A new study suggests that a Western-style diet can impair hippocampal function and lead to a decreased ability to control ones appetite. The findings were published in Royal Society Open Science.

A wealth of animal studies have found that animals fed a Western-style diet a diet characterized by high intake of saturated fats and added sugars display impaired hippocampal function and decreased appetitive control. Study authors Richard J. Stevenson and his team wanted to explore whether a similar effect would be found in humans.

As the researchers explain, while the hippocampus plays a major role in learning and memory, it is also associated with the regulation of appetite. Exactly how it controls appetite is unclear, but one theory suggests that the hippocampus makes use of internal bodily state (e.g., feeling sated) to modulate the difference between liking a food item and wanting a food item.

The authors explain how the hippocampus might react when faced with an excitatory food cue when feeling full. Under such conditions, the hippocampus could either inhibit retrieval of associative networks connected with that food and/or dampen activation of brain areas mediating reward. If the hippocampus becomes impaired, then such regulation should become less efficient.

An experimental study was conducted, involving a sample of healthy students who were currently following a nutritious diet (a diet scoring low on a validated measure of Western diet). On Day 1 of the study, the students, aged between 17 and 35, were assigned to one of two conditions that they would follow for the course of one week. The Western diet group was instructed to eat two Belgium waffles as a breakfast or dessert on four days, and to eat a main meal from a fast food chain (including a drink and dessert) on two other days. The control group was assigned to maintain their normal diet throughout the week.

Additionally, on Days 1 and 8 of the study, students were given breakfast in the lab. As a measure of appetitive control, all students completed a wanting and liking test, both before and after consuming breakfast. The test presented subjects with various snack foods and asks them to rate how much they liked and wanted the food items. By administering the test both before and after breakfast, researchers wanted to see whether subjects fullness would reduce their wanting ratings (indicating appetitive control). On Days 1 and 8, students also completed a verbal learning test, known to address hippocampal-dependent learning and memory (HDLM).

Results showed that, among those who followed the Western diet, wanting and liking ratings taken before breakfast were more similar to ratings taken after breakfast, on Day 8 compared to Day 1. In other words, on Day 8, these subjects showed a decreased ability to control their appetites when full, after a week of following a Western diet. Furthermore, the Western diet group performed worse on the verbal learning test than the control group.

Finally, researchers gave each participant an overall appetitive control score, based on their performances on the wanting and liking tests. Researchers then compared these scores to the learning test scores. It was found that a larger drop in test score was associated with a decrease in appetitive control. Importantly, this effect was only found amongst individuals in the Western diet group, and not the control group.

This finding suggests that a Western diet may influence appetitive control by impairing hippocampal function. The authors conclude, More broadly, this experiment, alongside those from the other animal and human studies cited here, suggests that a WS-diet causes neurocognitive impairments following short-term exposure.

The study, Hippocampal-dependent appetitive control is impaired by experimental exposure to a Western-style diet, was authored by Richard J. Stevenson, Heather M. Francis, Tuki Attuquayefio, Dolly Gupta, Martin R. Yeomans, Megan J. Oaten, and Terry Davidson.

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Experimental study links Western diet to decreased hippocampal function and reduced appetitive control - PsyPost

I thought I was going to get in trouble at the grocery store when the produce guy came over and asked why I was taking pictures of the bananas. I pointed out the little stickers, and he said, "Oh yeah, we've gotten a few shipments of bananas with those lately." I just smiled, backed away from the bunches, and spared him my rant, because man, I was pissed!

You may not have even noticed they were on your bananas go on, I'll wait while you check. Did you find these little drawings of bananas doing exercises like glute bridges, diamond push-ups, and triceps dips? You can scroll through to see pictures I took of the bananas. These seemingly innocent stickers were brought to my attention when I saw this photo posted by registered dietitian Cara D'Anello, MS, RD, LDN, with a sticker that had a little picture of a banana doing "toe taps." The text on her photo said, "No wonder diet culture exists."

I hadn't thought about it like that, but then I realized what she meant. Chiquita said on its website that it put these fitness stickers on bananas "to boost health and wellness." At first glance, this may not seem like a big deal, but when I thought about it, she was right. The deeper, subconscious message I got was "you need to work off this banana after you eat it" or "you need to do sumo squats in order to 'earn it.'" And that made me really mad. I mean, my 10-year-old daughter eats these bananas. What kind of message is that sending to her?

