Rib Kage's garden salad. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer

If you worry about your risk of getting diabetes, consider a few healthy lifestyle changes. Researchers at Harvard School of Public Health recently reported that combining five positive lifestyle factors could reduce diabetes incidence by 89 per cent for people aged 65 and over. The factors were:

1. Physical activity level of above average, leisure-time activity and walking pace.

2. Healthy diet, defined by above-average intake of fibre, a positive ratio of polyunsaturated fat to saturated fat, low trans fat intake and low average glycaemic index.

3. Light or moderate alcohol consumption.

4. Not smoking.

5. Avoid being overweight with a body mass index of less than 25.

Researchers studied 4,883 men and women 65 and older participating in the Cardiovascular Health Study. Over a 10-year span, 337 new cases of Type 2 diabetes were diagnosed. Even for those without a perfect score on all five lifestyle factors, each additional positive factor reduced diabetes risk by 35 per cent. The combination of physical activity and a healthy diet was associated with a 46 per cent lower risk. The researchers wrote in the Archives of Internal Medicine that nine of 10 new cases of diabetes appeared to be attributable to these lifestyle factors.

- Tufts Health & Nutrition Letter

Adding salad dressing

My cousin thinks healthy eating is a salad with enough extra dressing for the lettuce to swim. In reality, a triple steakburger might be a better choice. Salad dressings can supply healthy fat that make salads taste good and enhance nutrient absorption, yet they can also add so many calories and so much saturated fat and sodium that your 'healthy' salad makes a piece of pie look nutritious.

Karen Collins, a registered dietitian with the American Institute for Cancer Research, said that a well-dressed salad has fat, calories and sodium. Regular, reduced-fat and fat-free categories reflect differences in amounts of fat that usually parallel calorie content.

Dressings labelled reduced-calorie and low-calorie are often reduced to fat and low fat; it's just a matter of what producers choose to emphasise on their label. Most regular salad dressing contains eight to 16 grams of fat and 80 to 140 calories in the standard two-tablespoon serving. Reduced-fat dressings often range from four to 10 grams per serving, which brings calories down to 20 to 60.

Low-fat dressings must contain three grams or less of fat per serving. Fat-free dressings must contain less than 0.5 grams of fat per serving, and calories usually range from 15 to 40, depending on how much sugar and starchy thickeners are added. If you're choosing a regular (full-fat) dressing, you need to limit the amount you pour on as calories add up quickly.

Many people assume that fat-free dressing is the only choice for weight control, but if you have a main dish salad with fat-free or low-fat ingredients, a little bit of oil in the dressing enhances absorption of certain nutrients and plant compounds like beta-carotene, and may increase your sense of fullness after eating, Collins said.

A key to a healthy low-fat dressing is the kind of fat used in the dressing - olive and canola oils are heart-healthy choices. But some dressings include olive oil in their name and actually show another oil higher on the ingredient list and thus present in larger amount.

Source: www.creators.com