They consume nearly as many calories at Subway as at McDonald’s, UCLA study finds.

Lennard Lesser

Subway may promote itself as the “healthy” fast food restaurant, but it might not be a much healthier alternative than McDonald’s for adolescents, according to new UCLA research.

In a study published May 6 in the Journal of Adolescent Health, the researchers found that adolescents who purchased Subway meals consumed nearly as many calories as they did at McDonald’s. Meals from both restaurants are likely to contribute toward overeating and obesity, according to the researchers.

“Every day, millions of people eat at McDonald’s and Subway, the two largest fast food chains in the world,” said Dr. Lenard Lesser, who led the research while a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar in the department of family medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. “With childhood obesity at record levels, we need to know the health impact of kids’ choices at restaurants.”

The researchers recruited 97 adolescents ages 12 to 21 to purchase meals at McDonald’s and Subway restaurants at a shopping mall in Carson. The participants went to each restaurant on different weekdays between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m., and paid for the meals with their own money. Researchers used the participants’ cash register receipts to record what each customer ate and estimated calorie counts from information on the chains’ websites.

The researchers found that the participants bought meals containing an average of 1,038 calories at McDonald’s and an average of 955 calories at Subway.

“We found that there was no statistically significant difference between the two restaurants, and that participants ate too many calories at both,” said Lesser, who is now a researcher at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute.

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UC San Diego findings emphasize need to educate women about taking multivitamins.

Researchers from the UC San Diego Department of Pediatrics and Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego, a research affiliate of UC San Diego School of Medicine, have found a link between multivitamin use and alcohol consumption before pregnancy, uncovering a need for education about the importance of vitamin supplementation, particularly among women who drink alcohol during their childbearing years. The study was published online this month in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Researchers examined data collected from the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention’s multiple-state Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) of more than 100,000 women between 2004 and 2008. The women answered a series of questions about alcohol use before their pregnancies as well as multivitamin supplement use.  The study found women who reported consuming alcohol regularly or binge drinking were significantly less likely to take a multivitamin supplement compared with those who did not report alcohol consumption.

“It’s likely a woman may consume alcohol before she even realizes she’s pregnant, therefore, these findings are significant,” explained Lauren Bartell Weiss, Ph.D., a postdoctoral research fellow at UC San Diego’s Center for the Promotion of Maternal Health and Infant Development and co-author of the study. “If a woman is drinking alcohol regularly and unintentionally becomes pregnant, not only does her unborn child have a greater risk of being affected by the alcohol, but other studies suggest that alcohol can also alter the metabolism of nutrients and interfere with the nutritional supply to the developing baby.”

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Market will debut May 16 in Sacramento.

UC Davis Health System launches a weekly farmers market on May 16, reflecting a national trend that expands access to fresh, locally grown produce sold directly to consumers.

The UC Davis Health System Farmers Market will be held every Thursday through Oct. 31 from 3 to 7:30 p.m. at the intersection of 45^th and Y streets in Parking Lot 12 in Sacramento. Free parking will be available at Shriners Hospitals for Children – Northern California.

“We are very excited about offering this farmers market to our employees, neighbors and the Sacramento community,” said Vincent Johnson, chief operating officer of UC Davis Medical Center.  “Our vision is to create a healthier world, and by offering at this market the fruits and vegetables that are key to a healthy diet, we are a step closer to achieving that.”

The market joins a growing national trend of bringing fresh, locally grown or produced food closer to home. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, there has been a 150 percent increase in the number of farmers markets held throughout the country.

The UC Davis Health System Farmers Market will offer farm-fresh produce, artisan cheeses, grass-fed beef, eggs, baked goods and an assortment of fresh fruits, vegetables and many other specialty items. In addition, music and other entertainment, cooking demonstrations and other activities will be available. UC Davis Health System staff also will provide wellness information and health activities.

BeMoneySmartUSA, a local nonprofit specializing in providing youth with financial, business and career-education programs, is operating the market. A portion of the proceeds from the market supports financial literacy programs for local students.

“Our focus is on educating and empowering our youth to develop the fiscal and business skills they need to really succeed in the world,” says Marie Hall, executive director of BeMoneySmartUSA. “Our students work at the farmers markets in job positions incorporating communications, hospitality, journalism, marketing, sales and customer service to learn while they earn and gain real-world experience.”

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View live webcast April 9.

By Carolyn McMillan

There are now more than 7 billion people on Earth, a number that is expected to soar over the next dozen years to 8 billion.

How will we feed so many people? Already, more than a billion people go hungry every day. With population growth accelerating, the challenge of finding sustainable ways to feed the world is compounded by global climate change, shifting geo-politics, rising energy demands and limits on natural resources.

