direct holiday insurance line 2

Jan. 24, 2003 -- In the latest development in its campaign to crack down on false advertising in the weight loss supplement industry, the FTC announced today that it is filing a complaint in federal court against Slim Down Solution and related companies. The company ran national ads for its Slim Down Solution, a product it claimed could absorb dietary fat and lead to weight loss without diet or exercise.

The product contains D-glucosamine, a natural chemical in the body. But the company's claims about its fat-busting ability are totally untrue, said Howard Beales, director of the FTC's bureau of consumer protection.

The company's ads also claimed that independent testing using government standards had shown that D-glucosamine binds to dietary fat in the human digestive system. Those claims are false, according to the FTC.

"The sad truth is the only way to lose weight is to reduce calories taken in and to increase calories [burned] ... there's nothing out there that will get around that scientific reality," Beales tells WebMD.

Slim Down Solution was also marketed through re-sellers under labels such as Fight the Fat, and Everslim, Mini Max. FTC is seeking consumer compensation for purchase of the product. To take part, go to FTC's web site. "Consumers should contact the FTC and file their complaint so we have them on our list... if and when we get money back to consumers, then we'll contact them," Beales said at a news conference.

Adolescence is a time of tremendous change. As teens mature, they make more food choices on their own, often in the company of influential peers.

But even as teens become more autonomous, it's still up to their parents to provide them with good examples and nutritious foods. Here are some tips on how to go about doing that.

Help Teens Make Good Choices

Deciding what to eat and how much to exercise is part of growing up. But too often, a child's choices give health the short shrift. Teens may lack the skills and motivation to do what they should to stay healthy.

"Balancing school, sports, social activities, and work presents a major challenge to eating healthy," says Kendrin Sonneville, MS, RD, who specializes in teen nutrition at Children's Hospital in Boston.

On-the-go adolescents may squander opportunities for good nutrition by skimping on foods that help fuel their growth and development. Skipping meals, especially breakfast, and choosing processed and convenience foods over fresh translates into too much fat, sodium and sugar, and not enough of the fiber, vitamins, and minerals essential to a teen's health now and later.

Calcium is Critical

Calcium, critical to bone development and density, is one of the nutrients that can easily fall through the cracks.

Calcium needs are higher than ever during the teen years -- 1,300 milligrams a day. Yet calcium consumption often drops off in teenagers as they replace milk with soft drinks. Research shows that 9th- and 10th-grade girls who drink soft drinks are three times as likely to suffer a bone fracture than those who do not drink them.?

In addition to being naturally rich in calcium, milk is fortified with vitamin D, which also helps to shore up bones. Certain yogurts contain vitamin D; check the label to be sure. While they're calcium-rich, hard cheeses lack vitamin D.

Teens require the calcium equivalent of about four 8-ounce glasses of milk daily. Here are some other foods that supply as much calcium as a glass of milk:

• 8 ounces yogurt
• 1 1/2 ounces hard cheese
• 8 ounces calcium-added orange juice
• 2 cups low-fat cottage cheese.

Girls Need Extra Iron

Iron, as a part of red blood cells, is necessary for ferrying oxygen to every cell in the body. It's crucial to a teen's brain function, immunity, and energy level. Girls aged 14 to 18 need 15 milligrams per day. Boys in the same age range need 11 milligrams.

Iron deficiency is common in adolescent females and people who limit or eschew meat. Menstruating young women are at increased risk for an iron shortfall because their diets may not contain enough iron-rich foods to make up for monthly losses.

Iron is found in both animal and plant foods. The iron in animal foods is better absorbed by the body, but consuming a vitamin-C rich food along with plant iron increases uptake. Serve these iron-rich animal foods to your teen as part of a balanced diet (shoot for 4-6 ounces a day):

• Beef
• Poultry
• Pork
• Clams
• Oysters
• Eggs

Good non-meat sources of iron include:

• Vegetables (including spinach, green peas, and asparagus)
• Beans
• Nuts
• Iron-fortified breads, cereal, rice, and pasta.

A multivitamin with 100% or less of the Daily Value for iron, vitamin D and other nutrients fills in the gaps in less-than-stellar diets. But multivitamins do not contain enough calcium to make up for inadequate consumption of calcium-rich foods. Your child may need a calcium supplement too

Aug. 21, 2000 -- For years, I've listened to friends, friends of friends, and even complete strangers talk enthusiastically about the supplements they take. They're not touting just run-of-the-mill multivitamins, but big doses of the so-called antioxidants like vitamins A, C, E, and beta-carotene. They swallow these pills by the handful, hoping to undo the damage from too many cheeseburgers, slow down the aging process, and maybe even prevent disease. And they chide me because I'm not on this shortcut-to-good-health bandwagon.

