Fat was once the devil. Now more nutritionists are pointing accusingly at sugar and refined grains.

Most people can count calories. Many have a clue about where fat lurks in their diets. However, fewer give carbohydrates much thought, or know why they should.

But a growing number of top nutritional scientists blame excessive carbohydrates — not fat — for America’s ills. They say cutting carbohydrates is the key to reversing obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and hypertension.

“Fat is not the problem,” says Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. “If Americans could eliminate sugary beverages, potatoes, white bread, pasta, white rice and sugary snacks, we would wipe out almost all the problems we have with weight and diabetes and other metabolic diseases.”

Scientists now saying carbs, not fat, are to blame for America’s ills – latimes.com

Researchers at Kobe University, Japan found that regular consumption of tea also suppressed damaging changes in the blood linked to fatty foods that can lead to type 2 diabetes, reports the Daily Mail.

In the study some mice were given a high fat diet and others a normal diet. Each of these two groups were then split into smaller groups and given water, black tea or green tea for 14 weeks.

Both types of tea suppressed body weight gain and the build-up of belly fat linked to a fatty diet.

But black tea, which is used in most ordinary cuppas, also counteracted the harmful effects on the blood normally associated with a high-fat diet.

Drinking tea curbs weight gain – The Times of India

McDonald’s advertised the chicken fajita as containing 2.5 grams of saturated fat but, on at least one occasion, the fast-chain chain served up the dish with 4.32 grams — about 75 per cent more than the amount of bad fat it claimed.

At one KFC location, the chicken strips packed in a total fat count of 19.37 grams, not 12 as stated by the company.

And Taco Bell’s fresco soft taco was supposed to contain 0.2 grams of trans fat — a fatty acid that consumers try to avoid because it raises the blood levels of the so-called “bad” cholesterol. But a test found the level to be 3.5 times greater at one outlet, where a taco weighed in with 0.7 grams of trans fat.

Some food chains fail to meet own fat limits

Looking beyond obvious causes of obesity like overeating, scientists said on Wednesday they may have found a gene that also plays a role, one that helped our ancestors survive famines.

Targeting this thrifty gene and others with diagnostic tests and drugs offers another way to fight the global epidemic of obesity, the researchers said.

Mice bred to lack this gene, known as CRTC3, can eat a high-fat diet without gaining weight, while normal mice on the same diet grow plump, the researchers found.

And Mexican Americans who have an especially potent version of this gene are more likely to be obese than others, Dr. Marc Montminy of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California and colleagues reported in the journal Nature.

The gene did not appear to have the same effect in whites, which supports what scientists know — that obesity is very complex. But CRTC3 is clearly important.

tehran times : Too fat? Study fingers one “thrifty gene” suspect

The more obese a person is, the poorer his or her vitamin D status, a new study by a team of Norwegian researchers suggests.

The study found an inverse relationship between excess pounds and an insufficient amount of vitamin D, which is critical to cell health, calcium absorption and proper immune function. Vitamin D deficiency can raise the risk for bone deterioration and certain types of cancer.

Obesity May Interfere With Vitamin D Absorption