Consumer Reports tests have confirmed that those hard-to-resist fries from Burger King, McDonald’s and Wendy’s are in fact trans-fat free!

Plus, taster testers found that they taste about the same as they used to, before becoming trans-fat free.

Taste testers for CR found that Wendy’s fries are the best tasting. They rated McDonald’s second in the taste category, followed by Burger King.

Taste testers said that Wendy’s fries have “big potato flavor,” while Burger King fries “taste more of oil than potato.” However, they still gave Burger King fries an overall rating of “good.” (Results are published in the August Consumer Reports.)

Of course, I’m not encouraging you to eat fries, but if you do, isn’t this nice information to have? Just watch out what else you order! Remember, most chain restaurants post nutrition info online, so check before you go.

Speaking of fun foods, did you miss my post on the CR report on light ice creams?

(Image via Wendy’s)

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Exciting Report on Fast-Food Fries

According to researchers, the participants felt less physical pain and had altered reactions to social exclusion when money was involved. In other words, counting money, as opposed to just counting plain paper, helped participants experience less pain (when dipping fingers in hot water) and lower social distress (when playing Cyperball).

You can read more on the specifics of the experiments at the Association for Psychological Science. The study was published in Psychological Science.

What is your reaction to this study?

I believe that most people associate money with positive outcomes and that feeling may lead them to report lower levels of pain and more comfort in social situations. However, should you count money when you’re feeling blue? That seems a bit odd to me. And the psychologists weren’t suggesting you count money for sadness, but one can’t help wondering…

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Cash Counting for the Blues?

However, new research showed that patients who “took an antioxidant called N-acetylcysteine, sold over the counter at vitamin stores, had significant improvement over patients who took placebos.” Researchers are also trying to figure out how to classify the disease. Some feel it is “related to obsessive compulsive disorder, but others liken it to addictions or impulse control disorders.” More research is required, but the fact that an over the counter vitamin could help with this disease is extremely exciting.

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Hair Pulling Disease

British doctors did something off the charts when they gave young Hannah Clark (who was just eight months old at the time) a donor heart. However, they didn’t just transplant the new heart and remove her own damaged heart. Instead, they “implanted a donor heart directly onto her own failing heart.”

After ten years, the girl’s own heart had healed to the point where doctors could actually remove the donated heart. This study showed that the heart can regenerate under certain circumstances. New research will be required to determine exactly how and when this can happen, but to know it’s possible greatly changes what the medical world knows about the heart.

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Girl’s Heart Heals Itself

I’m just as guilty of putting on weight when life gets stressed. I think that’s when a lot of women do. I read this quick article about five reasons you can’t lose weight, and found this statistic really telling:

“80 percent of women underestimated their daily food intake by a whopping 700 calories!”

Seven hundred calories is a lot of poundage. It adds up. Most women I know seem to be (on the surface) very good about realizing what they are eating. But there are a couple things that trip them up. Nibbling is one. Perhaps is something you do while making dinner or maybe it’s just eating a few bites off of your kid’s plate, but nibbling adds up to extra calories.

Drinking extra calories is another. I’m a diet soda drinker, but juice has added calories and so does alcohol. If you’re not paying attention, you be adding 500 calories a day just with the things you drink. I know a lot of women slack off with exercise when their lives get stressed. They put other people first. I certainly do this. But we have to tell ourselves it’s okay to take some time in order to be healthy first.

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Why You Can’t Lose Weight

The study, published in the journal Contraception, found that oral contraceptives eventually reach the effective blood concentrations needed in the body to prevent pregnancy in obese women, but it may take twice as long. That would allow for a “window of opportunity” each month. During that time, the contraceptive may not be at a high enough level to prevent a pregnancy.

One problem is that drugs aren’t initially tested for effectiveness on people with a high body mass index. Researchers and doctors are becoming more aware that obesity may affect drug absorption and other factors. Body weight may also complicate matters in other ways. The researchers noted that many obese women are prescribed lower-dose oral contraceptives in an effort to decrease their risk of venous thrombosis, blood clots that may increase the risk of stroke and heart attacks.

“Although our research has found this interaction between obese women and oral contraceptives, we don’t have enough information yet to recommend changes in clinical practice, other than choosing a contraceptive option that works better for both normal weight and obese women, like an intrauterine device,” said Dr. Alison Edelman, lead author of the study.

Researchers suggest obese that women may wish to consult with their doctors about this issue and perhaps consider a backup method of contraception at some times of the month.

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Failure of the Pill in Obese Women

While this new information is another piece of the puzzle, it doesn’t define the causes of autism. However, medical professionals speculate that “it’s possible babies are affected by their mother’s antibodies while in the womb.”

As a Type 1 diabetic myself, I can’t help but wonder whether this information could also add to that of diabetic research. After all, if it’s possible that babies are indeed affected by the antibodies in their mother’s womb, couldn’t that be a cause of Type 1 diabetes in some people as well?

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Autism May Be Linked to Autoimmune Disease

Tierney is currently filming the new TV show Parenthood, which is a takeoff of the 1989 movie. The series was set to premiere on September 23rd, but has been put on hold temporarily until Tierney can return to work full-time.

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Maura Tierney Having Breast Tumor Removed

John Morton, MD, associate professor of surgery at Stanford School of Medicine, performed the gastric bypass surgeries in the probiotics study.

Researchers followed 44 patients receiving gastric bypass from 2006 to 2007.

The group of patients taking probiotics consumed one pill per day of Puritan’s Pride, available online and in many stores. Puritan’s Pride has no financial ties with the study.

The probiotics study, published in the July issue of the Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery, revealed that after three months, the patients taking probiotics saw a 47.6% weight loss, while the control group had only a 38.5% weight loss.

One of the study authors, John Morton, MD, who performed the gastric bypasses, said he now recommends probiotic supplements to his patients.

Another benefit of of probiotics is that they help maintain levels of vitamin B-12 after gastric-bypass surgery. The study showed that patients taking the supplements had higher B-12 levels three months after surgery. That’s a useful finding since gastric bypass frequently causes deficiency in B-12.

Morton believes that, “part of the obesity puzzle may be due to the kind of bacteria you have in your intestine.”

(Image via Stanford University School of Medicine)

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Role of Probiotics in Weight Loss

If so, you may be interested in a recent study. Monkeys who ate less lived longer, healthier lives! That’s what researchers found at the end of a 20-year study with rhesus macaques.

Study results, published July 10 in the journal Science, indicate that consuming fewer calories, yet still maintaining a nutritious diet, leads to a longer and healthier life.

Researchers found that eating a reduced-calorie diet slows aging and significantly delays disorders that come on with age, like cancer, diabetes, brain atrophy and cardiovascular disease.

“There is a major effect of caloric restriction in increasing survival if you look at deaths due to the diseases of aging,” said Richard Weindruch, a professor of medicine in the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. Today, 33 animals remain in the study.

This rhesus macaque study, performed in Wisconsin, is valuable because it was done with animals that closely resemble humans. However, no similar comprehensive study with human subjects is being undertaken at this time. While this study can’t serve as conclusive evidence of the effects of a restricted calorie diet on human disease and lifespan, it gives us much to think about.

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Restricted Diet & Longer Lifespan