“It’s one of the big questions of our time: How do we sustainably feed 8 billion people?” said Barbara Allen-Diaz, vice president of the University of California’s Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. “UC is uniquely positioned to bring people together across a wide range of disciplines in search of common ground and science-based solutions.”

On April 9, ANR will convene some of the world’s leading experts — farmers, researchers, policymakers, economists, environmentalists and geopolitical experts — at a daylong forum focused on addressing how to sustainably feed 8 billion people by 2025.

Keynote speakers at the Global Food Systems Forum include Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and a leader on climate justice for the world’s poor, and Wes Jackson, founder and president of the Land Institute.

The event will be webcast, and is open to everyone via online registration. People have registered from around the world — including Australia, Kenya, Thailand and Venezuela, to name just a few places. In fact, Antarctica is the only contintent not represented among webcast attendees.

“Our goal is to start a national and international conversation,” Allen-Diaz said. “There are so many interconnected issues and none of them will be addressed overnight. It’s going to take collaboration and dialogue to get where we need to go. We see an important role for UC in furthering that conversation.”

ANR already has launched a website and blog featuring commentary and insight from forum participants on topics as divergent as whether women are disproportionately affected by food insecurity to the debate about whether organic foods are better than genetically modified ones.

Michael Specter, who writes about global issues for the New Yorker, will moderate a panel focusing on the political, ethical, economic, environmental and technical challenges facing food systems from a global perspective.

In a 2010 TED talk, he framed the environmental challenge succinctly:

“We’ve used our imagination to thoroughly trash the globe. Potable water, arable land, rainforests, oil, gas — they are all going away. And they’re going away soon. And unless we can innovate our way out of this mess, we’re going away, too. The question is, can we do that? And I think we can.”

UC is especially suited to the search for solutions: Its discoveries in crop management, pest control and agricultural machinery have helped farmers around the world boost productivity. UC researchers also discovered how to leach salts from Central Valley soils, a development that transformed California into the most productive farming region in the world.

Journalist Mark Arax, who has written extensively about California, will moderate a panel focusing on the state’s role as an innovator in addressing the looming food challenge. A range of UC and non-UC people will participate.

“For almost 100 years, ANR has used the power of scientific research to improve agricultural production and protect our natural resources,” Allen-Diaz said. “This forum will help us continue in that leadership role and prepare for the uncertainties that lie ahead.”

To learn more about the UC Global Food Systems Forum and to sign up to view the webcast, visit http://food2025.ucanr.edu. You may also join the ongoing conversation on Twitter by following #Food2025.

Global Food Systems Forum webcast

WHAT: Live webcast of UC ANR Global Food Systems Forum

WHO: World-renowned leaders in food systems dialogue. View participant list.

WHEN: 9 a.m.–5 p.m. April 9, 2013

WHERE: Register for the webcast.

Fatty acid metabolite can slow tumor growth in mice.

Guodong Zhang, UC Davis

A team of UC Davis scientists has found that a product resulting from a metabolized omega-3 fatty acid helps combat cancer by cutting off the supply of oxygen and nutrients that fuel tumor growth and spread of the disease.

The scientists report their discovery in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The groundbreaking study was a collaboration among multiple UC Davis laboratories and Harvard University.

The metabolite is epoxy docosapentaenoic acid (EDP), an endogenous compound produced by the human body from the omega-3 fatty acid named docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which is found in fish oil and breast milk. In animal studies, the UC Davis scientists found that EDP inhibits angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels in the body.

Tumors grow and spread by hijacking the normal biological process of angiogenesis, which plays a role in wound repair as well in growth and development. The UC Davis researchers determined that by inhibiting angiogenesis, EDP reduces the growth and spread (metastasis) of tumors in mice. The research provides the first scientific evidence about EDP’s potent anti-cancer, anti-metastatic effects.

EDP works by a different mechanism than many current anti-cancer drugs that block angiogenesis.

“Our investigation opens up a new understanding of the pathways by which omega-3 fatty acids exert their biologic effects,” said Guodong Zhang, the lead author of the article and a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Bruce Hammock in the Department of Entomology and the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center.

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Results provide evidence that not all calories are equal from a diabetes-risk standpoint.

Sanjay Basu, UC San Francisco

Does eating too much sugar cause diabetes?

For years, scientists have said “not exactly.” Eating too much of any food, including sugar, can cause you to gain weight; it’s the resulting obesity that predisposes people to diabetes, according to the prevailing theory.

But now the results of a large epidemiological study conducted at UC San Francisco suggest that sugar may also have a direct, independent link to diabetes.

Researchers examined data on global sugar availability and diabetes rates from 175 countries over the past decade. After accounting for obesity and a large array of other factors, the researchers found that increased sugar in a population’s food supply was linked to higher diabetes rates, independent of obesity rates. Their study was published Feb. 27 in PLOS ONE.

