Blog Posts by Dr. Ayala

I have three athletic kids, and have many opportunities to watch practices and games.

I have been noticing lots of sports drinks.

Engaging in any sport is now almost synonymous with drinking a sport drink.

I'm not discussing performance athletes here, or regimens that involve endurance and extreme conditions. I am talking about kids playing basketball, tennis or soccer for an hour or so, in comfortable situations, with plenty of breaks, and many times hardly breaking a sweat.

Sports drinks were initially designed for athletes. Dr. J. Robert Cade, University of Florida professor of medicine and physiology is credited with creating the first sports drink in 1965.

Before Dr. Cade's invention the players would practice all day in Florida's humid heat, with hydration not part of the routine. It is hard to believe, but at that time athletes were discouraged from drinking even water for fear it would cause nausea and abdominal cramps. Many players suffered heat

Kids are very responsive to the messages in ads, often not even aware of their persuasive intent. We'd like to think that we adults know better, and are somewhat immune to the power of commercials.

But the mere presence of ads -- and knowing how much money is invested in them -- is probably proof enough that these ads do work. Research also supports the notion that seeing certain foods in ads, and seeing eating these foods as a highly rewarding act - which is how it's invariably presented in ads - increases desire for and consumption of the advertised foods.

A study in this month's Appetite looked at the direct effect food ads had on snacking. The studied group of 82 young students consisted of an equal number of men and women, all of normal weight, all unaware of the purpose of the study.

The students watched a 30 minute nature movie, seated on a comfortable couch, next to which, on a side table, snacks (chips and peanut M&Ms) were freely available. The movie was

Vitamins 003
We're living in the glory days of Vitamin D, which is now touted as a miracle cure-all treatment for, well, practically everything. Doctors are testing their healthy patient's vitamin D levels and deficient or not, many choose to pop a D supplement, just in case.

Every day a new study catches the attention of reporters - if only for a brief moment - who are quick to announce that vitamin D deficiency can be blamed on yet another ill. Judging by some headlines the sun vitamin can cure diabetes, heart disease, cancer, hypertension, depression, obesity and even the common cold.

Scientists are known killjoys, and have been trying to curb the enthusiasm for vitamin D supplementation, noting that most of the vitamin D studies are observational, and that much like other vitamin supplementation disappointments (remember the vitamin E, A and C crazes?) it very well might be that healthy people tend to have higher levels of vitamin D (an explanation of why that's so later),

Exercise burns calories. We'd all love to believe that we can skip the unpleasant recommendation to eat less if we committed to exercising more - and the biggest fans of the "move more" doctrine are the makers of calorie-dense processed foods.

And while there are so many compelling reasons to exercise - regular physical activity reduces heart disease, diabetes and hypertension, boosts mental health, fosters strong muscles and strong bones and improves our looks - exercise alone rarely results in weight loss.

One of the obvious reasons for the disappointing weight-loss outcome of an exercise alone regimen is that physical activity increases appetite, and we quickly reimburse ourselves for the calories spent with calories eaten.

Just thinking about exercise makes us eat more

A new study in the journal Appetite has an even more downbeat finding: Just thinking about exercise - without ever moving a muscle - may make us eat more.

The study group included 94

miliar cartoon characters make cereal taste better, confirms a new study in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. I doubt anyone's surprised by this finding - after all we all know that marketing helps sell more products, and that companies wouldn't be spending large sums on licensing the cutest and most popular animated heroes if they weren't convinced of their value. But this study has another quite surprising finding worth discussing, so please read on.ke penguins?

University of Pennsylvania researchers, Led by Matthew Lapierre, randomly assigned 80 kids aged 4-6 years to try the exact same unfamiliar cereal from four different packages, and rate how much they liked what they ate. The packages resembled standard cereal, and had two varying characteristics: the presence or absence of happy feet penguins and the cereal name.

As expected, the kids who were treated to the happy penguin cereal liked it better - the mean rating they gave penguin cereal was 4.7/5

The energy drink market is booming, and the biggest consumers of these drinks are kids and young adults, which begs the question: Are these drinks safe for kids?

A special article in this month's issue of Pediatrics reviewed the literature and looked at 121 scientific studies, government reports and media sources on energy drinks. The authors raise some serious concerns and warn that energy drinks are under studied, overused and can be dangerous for vulnerable kids and teens.

What's in an energy drink?

Caffeine is the main active ingredient in energy drinks - they usually contain 70 to 80 milligrams of caffeine per 8-oz. serving, more than triple many cola drinks. Additional caffeine can come from energy drink's other ingredients: guarna, kola nut, yerba mate and cocoa.

Energy drinks may also contain taurine (an amino acid), vitamins, herbal supplements such as yohimbine and ginseng and sweeteners.

Are energy drinks safe for kids?

The review found evidence

The Emperor of All Maladies by oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee is a biography of cancer, told as the story of the patients battling the dreaded disease, the doctors who care for them and the researchers laboring in search of a cure. It's also the fascinating story of cancer itself - a mysterious, ancient, devious, tentacled villain, whose nature we've been trying to unravel for centuries. The chronicles of this effort are a window into the thrill and tediousness of medical and scientific research. It is the best book I've read in a while and I'd like to share just one thought I had while reading it.

The "war on cancer" was declared 40 years ago. Twenty something years into this war, the incredible effort and funds invested in finding new drug therapies and new treatments yielded a few significant "wins" - childhood leukemia, Hodgkin's lymphoma and testicular cancer became, quite often, curable diseases. But despite some progress, a snapshot of cancer in the 1980's showed that

Chain restaurants are required to post the calorie content of their offerings on menu boards in a prominent way in some major American cities (including my fair but fat city of Philadelphia). The new health care reform law, signed last year, will enforce such labeling nationally. Many health experts support this public policy, saying it will help consumers make better informed food choices.

There are already efforts to evaluate if calorie labels make a difference. Some studies showed reductions in intake, some showed no measurable effect.

A new study, led by Brian Ebel, and published in the International Journal of Obesity, compared kids' fast-food choices in two low-income communities: in New York City, where calorie labeling became mandatory in 2008, an in Newark NJ, were calories are not posted.

Here are the main findings: