.jpg&w=3840&q=90)
Newsletter #120: Food Processing - For Better and For Worse 🍟🥗
Hello Friends!
Welcome to the latest edition of the humanOS newsletter! Below, as always, is a roundup of the various studies and other media that we came across. 🤓
This week, we learned that taking tiny exercise breaks over the course of the day can improve markers of metabolic health; that more visceral fat is linked to more severe COVID-19 illness independent of BMI; intake of ultra-processed food (check out this review for what exactly that means) is associated with higher coronary artery calcium levels, independent of energy intake; and that spinach thylakoids (chloroplast membranes found in leafy vegetables) can boost weight loss and improve insulin sensitivity.
Scroll down to learn more, and stay safe everyone. 👇
This Week’s Research Highlights
🍟 Ultra-processed food intake is associated with atherosclerosis.
Researchers performed computed tomography scans on 1876 men from the Aragon Workers’ Health Study to assess coronary calcium. Dietary intake was collected by a validated 136-item semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire, and data was organized into groups based on the scope and purpose of industrial processing. A significant dose-response association was found between energy-adjusted ultra-processed food consumption and the risk of having a coronary artery calcium score ≥ 100. After adjusting for total energy intake and well-established cardiovascular risk factors, the researchers determined that 500 grams per day of ultra-processed food consumption was associated with a 2-fold greater prevalence of subclinical coronary atherosclerosis, compared to consuming 100 grams per day.
🏃♀️ Breaking up prolonged sitting with exercise “snacks” could improve metabolic health.
Researchers had 12 healthy adults and 11 adults with overweight/obesity complete two different experimental conditions: 1) nine hours of just sitting, and 2) nine hours of sitting, punctuated with 8 rounds of 15-30 seconds of stair climbing, performed once per hour. The subjects consumed three identical meals over the course of each experiment. In the adults with overweight/obesity, total insulin AUC (-16.5%) and total free fatty acid AUC (-21%) were both significantly reduced when doing the hourly stair climbing exercises. This lines up with a previous study showing improved glycemic control in individuals who did short bouts of body-weight exercises while watching TV. Building activity into your whole day, rather than just a single workout, is probably a good idea for all of us but may be an especially smart strategy for those with insulin resistance.
🦠 Greater abdominal fat is associated with critical illness in COVID-19 patients.
Researchers analyzed high-resolution computed tomography (HR-CT) scans and clinical outcomes of 441 patients who were admitted to the emergency department of a hospital in Italy for clinical suspicion of COVID-19. Of these patients, 144 had confirmed COVID-19 from testing as well as imaging that was suggestive of pneumonia. A group of 136 patients evaluated in the ED who tested negative and had no HR-CT signs of pneumonia served as the control group. Subjects with COVID-19 showed greater visceral adipose tissue than controls. Additionally, greater visceral fat appears to have been linked to more severe illness; admission to ICU was associated with 30% higher visceral adipose tissue and 30% lower subcutaneous fat, independent of age and sex.
🥗 Spinach thylakoids may improve insulin resistance and aid weight loss in women with PCOS.
Researchers randomly assigned 48 women with obesity and PCOS to either intervention (5 grams per day of thylakoids) or placebo (5 grams per day of cornstarch), in combination with a calorie-restricted diet. After twelve weeks, both groups had lost weight and showed metabolic improvements, as expected. However, the women taking spinach thylakoids showed greater decreases in weight (−6.97 ± 0.52 vs −3.19 ± 0.72 kg), waist circumference (−7.78 ± 2.50 vs. −3.73 ± 1.40 cm), fat mass (−5.19 ± 0.53 vs. −1.36 ± 0.39 kg), and insulin levels (−5.40 ± 1.86 vs. −1.19 ± 0.85 μU/mL), compared to the placebo group. Additionally, insulin resistance markers and serum levels of testosterone decreased significantly in the thylakoid group. Past studies have linked intake of thylakoids to significant reductions in hunger and subsequent weight loss, possibly by influencing digestion and modulating gut hormones that govern satiety. Five grams of supplemental thylakoids is equivalent to around 100 grams of spinach, which is pretty doable, but apparently consuming thylakoids from unprocessed veggies is inefficient, since the thylakoids are locked away inside the cell walls.
It is likely that you would get a lot more bioaccessible thylakoids by tearing the spinach into tiny particles with a blender and consuming as a smoothie. This is one example of how processing can, ironically, offer unique health benefits, and why the aforementioned distinction between minimally processed and ultra-processed is valuable.
Podcasts We Loved This Week
- Eric Topol: Rethinking Our COVID-19 Testing Strategy. Via Science Friday.
- Alan Flanagan: Omega-3 Supplementation & Heart Disease. Via Sigma Nutrition.
Products We Are Enjoying
Vitamix Professional Grade Blender.
If you like to make green smoothies, a high-powered blender is basically a must. Once you try it, you’ll never go back to typical countertop blenders. Trust me. There are a number of good ones, but I haven’t used any that surpass this one. Vitamix lets you easily control the speed, to achieve different textures. And it’s an incredibly versatile device - you can also use it to make hot soup, nut butter, flour, etc. It’s just awesome. If the price puts you off, you might do what I did and snag a refurbished model, or wait for a flash sale (premium kitchen appliances are often significantly reduced for Prime Day and on Black Friday/Cyber Monday).