Bananas already have a bad reputation for being "too carby" or "too high in sugar," so I felt like those little stickers were attacking my simple and pure piece of fruit, making me feel like I shouldn't eat it. They made me think of all the times I exercised as punishment for eating "bad" foods or eating too much. And this is a frickin' piece of fruit not a candy bar, or doughnut, or cookie, like diet culture would tell me is worse than fruit. I already get messages from diet culture about how, what, and when to eat I don't need my fruit adding to that negative conversation.

Maybe I'm overreacting, and maybe this is no biggie. But it really feels like this is diet culture's way of sneaking into my life, telling me I need to pair healthy eating with working out. What does this banana expect from me? That I'm going to reach for it and think, "Oh cool, let me just put you down so I can bust out some glute bridges right now!"

Another thing I thought about was how the diet industry sends the message that you need to be thin in order to be beautiful, which is why I went on my first diet at just 12 years old. And now 31 years later, I'm working really hard to not diet, to eat intuitively, and to embrace my body as it is, not only for myself but also as a role model for my daughter. I get that this company was trying to connect healthy eating with exercise, but I don't want to think about working out while I'm eating, feel guilty for eating, or feel pressured to work out by my food. I immediately thought in my head, "Screw you, diet culture; I'm gonna eat my banana and enjoy it!"

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I Just Really Need to Vent About These Problematic Workout Stickers I Saw on My Bananas - POPSUGAR

Cover of 1922 Sears Modern Homes Catalog. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons/public domain image.

Editors note: This story was originally published by Undark. It appears here as part of theClimate Deskcollaboration.

The United States has a housing problem. Not only are there too few, those that we have are gluttons, using almost twice as much energy per home as those in Europe. Only Canadas homes, most of which endure long and biting winters, use more.

Our leaky, inefficient homes produce nearly one-fifth of the countrys energy-related greenhouse gas emissions, a number that has probably crept higher as the pandemic has kept people at home. Thats because most of our homes are stubbornly stuck in a previous generation. The median age of a US home is 37 years, and its not getting any younger. Many of our houses and apartments are still heated and powered by fossil fuels. If were going to meet the Paris Agreement goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent from 2005 levels by 2050as many states and municipalities are still striving to dowe have some work to do.

More than 40 percent of our energy use at home comes from electricity, and the absolute amount has risen seven-fold from six decades ago. Greenhouse gas emissions from household electricity use have dropped 31 percent since 2005. But the dip is largely the result of a decline in coal power plants, not changes in home energy use.

Fortunately, eliminating electricity-based emissions is relatively easy. Many homeowners can put up solar panels today and reap enough energy savings to cover the investment in about eight years, sometimes less. For those who cant, pushing utilities to phase out fossil fuel power plants in favor of solar, wind, and other forms of renewable energy would be a boon. Eliminating carbon from the grid alone would slash nearly half of household emissions.

Unfortunately, taking care of the rest wont be so easy. Heating is still the largest portion of household energy use, said Benjamin Goldstein, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Michigan who was the lead author of a new study that looked at how US homes could eliminate fossil fuels. Across the country, millions of home furnaces still burn natural gas, oil, and even coal. Thats one reason fossil fuels still account for 80 percent of the countrys energy use. To fully wean ourselves from carbon, well have to tackle home heating, too.

In short, we need to rethink housing from the ground up, Goldstein says. We need to have a bunch of actions, from individual to structural changes, in order to make the housing stock meet the carbon goals. Because a new home built today will likely be around in 2050, we have no time to waste.

For new homes, theres a relatively straightforward solution, and thats simply to build them better. Several states have adopted stringent building codes when it comes to energy efficiency in new homes. In Massachusetts,most townsnow require new homes to be at least 15 percent more energy efficient than those built to the current standard code, with incentives for builders to strive for even greater improvements. The construction costs are higher, but the state says that homeowners can expect to save money from day one in most cases.

Still, theres room to improve these codes. Travis Anderson, director of design at Placetailor, a Boston-based architecture and development cooperative, says the most underestimated factor in energy efficiency is airtightnesshow well the home is sealed off from the outdoors. He came to that realization when tweaking models he developed for the city of Boston, which is looking tozero out carbon emissions in its housing portfolio by 2050. That discovery had surprising benefits. When Anderson improved a homes sealing, he was able to use less insulation, install lower performance windows, and lower costs, while still meeting stringent energy targets. You cant make a building too airtight, he said. I think code is still lacking in that regard.

