From banning junk food ads to a sugar tax: with diabetes on the rise, we can’t afford to ignore the evidence any longer
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There are renewed calls this week for the Australian government to implement a range of measures aimed at improving our diets. These include restrictions on junk food advertising, improvements to food labelling, and a levy on sugary drinks.
This time the recommendations come from a parliamentary inquiry into diabetes in Australia. Its final report, tabled in parliament on Wednesday, was prepared by a parliamentary committee comprising members from across the political spectrum.
The release of this report could be an indication that Australia is finally going to implement the evidence-based healthy eating policies public health experts have been recommending for years.
But we know Australian governments have historically been unwilling to introduce policies the powerful food industry opposes. The question is whether the current government will put the health of Australians above the profits of companies selling unhealthy food.
Diabetes in Australia
Diabetes is one of the fastest growing chronic health conditions in the nation, with more than 1.3 million people affected. Projections show the number of Australians diagnosed with the condition is set to rise rapidly in coming decades.
Type 2 diabetes accounts for the vast majority of cases of diabetes. It’s largely preventable, with obesity among the strongest risk factors.
This latest report makes it clear we need an urgent focus on obesity prevention to reduce the burden of diabetes. Type 2 diabetes and obesity cost the Australian economy billions of dollars each year and preventive solutions are highly cost-effective.
This means the money spent on preventing obesity and diabetes would save the government huge amounts in health care costs. Prevention is also essential to avoid our health systems being overwhelmed in the future.
What does the report recommend?
The report puts forward 23 recommendations for addressing diabetes and obesity. These include:
- restrictions on the marketing of unhealthy foods to children, including on TV and online
- improvements to food labelling that would make it easier for people to understand products’ added sugar content
- a levy on sugary drinks, where products with higher sugar content would be taxed at a higher rate (commonly called a sugar tax).
These key recommendations echo those prioritised in a range of reports on obesity prevention over the past decade. There’s compelling evidence they’re likely to work.
Restrictions on unhealthy food marketing
There was universal support from the committee for the government to consider regulating marketing of unhealthy food to children.
Public health groups have consistently called for comprehensive mandatory legislation to protect children from exposure to marketing of unhealthy foods and related brands.
An increasing number of countries, including Chile and the United Kingdom, have legislated unhealthy food marketing restrictions across a range of settings including on TV, online and in supermarkets. There’s evidence comprehensive policies like these are having positive results.
In Australia, the food industry has made voluntary commitments to reduce some unhealthy food ads directly targeting children. But these promises are widely viewed as ineffective.
The government is currently conducting a feasibility study on additional options to limit unhealthy food marketing to children.
But the effectiveness of any new policies will depend on how comprehensive they are. Food companies are likely to rapidly shift their marketing techniques to maximise their impact. If any new government restrictions do not include all marketing channels (such as TV, online and on packaging) and techniques (including both product and brand marketing), they’re likely to fail to adequately protect children.
Food labelling
Food regulatory authorities are currently considering a range of improvements to food labelling in Australia.
For example, food ministers in Australia and New Zealand are soon set to consider mandating the health star rating front-of-pack labelling scheme.
Public health groups have consistently recommended mandatory implementation of health star ratings as a priority for improving Australian diets. Such changes are likely to result in meaningful improvements to the healthiness of what we eat.
Regulators are also reviewing potential changes to how added sugar is labelled on product packages. The recommendation from the committee to include added sugar labelling on the front of product packaging is likely to support this ongoing work.
But changes to food labelling laws are notoriously slow in Australia. And food companies are known to oppose and delay any policy changes that might hurt their profits.
A sugary drinks tax
Of the report’s 23 recommendations, the sugary drinks levy was the only one that wasn’t universally supported by the committee. The four Liberal and National party members of the committee opposed implementation of this policy.
As part of their rationale, the dissenting members cited submissions from food industry groups that argued against the measure. This follows a long history of the Liberal party siding with the sugary drinks industry to oppose a levy on their products.
