Slow Eating Might Help Curb Calories Study found some people consume more when meals are rushed

THURSDAY, Jan. 2, 2014 (Health Day News) -- As people look for fresh strategies to cut back on calories and shed pounds, a new study suggests that simply eating more slowly can significantly reduce how much people eat in a single sitting.

The study involved a small group of both normal-weight and obese or overweight participants. All were given an opportunity to eat a meal under relaxed, slow-speed conditions, and then in a time-constrained, fast-speed environment.

The catch: Although all participants consumed less when eating slowly and all said they felt less hungry after eating a slow meal compared to a fast meal, only people who were considered normal weight actually reduced their calorie intake significantly when eating more slowly.

"One possible reason [for the calorie drop seen] may be that slower eating allows people to better sense their feelings of hunger and fullness," said study author Meena Shah, a professor in the department of kinesiology at Texas Christian University, in Fort Worth.

Slow eating also seemed to increase water intake and stomach swelling, Shah said, while also affecting the biological process that determines how much food people consume.

The study was published online Jan. 2 in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Higher Vitamin D Levels in Pregnancy Could Help Babies Become Stronger

SOUTHAMPTON, United Kingdom -- January 3, 2014 -- Children are likely to have stronger muscles if their mothers had a higher level of vitamin D in their body during pregnancy, according to a study published in the January 2014 edition of theJournal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

Low vitamin D status has been linked to reduced muscle strength in adults and children, but little is known about how variation in a mother’s status during pregnancy affects her child.

Low vitamin D concentrations are common among young women in the UK, and although women are recommended to take an additional 10mcg/day of vitamin D in pregnancy, supplementation is often not taken up.

In the study, vitamin D levels were measured in 678 mothers in the later stages of pregnancy. When the children were aged 4 years, grip strength and muscle mass were measured.

Results showed that the higher the levels of vitamin D in the mother, the higher the grip strength of the child, with an additional, but less pronounced association between mother’s vitamin D and child’s muscle mass.

“These associations between maternal vitamin D and offspring muscle strength may well have consequences for later health; muscle strength peaks in young adulthood before declining in older age and low grip strength in adulthood has been associated with poor health outcomes including diabetes, falls and fractures,” said Nicholas Harvey, Medical Research Council Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom.

“It is likely that the greater muscle strength observed at age 4 years in children born to mothers with higher vitamin D levels will track into adulthood, and so potentially help to reduce the burden of illness associated with loss of muscle mass in old age,” he said.

The 678 women who took part in the study are part of the Southampton Women’s Survey -- one of the largest and best characterised such studies globally.