Improving buildings energy efficiency will also go a long way toward alleviating energy poverty. Renters are at the mercy of their landlords when it comes to efficiency; according toa surveyby the US Energy Information Administration, an estimated 25 million low-income renters forgo food or medicine to pay for energy bills. Renters making under $15,000 per year spendmore than 15 percentof their income on energy costs, compared with just 1.4 percent for households making more than $75,000. A well-insulated apartment with efficient appliances would not only slash a renters carbon emissions, it would free up money to spend on other necessities.

In California,dozens of citieshave taken another approach to cutting carbon emissions: They have effectively banned new natural gas hook-ups. This has pushed homebuilders to use only electric appliances and heating, preparing homes for a carbon-free grid. Electric heat pumps, much improved in recent decades, can provide heating and air conditioning to these homes ata fraction of the energy useof conventional systems. And when powered by solar or wind, they have zero emissions.

But we cant necessarily switch over to electric homes and call it a day. These houses still use a lot of energy, Goldstein said. When he and his colleagues analyzed energy use in 93 million homes across the US78 percent of the housing stockthey also modeled what it would take to reach the Paris Agreements goal of reducing emission by 80 percent from their 2005 levels. Decarbonizing the grid and electrifying homes were a necessity. So, too, were other substantial measures.

For one, Goldstein said our homes should probably go on a diet. Starting in the early 1980s, the median size of a new home has swelled from around 1,600 square feet to 2,300 square feet today. In their new paper, Goldstein and his coauthors recommend that houses slim down by 10 percent nationwide, returning the median size to what it was in 2001. Existing homes will need significant retrofits. In some places, communities will have to grow a bit denser and make do with fewer single-family homes. Goldsteins recommendations for each state vary significantly depending on what their cities look like today. But nationwide, the changes are relatively modest: Hitting the Paris Agreements 2050 target will require just a 25 percent increase in housing density and a 3 percent reduction in single-family homes.

Packing more homes and apartments into smaller spaces might seem like a hard sell in the Covid-19 era, as space has become a luxury.

But the pandemic may make some of the changes Goldstein is proposing a little more palatable. Extended families, now often scattered in large homes throughout the country, have been warming to the idea of multigenerational housing for decades, and despitethe added difficultiesof social distancing with multiple generations under one roof,61 percentof the millions of Americans who moved during the pandemic moved in with a family member, according to the results of a recent survey. This not only brings families together, but it also helps lower everyones household footprint.

We might find a lesson in multigenerational housingscontinued appealeven in the face of a crisis: Climate-friendly housing may not look exactly like todays homes and households. But in their own way, theyll be better. And well be better for it.

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Time for a diet: Today's US homes have super-sized into energy gluttons - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

You don't have to be involved in the antidiet, intuitive eating world to know that dieting messages are everywhere. Registered dietitian Dalina Soto, MA, LDN, shared that sometimes they're disguised as "lifestyle" changes, or maybe you're told to simply cut out certain food groups. When people go on restrictive diets, she said they'll discover that they don't work, "but somehow we all want them to work. We want to be the successful ones," and we work so hard to make it happen.

Soto explained that when we fail, we feel like crap, but it isn't our fault. "The diet and weight-loss industry banks on you failing so they can profit on you for years. They want you to continue to buy their shakes, or the frozen meals they can mail to you weekly," she said, adding that whatever diet you follow, "you're never in control, they are."

In case you're thinking about going on another diet, or you're currently on one and feeling miserable, watch this video to learn five reasons why diets suck. POPSUGAR asked Soto to explain each reason, so read on and you just may feel inspired to ditch that restrictive diet forever!

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An Antidiet Dietitian Shares 5 Reasons Why Diets Suck and Why You Should Ditch Them Forever - POPSUGAR

Almost every one of us shares an eternal bond with chocolate. No matter how bad the day is, a bar of chocolate can uplift our mood and bring smile on our face. Unfortunately, chocolates and chocolate-y desserts also contain huge amount of calorie and added sugar that often derail us from healthy diet and harm our overall well-being. But that doesn't mean we have to completely give up on chocolates. Instead, we must look for smart ways to include them in our diet, in moderation, of course. Keeping this in mind, we found some chocolate-based food options for you that can be a part of your healthy diet, without any guilt.

One of the popular healthy food options, peanut butter includes all things yummy and nutritious. Taking the flavour game a step ahead, MYFITNESS brings you this product that strikes the right balance between the richness of chocolate and the smooth and nutty texture of peanut butter.

