Women who drink the most diet sodas may also be more likely to develop heart disease and even to die, according to a new study published Saturday.

Researchers found women who drank two or more diet drinks a day were 30 percent more likely to have a heart attack or other cardiovascular “event,” and 50 percent more likely to die, than women who rarely touch such drinks.

The findings, being presented at a meeting of the American College of Cardiology, don’t suggest that the drinks themselves are killers. But women who toss back too many diet sodas may be trying to make up for unhealthy habits, experts say.

“Our study suggests an association between higher diet drink consumption and mortality,” said Dr. Ankur Vyas, a cardiovascular disease expert at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinic, who led the study.

Diet drinks linked with heart disease, death

Vegetarians may have a lower BMI and drink alcohol sparingly, but vegetarian diets are tied to generally poorer health, poorer quality of life and a higher need for health care than their meat-eating counterparts.

A new study from the Medical University of Graz in Austria finds that vegetarians are more physically active, drink less alcohol and smoke less tobacco than those who consume meat in their diets. Vegetarians also have a higher socioeconomic status and a lower body mass index. But the vegetarian diet — characterized by a low consumption of saturated fats and cholesterol that includes increased intake of fruits, vegetables and whole-grain products — carries elevated risks of cancer, allergies and mental healthdisorders.

Vegetarians were twice as likely to have allergies, a 50 percent increase in heart attacks and a 50 percent increase in incidences of cancer.

The cross-sectional study from Austrian Health Interview Survey data and published in PLos One examined participants dietary habits, demographic characteristics and general lifestyle differences.

The most significant dietary habit difference between meat-eaters and vegetarians concerned their BMI and alcohol consumption – with both being higher for those who consume meat.

Many past studies have instead put an emphasis on the health risks associated with red meat and carnivorous diets, but this study points the other dietary direction. However, the researchers do caution that continuing studies will be needed to substantiate some of the rather broad dietary distinctions, associations presented in this current research.

Overall, vegetarians were found to be in a poorer state of health compared to other dietary groups. Vegetarians reported higher levels of impairment from disorders, chronic diseases, and “suffer significantly more often from anxiety/depression.”

Subjects who consumed lower amounts of animal fat were also linked to poor health care practices, such as avoidance of vaccinations and a lack of preventive care.

Study: Vegetarians Less Healthy, Lower Quality Of Life Than Meat-Eaters « CBS Atlanta

If you want to trace Americans’ fear of fat, the place to start is the U.S. Senate, during the steamy days of July 1976.

That’s when Sen. George McGovern called a hearing to raise attention to the links between diet and disease.

And what was the urgency? The economy was booming, and many Americans were living high on the hog. A 1954 Capitol Hill restaurant menu offers a glimpse of what lunch looked like then: steak with claret sauce, buttered succotash and pineapple cheesecake. But soon, that prosperity began to cast a dark shadow within the halls of Congress.

“If you look at the statistics, members were dying at a rather large rate,” Senate historian Don Ritchie tells us.

And there was a hint that the American diet might be to blame.

This was an era when it was not uncommon for men to drop dead of heart attacks. By our count, eight U.S. Senators died in office of heart disease during the 1960s and 1970s.

“When you have colleagues who die prematurely,” says Ritchie, “that’s sort of a wake-up call.”

The harms of smoking were already on the radar. The new concern was the connection between diet and heart disease.

Scientists had evidence that foods with saturated fat such as eggs and meat could raise LDL cholesterol. But there were a lot of complexities that scientists didn’t yet understand, and not a lot of data.

So, when Sen. McGovern, a Democrat from South Dakota, called his hearing, he summoned the likes of Nathan Pritikin, a longevity guru who believed you could reverse heart disease with diet changes. And he called as a witness a Harvard University professor who pointed to the harms of overconsumption of fat.

The hearing led to the creation of the first set of dietary guidelines for Americans.

“The thinking of the day is that you wanted to reduce fat,” says science writer Gary Taubes, author of Why We Get Fat.

He adds that once fat was fingered as the villain, the thinking was that any way Americans could get fat out of their diets would be a good thing.

Sen. George Shoup, who died in 1904, was Idaho’s first governor. “He protrudes,” says Senate historian Don Ritchie. “This was the epitome of success in the late 19th century.” But the link between corpulence and power would cast a dark shadow within the halls of Congress.

“And if we did it by merely replacing milk and cheese and fatty meat with carbohydrates, with pasta and potatoes and rice,” Taubes says, the theory was that we would live longer, and be thinner.

So, one of the top goals listed in the original dietary goals: eat more carbs.

“In retrospect, it’s kind of amazing, but this was the thinking at the time,” Taubes says.

via Why We Got Fatter During The Fat-Free Food Boom : The Salt : NPR.

A comedian under the impression he had rented out his posh Chelsea pad to a man with family in town for a wedding returned home to a wild orgy, he said.

Ari Teman, 31, claimed he left his apartment keys with David Carter, 32, on Friday night and stepped out for dinner before leaving town.

When he returned to the building to grab his luggage, a rowdy sex party featuring “Big Beautiful Women” was in the process of being shut down by building management.

“This was just so bizarre,” said Teman, who had rented his apartment via the website Airbnb.

“The worst part of the Internet right there was in my apartment.”

“There were all sorts of people walking out of my apartment and people coming in from the back yard. It was a huge mess.”

Teman said his apartment was trashed by a group of nearly nude, overweight people. After the shindig was broken up, Carter was a nervous wreck in the lobby, Teman said.

“This guy had a look of horror on his face,” Teman said. “He didn’t expect to see me for a few days. He said, ‘They shut us down, man, they’re shutting it down.’ ”

Carter, however, claimed he just had a small, quiet get-together and that Teman was overreacting.

“I had six people, friends and family,” Carter told The Post. “He is making a big to-do because he is being evicted.”

Carter posted on Airbnb that he wanted a place for his in-laws to stay while they were in town for a wedding, Teman claimed.

“He had a verified account and he seemed legit,” Teman said. “He had three positive reviews and so I approved the deal.”

When Teman later searched Carter’s phone number on the Internet, he found the raunchy soiree involving plus-size women advertised online as “Turn Up Part 2: The Pantie Raid.”

Airbnb renter returns to ‘overweight orgy’ | New York Post

A Saudi cleric named Saleh al-Fawzan has issued fatwa against all-you-can-eat buffets in Saudi Arabia. He made the statement on a Saudi Quranic TV station.

Fawzan said the value and quantity of the food sold should be pre-determined before hand.

“Whoever enters the buffet and eats for 10 or 50 riyals without deciding the quantity they will eat is violating Sharia (Islamic) law,” Fawzan was quoted on al-Atheer channel.

The fatwa attempts to add plate piling eateries to the long list of things outlawed by religious edicts. It has been the subject of condemnation and debate on social media channels.

While some twitter users slammed the cleric’s fatwa by using the hashtag “prohibiting-open-buffet” (in Arabic) others tweeted supporting it.

Saudi Cleric Issues Fatwa Against All-You-Can-Eat Buffets

It appears that Target went a little too far with Photoshop in an ad for a girl’s bathing suit.

The model in the ad has a thigh gap, the gaping space between her legs and a worrying body trend among teenage girls. But the gap actually extends into her pelvis (and the bathing suit the ad aims to sell) in an apparent slip of the Photoshop eraser.

“It was an unfortunate error on our part and we apologize,” Target spokesman Evan Miller told ABCNews.com. “We removed the image from the site and we’re working to get a new image up there.”

‘Thigh Gap’: New Teen Body Obsession?

Several bloggers captured the Photoshop fail before the image was removed.

“If it weren’t part of an ongoing attempt to mold unrealistic bodies in fashion marketing, it would almost be funny,” The Ethical Adman wrote on his blog.

The model was also missing part of her hip and ribcage.

Target Apologizes for ‘Thigh Gap’ Photoshop Fail – ABC News

Those “Nutrition Facts” labels on nearly every food package in grocery stores are getting a new look.

Calories would be in larger, bolder type, and consumers would know whether foods have added sugars under label changes proposed by the Obama administration Thursday. Serving sizes would be updated to make them more realistic. A serving of ice cream, for example, would double to a full cup, closer to what people actually eat.

The proposed overhaul comes as nutritionists’ views have shifted. While fat was the focus two decades ago when the labels first were created, there is now more concern about how many calories we eat. And serving sizes have long been misleading, with many single-serving packages listing multiple servings, so their calorie count is lower.