The study provides the first large-scale, population-based evidence for the idea that not all calories are equal from a diabetes-risk standpoint.

Robert Lustig, UC San Francisco

“It was quite a surprise,” said Sanjay Basu, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor of medicine at the Stanford Prevention Research Center and the study’s lead author. The research was conducted while Basu was a medical resident at UCSF and working with Robert Lustig, M.D., a pediatric endocrinologist at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital and the paper’s senior author.

“We’re not diminishing the importance of obesity at all, but these data suggest that at a population level there are additional factors that contribute to diabetes risk besides obesity and total calorie intake, and that sugar appears to play a prominent role.”

Specifically, more sugar was correlated with more diabetes: For every additional 150 calories of sugar available per person per day, the prevalence of diabetes in the population rose 1 percent, even after controlling for obesity, physical activity, other types of calories and a number of economic and social variables. A 12-ounce can of soda contains about 150 calories of sugar. In contrast, an additional 150 calories of any type caused only a 0.1 percent increase in the population’s diabetes rate.

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Related links:

• It’s the sugar, folks (New York Times)
• Availability of sugar influences rate of diabetes, study says (Los Angeles Times)
• More sugar, more diabetes (KQED)

UC brown bag event offers nutritional tips.

Susan Algert

>>Listen to an audio recording of the event

By Alec Rosenberg

If you want to maintain a healthy weight, UC Cooperative Extension nutrition advisor Susan Algert, Ph.D., R.D., has some sage tips: snack wisely; eat more fruits and vegetables; keep a food record and stay active.

Algert shared the latest dietary advice from the U.S. departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services with UC Office of the President employees at a brown bag event Wednesday in Oakland co-hosted by UC Health and UC Agriculture and Natural Resources.

“How many of you really watch your weight?” Algert asked the audience. “No matter how hard we try, it seems to creep up a little bit as we get older.”

Indeed, studies have shown that adults gain an average of around a pound a year. How that happens might surprise you, according to Algert, a nutrition advisor with UC Cooperative Extension of Santa Clara, San Mateo and San Francisco counties.

Research from a large representative study of women in the U.S. shows that as little as an extra 13 calories per day – the equivalent of consuming one extra ounce of soda and walking one minute less – has led to an average weight gain of 35 pounds in 28 years since the 1970s. Eating an extra chocolate chip cookie every day for life? Expect to gain 6 pounds.

“People always say, ‘I don’t know how I gained it.’ We don’t usually gain weight by eating fruits and vegetables. It’s all those goodies loaded with fat, sugar and salt that we snack on,” said Algert, who previously was a clinical research nutritionist with UC San Diego School of Medicine’s Warren Celiac Center.

Snacking is the worst culprit, Algert said. Instead of soda and chips, try fruits and vegetables, nonfat yogurt, or nuts, she said. If you drink sugar-free soda, limit yourself to one or two cans a day. Better yet, drink water flavored with cucumber or lemon.

People also need to be careful when eating out. She pointed to examples such as Cheesecake Factory’s Bistro Shrimp Pasta, which has more than 3,000 calories – 1 ½ times the recommended daily caloric intake for an average adult – and Smoothie King’s 40-ounce Peanut Power Plus Grape smoothie, which contains about a cup of sugar and nearly 1,500 calories.

“If you eat out more than a couple of times a week, you’re in trouble because you’re likely consuming more fat and calories than you realize,” Algert said. Other key factors that lead to weight gain are decreased physical activity, increased television viewing, increased alcohol intake and poor sleep.

So what should you do?

Algert said two reliable sources of nutrition information are the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s MyPlate dietary guidelines and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) eating plan, which focuses on healthy fat, fruits, vegetables and reduced-fat dairy and limits sweets to no more than five servings a week. Also, UC offers a variety of nutrition education, including the CalFresh program, which reaches 140,000 Californians a year.

Algert encouraged people to buy fresh, local food. “Vote with your fork,” she said. “Don’t buy junk food. Support a healthy food environment by going to the community gardens and by going to the farmers markets.”

Another suggestion is to keep a food record — track what you eat, when you eat and what your mood is (do you eat ice cream when you are stressed?).

Most of all, keep trying. Even the experts wrestle with their weight.

“I am trying to increase my fruit and vegetable intake to the eight-10 per day recommended in the DASH diet. I have a bit of a sweet tooth. It is a challenge in today’s food environment!” Algert said.

UCSF study looks at impact of salty foods on heart attack and stroke rates over 10 years.

Pam Coxson, UC San Francisco

Hundreds of thousands of lives could be saved over 10 years if Americans reduced their sodium consumption to the levels recommended in federal guidelines, according to a new study by researchers at UC San Francisco, Harvard Medical School and Simon Fraser University in Canada.