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Ideal for satiating mid-meal hunger pangs, the choco-oats bar by Nourish Organic is high on fibre and antioxidants and contains zero added sugar in it. It also makes this treat perfect for satisfying your sweet cravings, without any worries about excess calorie-intake.

If you are on diet, but can't give up on chocolates, then product is just for you! HYP Lean sugarfree protein bar is made up of whey protein, soy proteins, alongside the rich flavours of mint chocolate in it.

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About Somdatta SahaExplorer- this is what Somdatta likes to call herself. Be it in terms of food, people or places, all she craves for is to know the unknown. A simple aglio olio pasta or daal-chawal and a good movie can make her day.

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Healthy Ways To Include Chocolate In Your Diet: Here're 4 Options For You - NDTV Food

If you struggle to get your recommended daily nutrient allowances through food, taking one of the best multivitamins for women might be the best course of action for you. Many women fall short on folic acid, calcium, and vitamin D, Laura Moretti, M.S., R.D., and clinical nutrition specialist at Boston's Children's Hospital, tells Woman's Day. Taking a multivitamin could help recuperate those nutrients. It can also help with gut, brain, and eye health, and keep your immune system in top shape.

If you're not sure whether you want to start taking a multivitamin or not, Bonnie Taub-Dix, RDN, creator of BetterThanDieting.com, and author of Read It Before You Eat It - Taking You from Label to Table, suggest thinking of it like insurance. "You don't really want to have to rely on them, but you're happy that they're there when you need them," she tells Woman's Day. "Although they should not and cannot replace a well-balanced diet, they can help to fill in the gaps of our deficiencies."

There are a few things to keep in mind when searching for the best multivitamin for you. For starters, you should "avoid multis that have added herbs, mega-doses of select nutrients, or boosted antioxidants or proprietary 'formulas,'" Wendy Bazilian, DrPH, RDNACSM certified exercise physiologist, and sports dietitian tells Woman's Day. "Theres a time and place for properly prescribed herbs but not in your multi." She also recommends looking for a GMP, Good Manufacturing Practices, or USP, U.S. Pharmacopeia, seal on the vitamin's label, which ensures quality, purity, strength, and consistency of its contents.

You should also ask your doctor for options that could benefit you the most, since they have a better understanding of your health and do your own research on what other people or experts are saying about the brand and how it has improved their health.

To help you with your research, here are the some of the most popular or recommended multivitamins for women that will help you get the essential nutrients you need.

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Add These Expert-Approved Multivitamins to Your Diet ASAP - MSN Money

We have heard of a new diet craze for while now called the keto diet? Celebrities and influencers swear by this diet and for the most part, the before and afters look amazing. So why has this diet become so popular? And why are the old days of just lettuce as the diet choice long gone?

Food change

The way we look at food has changed drastically over the years. We have now discovered what organic food is although it has been around since the beginning of time and if you think of it the oldest type of food source as it is basically the same as living off the land organic food has become more popular over the years as it has been discovered that a lot of our growable food like vegetables are sprayed with pesticides and chemicals making it not the safest to ingest. When we take a look at how certain diets and food sources are hitting the market right now we couldnt help but think is this going to change the industry? As our elders are passing away and the 80s and 90s generation are starting to become the elite we have noticed a lot of changes from since we were younger. Most importantly food-wise. Years ago it was ok to eat fast food, it actually widely encouraged and the trend of salads and healthy food items were not as heavily advertised. But in recent years that have all seemed to change, and the healthy food items are coming out on top. When we take a look at the keto diet we will see why and how the food options are winner for anyone trying to diet healthier but enjoy some of the same foods that they have always loved.

What is the keto diet?

When exploring the keto diet we could not help but ask questions, after all, it is a really interesting diet. That takes things to a whole new level.

The first thing we should know is what exactly is the keto diet. The keto diet is a diet that uses a different type of fuel to energize your body. Instead of relying on sugars that come from carbs, it uses a fuel that is made by your liver from stored fats called ketone bodies. But to reach ketosis as it is called is not an easy process. When you are in ketosis your body is producing the right amount of ketone bodies. In order to get into ketosis, you must Depriive yourself of carbs. To be in ketosis you must consume no more than 20 to 50 grams of carbs a day. And eating too much protein can actually interfere with your ketosis levels.

Keto Supplements

A big trend with the keto diet is keto diet supplements. They basically ensure that you are reaching ketosis. The keto diet can be hard to follow perfectly. And if you are not in ketosis then you are essentially wasting your time on the diet. Using keto diet supplements can help push your body into ketosis where it might be hard to otherwise. When using keto diet supplements, you want to make sure that you do your research and that you are taking the correct amount of supplements. If you are not sure ask a professional on how much you should take.

