4/17/14 Health News: SECOND LOOK AT RECREATIONAL MARIJUANA LAW ♦ How You Digest Carbs Influences Weight Gain ♦ Eating Beans, Lentils, Peas Lowers LDL ♦ Do Fat Teens Die Earlier?

MURDER, ILLNESSES PROMPT SECOND LOOK AT RECREATIONAL MARIJUANA LAW IN COLORADO

After months of keeping their hands off implementation of Colorado’s voter-approved initiative for recreational marijuana, the state’s political establishment may be having some second thoughts. Two bills filed late in the Colorado Legislature appear to be on a fast track to put the first real limits on recreational marijuana since voters passed Amendment 64 in... Continue Reading

How You Digest Carbs May Influence Weight Gain, Study Says

The way your body digests carbohydrates may affect your risk for obesity, a new genetic study indicates. Researchers focused on a gene called AMY1, which is responsible for an enzyme in the saliva called salivary amylase. When food enters the mouth, the enzyme begins the process of starch absorption that continues in the digestive system. Starches are a type of carbohydrate. People typically have two copies of AMY1, but the number of copies can vary widely. It's believed that higher numbers of the gene evolved in response to diets that contained greater levels of starch, Continue Reading

Diet Rich in Beans, Lentils, Peas Lowers LDL

People who consumed a serving a day of dietary "pulses" -- such as beans, chickpeas, lentils and peas -- significantly reduced their low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, a meta-analysis concluded. Those whose diets included a median pulse intake of 130 g/d had lower LDL cholesterol levels than those on a control diet (mean difference -0.17 mmol/L, 95% CI -0.25 to -0.09), according to John L. Sievenpiper, MD, PhD, of the University of Toronto in Canada, and his co-authors. The results were "equivalent to a reduction of about 5% from baseline" and consistent with the results of two previous meta-analyses, they wrote online in CMAJ.Continue reading

Do Fat Teens Face an Early Death?

Life expectancy gains seen over the last half-century do not appear to extend to adults who were overweight or obese in adolescence, according to a large study spanning several decades. Overweight and obese teens in the study were more likely to die before reaching the age of 50 than their normal-weight peers,Continue reading