health study

Equal opportunity blame game! Moms tend to get disproportionately blamed when things with their children take a less than ideal turn. Whether it's trouble in school, difficulty making friends, or physical or mental health issues, it's the mamas who — according to most popular conceptions — bear the brunt of the responsibility. Which is why it's somewhat of a relief to see a study out this month declaring that fathers have a part to play in the childhood obesity epidemic. The study, recently published in the the International Journal of Obesity found that children living in households where the father works an irregular schedule — a phenomenon that's becoming more and more common — are more likely to become obese or overweight.

Lest the daddies get too nervous, there's another new study that places the blame right back on mama: based on data from a new study done by the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, researchers from Ohio State University published an article in Pediatrics linking the quality of the early mother/child relationship with the child's risk of becoming obese as a teenager. The study claims that children who had a less than optimal relationship with their mother in early childhood were twice as likely to become obese; However, as researchers took into account other known factors related to the epidemic such as maternal education and household income, the findings were less conclusive, leaving parents with just as many questions and concerns as they had before.

Is one parent more to blame than the other?

A new report from Harvard researchers has found the top foods that are making us fat, and the findings are not at all surprising.

The extensive study used data for over 120,000 healthy men and women from previous studies to track their diet every four years from 1986 to 2006 to see how their lifestyle and what they ate affected their weight. The researchers found that within each period the average weight gain was a little over three pounds — which added up to a 17-pound total weight gain over the 20-year period.

What caused that weight gain? Topping the list of culprits are meat, sweetened drinks, fried foods, and any form of potatoes. The biggest cause of weight gain was eating french fries; every extra serving of fries eaten in a day was linked to a gain of more than three pounds, while eating an extra serving of potato chips led to 1.69 pounds. Other diet busters included refined grains (like white rice and white bread) and butter.

But the news wasn't all bad; the study also identified the foods that helped prevent weight gain. Read on for the list of foods that cause and prevent weight gain.

More often than not, I read about alcohol having detrimental effects on your health, rather than positive effects, so it wasn't shocking to learn that a recent study found a correlation between binge drinking and sharpness of memory.

The study administered memory tests to college students — 62 who were binge drinkers and 60 who were not — and found that the binge drinkers experienced a lowered ability to remember lists of words. But, on a separate test, the binge drinkers did fine, so it's not clear whether alcohol is to blame for the previous results or not. Researchers have noted that there is a link between binge drinking and memory, they just aren't clear if alcohol reduces memory skills, or if there are any long-term effects of binge drinking.

When we polled you on how much you drink, a majority of you said you have about a drink a week — so you're well within the "healthy" range of alcohol consumption. The recommendation for women who are not pregnant is up to one alcoholic beverage per day.

And while researchers weren't able to draw any direct conclusions from this study, it does encourage us to think about the effects binge drinking may have on memory. Do you think there is a connection between the two?

A gluten-free diet may have benefits to individuals who don't show symptoms of celiac disease but could be at risk, a new study indicates.

Researchers from the gastroenterology department at Tampere University Hospital and School of Medicine in Finland looked at 3,031 individuals who were related to someone with celiac disease, but didn't show any symptoms of the digestive condition themselves. The group was then narrowed down to 40 people — picking individuals who might have a sensitivity to gluten based on the results of an antibody test. By random selection, these 40 participants were either kept to their normal diet or were put on a gluten-free diet. People on the gluten-free diet reported fewer gastrointestinal issues and also a general improvement of health than compared to those individuals who stuck to their normal diets.

Based on early analysis, researchers believe that this study supports the need for more screening and education of "at-risk" populations of celiac disease to see if they show any sensitivities to gluten though may not be classified as having celiac disease. According to the authors of the study, two million people may be carriers of celiac disease or have a sensitivity to gluten without even realizing it. At this time, routine screening of celiac disease or gluten sensitivities are not generally done in the medical field unless requested by the patient. This news comes right on the heels of another study, which finds that children born in Spring and Summer are more likely to have celiac disease.

We have long known that a loving touch can soothe a stressed out child, but recent research found that hearing a mother's voice over the phone can have almost the same effect. A recent study found that after a stressful episode the feel good brain chemical oxytocin rose and stress hormone cortisol fell in almost equal amounts in both girls who were physically comforted by their mothers and girls who were comforted by their mothers over the phone. Nice to know that loving words can soothe almost as much as a hug. The girls involved in the study were all under 12 years of age and had yet to enter the volatile teenage years when mother-daughter relationships can become emotionally fraught. Next time you feel stressed, dial the phone to find comfort in a loving voice. If calling your mother is anxiety producing, skip that call and dial a friend. Who is on your emotional support speed dial list?

If portion control is the key to weight loss, then the location of your food matters as well. A new study reveals that diners ate significantly fewer calories when serving dishes were not left on the dinner table. The old adage "out of sight, out of mind" rings true! If you're trying to help your man drop some pounds, this practice of plating up food at the counter before sitting down to the table helped men in the study eat 29 percent fewer calories.

They say location is everything, and in this case it definitely matters. I tend to keep veggies and salad on the dinner table to encourage extra helpings of these foods, but leave everything else on the counter. Where do you plate up?

A recent study has linked brown rice to better heart health. Researchers found that two kinds of rice, brown rice and half-milled rice, may reduce the risk of heart disease and high blood pressure. An ingredient in these types of rice interferes with angiotensin II, a protein linked to both high blood pressure and clogged arteries.

This special ingredient is found in the brown layer of the rice grain — the layer that is scraped away during the production of white rice. Since they're less refined, both brown and half-milled rice are able to preserve this layer. These results are just another reason to eat more whole grains; besides being linked to lowered risk of certain kinds of cancer, brown rice also contains more protein and fiber than processed white, so you'll feel fuller longer. Plus, whole grains are delicious and surprisingly easy to incorporate into your diet.