Do I still need to work out?

We like to tell you that there is no such diet where you do not need to work out. There is a difference between being skinny and being healthy. Working out every day at least 30 minutes is highly recommended. Your body relies on physical activity to burn calories and fat. Diet just helps it in that area.

What can I eat?

When doing the keto diet, you are doing high fat low carb so you want to avoid foods that are high in carbs. You want to avoid bread, but actually still have a hamburger. You are just going to replace the bun with lettuce.

You are also going to gear towards foods such as leafy greens as they are low in carbs such as Brussel sprouts, asparagus, broccoli, spinach, kale.

Foods that are healthy unsaturated fat such as nuts, tofu, avocados are recommended in high amounts.

We hope that you have found this interesting. If you are interested in the keto diet you should definitely look into it more. It might seem difficult at first, but it will get easier for you to perfect later down the road. You also should look into food apps where you can input what you are eating and it will tell you how many carbs are in it. When dieting, make sure that you are giving yourself time to show results. The perfect body does not happen overnight. You might get frustrated at times, but keep pushing yourself.

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What is the Keto Diet? | Ask The Experts | dailyuw.com - Dailyuw

To study how the microbiome affects their host behavior, a group of researchers at the Champalimaud Centre used the fruit fly combined with high-tech tools to show that two gut bacteria establish a metabolic cross-feeding that enables them to grow in diets that lack the nutrients that are essential for their growth and to allow them to change host decision making and reproduction. Results reveal a mechanism through which the right combination of bacteria can lead to microbiome resiliency to dietary perturbations and changes in brain function.A balanced intake of essential amino acids is crucial to ensure the well-being and health of all animals. The essential amino acids are the building blocks of proteins but they also influence how much offspring animals produce, and what animals decide to eat. Intriguingly, researchers at the Champalimaud Centre had previously shown that the microbiome plays an important role in dictating how amino acids affect the brain. What was most puzzling was that bacteria could only affect the decisions of the animal when they were present in specific combinations. It is widely known that the microbiome often contains many different species of bacteria but why different types of bacteria are needed to influence brain function and alter host physiology remains a mystery.

This is the puzzle Carlos Ribeiro and his team set out to tackle. "To study how bacteria affect their host physiology is a daunting task in organisms with very complex microbiomes. This is where the fly and its less complex microbiome emerges as a powerful tool. It allows us to precisely dissect the mechanisms used by the microbiota to change the host's feeding decisions," points out Slvia Henriques, post-doctoral researcher and author of this study.

In the laboratory led by Carlos Ribeiro, principal investigator and senior author of this study, it was previously found that flies deprived of single essential amino acids develop a strong appetite for protein rich foods. However, in flies that were associated with two bacteria that are very abundant in the microbiome (Acetobacter pomorum and Lactobacillus plantarum) their preference for protein was drastically reduced and they preferred to eat sugar. "Interestingly, the association of flies with any of these bacteria alone could not reduce yeast appetite. Thus, in this new study our main focus was to understand why these two particular bacteria need to be present to change the feeding behaviour of the fly," says Ribeiro.

Work from several groups working on the microbiome, including the Ribeiro Lab, has shown that it is typically necessary for a community of bacteria, rather than isolated bacteria, to produce an effect on the host behavior and this was most likely due to specific substances bacteria produce, so called metabolites. Therefore the team set out to measure the metabolic interactions established between the bacteria within the microbiome and to map how specific bacteria and their metabolites affect the animal.

To tackle these, the authors ran a series of elegant experiments. To follow the feeding choices of the flies, researchers took advantage of a sensor developed in the lab the flyPAD and used it to measure with great detail the feeding pattern of individual flies. Then they used bacterial mutants to understand the impact of specific functions of the bacterial cells in the behavior of the host. And at last with collaborators at the University of Glasgow, they have also used a sophisticated technique called 'Isotope-resolved metabolomics' that enabled them to track the metabolites that were exchanged between the two different bacteria.

"We found that the two bacteria exchange metabolites and that this cross-feeding (syntrophy) enables them to grow and act on the animal even if diets lack the nutrients that are essential for them. Specifically, we now understand that Lactobacillus strains produce lactate which is used by the Acetobacter strains to synthetize amino acids and other metabolites. These are then used by the Lactobacillus strain which cannot synthetize them to continue to produce lactate. Furthermore, these bacterial amino acids are very likely used by the animal for egg production. But most importantly, we now understand that the lactate is also used by the Acetobacter bacteria to change the behaviour of the fly," explains Darshan Dhakan, post-doctoral researcher and author of this study.