Antioxidants, they're fond of telling me, neutralize free radicals, those pesky unstable oxygen molecules that -- left to run amok -- can damage cells and perhaps lead to cancer, heart disease, and other ailments. The supplement fans do acknowledge that antioxidants can be found in fruits and vegetables. But, they say, why settle for the relatively small quantities in food when you can get so much more by swallowing a few pills?

I've long been skeptical of these claims, wary of taking a pill to get nutrients already available to me in oranges, broccoli, and the like. But lately I've wondered: Is a nutritious diet really enough, or should I follow my friends' advice and take large doses of supplements? Government experts, interestingly enough, recently cast their vote for food and against pills. But their position has left as many questions as answers, and consumers like me are still confused.

The Science Behind Antioxidants

Here's why people are scratching their heads. According to some studies, the pills seem to have worked wonders. For instance, vitamin E in daily doses of 400 to 800 international units (IUs) reduced the risk of heart attack by 77% in people with atherosclerosis who participated in the Cambridge Heart Antioxidant Study. (Harvard University scientists conducted the research and published their findings in the March 23, 1996 issue of the Lancet.)

But a study that tracked 2,545 women and 6,996 men aged 55 and older found that those who took vitamin E for five years suffered just as many strokes and heart attacks as those taking a placebo. (See the Jan. 20, 2000 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.) Some research has even suggested that antioxidants may increase the risk for certain ailments. For instance, in a study published in the April 14, 1994 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers looked at more than 29,000 male smokers to see if vitamin E and beta-carotene could prevent disease. They found that large doses of beta-carotene appeared to raise the risk of lung cancer, while the vitamin E had no effect.

This spring a panel of top scientists, convened by the federal Institute of Medicine, weighed in. They concluded that we should be getting our antioxidants from the foods we eat, not popping handfuls of pills.

"There is not sufficient evidence that taking antioxidants in large doses will prevent chronic diseases such as heart disease," says Norman I. Krinsky, PhD, a Tufts University biochemist who chaired the panel. Still, the verdict could change, he says, if a raft of yet-to-be-completed studies turns up enough evidence to prove that supplements are worthwhile.

For now, then, here are the doses recommended by the panel:

• Vitamin C, 75 milligrams a day for women, 90 for men, with an upper limit of 2,000 milligrams.
• Vitamin E, 15 milligrams, with a max of 1,000 milligrams a day.
• Selenium, 55 micrograms, with an upper limit of 400 micrograms a day.
• No daily recommendation was given for beta-carotene.

Most of us are confused and overwhelmed by all of the tips and information out there about how to cook and care for vegetables. Is it healthier to eat your tomatoes raw, or enjoy them in a slow-cooked sauce? Should you refrigerate leafy greens?

Unless you're Popeye, you're probably not going to bulk up overnight by eating a can of spinach, no matter how it's prepared. But there are plenty of health benefits that you'll enjoy from careful care and preparation of your veggies.

The most striking benefit of plant foods is their disease-fighting potential, says Amy Joy Lanou, PhD, a nutritionist and the nutritional director of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. "Across the board, fruits and vegetables are beneficial for reducing chronic disease risk," she says. That's why we asked Lanou and nutritionist Christine Filardo to give us the scoop on proper veggie handling, so something insignificant doesn't come between you, your health, and your veggies. Here's a little food for thought.

To Cook or Not to Cook

There's plenty of conflicting information about whether vegetables and fruits are better enjoyed cooked or raw, and that's because there is no single answer. Some active nutrients in vegetables and fruits are more readily available when cooked, others are more prevalent when foods are eaten raw, says Lanou. For example, lycopene, an antioxidant, which may help prevent against prostate cancer, heart disease, and other chronic illnesses, is more prevalent in cooked forms of tomatoes -- even ketchup.

On the flip side, many of the nutrients from vegetables can get leached during cooking. The key is to watch out for cooking vegetables too long, and with too much water, says Filardo. If you cook vegetables gently -- and without a great deal of water -- you will help protect the water-soluble vitamins. Filardo recommends blanching your veggies, which is when you quickly cook vegetables in boiling water, and remove them when they're still very crisp, to help preserve the color and nutrients. The same principle applies if you're going to steam or microwave vegetables.

Not all water is bad, however; it's only when you aren't consuming the liquids that the nutrients are leached into. That's the great thing about soup, says Lanou. "You consume the water-soluble vitamins that go into the broth," she says. For the most part, it's the leaching that causes the problem, not the heat.

April 27, 2004 -- What causes obesity? Blame blood fats, a new study suggests.

Your body has a very effective way to keep you slim: It tells you to stop eating. It does this by sending out a chemical signal -- a hormone called leptin. When leptin reaches the brain, your brain says, "Enough." Hunger goes away.

But high levels of blood fats -- technically, triglycerides -- block this signal before it gets to the brain, report William A. Banks, MD, of the VA Medical Center in St. Louis and Saint Louis University, and colleagues. This is the cause of obesity, they suggest in the May issue of Diabetes.