The dissenting members didn’t acknowledge the strong evidence that a sugary drinks levy has worked as intended in a wide range of countries.
In the UK, for example, a levy on sugary drinks implemented in 2018 has successfully lowered the sugar content in UK soft drinks and reduced sugar consumption.
The dissenting committee members argued a sugary drinks levy would hurt families on lower incomes. But previous Australian modelling has shown the two most disadvantaged quintiles would reap the greatest health benefits from such a levy, and accrue the highest savings in health-care costs.
What happens now?
Improvements to population diets and prevention of obesity will require a comprehensive and coordinated package of policy reforms.
Globally, a range of countries facing rising epidemics of obesity and diabetes are starting to take such strong preventive action.
In Australia, after years of inaction, this week’s report is the latest sign that long-awaited policy change may be near.
But meaningful and effective policy change will require politicians to listen to the public health evidence rather than the protestations of food companies concerned about their bottom line.
Gary Sacks, Professor of Public Health Policy, Deakin University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Myofascial Training – by Ester Albini
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Fascia is an oft-forgotten part of the body—if something that is so ubiquitous and varied can be described as a single part. And yet, it arguably is—precisely because it is the connective tissue that holds everything else together, so by its nature, it’s ultimately a one-piece thing.
This “one-piece thing” is responsible for permitting us movement, and is also responsible for restricting our movement. As such, when it comes to mobility, we can stretch our muscles all day long and it won’t mean a thing if our fascia is stiff. And notably, fascia has a much slower turnover time (in terms of how quickly the body replaces it) than muscle, so fascia is almost always going to be the limiting factor.
Pilates instructor (with many certifications) Albini gives the reader the tools to loosen up that limiting factor. It’ll take time and consistency (it takes the body around 18 months to fully rebuild fascia, so that’s the timeframe for an ultimate “job done” to then just be maintained), but there are also some results to be enjoyed immediately, by virtue of myofascial release
In style, the book is half textbook, half workbook. She explains a lot of the anatomy and physiology of fascia (and does so very well). This book is, in this reviewer’s opinion, better than the usual go-to professional guidebook to fascia (i.e., for physiotherapists etc) that costs more than twice the price and is half as clear (the other book’s diagrams are unnecessarily abstract, the photos fuzzy, and the prose tedious). This book, in contrast, has very clear diagrams, hundreds of high-quality color photos, and excellent explanations that are aimed at the layperson, and/but aren’t afraid to get technical either; she just explains the technicalities well too.
The workbook side of things is a vast array of exercises to do, including for specific issues and to combat various lifestyle problems, as well as to just support general health and more mobility than most people think is possible for them.
Bottom line: if you’d like better mobility and have been neglecting your fascia (or have been a bit confused by it), this book is going to be your new best friend.
Click there to check out Myofascial Training, and free your body’s movements!
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You can now order all kinds of medical tests online. Our research shows this is (mostly) a bad idea
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Elena.Katkova/Shutterstock Many of us have done countless rapid antigen tests (RATs) over the course of the pandemic. Testing ourselves at home has become second nature.
But there’s also a growing worldwide market in medical tests sold online directly to the public. These are “direct-to-consumer” tests, and you can access them without seeing a doctor.
While this might sound convenient, the benefits to most consumers are questionable, as we discovered in a recent study.
What are direct-to-consumer tests?
Let’s start with what they’re not. We’re not talking about patients who are diagnosed with a condition, and use tests to monitor themselves (for example, finger-prick testing to monitor blood sugar levels for people with diabetes).
We’re also not talking about home testing kits used for population screening, such as RATs for COVID, or the “poo tests” sent to people aged 50 and over for bowel cancer screening.
Direct-to-consumer tests are products marketed to anyone who is willing to pay, without going through their GP. They can include hormone profiling tests, tests for thyroid disease and food sensitivity tests, among many others.
Some direct-to-consumer tests allow you to complete the test at home, while self-collected lab tests give you the equipment to collect a sample, which you then send to a lab. You can now also buy pathology requests for a lab directly from a company without seeing a doctor.
