By Rachael Rettner
MyHealthNewsDaily

Prolonged periods of sitting may increase the risk of Type 2 diabetes in women, a new study finds.

In the study, a woman's likelihood of having risk factors for diabetes, such as insulin resistance and chronic inflammation, increased with the more time she spent sitting. No such link was found in men.

Even women who engaged in moderate or vigorous physical activity were at an increased risk for early signs of diabetes if they also were also sedentary for prolonged periods, the study found.

"If these results are replicated, they have implications for lifestyle recommendations, public health policy, and health behavior change interventions, as they suggest that enabling women to spend less time sitting is an important factor in preventing chronic disease," the researchers wrote in the January issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Thomas Yates, of the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, and colleagues analyzed information from about 500 people living in the U.K. who attended a diabetes screening program. Participants reported how much time they spent sitting on a weekday in the last seven days. The researchers collected blood samples to test for diabetes risk factors.

On average, women said they spent five hours a day sitting, while men said they spent six hours a day sitting.

Related: 5 Tips for Sitting Less During Your Day

For women, prolonged sitting was linked with insulin resistance and high levels of markers of inflammation, including c-reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin-6 (IL-6).

The strength of the association decreased when the researchers took into account the women's body mass index (BMI), indicating that obesity might explain part of the link. The researchers said it may be that hormones released from fat tissue are detrimental to the body's metabolism.

The study was limited in that participants reported their own sitting time, which may not be accurate and could affect the results, the researchers said.

Related:

• Don't Sit Tight: 6 Ways to Make a Deadly Activity Healthier
• Top 10 Treadmills
• 8 Ways Your Job May be Killing You 

FeaturePics Stock

About 16 percent of the total calories in American diets comes from added sugar.

By Elisa Zied, R.D.

How could something so sweet be so bad for you? That’s exactly the point.

Sugar in all forms -- from the refined stuff in the bowl on your table to honey and high fructose corn syrup -- is a key contributor to many of our diet-related diseases and conditions, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and cancer, according to Dr. Robert Lustig, professor of clinical pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco.

In an interview Sunday withDr. Sanjay Gupta on "60 Minutes", childhood obesity expert Lustig cited sugar as the source of an American public health crisis. While Americans' sugar intake has declined significantly since the 1970s, our diets are now filled with processed foods containing the artificial sweetener, high fructose corn syrup, the show reported. "The problem is they're both bad. They're both equally toxic," Lustig told "60 Minutes."

According to recent estimates, about 16 percent of the total calories in American diets comes from added sugar -- mostly in the form of soda, energy drinks, and sports drinks, grain-based desserts like cakes and cookies, sugar-sweetened fruit drinks, ice cream and other dairy desserts and candy. These highly palatable foods and beverages contribute a lot of calories with few nutrients, and crowd out healthful fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and the nutrients those foods provide.

But not all experts believe sugar alone is the dietary devil.

"It's important to highlight that we get ourselves into trouble whenever we focus on one dietary attribute exclusively and ignore all the rest," says nutrition scientist Dr. David Katz, the well-regarded founding director of Yale University Prevention Research Center. Although Katz agrees that an excess of sugar -- fructose or any other form -- is harmful and that it’s wise to limit it in the diet, he adds, “It's not sugar that's the poison, but the dose that makes the poison.”

Currently, the American Heart Association recommends up to 100 calories (25 grams) per day of added sugar for women, and 150 calories (about 38 grams) for men. That’s much less than you might think: 100 calories of added sugar is found in 1/2 cup chocolate ice cream (56 calories) plus one cup of low fat chocolate milk (45 calories). One can of regular soda contains 126 calories from added sugars.

Despite emerging evidence that links high added sugar intake with chronic health problems, until we know more, it doesn't help to completely eliminate sugar if other areas of our diet are lacking. Or as Katz explains, "When we focus on just one nutrient -- however important it is -- we tend to lose the forest for the trees. The food industry will be happy to give [us] whole new cart-loads of 'low sugar,' artificially sweetened junk food. It will be low in sugar, but will still be junk food."

There are easy ways to lower your daily added sugar load:

Sidestep soda. Instead of grabbing for a sugary drink, hydrate with club soda, seltzer, plain or sparkling water, or unsweetened iced tea -- all of these can be sweetened naturally with some fresh fruit or veggie slices or a splash of 100 percent fruit juice.

Look past the lump. Sugar grams listed on Nutrition Facts panels on packaged and processed foods and beverages lump naturally occurring sugars -- lactose in milk and fructose in fruit -- and added sugars together. Until that changes, rely on ingredients lists to know whether the product you are purchasing contains added sugars.

