D4
BusinessPoliticsEnvironment
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2013
PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
Briefly . . . CONTINUED FROM D3 In the second segment, Betsy Wharton discusses the Feiro Marine Life Center’s “Fish on the Fence� Gala benefit for the marine center.
Nation/World
LIL BOUTIQUE
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OPENS FOR SMALL PUPS
WASHINGTON — Drug Teresa Robbins has opened Tasha’s Lil Boutique, a specialty store for small dogs. The shop, located at 127 E. First companies and medical St. in Port Angeles, carries dog coats, toys, accessories, gift, collars and other items. Hours from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. device makers would be Mondays through Fridays and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays. For more information, phone 360-457-9303. forced to publicly disclose any money paid to doctors under new U.S. regulations designed to make patients aware of conflicts of interest that may affect their health. The final rule, a provision in President Barack Obama’s health law that is more than a year overdue, is set to be released soon, said Brian Cook, a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Companies would have to publish payments to doctors for research and conPENINSULA DAILY NEWS sulting services. NEWS SERVICES
Busting myths about weight loss Sex, snacks, gym among facts, fiction
Footlong footlongs NEW YORK — Subway customers may soon be seeing “footlong� sandwiches that are more consistently 12 inches long, according to a company statement issued in the wake of lawsuits filed against the sandwich chain. Complaints that Subway’s “footlong� sandwiches don’t quite measure up have stretched all the way from Australia, across the Internet and last month into courts in New Jersey and Chicago. Subway responded with a statement saying it would work harder to achieve sandwich-length uniformity. “We have redoubled our efforts to ensure consistency and correct length in every sandwich we serve,� the statement said, declining to offer comment on the suits specifically.
BofA crash Bank of America customers were unable to access their online banking accounts, mobile payment systems or the company’s telephone call centers for several hours before service was restored Friday. A customer service representative described the outage as a “whole system failure� and said that even Bank of America employees were not able to see customers’ accounts for several hours.
Dow soars The Dow closed above 14,000 on Friday for the first time in more than five years. It was just a number on a board, but it was enough to raise the hopes of some investors and cause others concern about an overheated market. The Dow is now just 155 points away from its record close.
Sex burns a lot of calories. Snacking or skipping breakfast is bad. If schools reinstated physical education classes, a lot of fat children would lose weight. And they might never have gotten fat in the first place if their mothers had just breast fed them when they were babies. But be warned: obese people should definitely steer clear of crash diets. And they can lose more than 50 pounds in five years simply by walking a mile a day. Those are among the myths and unproven assumptions about obesity and weight loss that have been repeated so often and with such conviction that even scientists like David B. Allison, who directs the Nutrition Obesity Research Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, have fallen for some of them. Now, he is trying to set the record straight. In an article published in The New England Journal of Medicine, he and his colleagues lay out seven myths and six unsubstantiated presumptions about obesity that don’t stand up to rigorous scientific studies. They also list nine facts that, unfortunately, promise little in the way of quick fixes for the weightobsessed. Example: “Trying to go on a diet or recommending that someone go on a diet does not generally work well in the long term.� Independent researchers say the authors have some valid points. But many of the report’s authors also have deep financial ties to food, beverage and weight-loss product makers — the disclosures take up half a page of fine
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Among many weight-loss myths: Although many dieters regain weight, those who lose a lot to start with often end up at a lower weight than people who drop more modest amounts. print in the journal. “It raises questions about what the purpose of this paper is� and whether it’s aimed at promoting drugs, meal replacement products and bariatric surgery as solutions, said Marion Nestle, a New York University professor of nutrition and food studies. “The big issues in weight loss are how you change the food environment in order for people to make healthy choices,� such as limits on soda sizes and marketing junk food to children, she said. Some of the myths they cite are “straw men� issues, she said.
Sex and weight loss But some are pretty interesting. Sex, for instance. Not that people do it to try to lose weight, but claims that it burns 100 to 300 calories are common, Allison said. Yet the only study that scientifically measured the energy output found that sex lasted six minutes on average — “disappointing, isn’t it?� — and burned a mere 21 calories, about as much as walking, he said. That’s for a man. The study was done in 1984 and didn’t measure the women’s experience. Some things may not have the strongest evidence for preventing obesity but are good for other reasons, such as breastfeeding and eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, the authors write. And exercise helps prevent a host of health prob-
Study shows what sugar really does to your body BY DEBORAH KOTZ BOSTON GLOBE
How bad is sugar really? The Coca Cola company would have you believe in its new anti-obesity commercial that a calorie is just a calorie whether it’s from a sugar grain or sesame seed. But new research suggests otherwise. In the study funded by the World Health Organization, New Zealand researchers analyzed 68 studies that compared added sugar intake in sweetened beverages and other foods with weight changes and found that when study participants were advised to lower their sugar intake — without changing anything else in their diet — they lost an average of nearly two pounds over six to eight months. When they were told to increase sugar, they gained nearly two pounds, according to the study which was publems regardless of whether it helps a person shed weight. “I agree with most of the points� except the authors’ conclusions that meal replacement products and diet drugs work for battling obesity, said Dr. David Ludwig, a prominent obesity research with Boston Children’s Hospital who has no industry ties. Most weight-loss drugs sold over the last century had to be recalled because of serious side effects, so “there’s much more evi-
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lished in the British Medical Journal. That’s a very small change, but it’s significant, and it makes the case for government recommendations to lower added sugar intake, wrote Dr. Walter Willet, chair of nutrition at Havard School of Public Health, and Boston Children’s Hospital pediatrician Dr. David Ludwig in an editorial that accompanied the study.
Percentage of calories The WHO commissioned the study, in fact, to see whether they should keep their decade-old advice to eat no more than 10 percent of calories from added sugars. The U.S. government recommends that added sugars make up no more than 15 percent of calories, whereas the American Heart Association’s recommendation is no more than 5 percent.
dence of failure than success,� he said. Here is an overview of the obesity myths looked at by the researchers and what is known to be true:
Myths: ■Small changes in diet or exercise lead to large, long-term weight changes. (i.e., walking a mile a day can lead to a loss of more than 50 pounds in five years). Fact: The body adapts to changes, so small steps to cut calories don’t have the same effect over time, studies suggest. At least one outside expert agrees with the authors that the “small changes� concept is based on an “oversimplified� 3,500-calorie rule, that adding or cutting that many calories alters weight by one pound. ■School gym classes have a big impact on kids’ weight. Fact: Classes typically are not long, often or intense enough to make much difference. ■Losing a lot of weight quickly is worse than losing a little slowly over the long term. Fact: Although many
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dieters regain weight, those who lose a lot to start with often end up at a lower weight than people who drop more modest amounts. â– Snacking leads to weight gain. Fact: No high quality studies support that, the authors say. â– Regularly eating breakfast helps prevent obesity. Fact: Two studies found no effect on weight and one suggested that the effect depended on whether people were used to skipping breakfast or not. â– Setting overly ambitious goals leads to frustration and less weight loss. Fact: Some studies suggest people do better with high goals.
Ideas not yet proven true or false: â– Diet and exercise habits in childhood set the stage for the rest of life. â– Add lots of fruits and vegetables to your diet to lose weight or not gain as much. â– Yo-yo diets lead to increased death rates. â– People who snack gain weight and get fat. TURN
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