We’ve all become accustomed to RATs during the pandemic.
Ground Picture/ShutterstockWhat we did in our study
We searched (via Google) for direct-to-consumer products advertised for sale online in Australia between June and December 2021. We then assessed whether each test was likely to provide benefits to those who use them based on scientific literature published about the tests, and any recommendations either for or against their use from professional medical organisations.
We identified 103 types of tests and 484 individual products ranging in price from A$12.99 to A$1,947.
We concluded only 11% of these tests were likely to benefit most consumers. These included tests for STIs, where social stigma can sometimes discourage people from testing at a clinic.
A further 31% could possibly benefit a person, if they were at higher risk. For example, if a person had symptoms of thyroid disease, a test may benefit them. But the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners does not recommend testing for thyroid disease in people without symptoms because evidence showing benefits of identifying and treating people with early thyroid disease is lacking.
Some 42% were commercial “health checks” such as hormone and nutritional status tests. Although these are legitimate tests – they may be ordered by a doctor in certain circumstances, or be used in research – they have limited usefulness for consumers.
A test of your hormone or vitamin levels at a particular time can’t do much to help you improve your health, especially because test results change depending on the time of day, month or season you test.
Most worryingly, 17% of the tests were outright “quackery” that wouldn’t be recommended by any mainstream health practitioner. For example, hair analysis for assessing food allergies is unproven and can lead to misdiagnosis and ineffective treatments.
More than half of the tests we looked at didn’t state they offered a pre- or post-test consultation.
Ordering medical tests online probably isn’t a good idea.
fizkes/ShutterstockProducts available may change outside the time frame of our study, and direct-to-consumer tests not promoted or directly purchasable online, such as those offered in pharmacies or by commercial health clinics, were not included.
But in Australia, ours is the first and only study we know of mapping the scale and variety of direct-to-consumer tests sold online.
Research from other countries has similarly found a lack of evidence to support the majority of direct-to-consumer tests.
4 questions to ask before you buy a test online
Many direct-to-consumer tests offer limited benefits, and could even lead to harms. Here are four questions you should ask yourself if you’re considering buying a medical test online.
1. If I do this test, could I end up with extra medical appointments or treatments I don’t need?
Doing a test yourself might seem harmless (it’s just information, after all), but unnecessary tests often find issues that would never have caused you problems.
For example, someone taking a diabetes test may find moderately high blood sugar levels see them labelled as “pre-diabetic”. However, this diagnosis has been controversial, regarded by many as making patients out of healthy people, a large number of whom won’t go on to develop diabetes.
2. Would my GP recommend this test?
If you have worrying symptoms or risk factors, your GP can recommend the best tests for you. Tests your GP orders are more likely to be covered by Medicare, so will cost you a lot less than a direct-to-consumer test.
3. Is this a good quality test?
A good quality home self-testing kit should indicate high sensitivity (the proportion of true cases that will be accurately detected) and high specificity (the proportion of people who don’t have the disease who will be accurately ruled out). These figures should ideally be in the high 90s, and clearly printed on the product packaging.
For tests analysed in a lab, check if the lab is accredited by the National Association of Testing Authorities. Avoid tests sent to overseas labs, where Australian regulators can’t control the quality, or the protection of your sample or personal health information.
4. Do I really need this test?
There are lots of reasons to want information from a test, like peace of mind, or just curiosity. But unless you have clear symptoms and risk factors, you’re probably testing yourself unnecessarily and wasting your money.
Direct-to-consumer tests might seem like a good idea, but in most cases, you’d be better off letting sleeping dogs lie if you feel well, or going to your GP if you have concerns.
Patti Shih, Senior Lecturer, Australian Centre for Health Engagement, Evidence and Values, University of Wollongong; Fiona Stanaway, Associate Professor in Clinical Epidemiology, University of Sydney; Katy Bell, Associate Professor in Clinical Epidemiology, Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney, and Stacy Carter, Professor and Director, Australian Centre for Health Engagement, Evidence and Values, University of Wollongong
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Oat Milk vs Almond Milk – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing oat milk to almond milk, we picked the almond milk.