Described this week in the journal Hypertension, the study emerged from a workshop convened last year by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which sought to quantify the health benefits of population-wide sodium reduction.

The CDC brought together groups of scientists from the three universities, who each used completely different computer models to estimate how lowering sodium would save lives – largely by reducing the number of heart attacks and strokes. All three models found consistent, substantial benefits of reducing U.S. sodium consumption from the current level of intake to a level close to the upper limit of the federal guideline of 2,300 mg/day in the following ways:

• Immediately reducing sodium intake to the current upper limit of the guidelines would save 500,000 to 850,000 lives over the next 10 years.
• Gradually reducing sodium intake through processed or restaurant-prepared foods by 4 percent per year over 10 years would still yield substantial health benefits, saving 280,000 to 500,000 lives over a decade.

“No matter how we look at it, the story is the same – there will be huge benefits in reducing sodium,” said Pam Coxson, Ph.D., a UCSF mathematician and the lead author on the paper who performed one of the three analyses. Coxson is based at the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations, located at the San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center (SFGH).

The overall average sodium consumption in the United States has been estimated at 3,500 mg/day, well above the upper limit of 2,300 mg recommended by federal agencies and the Institute of Medicine. The average American male consumes even more – about twice as much sodium as recommended.

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UCLA study shows potential for boosting immunity, clearing amyloid plaques.

Milan Fiala, UCLA

A team of academic researchers has pinpointed how vitamin D3 and omega-3 fatty acids may enhance the immune system’s ability to clear the brain of amyloid plaques, one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease.

In a small pilot study published in today’s (Feb. 5) issue of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, the scientists identified key genes and signaling networks regulated by vitamin D3 and the omega-3 fatty acid DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) that may help control inflammation and improve plaque clearance.

Previous laboratory work by the team helped clarify key mechanisms involved in helping vitamin D3 clear amyloid-beta, the abnormal protein found in the plaque. The new study extends the previous findings with vitamin D3 and highlights the role of omega-3 DHA.

“Our new study sheds further light on a possible role for nutritional substances such as vitamin D3 and omega-3 in boosting immunity to help fight Alzheimer’s,” said study author Dr. Milan Fiala, a researcher at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

For the study, scientists drew blood samples from both Alzheimer’s patients and healthy controls, then isolated critical immune cells called macrophages from the blood. Macrophages are responsible for gobbling up amyloid-beta and other waste products in the brain and body.

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Learn more about the latest nutrition science.

Susan Algert

Spend your lunch hour learning more about the latest science on nutrition and what it means for you at a brown bag co-hosted by UC Health Sciences and Services and UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, 12 to 1 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 20, in the Lobby 1 Conference Room at 1111 Franklin St., Oakland.

The discussion, Nutrition 101: A Healthier You, features guest speakers Susan Algert, a UC Cooperative Extension nutrition advisor in Santa Clara County, and Jennifer Daubenmier, an assistant professor of medicine at UC San Francisco. [Update: Daubenmier will be unable to appear as previously announced, due to unforeseen circumstances.]

Algert will discuss how the food environment influences our ability to maintain a healthy weight by answering the question: How much weight would you gain by eating an extra chocolate chip cookie every day for life?

UC Health Sciences and Services provides leadership and strategic direction to advance the education, research and clinical service missions of the university’s 18 health professional schools and programs and 10 hospitals, collectively referred to as UC Health.

UC Agriculture and Natural Resources is the bridge between local issues and the power of UC research, spanning three colleges and one professional school, six statewide programs, nine research and extension centers and 57 local offices throughout California.

To RSVP or for questions about the Feb. 20 event, contact Communications Coordinator Alec Rosenberg at alec.rosenberg@ucop.edu or (510) 987-9207. If you are unable to attend in person, the event will be available by audio conference; dial 866-740-1260 and enter passcode 9879207.

View event flier

UCLA research results not encouraging.

Past studies have suggested a relationship between neighborhood characteristics and obesity, as well as a connection between obesity and advertisements on television and in magazines.

Now, new research from UCLA has identified a possible link between outdoor food ads and a tendency to pack on pounds. The findings, researchers say, are not encouraging.

In a study published online in the peer-reviewed journal BMC Public Health, Dr. Lenard Lesser and his colleagues suggest that the more outdoor advertisements promoting fast food and soft drinks there are in a given census tract, the higher the likelihood that the area’s residents are overweight.

“Obesity is a significant health problem, so we need to know the factors that contribute to the overeating of processed food,” said Lesser, who conducted the research while a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar at the UCLA Department of Family Medicine and UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health.

“Previous research has found that fast food ads are more prevalent in low-income, minority areas, and laboratory studies have shown that marketing gets people to eat more,” said Lesser, now a research physician at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute in California. “This is one of the first studies to suggest an association between outdoor advertising and obesity.”

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