Studies About Kids: Eating and Diabetes and the Need for Vitamins

There are a couple of interesting studies on children I wanted to share.

According to a study from the University of Calgary what kids eat between the time they are weaned and into their early 20s may determine what happens to them in terms of dealing with obesity and diabetes.

Rats were used in the research. Twenty of them were on a high fiber diet; twenty were on a high protein diet; and 20 were on a balanced diet. When these critters were about four months old they all ate a high sugar and fiber diet for four weeks. Four months by the way is considered young adulthood in rats. What happened? Well rats who ate a lot of protein didn't do well and those who ate a lot of fiber won. Many of us have been saying that "we" eat too much protein but the word gets ignored with plates getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

These rats weighed more and more body fat and already had problems with their blood glucose and they were only in there early 20s in human years! Winner number 2 were the rats who had a high fiber diet.

Before all you parents stop feeding your kids protein understand that too little is problematic as well. As usual moderation is the key. But the researchers want us to know the rat research although to me it just seems that moderation is the key but to these researchers this means that the times to get your kids healthy are not just during pregnancy and nursing but also from weaning into adolescence.

SOURCES

Ucalgary.ca

Canada.com

Calgary Herald

The results of a recent survey of parents who were watched over a five year period showed that about 1/3 of the kids in the United States take vitamins and those are the ones who don't need them.

Kids who are in poor healthy or eat badly are not as likely to take vitamins.

It seems the bottom line is that healthy children don't need them and you may be wasting your money. This study was done by researchers at the University of California-Davis Children's Hospital in Sacramento.

Kids who seem not to need vitamins drink milk; eat fiber; don't eat a lot of food with high cholesterol level; , had health insurance (not surprising) and whose parents were in good health (also not surprising). This all makes sense to me. The correlation is clear but researchers have to do research!

SOURCES

MSNBC

alertnet.org

.msnbc.msn