The idea isn’t that people should eat more; it’s that they should understand how many calories are in what they are actually eating. The Food and Drug Administration says that by law, serving sizes must be based on actual consumption, not ideal consumption.

“Our guiding principle here is very simple, that you as a parent and a consumer should be able to walk into your local grocery store, pick up an item off the shelf and be able to tell whether it’s good for your family,” said first lady Michelle Obama, who joined the Food and Drug Administration in announcing the proposed changes at the White House.

Mrs. Obama made the announcement as part of her Let’s Move initiative to combat child obesity, which is celebrating its fourth anniversary. On Tuesday, she announced new Agriculture Department rules that would reduce marketing of less-healthful foods in schools.

New food labels would highlight calories and sugar – Yahoo News

A California state senator wants to make his state the first in the nation to require warning labels on soda and other sugary drinks, a proposal called “misleading” by beverage industry officials.

Democratic Sen. William Monning’s bill proposed Thursday would require the warning on the front of all beverage containers with added sweeteners that have 75 or more calories in every 12 ounces. The label would read: “STATE OF CALIFORNIA SAFETY WARNING: Drinking beverages with added sugars contributes to obesity, diabetes, and tooth decay.”

Monning says there is overwhelming research showing the link between sugary drinks and those health problems, adding that the wording was developed by a national panel of nutrition and public health experts.

“When the science is this conclusive, the state of California has a responsibility to take steps to protect consumers,” Monning said in a press release. “As with tobacco and alcohol warnings, this legislation will give Californians essential information they need to make healthier choices.”

The bill has the backing of the California Medical Association and the California Center for Public Health Advocacy. The Latino Coalition for a Healthy California and the California Black Health Network also are sponsoring the legislation, citing the heavy consumption of sugary drinks and associated health problems among minorities.

A bill similar to Monning’s was introduced last year in Vermont, but it has been held in the Committee on Human Services since April. The Vermont bill would require manufacturers to put warning labels on beverages that contain sugar or other artificial additives.

CalBev, the California arm of the Washington, D.C.-based American Beverage Association, noted that the industry already posts calorie counts on the front of many beverage containers as part of its “Clear on Calories” campaign that began in 2010. Also, drink bottles already have detailed ingredient lists and nutritional information.

“We agree that obesity is a serious and complex issue,” the group said in a statement, but it called Monning’s bill “misleading” because it said just 6 percent of calories in the average American’s diet come from soda, fruit, sports and energy drinks, compared with 11 percent in sweets and deserts. Moreover, it said most calories are consumed in the form of fats, oils and starches in food.

The group would not put a price tag on complying with the proposed legislation but said the measure would increase the cost of doing business in California.

The medical groups backing Monning’s bill countered with their own data, saying sugary drinks are the largest source of added calories in American’s diet in the last three decades. They also said one soda a day boosts an adult’s chances of being overweight by 27 percent and a child’s by 55 percent, and it can increase the risk of diabetes by 26 percent.

California mulls warning labels on sugary drinks – New York News

People who live in colder climates tend to have more of the gut microbes associated with obesity, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that people living farther north, in generally colder locales, have more of the bacterial group Firmicutes and fewer of the group Bacteriodes within their guts.

Previous research has shown that people with more Firmicutes bacteria tended to be heavier, while people with leaner bodies had more Bacteriodes. (The new study didn’t have information on subjects’ body mass indexes, and so couldn’t directly tie the bacterial gut composition with obesity.)

Still, the new findings support the hypothesis that certain obesity-associated microbial communities are “too good at digesting food,” meaning they break food down in a way that leaves more calories available for a person’s body to use, said study co-author Taichi Suzuki, a doctoral candidate in integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley.

However, the study found an association, not a causal relationship, between gut bacteria and geography. As a result, it’s hard to say whether genetic differences, dietary changes or some other mechanism is at play, Suzuki told Live Science.

Past work had suggested that people have adapted to colder climates by packing on extra pounds that act as insulation, Suzuki said. For instance, some studies have found that Inuits tend to be heavier than African tribesmen, he said.

But the relationship between cold and weight isn’t clear-cut. For instance, spending time in the cold increases caloric expenditure. And other studies show that shivering triggers similar muscle responses as exercise.

Live Up North? Your Gut May Have More ‘Fat’ Microbes – Yahoo News