Why?
This one’s quite straightforward, and no, it’s not just our bias for almonds
Rather, almonds contain a lot more vitamins and minerals, all of which usually make it into the milk.
Oat milk is still a fine choice though, and has a very high soluble fiber content, which is great for your heart.
Just make sure you get versions without added sugar or other unpleasantries! You can always make your own at home, too.
You can read a bit more about the pros and cons of various plant milks here:
Enjoy!
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The Cold Truth About Respiratory Infections
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The Pathogens That Came In From The Cold
Yesterday, we asked you about your climate-themed policy for avoiding respiratory infections, and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of answers:
- About 46% of respondents said “Temperature has no bearing on infection risk”
- About 31% of respondents said “It’s important to get plenty of cold, fresh air, as this kills/inactivates pathogens”
- About 22% of respondents said “It’s important to stay warm to avoid getting colds, flu, etc”
Some gave rationales, including…
For “stay warm”:
❝Childhood lessons❞
For “get cold, fresh air”:
❝I just feel that it’s healthy to get fresh air daily. Whether it kills germs, I don’t know❞
For “temperature has no bearing”:
❝If climate issue affected respiratory infections, would people in the tropics suffer more than those in colder climates? Pollutants may affect respiratory infections, but I doubt just temperature would do so.❞
So, what does the science say?
It’s important to stay warm to avoid getting colds, flu, etc: True or False?
False, simply. Cold weather does increase the infection risk, but for reasons that a hat and scarf won’t protect you from. More on this later, but for now, let’s lay to rest the idea that bodily chilling will promote infection by cold, flu, etc.
In a small-ish but statistically significant study (n=180), it was found that…
❝There was no evidence that chilling caused any acute change in symptom scores❞
Read more: Acute cooling of the feet and the onset of common cold symptoms
Note: they do mention in their conclusion that chilling the feet “causes the onset of cold symptoms in about 10% of subjects who are chilled”, but the data does not support that conclusion, and the only clear indicator is that people who are more prone to colds generally, were more prone to getting a cold after a cold water footbath.
In other words, people who were more prone to colds remained more prone to colds, just the same.
It’s important to get plenty of cold, fresh air, as this kills/inactivates pathogens: True or False?
Broadly False, though most pathogens do have an optimal operating temperature that (for obvious reasons) is around normal human body temperature.
However, given that they don’t generally have to survive outside of a host body for long to get passed on, the fact that the pathogens may be a little sluggish in the great outdoors will not change the fact that they will be delighted by the climate in your respiratory tract as soon as you get back into the warm.
With regard to the cold air not being a reliable killer/inactivator of pathogens, we call to the witness stand…
Polar Bear Dies From Bird Flu As H5N1 Spreads Across Globe
(it was found near Utqiagvik, one of the northernmost communities in Alaska)
Because pathogens like human body temperature, raising the body temperature is a way to kill/inactivate them: True or False?
True! Unfortunately, it’s also a way to kill us. Because we, too, cannot survive for long above our normal body temperature.
So, for example, bundling up warmly and cranking up the heating won’t necessarily help, because:
- if the temperature is comfortable for you, it’s comfortable for the pathogen
- if the temperature is dangerous to the pathogen, it’s dangerous to you too
This is why the fever response evolved, and/but why many people with fevers die anyway. It’s the body’s way of playing chicken with the pathogen, challenging “guess which of us can survive this for longer!”
Temperature has no bearing on infection risk: True or False?
True and/or False, circumstantially. This one’s a little complex, but let’s break it down to the essentials.
