eat it that can make a difference when you’re trying to lose weight.

The study found that those who eat their main meal earlier in the day lose more weight, and lose it faster, than those who eat their main meal later in the day.

420 Spanish adults participated in the study. They were classified as late eaters (lunch consumed after 3pm) or early eaters (lunch consumed before 3pm). Lunch is the biggest meal of the day in Spain, which is why the researchers focused specifically on this meal.

After following the participant’s food consumption and weight loss for 20 weeks, the researchers found that the early eater group lost significantly more weight than the late eater group. This held true even though both groups displayed similar energy intake, dietary composition, estimated energy expenditure, appetite hormone levels, and amount of sleep,

They did note one difference however; late eaters tended to be “evening types” who either didn’t eat large breakfasts or did not eat breakfast at all. They plan to conduct further research to determine whether breakfast consumption played a role in the results seen.

The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Murcia in Spain. It was published on January 29, 2013, in the International Journal of Obesity.

A balanced diet, exercise, and timing are important for weight loss, but there are other dietary interventions you can take when you’re trying to shed the pounds. Previous studies have suggested that eating whole grains, drinking green tea, consuming alginates and supplementing with CoQ10 may all aid weight loss efforts

Sarah McGowan-Freije, NatureCity author & contributor

The Center for Disease Control recently released a study suggesting that people who are overweight, but not obese, have a 6% lower risk of death during a given time period than people who are normal weight.

The researchers examined 97 studies that included approximately three million people from around the world. In that sample, there were 270,000 deaths. They compared the body mass index (BMI) of participants in the studies to determine the effect of being overweight on the risk of death.

It is unclear why having a high body mass index (BMI) is associated with lower risk of death.

The researchers suggest that heavier people may tend to seek medical treatment sooner and therefore have a greater likelihood of receiving optimal medical treatment and that people who have extra pounds are less likely to die from starvation if they get too sick to eat properly.

It is important to note BMI measurement does not look at how fat is distributed, which may be more important than total fat overall. Previous studies have found that belly fat significantly increases the risk of death from cardiovascular problems.

The researchers pointed out that keeping a healthy weight is still important. Obesity—and especially morbid obesity—is associated with a number of health problems including heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and kidney to failure.

The study was published on January 2, 2013, in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Scott Greenberg, NatureCity author & contributor

According to a recent study, eating carbohydrates at dinner time may change the way your body secretes the hormones that let you know if you’re hungry or full.

The study included 78 participants with a BMI of 30 or greater. They ate either a low-calorie carbohydrate-rich dinner or a control weight loss diet that provided carbohydrates throughout the day for six months.

The researchers looked at the levels of three different hormones that play a role in hunger.

1. Leptin, the hormone responsible for feelings of satiety. Levels usually peak at night.

2. Ghrelin, the hormone that makes you feel hungry. Levels are usually high all day and low at night.

3. Adiponectin, the hormone that modulates glucose regulation. Levels are usually low in overweight people.

At the conclusion of the half year trial period, the researchers found that the daylight hormonal profiles of the participants that ate the low-calorie carbohydrate-rich diet had changed. Leptin levels were high during the day and lowest during the evening. Ghrelin levels were low during the day and highest in the evening. Apdiponectin levels were higher at the end of the study.

The researchers concluded that a diet with high carbohydrate consumption in the evening may help obese people avoid mid-day hunger, lose more weight and improve metabolic parameters.

The study was conducted at the Institute of Biochemistry, Food Science and Nutrition at Hebrew University’s Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment. The results were published in two studies: one in the October 2011 issue of Obesity and one in the journal Nutrition, Metabolism & Cardiovascular Disease online ahead of print on August 14, 2012.

Emma McGowan NatureCity author & contributor

Overweight and obese people suffer from chronic inflammation of the fatty tissue which can lead to a number of ailments, including cardiovascular disease and type-2 diabetes. A recent study suggests that drinking a glass of tomato juice (which is rich in the compound lycopene) a day may reduce markers of inflammation in overweight individuals.

The study included 106 overweight or obese women with an average age of 23. Over the course of 20 days, half of the women drank 11 oz. of tomato juice while the other half drank the same amount of water.

At the conclusion of the study, the overweight women (but not the obese women) showed reductions in the inflammation markers IL-8 and TNF-alpha. In comparison, the water group had increases in both inflammation markers.

The obese participants showed no notable changes.

The study was conducted by researchers at the Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran, and the University of Newcastle, Australia. It was published online ahead of print on October 15, 2012, in the British Journal of Nutrition.

The researchers believe that the results seen here can be attributed to lycopene. Previous studies have shown that lycopene may have a positive effect on heart health, bone health, and skin health.

If you want to increase lycopene levels you may want to consider taking a lycopene supplement, or increasing your consumption of red-pigmented foods such as tomatoes, peppers and papayas. Certain diets, such as the Mediterranean diet, are also high in lycopene.

Scott Greenberg, NatureCity author & contributor

A study published in 2008 indicated that both the Mediterranean diet and a low-carbohydrate diet may be just as effective as a low-fat diet for long-term weight loss. A follow up to that study suggests that the beneficial effects of these diets on blood lipid profiles may continue, even if the individual stops dieting later and gains weight.

Blood lipid is a term for fat in the blood stream and it is measured with a blood lipid profile test. The test measures total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and triglycerides.

The researchers followed up with the 322 obese participants of the original study. They found that even the individuals who had regained some weight had lower levels of cholesterol and triglycerides, as well as lower incidences of arteriosclerosis. This suggests that these diets are beneficial for heart health.

The study was conducted by researchers at the Nuclear Research Centre in Israel. It was published on October 4, 2012, in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The Mediterranean diet is typical of people who live in the European countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea. The diet is rich in vegetables, legumes, fruits, whole grains and healthy oils.

Previous research has shown that the Mediterranean diet may improve heart health, lower the risk of Alzheimer’s, diabetes, asthma, lower rates of obesity and even decrease the overall risk of mortality.

A low-carbohydrate diet has been associated with weight loss, improved triglyceride levels, increased HDL (good) cholesterol and reduced blood pressure.

Emma McGowan NatureCity author & contributor

We were all told by our moms to “chew your food thoroughly before you swallow it” so we wouldn’t choke. Turns out there are more reasons to make sure your food is thoroughly pulverized before you swallow it: chewing longer may increase feelings of fullness and decrease calorie intake by up to 19%.

Over the course of five days, 26 men were told to chew but not swallow food for one or eight minutes. Simultaneously, their stomachs were being filled with either 100 ml or 800 ml of infused liquid via a nasal feeding tube. As a control, the men were tested one time without chewing and without the infused liquid.

Thirty minutes after completing the chewing and gastric stimulation, the participants were given a meal and told to eat as much as they liked.

The researchers found that each of the interventions resulted in lower appetite when compared with the control. However, the eight minute chewing time interventions resulted in a larger decrease in calorie intake compared to the one minute chewing time. The results were:

1. 8 minute chewing time and 100 ml solution – 19% lower calorie intake

2. 1 minute chewing time and 100 ml solution – 14% lower calorie intake

3. 8 minute chewing time and 800 ml solution – 15% lower calorie intake

4. 1 minute chewing time and 800 ml solution – 10% lower calorie intake

The researchers concluded that increasing oral stimulation by chewing food for a longer period of time may be an important element in lowering calorie intake.

The study was conducted at Wageningen University in the Netherlands and was published in Obesity on May 17, 2012.

Previous studies have suggested that other natural ways to increase feelings of fullness include consuming algae, kidney beans, artichokes, fiber, and green tea.