Learn the lingo on labels. Although it’s no surprise that baked goods, dairy products like flavored milk and yogurt, salad dressings, sauces, and condiments have added sugar, some sources like whole wheat bread, peanut butter, and crackers may seem less obvious. Look for the following terms on ingredients lists—they all spell sugar: high fructose corn syrup, white sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup, corn syrup solids, raw sugar, malt syrup, maple syrup, pancake syrup, fructose sweetener, liquid fructose, honey, molasses, anhydrous dextrose and crystal dextrose.

Find your sweet spot. Before you reach for dessert, have some fresh or frozen fruit or some unsweetened low-fat milk or yogurt to fill you up before you dig in. Choose only the sweets you love most, and stick to a small portion, such as a few bites of cake or ice cream, one small cookie, or small square of chocolate. If you go overboard on added sugars, know that you’re human; cut calories elsewhere that day and try to avoid a sweet attack the next day.

To find out how much added sugar is in your favorite foods, you can check out the U.S Department of Agriculture's Food-A-Pedia at https://www.choosemyplate.gov/SuperTracker/foodapedia.aspx

Related:

Soda-drinking men at higher risk of heart attack

5 great reasons to kick your soda habit

Poison centers warn about the cinnamon challenge 

Also by Elisa Zied:

How to enjoy your daily meat without killing yourself

Elisa Zied is a New York registered dietitian and contributor to msnbc.com. To follow, pin, like, or learn more about Elisa, visit www.elisazied.com

Prevention

As you have certainly heard by now, Paula Deen, 64, that Southern belle from whom we've all been taking cooking cues from for years, has revealed she has type-2 diabetes. We understand how upsetting any diagnosis can be, but health events can also serve as a signpost for making important lifestyle changes — for the better.

Deen says she has always encouraged her viewers to indulge in moderation, but you would be forgiven for missing that part of her message: Her recipes are so mouth-wateringly tempting that portion-control is probably the last thing on your mind when you’re digging into her Southern Fried Chicken or Macaroni and Cheese with Potato Chip Crust. Unfortunately, research shows that a healthy diet is one of the most important aspects of preventing and managing type-2 diabetes.

But while diabetics in the past may have thought they were doomed to a life of deprivation, we now know that’s just not the case—you just have to be smart about it. That’s why we took 5 classic comfort-food favorites and came up with healthier versions that would be right at home in Deen’s kitchen, but sans the high-glycemic carbohydrates and saturated fat that can wreak havoc on your blood sugar—and your heart. Here, 5 ways Deen—and the rest of us—can indulge with diabetes-friendly decadence.

1. Chicken and Dumplings
http://www.pauladeen.com/recipes/recipe_view/chicken_dumplings/

Classic dumpling recipes often call for heavy cream or a high-fat cream-based soup as a broth, not to mention immoderate amounts of butter and all-purpose white flour. In other words, they’re anything but appropriate for a diabetic trying to keep their blood sugar in check.

 Instead try… Our Chicken and “Dumplings”

Making our sauce with reduced-fat sour cream instead of heavy cream slashes the saturated fat in this all-in-one main dish, and we recommend using the leanest (and skinless) meat from the chicken. Add the gnocchi-like dumplings—think small and pillowy—to the simmering broth at the last minute to preserve their light, tender texture. 

2. Mac and Cheese With Potato Chip Crust
http://www.pauladeen.com/recipes/recipe_view/macaroni_and_cheese_with_potato_chip_crust/

It’s not news to anyone how rich—read: fatty—macaroni and cheese can be, and with this particular recipe, the name says it all. It packs calorie- and cholesterol-rich full-fat cheese, milk, butter, white pasta, bacon, and potato chips—which alone can wreak havoc on blood sugar.

 Instead try… Low-Fat Spicy Mac & Cheese 

Follow this maxim and you’ll never be left wanting: When you’re cutting fat, add flavor. Here, we’ve tossed in some chipotle chile pepper, which lends an unexpected but enticing kick to this classic comfort food made heart-healthier with a combination of reduced-fat dairy products. Swap in whole wheat pasta for an even healthier version.

 3. Oven Fried Chicken
http://www.pauladeen.com/recipes/recipe_view/oven_fried_chicken/

This sounds deceptively healthy, but soaking chicken in high-fat buttermilk and yogurt for 8 hours before cooking it packs in an unbelievable amount of fat—and that’s before you’ve even breaded the bird in white flour.  