- Temperature has no direct effect, for the reasons we outlined above
- Temperature is often related to humidity, which does have an effect
- Temperature does tend to influence human behavior (more time spent in open spaces with good ventilation vs more time spent in closed quarters with poor ventilation and/or recycled air), which has an obvious effect on transmission rates
The first one we covered, and the third one is self-evident, so let’s look at the second one:
Temperature is often related to humidity, which does have an effect
When the environmental temperature is warmer, water droplets in the air will tend to be bigger, and thus drop to the ground much more quickly.
When the environmental temperature is colder, water droplets in the air will tend to be smaller, and thus stay in the air for longer (along with any pathogens those water droplets may be carrying).
Some papers on the impact of this:
- Cold temperature and low humidity are associated with increased occurrence of respiratory tract infections
- A Decrease in Temperature and Humidity Precedes Human Rhinovirus Infections in a Cold Climate
So whatever temperature you like to keep your environment, humidity is a protective factor against respiratory infections, and dry air is a risk factor.
So, for example:
- If the weather doesn’t suit having good ventilation, a humidifier is a good option
- Being in an airplane is one of the worst places to be for this, outside of a hospital
Don’t have a humidifier? Here’s an example product on Amazon, but by all means shop around.
A crock pot with hot water in and the lid off is also a very workable workaround too
Take care!
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Ridged Nails: What Are They Telling You?
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Dr. Yaseen Arsalan, a Doctor of Pharmacy, has advice on the “nutraceutical” side of things:
Onychorrhexis
Sounds like the name of a dinosaur, but it’s actually the condition that creates the vertical ridges that sometimes appear on nails. It’s especially likely in the case of thinner nails, and/or certain nutritional deficiencies. Overuse of certain chemicals (including nail polish remover, hair products that get on your hands a lot, and cleaning fluids) can also cause it. It can also be worsened by various conditions, including eczema, psoriasis, hypothyroidism, anemia, and amyloidosis, but it won’t usually be outright caused by those alone.
There are two main kinds of ridges on nails:
- Vertical ridges: associated with hypothyroidism, anemia, and aging. Often an indicator of low iron.
- Horizontal ridges (Beau’s lines): caused by interrupted nail growth, brute force trauma, chemotherapy, acrylic nails, and gel nail polishes. Can also be an indicator of low zinc.
There are an assortment of medical treatments available, which Dr. Arsalan discusses in the video, but for home remedy treatment, he recommends:
- Nail-strengthening creams (look for coconut oil, shea butter, beeswax, vitamin E)
- Hydration (this is about overall hydration e.g. water intake)
- Careful nail trimming (fingernails with a curved shape and toenails straight across)
- Nail ridge filler (he recommends the brand Barrielle, for not containing formaldehyde or formalin)
- Moisturization (with cuticle oil or hand creams, because that hydration we talked about earlier is important, and we want it to stay inside the nail)
For more on those things, plus the medical treatments plus other “how to avoid this” measures, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
- The Counterintuitive Dos and Don’ts of Nail Health
- Regular Nail Polish vs Gel Nail Polish – Which is Healthier?
Take care!
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Lychees vs Kumquats – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing lychees to kumquats, we picked the kumquats.
Why?
In terms of macros, everything is comparable except for fiber, of which kumquats have 5–6x as much fiber, which means a very significant win for kumquats in this category.
When it comes to vitamins, lychees have slightly more of vitamins B3, B6, C, and K, while kumquats have a lot more of vitamins A and B1, and moderately more vitamins B2, B9, E, and choline. A fair win for kumquats here.
In the category of minerals, lychees have a little more copper, phosphorus, and selenium, while kumquats have 11x as much calcium, as well as a 2–3x more iron, magnesium, manganese and zinc. An easy win for kumquats.
Both fruits have great phenolic profiles, being both rich in antioxidants.
All in all, enjoy both, but if you’re going to pick one, kumquats easily win the day!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
- Level-Up Your Fiber Intake! (Without Difficulty Or Discomfort)
- When Bitter Is Better: Enjoy Bitter Foods For Your Heart & Brain ← kumquats have a bitter citrus taste, while lychees are quite sweet and mellow
Take care!
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