When it comes to eating, it appears humans are no different than most of the other animal species: The more you give them, the more they eat. However, BEN UKWUOMA and CHUKWUMA MUANYA report on new scientific findings linking food and various ailments. EATING has indeed become a double- edged sword going by new research findings. While a new study in the September 2004 edition of the American Journal of Gastroenterology has shown that eating food quickly may cause a type of indigestion called gastro-oesophageal reflux, another study has confirmed that even obese women need not consider restricting their diet as they risk developing a binge-eating-disorder. Yet another study showed that lack of control is responsible for the growing cases of obesity.
Gastro-oesophageal reflux is when the stomach content such as food, stomach acid and other digestive juices travel back from the stomach into the oesophagus. This is said to cause a burning pain often called heartburn.
Many people are said to get gastro-oesophageal reflux occasionally, especially after large meals. If it happens frequently or causes severe symptoms, it is called gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD).
The main symptom of gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD) is heartburn - a burning pain felt in the centre of the chest or behind the sternum (breastbone). The stomach has a mucous lining to protect it from damage by stomach acid. However, this mucous lining is not present in the oesophagus, so stomach acid irritates the oesophagus, causing a burning sensation. If severe, the pain can be hard to distinguish from a heart attack. Anyone who develops severe chest pain should seek urgent medical advice or call for an ambulance.
Occasionally, food is regurgitated from the stomach back into the mouth.
Severe cases of GORD can lead to inflammation of the oesophagus (oesophagitis) which results in scarring and narrowing of the oesophagus, making it difficult to swallow.
"We believe that findings of the adverse effects of dieting in persons of average weight or in those with bulimia nervosa or anorexia nervosa have, in some cases, been inappropriately generalised to overweight and obese individuals who seek to lose weight by caloric restriction," write study author Dr. Thomas A. Wadden of the University of Pennsylvania School of
Medicine in Philadelphia and his colleagues. "Overweight and obese
individuals should not be deterred from trying to lose weight by following sensible diet and exercise recommendations," Wadden said. Wadden and his team examined the risk of binge eating in 123 dieting obese women who were followed for 40 weeks. At the start of the trial, the women did not binge eat and had no significant symptoms of depression or other mood disturbance. The subjects were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups. One group restricted their caloric intake to 1,200-1,500 kilocalories per day, based on the Food Guide Pyramid; the second group consumed 1,000 kcal/day mainly through a liquid diet for about 12 weeks, followed by caloric restriction for the remaining weeks, and the last group did not diet. All of the women also participated in first weekly and later biweekly 90-minute group sessions led by a clinical psychologist.
Half way into the study, women on the liquid diet had lost an average 12 per cent of their initial weight, Wadden and his team report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The other dieters had lost about eight per cent of their initial body weight by this 20-week mark and the non-dieters had lost less than one per cent. "The present findings indicate that concerns about the possible adverse effects of dieting should not dissuade overweight and obese individuals from pursuing weight loss," Wadden and his colleagues conclude. "These findings will not make it any easier for people to diet or lose weight," Wadden told Reuters Health. Indeed, a Cornell University study finds that young adults can overeat by more than 40 per cent when they are served larger portions from one week to the next. Researchers theorise that this lack of control may account for the growing problem of obesity in the world. "The more food we served to the college-student volunteers in our eating study, the more they ate," says David Levitsky, professor of Nutritional Sciences and of Psychology at
Cornell in a news release. "Since we know that restaurants are serving larger and larger food portions, we think that larger portions could be a major factor responsible for the increase in overweight and obesity that is so evident today."
The study was a small one - 13 Cornell University student volunteers who ate a buffet lunch three times during a week. During the following week, the students ate three meals. Some were served portions of the same weight as the previous week, others were served portions weighing 125 per cent or 150 per cent more.
The results: Volunteers who consumed the largest portions -150 per cent larger than the week before -- ate an average of 39 per cent more food, in weight, during the week than they did the previous week, an average of 273 more calories per person. The research is published in the October issue of the Journal of Nutrition. On the Gastroesophageal reflux the study showed that reflux occurs more often when a standard meal is eaten fast, in five minutes, compared with the same meal eaten slowly, over 30 minutes.
In fact the researchers found that the increase was mainly due to an increase in non-acid reflux in the first hour after the meal. Non-acid reflux includes reflux of stomach contents other than acid example food. One theory is that eating quickly increases the amount of food in the oesophagus at any one time, increasing the pressure on the base of the oesophagus. This causes the sphincter between the oesophagus and stomach to relax more often, increasing the amount of gastro-oesophageal reflux.
According to them eating meals slowly may help to reduce the risk of gastro-oesophageal reflux.
The researchers recommended eating small regular meals to reduce pressure on the upper part of the stomach caused by eating large meals, avoiding eating late in the evening to ensure that the stomach is empty at bedtime, drinking alcohol only in moderation with meals, avoiding smoking; maintaining a healthy weight. Overweight is said to cause upward pressure on the base of the oesophagus.They also recommend wearing of loose clothing, avoiding bending too often, especially after meals and sleeping in a slightly upright position to prevent stomach contents from rising up into the oesophagus. According to the study, on two separate days, 20 healthy volunteers were given a meal and asked to finish it within five or 30 minutes. The participants reported any reflux (acid and non-acid) they experienced over a two-hour period following the meal. Experts explained that when the stomach is deranged through improper nutrition or bad eating habits, virtually any other organ in the body can be adversely affected. When for instance, a long-term observation was performed to determine the prevalence of gastrointestinal disorders in 1,500 patients with different forms of bronchial asthma. The researchers discovered that 48 per cent of the patients had different gastroenterological complaints, most of which began with simple indigestion. Interestingly, they discovered that gastrointestinal disorders, and especially indigestion, were associated with food allergies.