Heidi Woolf

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After investigating the eating habits of thousands of Americans, one factor was found to account for a significant difference in the healthiness of Americans: cooking meals at home. In a recent study from Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, people who cooked meals at home were found to eat consume fewer calories, fat, sugar and carbohydrates.

“A difference of 150 calories per day over time can make a significant difference in dietary intake and health,” Julia Wolfson, MPP, PhD Candidate Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future-Lerner Fellow, and one of the authors of the study, told The Speaker.

And a difference of 150 calories per day was the finding. After analyzing data from over 9,000 participants aged 20 and older, the researchers found that when adults who cooked dinner once or less a week were compared with adults who cooked six to seven times a week, the people who cooked at home were eating a lot healthier. Those who cooked at home consumed 2,164 calories, 81 grams of fat and 119 grams of suger on average daily, while those who more often ate out consumed an average of 2,301 calories, 84 grams of fat and 135 grams of sugar.

“This difference indicates that a person who starts cooking more does not need to make drastic changes to their diet in order to see a beneficial impact, Wolfson told us. “These results show that just the act of cooking more frequently is associated with reduced intake of calories, fat, sugar and carbohydrates.”

The researchers also made other significant findings. Blacks were found to be more likely than whites to live in households where there was less home cooking, and individuals who worked over 35 hours per week outside the home were also found to cook less often at home.

“There are very real barriers to frequent cooking,” explained Wolfson. “Time constraints, cost of ingredients, resources and equipment to cook, and lack of access to fresh, healthy, and affordable ingredients. These barriers are more likely to impact lower-income populations, who… are more likely to be black.”

Americans are familiar with the 40 hour work week associated with full-time employment, but recent polls have found that full-time workers in the US actually work an average of 47 hours per week–and 40 percent of full-time workers work over 50 hours per week.

“Long work hours, inflexible schedules definitely make cooking very frequently more difficult for many people,” Wolfson told us. “Because encouraging more cooking at home has the potential to have a positive impact on obesity rates and diet quality, we need to find ways to support more frequent cooking at home. However, for those individuals for whom cooking at home is not feasible, we also need to invest in ways to make eating healthfully outside the home easier and more affordable.

“The most important takeaway is that more frequent cooking at home is associated with a healthier diet, regardless of whether one is trying to lose weight. If a person starts cooking more meals at home, they will be eating healthier by default.”

The report, “Is cooking at home associated with better diet quality or weight-loss intention?” was authored by Julia A. Wolfson and Dr Sara N. Bleich, an associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Bloomberg School, was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and was published in the journal Public Health Nutrition.

By Heidi Woolf

Photo: Ryan McVay

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According to a new report by scientists at the University of Bristol, additional daylight savings could have public health benefits. The study looked at daylight savings increases as a possible public health intervention, and found evidence that an increase would increase physical activity among children.

“This study provides the strongest evidence to date that, in Europe and Australia, evening daylight plays a role in increasing physical activity in the late afternoon and early evening – the ‘critical hours’ for children’s outdoor play. Introducing additional daylight savings measures would affect each and every child in the country, every day of the year, giving it a far greater reach than most other potential policy initiatives to improve public health,” said Dr. Anna Goodman, Lecturer at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine at the University of Bristol and one of the researchers on the project.

The study, “Daylight saving time as a potential public health intervention: an observational study of evening daylight and objectively measured physical activity among 23,000 children from 9 countries,” was authored by the University of Bristol’s Anna Goodman, Angie S Page and Ashley R Coope, and was published in the International Journal of Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity. The study was funded by the UK National Prevention Research Initiative, and Anna Goodman’s contribution was funded by the National Institute for Health Research.

In the research, over 23,000 children aged 5-16 years were studied in nine countries (England, Australia, USA, Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Switzerland, Brazil and Madeira, and Portugal). The scientists looked at physical activity data before and after the clocks changed. The data was matched to the time of sunset, as well as daily precipitation, humidity, wind speed, temperature and other weather characteristics.

Independent of weather factors, longer evening daylight was found to be associated with a modest but not insignificant increase in daily physical activity. The associations were consistently observed in five European, four English and two Australian samples, where children added two minutes of physical activity per day as a result of longer evening sunlight.

Although two minutes may at first seem a small amount of time, two minutes per child in a large population can amount to millions of minutes of extra physical activity per day, the researchers noted.

“We therefore conclude that, by shifting the physical activity mean of the entire population, the introduction of additional daylight saving measures could yield worthwhile public health benefits,” the researchers wrote.

“While the introduction of further daylight savings measures certainly wouldn’t solve the problem of low physical activity, we believe they are a step in the right direction,” said senior author Ashley Cooper, Professor of Physical Activity and Public Health at the University of Bristol.

By Heidi Woolf

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In a world first, movement and sensation have been returned to a man who was paralyzed four years ago. After a pioneering cell transplant using special cells that naturally regenerate, 40-year-old Darek Fidyka is walking again.

“When you can’t feel almost half your body, you are helpless, but when it starts coming back it’s like you are born again,” said Fidyka, who is now able to walk with the support of a frame. Fidyka said the restoration of his legs was “an incredible experience.”

Fidyka, now 40, was paralyzed after being stabbed multiple times in his back during an attack in 2010. He remained paralyzed with no signs of recovery for two years after the accident, despite extensive physiotherapy.

Scientists took olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) from one of Fidyka’s olfactory bulbs, grew the cells in culture, and micro-injected about 500,000 cells (an amount that can be conceptualized as a drop of liquid) into the gap in Fidyka’s spinal chord to stimulate repair and regrowth. The team made about 100 micro-injections above and below the injury site.

OECs are part of the sense of smell. They are nerve fibers that constantly regenerate.

The treatment was successful after about three months. Fidyka began putting on muscle in his thigh. After six months, Fidyka took his first steps along the parallel bars.

Two years after treatment, Fidyka can walk outside using a frame. Bladder, bowel and sexual function has also partially recovered.

The scientists involved believe that OECs provided a pathway whereby fibers around the injury site can reconnect–essentially using the nerve grafts to bridge the gap.

“You are making history now,” lead scientist Prof Geoff Raisman, chair of neural regeneration at University College London’s Institute of Neurology, told Fidyka. “To me, this is more impressive than a man walking on the moon.”

“We’re at the point now of where Barnard was with the first heart operation,” said Chef David Nicholls, who funded a great deal of the research through the organization UK Stem Cell Foundation (UKSCF), which Nichols founded after his son was paralyzed in a swimming accident in 2003.

“It’s amazing to see how regeneration of the spinal cord, something that was thought impossible for many years, is becoming a reality,” said Dr Pawel Tabakow, consultant neurosurgeon at Wroclaw University Hospital, who led the Polish research team.

The scientists are currently undertaking the next leg of their research: a controlled clinical trial involving 10 patients.

“The first patient is an inspirational and important step, which brings years of laboratory research towards the clinical testbed,” said Sir Richard Sykes, chair of the UK Stem Cell Foundation. “To fully develop future treatments that benefit the 3 million paralysed globally will need continued investment for wide scale clinical trials.”

The research was supported by the Nicholls Spinal Injury Foundation (NSIF) and the UKSCF, and the most recent report on Fidyka was published in Cell Transplantation.

By Heidi Woolf