Harvard Medical School: Mindful eating may help with weight loss

In this issue: Mindful eating may help with weight loss Do statins cause hair loss? Get your copy of Healthy Eating: A guide to the new nutrition View this email as a Web page » To ensure delivery of our emails, add healthbeat@mail.health.harvard.edu to your address book. Please note this is for outgoing mail only. If you need help, please contact healthbeat@health.harvard.edu. Share with a friend » | Unsubscribe »

July 6, 2011

More information Get your copy of Healthy Eating: A guide to the new nutrition Eat real food. That’s the essence of today’s nutrition message. Our knowledge of nutrition has come full circle, back to eating food that is as close as possible to the way nature made it. Based on a solid foundation of current nutrition science, Harvard’s Special Health Report Healthy Eating: A guide to the new nutrition describes how to eat for optimum health. Click here to read more » Mindful eating may help with weight loss A small yet growing body of research suggests that a slower, more thoughtful way of eating could help with weight problems and maybe steer some people away from processed food and unhealthy choices. This alternative approach has been dubbed “mindful eating.” It’s based on the Buddhist concept of mindfulness, which involves being fully aware of what is happening within and around you at the moment. Mindfulness techniques have also been offered as a way to relieve stress and alleviate problems like high blood pressure and chronic gastrointestinal difficulties. Applied to eating, mindfulness includes noticing the colors, smells, flavors, and textures of your food; chewing slowly; getting rid of distractions like TV or reading; and learning to cope with guilt and anxiety about food. Some elements of mindful eating hark back to Horace Fletcher, an early 20th century food faddist who believed chewing food thoroughly would solve many different kinds of health problems. The mind–gut connection Digestion involves a complex series of hormonal signals between the gut and the nervous system, and it seems to take about 20 minutes for the brain to register satiety (fullness). If someone eats too quickly, satiety may occur after overeating instead of putting a stop to it. There’s also reason to believe that eating while we’re distracted by activities like driving or typing may slow down or stop digestion similar to how the “fight or flight” response does. And if we’re not digesting well, we may be missing out on the full nutritive value of some of the food we’re consuming. A treatment for bingers Several studies have shown mindful eating strategies might help treat eating disorders and possibly help with weight loss. Psychologist Jean Kristeller at Indiana State University and colleagues at Duke University conducted an NIH-funded study of mindful eating techniques for the treatment of binge eating. The randomized controlled study included 150 binge eaters and compared a mindfulness-based therapy to a standard psychoeducational treatment and a control group. Both active treatments produced declines in binging and depression, but the mindfulness-based therapy seemed to help people enjoy their food more and have less sense of struggle about controlling their eating. Those who meditated more (both at mealtimes and throughout the day) got more out of the program. The NIH is funding additional research by Kristeller and Ruth Wolever of Duke on the effectiveness of mindfulness-based approaches for weight loss and maintenance. Several other studies on mindful eating are under way around the country. A starter kit for mindful eating Experts suggest starting gradually with mindful eating, eating one meal a day or week in a slower, more attentive manner. Here are some tips (and tricks) that may help you get started: Set your kitchen timer to 20 minutes, and take that time to eat a normal-sized meal. Try eating with your non-dominant hand; if you’re a righty, hold your fork in your left hand when lifting food to your mouth. Use chopsticks if you don’t normally use them. Eat silently for five minutes, thinking about what it took to produce that meal, from the sun’s rays to the farmer to the grocer to the cook. Take small bites and chew well. Before opening the fridge or cabinet, take a breath and ask yourself, “Am I really hungry?” Do something else, like reading or going on a short walk. Share this story: Digg Facebook Twitter

More information Get your copy of What to do About High Cholesterol Why do people on cholesterol-lowering drugs still have heart attacks? What role does cholesterol really play? How can you lower your risk of heart disease and stroke? What to Do About High Cholesterol answers these questions and explains why lowering your LDLs (the bad cholesterol) is even more important than previously thought. Click here to read more » Do statins cause hair loss? Q. My hair’s been thinning. Could it be due to simvastatin, which I started taking several months ago? A. Hair loss, or alopecia, is a very rare side effect of all statin drugs. Widely prescribed in the treatment of high cholesterol, statins work by blocking the action of an enzyme the liver uses to make cholesterol. About 1% of people taking statins report hair loss. This figure hasn’t changed since 1987, when statins were introduced. We don’t know exactly why statins might cause hair loss. But we do know that cholesterol is an important building block for steroid hormones, which play a role in hair growth. But if statins really caused hair loss, I think we’d hear more reports of it, given the millions of statin takers. It’s more likely that you’re losing your hair for a more common reason — another medication, a thyroid condition or other illness, or age-related changes in hormone levels. It’s worth consulting your physician, who can check for these underlying conditions. If no other cause can be found for your hair loss, you could ask your clinician about stopping the statin for a few months. Or you could substitute another type of cholesterol-lowering drug (bile acid resins, nicotinic acid, fibric acid derivatives, or cholesterol absorption inhibitors) or just work harder on those lifestyle changes that we know can lower cholesterol: a low-fat diet, weight loss, and exercise. — Celeste Robb-Nicholson, M.D. Editor in Chief, Harvard Women’s Health Watch

Featured in this issue Healthy Eating: A guide to the new nutrition Featured content: • Eating for health • Foods with healthy fats, carbs, and proteins • Getting vitamins from food (not pills) • SPECIAL BONUS SECTION: Healthy snacking   ... and more! Click here to read more » What to do About High Cholesterol Featured content: • What causes heart disease • Why treat cholesterol? • Drugs, herbs, and other choices for lowering cholesterol • Taking an individual approach Click here to read more »

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