"We figured out how obesity occurs," Banks says in a news release. "This is a big deal. We now know what is keeping leptin from getting to where it needs to go to do its work."

Evolution and Modern Man

Starvation -- not obesity -- was our ancestors' main problem during most of evolution. That explains why the body has a built-in system for keeping its hunger switch in the "on" position.

When a person badly needs food, levels of blood fats get high. This blocks leptin and keeps a person hungry and looking for food.

Unfortunately, having plenty to eat causes a new problem -- one for which we haven't yet evolved a natural solution. Obese bodies also have a lot of fats in the blood. This, too, keeps a person hungry and looking for food.

"We feel that we now understand what part of the system is broken -- why leptin isn't working," Banks says. "We have a better understanding of why people are becoming obese."

Fighting the Cause of Obesity

In their experiments, Banks' research team showed that triglycerides do indeed keep leptin out of the brains of obese mice. The more triglyceride fats they ate, the less leptin reached their brains. Vegetable triglycerides did not block leptin, but animal triglycerides did.

A triglyceride-lowering drug -- Lopid -- reversed this leptin-blocking effect in the obese mice. Such treatments might work in humans, suggests John Morley, MD, director of geriatric medicine at Saint Louis University and a member of Banks' research team.

"If you lower triglycerides, you should theoretically help the body's own leptin to work better so people can get skinnier," Morley says in a news release.

Eating a low-fat diet is a natural way to lower your blood fats. It's not clear that Lopid or other drugs will help, but much more study is needed before such treatments can be used to treat obesity.

And even if Lopid did work this wonder, it's no magic potion. A person taking the drug has to be on a low-fat diet.

Parents, grandparents, and youngsters cooking together in the kitchen, sharing family recipes and secrets passed from one generation to the next, is a lost art in many households across America. These days, it's hard for busy parents even to take time out to teach their kids basic cooking techniques.

?It's true that cooking with children requires time, patience, and some extra cleanup, especially when the children are younger. But many experts think it is well worth the effort.

For one thing, cooking with children can help get them interested in trying healthy foods they might normally turn up their noses at. Susan Moores, MS, RD, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, says she has seen this happen countless times.

It's true kids will be kids -- they'll snack on chips at a school party or enjoy ice cream after a soccer game. But what is most important is how they eat most of the time, Moores says. And that's where parents can play a role. Keep in mind that for kids today, healthy eating essentially means eating more fruits and vegetables, having whole grains and beans when possible, and choosing leaner types of animal foods (even some fish every now and then.)

Encouraging kids to try healthier foods isn't the only benefit of cooking as a family. Among the recommendations in a recent American Heart Association report on overweight problems in children and teens were:

• Reducing the number of meals eaten outside the home.
• Having structured times for family meals.
• Offering healthier, low-calorie foods.
• Involving children in meal planning, shopping, and food preparation.

Indeed, cooking with children can be the gift that keeps on giving; it has both short-term and long-term payoffs.

Some of the short-term benefits:

• It encourages kids to try healthy foods.
• Kids feel like they are accomplishing something and contributing to the family.
• Kids are more likely to sit down to a family meal when they helped prepare it.
• Parents get to spend quality time with their kids.
• Kids aren't spending time in front of the TV or computer while they're cooking.
• Kids generally aren't eating junk food when they're cooking a meal at home.

Some long-term benefits:

• Learning to cook is a skill your children can use for the rest of their lives.
• Kids who learn to eat well may be more likely to eat healthfully as adults.
• Positive cooking experiences can help build self-confidence.
• Kids who cook with their parents may even be less likely to abuse drugs.

Less Likely to Abuse Drugs?

Could cooking with children mean less drug abuse? It makes perfect sense if you consider a report from The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. In the report, Family Matters: Substance Abuse and the American Family, the center recommends 10 steps parents can take to prevent substance abuse. Among them are these three:

1. Be caring and supportive of your child.
   Parents get many opportunities to compliment and support their children while they're in the kitchen together. How important is this? Parental praise, affection, acceptance, and family bonding -- as perceived by children -- are all associated with a reduced risk of substance use. A 1999 survey showed that teens who had an excellent relationship with either parent were at 25% lower risk for substance use than the average teen. Those who had a great relationship with both parents were 40% less likely to use drugs than the average teen, according to the survey results.
2. Open the lines of communication.
   Kids having fun in the kitchen, elbow to elbow, are likely to interact with each other and with their parents. Cooking together gives parents and children time together to talk and share thoughts and stories. "Communication doesn't start when your child is 17," says Ross Brower, MD, deputy medical director for the Weill Cornell Medical Center. "It should start when your child is 3."
3. Eat dinner together regularly.
   Involving your kids in the kitchen is a big stepping-stone to getting them to appreciate family meals. Because of challenging work, school, and sports schedules, many families struggle to sit down to even one daily meal together. But you can start by maximizing weekend opportunities to eat together.