Experts answer question about nutrition
Q: My child drinks a great deal of soda. My mother says this will make him fat. Does soda contribute to weight gain in children? A: Too much soda and other sugar-filled drinks make children fat. That is the message of a two-month study by nutritionists at Cornell University. Children who drank more than 12 ounces of sweetened drinks gained significantly more weight than children who drank less than six ounces a day. That’s because children do not reduce how much food they eat at meals for the calories they consume in sweetened drinks. The more sweetened drinks they consumed, the greater their daily caloric intake and the greater the weight gain.
Nutritionists also worry that all soda might be crowding out bone-healthy milk on the menu and might even leach calcium out of growing bones.
“Soft drinks taken in excess may result in excessive phosphorus in the diet and that, in turn, can result in low blood calcium levels,” says Dr. Lisa Ritchie, assistant professor of family and consumer sciences at Harding University in Searcy, Ark. “The body will respond by pulling calcium from the bone to increase the amount in the blood.”
Q: My doctor recommends that I take a glucosamine supplement for my joints. I see it advertised but I wonder if it works?
A: Doctors recommend them to their patients, and health stores hype their benefits, but no one knows for sure if glucosamine and chondroitin supplements actually work to ease aching joints, says a Wake Forest University expert on biomechanics and osteoarthritis.
“There is enough evidence to suggest that something positive is going on with these supplements,” says Steve Messier, professor of health and exercise science and director of the J.B. Snow Biomechanics Lab at Wake Forest. “But there has been no controlled study that shows definitively that these supplements improve pain and function in older adults with knee osteoarthritis.”
Q: Are beans a good addition to a diet?
A: Beans are an excellent addition to any diet. “Beans contains an abundance of B-vitamins, iron and many minerals. They are low in calories, sodium and fat. Beans also supply more fiber per serving than oat bran,” says Jyl Steinback, lifestyle trainer and author of 12 best selling healthy cookbooks, including “Superfoods – Cook Your Way to Health.”
A report published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition states that beans significantly lower cholesterol levels.
(Send your questions to Steve Infanti at scinfanti(at)earthlink.net
AP-NY-07-16-03 1053EDT