diet

The Age-Related Eye Disease Study 2 (AREDS2), commissioned by the National Eye Institute and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) has shown that the addition of lutein/zeaxanthin provides a benefit in helping prevent Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD).

Does eating whatever you want for 5 days out of 7 – and still losing weight – sound too good to be true? It probably is: the 5:2 diet is just the latest in a series of ‘constant’ unsustainable fad diets, says Aloysa Hourigan, senior nutritionist and Nutrition Program manager at Nutrition Australia.

Primary and secondary school students are 5 times as likely to be high consumers of sugar-sweetened drinks, such as soft drinks, if these drinks are available in their homes, according to a University of Sydney study published in the journal Preventive Medicine.

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has used the launch of the 2013 revision of the Australian Dietary Guidelines to highlight our obesity epidemic.

The Council says that evidence suggests one of the contributing factors is the replacement of healthy, nutritious food with energy-dense food with minimal nutritional value in Australian dietary patterns.

A woman dies from a 10-litre a day cola habit; and clothing sports advertisements for Jim Beam bourbon, insidiously push its products, slams Sydney Uni experts. According to the researchers, these just some of the ‘extreme examples’ of big companies using the same tactics as tobacco companies to push products.

Rates of obesity, and obesity risk factors like lack of physical activity, are much higher in Sydney’s west than in its Metro area – and it’s all part of a pattern, where low socio-economic demographics are linked to higher numbers of obese and overweight people.

The reasons are complex, says Diana Dous, SHAPE team leader at Western Sydney WentWest, the Western Sydney Medicare Local.