By establishing this cross-feeding relation, the bacterial community becomes resilient to drastic dietary changes enabling their growth in the intestines of animals that ingest diets that lack nutrients that are essential to their survival. Ribeiro adds, "It is well established that our diet affects both the microbiome and our brain. What makes it complicated is the microbiome then in turn affects how diet affects us and what animals decide to eat. This makes it a very complex puzzle to solve. But by combining the right technologies with the right experimental system we can get at the heart of the mechanisms by which the microbiome interacts with our diet to affect our brain and our body. Importantly we show that the right associations of bacteria can make the microbiome resilient to dietary perturbations explaining why some animals and people might be more sensitive to the nutrient content of food than others. It is also a beautiful example of how nature establishes circular economies where nothing gets wasted and everybody gains."

In conclusion, this study emerges as an important example of how model organisms can be used to disentangle the influence of diet on the microbiome and to understand the individual contributions of gut bacterial species on brain function and behavior. "The methodologies that were used in this study will allow us to identify all the metabolic interactions established amongst bacteria and will allow us to understand the precise mechanisms responsible for altering what animals decide to eat and brain function. Those insights can then be used to guide the search for similar mechanisms in animals with much more complex microbiomes, including in humans," concludes Ribeiro.Reference: Henriques SF, Dhakan DB, Serra L et al. Metabolic cross-feeding in imbalanced diets allows gut microbes to improve reproduction and alter host behaviour. Nat. Commun. 2020;11(4236). doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-18049-9

This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

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When Host Diets are Lacking, Gut Bacteria Pull Together To Survive - Technology Networks

Eight-weeks, after taking a nutrition course to learn about how to eat a whole-food, plant-based diet, over half of the participants with high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes showed significantimprovements in their health.

A newfree online nutrition coursestarts tomorrow, August 25th Sign uphereto start.

The Physicians Committee Responsible Medicine (PCRM) offered a free eight-weekprogramonline to educated people about plant-based nutrition, called Fight COVID-19 with Food. This course is aimed at helping people who are at the highest risk for severe symptoms from COVID-19 if they catch the virus, due to the fact that they need to lose weight and improve their health to minimize risk factors associated with the worst cases of coronavirus.

A plant-based diet is one of the most powerful tools we have in medicine, says Vanita Rahman, MD, class instructor. Within weeks of making a diet change, class participants saw their blood pressure and blood sugar improve, lost weight, and reported other profound benefits to their health.

Doctorsdesigned this course to teach participants the health benefits ofa plant-based diet in dialing back chronic diseases like hypertension, diabetes, heart disease andinflammation, all associated with the most dangerous symptoms of COVID-19. The course included tips, a guide to meal planning and interactive Q & A'sto set participants up for success.

The course has been life-changing for many participants especially those with diabetes and high blood pressure, according to the organizers.PCRM surveyed the participants after the course ended and the results were impressive: 53% of those who were diabetic reported improvements and 54% with high blood pressure saw improvements. Out of all class participants who wanted to lose weight, 67% of those eating plant-baseddid.

PCRM designed thiscourse after assessing its local community in Washington D.C. Though it is meant to be accessible to all, PCRM ishoping communities hit the hardest bychronic diseases and COVID-19, especially communities of color, will take advantage of this course. PCRM is actively trying to offer communities at disadvantage resources to be their healthiest. PCRM founder Dr. Neil Barnard said:

D.C.s Black residents make up 46% of the population, but an overwhelming 80% of COVID deaths. Thats unacceptable. While there are many factors involved in health disparities, as doctors, we know that a healthy diet can be an important part of the solution. We want to do everything we can to get this free information into the hands of people who need it.

People around the globe are taking a hard look at their diets and health overall. We're all trying to stay healthy and for some, that means eating plant-based.Whether you live or die from COVID-19 often depends on whether you have heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, and other underlying conditions. A plant-based diet can help tackle these conditions, and our goal is to share this lifesaving information with as many people as we can, Dr. Barnard emphasized.This free course may be the opportunity to offer more the tools they need for a healthier lifestyle.

PCRM is bringing the free online nutrition course back after its success. Sign up here to start on August 25th.

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Doctors Offer Plant-Based Diet Classes to Improve Type 2 Diabetes - The Beet