 Instead try… Our Oven-Fried Deviled Chicken

Remember that anything you would fry can also be baked for a more moist—and far healthier—dish. When you’re breading, use Dijon instead of whole eggs, and opt for heart-healthy whole-wheat crumbs instead of the traditional white. Cook it in the oven and serve it with a vinegar—not mayonnaise—slaw.

 4. Avocado Chicken Salad
http://www.pauladeen.com/recipes/recipe_view/avocado_chicken_salad/

The real reason most of us love this sandwich staple is the generous serving of mayonnaise that goes in it—sometimes up to a quarter of a cup per serving! And while a little mayo in moderation can be just fine, it still packs a hefty dose of saturated fat. This salad also calls for sour cream, avocado and more mayo in the dressing! Spoon it onto a high-glycemic white bread and you’re looking at a diabetic’s nightmare.

Instead try… Our Crispy Chicken Salad

This salad, unlike the one above, is, is actually a salad…with vegetables. Each serving packs a whole cup of fiber-filled greens and a smattering of grape tomatoes. The breading—which adds a satisfying crunch to the chicken—is kept to a minimum, and mixed with just one egg white for four servings, it’s low-cholesterol, too.

5. Chocolate Bread Pudding With Rum Toffee Sauce
http://www.pauladeen.com/recipes/recipe_view/chocolate_bread_pudding_with_rum_toffee_sauce/

Any desert that isn’t automatically portion-controlled can spell trouble for a diabetic—or anyone watching their fat and sugar intake. This recipe is especially decadent, calling for heavy whipping cream, whole milk, two and a half sticks of butter, white bread, white and brown sugar—you get the picture.

Instead try… Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes With Vanilla Bean Frosting

Join the cupcake craze! These are a cute, no-deprivation way to keep portions in check and sugar intake under control. Plus, using dark cocoa instead of chocolate slashes fat for just 9 g of fat per serving. Some bread puddings, meanwhile, can pack up to 30 g per serving.

More from Prevention:
Fitness Tips for Diabetics
How Sleep Lowers Your Blood Sugar
Pains You Should Never, Ever Ignore
6 Healthy Foods You Turn Into Diet Disasters

Do you think Paula Deen should change her recipes? Share with us on Facebook

In light of Paula Deen’s disclosure on TODAY that she’s been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, fans and foes alike are wondering whether the celebrity chef’s own cooking might have caused the condition. After all, how can bacon-doughnut-egg burgers possibly be good for you? 

Seriously, y'all: A fried-egg bacon burger on a glazed doughnut bun is NOT doctor-approved.

Deen defended her fattening cooking style -- and her decision to keep her diabetes diagnosis a secret for three years -- to TODAY's Al Roker. "I have always encouraged moderation," she said. "I share with you all these yummy, fattening recipes, but I tell people, in moderation... it's entertainment. People have to be responsible."

Deen continued, "Like I told Oprah, 'Honey, I'm your cook, not your doctor.' You have to be responsible for yourself."

Experts say you can't draw a straight line from someone's diet to their diabetes. While weight, activity level and genetics all contribute to type 2 diabetes, it’s not what you eat that's most important, but rather, how much.

Related: Deen says diagnosis won't change the way she cooks

Three factors push a person toward diabetes, said Dr. Robin Goland, an endocrinologist and co-director of the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center.

The most important factor is genetics – whether you’ve inherited a susceptibility to the condition.

“Now I’m not recommending this, but if you don’t have those genes working against you, you could gain weight and not exercise and your blood sugar would stay normal,” Goland said.

The other main risk factors are being overweight and not getting enough exercise. Your risk also increases as you age -- Deen is 64. Experts aren't sure exactly what causes type 2 diabetes, in which the body becomes unable to metabolize sugar correctly, causing the sugar to build up in the bloodstream. It used used to be known as adult-onset diabetes and left untreated, it can be deadly. But it can be managed -- and prevented.

While Deen's recipes -- which promote prodigious amounts of butter and fried foods -- may not specifically cause diabetes, eating that kind of high fat and high sugar food regularly can make it very difficult to maintain a healthy weight.

Related story: Struggling to overcome 'diabetes shame'

And for people who did inherit a susceptibility, lifestyle can make a difference. That means they may stave off diabetes by maintaining a healthy weight and exercising regularly.

Further, Goland said, you don’t have to exercise for hours every day or be twig thin. A large study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that just modest changes in diet and exercise could prevent diabetes in nearly 60 percent of people at high risk for the disease.

Even among people whose blood sugar has moved into the danger zone, small changes can make a big difference. 

“If we take the hypothetical person who weighs 300 pounds and has high blood sugar when she enters my office, blood sugar can be brought down with a weight loss of just 5 to 10 percent,” Goland said. “That means if she gets her weight down to 280, her blood sugar might return to normal.”

