February 2019: Nutrition research highlights
Our dietary habits play an important role in shaping our health and well-being, but there are still many unknowns about the diet's ultimate impact on minute biological mechanisms. In this Spotlight feature, we give an overview of some of the best nutrition research published in February 2019.
Last month on Medical News Today, we covered numerous peer-reviewed studies concerned with matters of nutrition.
Each asked and answered questions about how our dietary practices affect our well-being.
And you, our readers, have shown particular interest in which diets are best for health, as well as which foods may have unexpectedly negative effects.
There is no doubt about it and no use denying it: What we eat is at the heart of our daily existence. Food is a necessity for life, and eating well helps us feel well, have more energy, and become more productive.
In the essay "A Room of One's Own," writer Virginia Woolf even forcefully remarks that "One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well."
But what does it mean to eat well? What should you eat, what should you avoid, and which dietary patterns should you choose?
Researchers are constantly hard at work to get a better understanding of these issues and offer suggestions for better dietary practices.
In this Spotlight feature, we look at some of the most important findings in nutrition research that were published last month.
Best dietary habits for health
Existing studies have suggested that intermittent fasting — in which a person fasts for a set number of hours each day but eats freely in the remaining hours — can help with losing weight and may provide other health benefits, including prolonging a person's lifespan and reducing harmful inflammation.
Essentially, fasting triggers changes in the body — such as stimulating weight loss — by acting on metabolic processes.
Usually, our bodies rely on carbohydrates to produce energy, but when a person fasts and carbohydrates are no longer readily available, the body starts looking for and utilizing other resources.
A study published in the journal Scientific Reports early last month identified some metabolic changes triggered by fasting that researchers had not previously been aware of.
Specifically, the study's authors — who are based at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University in Japan — found that fasting boosts levels of purine and pyrimidine, two organic compounds that act on gene expression and protein synthesis at a cellular level.