What’s important when it comes to diabetes prevention is not what you eat, but rather, how much, said Linda Siminerio, director of the Diabetes Institute at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

“To my knowledge no particular food has been linked to an increase in the risk of diabetes,” Siminerio said. “It’s being overweight and inactive.”

Siminerio sees some possible good coming out of Deen’s diagnosis.

“She’s a star on TV and she has a lot of power,” Siminerio explained. “This would be an awesome opportunity for her to come up with recipes for great tasting foods that are healthy. She could use her influence to teach people about healthy eating. Then the dark cloud could turn into a little bit of sunshine.”

 Do you think Paula Deen can become an advocate for healthier foods and living? Share with us on Facebook

by Karen Rowan
MyHealthNewsDaily

The best diet of 2012 is the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet, according to new rankings released by U.S. News & World Report.

This is the second year in a row the DASH diet, which aims at preventing and lowering high blood pressure, has won the category of "best diet overall."

"While it may have started as a [blood pressure] lowering diet, it really has incredible nutritional value," said Deborah Enos, a certified nutritionist in Seattle and a MyHealthNewsDaily contributor.

Second place was won by the Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes (TLC) Diet, which aims at lowering cholesterol, and third place went to the Mayo Clinic diet, which aims at weight loss.

"TLC is another example of a wonderful 'medical' type of diet that has gone mainstream," Enos said. But while it's low sodium requirement means it boosts heart health, it may be hard for some to follow.

The U.S. News & World Report description of the diet's strengths and weaknesses noted that "The TLC diet takes work and a certain aptitude for reading nutrition labels."

"The easy-to-follow aspect is almost more important than the weight lost on a program," Enos said. Her clients have a difficult time sticking with diets that are hard to follow, she said. "Now, for my clients who need to lower their cholesterol levels, this is an amazing and necessary diet for them to consider."

The rankings were decided by a panel of 22 experts in diet, nutrition, obesity, food psychology, diabetes and heart disease, according to the magazine's website. The experts rated the 25 diets in seven categories: how easy the are to follow, their ability to produce short-term and long-term weight loss, nutritional completeness, safety and potential for preventing and managing diabetes and heart disease. The full rankings were published online today (Jan. 4).

Best diets for weight loss

The top three diets for weight loss are the Weight Watchers Diet, the Biggest Loser Diet and the Jenny Craig Diet, according to the rankings.

"The data show that dieters had the best luck with Weight Watchers for both short and long term weight loss," and the diet ranked highly in terms of how easy it was to follow, Enos said. "The Weight Watchers plan is also the diet that people most often return to — it appears in the article (and in my own experience) to be the diet that people really refer back to over their lifetime."

The experts rated the Weight Watchers diet as a 3.7 out of 5 in the category of easy to follow, whereas the Biggest Loser diet scored a 2.9 in this category, according to the rankings. The Jenny Craig scored a 3.6, but fared less well than Weight Watchers in terms of its ability to produce weight loss.

"Let’s face the facts of our busy lives, if a program isn’t easy to follow, we probably won’t," Enos said.

Weight Watchers won the category of best commercial diet plan, edging out the Jenny Craig diet, which relied too heavily on packaged meals and came with a high cost, according to the rankings.

However, when Consumer Reports released its ratings of commercial diet plans in May, Jenny Craig ranked as the winner. The raters acknowledged criticisms that the diet is hard to follow, but cited a two-year study of 332 people showing that 92 percent of participants stuck with the diet. That study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2010.

Best diets for healthy eating

The DASH and TLC diets topped the category of best diets for healthy eating, which emphasized nutrional completeness and safety. The Mediterranean diet ranked third.

The data show that the DASH diet has the best overall nutrition, Enos said. "It has one of the highest levels of B-12 and potassium," she noted, whereas the Weight Watchers plan is low in those nutrients, and recommends that its followers take a multivitamin.

The DASH diet prescribes the number of servings of grains, vegetables, dairy and other food types that a person should eat daily, based on their calorie needs. It suggests high amounts of fiber, potassium and magnesium, and keeps sweets to a minimum.

The diet caps salt intake to the recommended daily values —1,500 milligrams for people who are age 51 or older, African-American, or have hypertension, diabetes or chronic kidney disease; 2,300 milligrams for everyone else.

The DASH diet also won in the category of best diabetes diets, while the Ornish diet, which focuses on low fat intake and emphasizes exercise and stress management, won for best heart-healthy diet.

Pass it on: One panel has decided the best diet of 2012 is the DASH diet, which emphasizes lean protein and fruits and veggies.

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