There was a time (not too long ago) when the only choice you had to make at the Yogurt aisle was “Plain or Flavored?”. Today you are accosted by easily more than 20 varieties including frozen yogurt, live-and-active-cultures-yogurt and even yogurt with fruit on the bottom.

In early 2006 Dannon came up with a brand new type: Probiotics-enhanced Activia yogurt that is supposed to regulate your digestive system and followed it up a year later with their DanActive “dairy-drink” that would strengthen your body’s defense.

Then Dannon was sued:

A federal lawsuit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles claims the Dannon Co. Inc., owner of the world’s best-selling yogurt brand, bamboozled tens of thousands of customers into paying extra for Activia and other yogurts falsely touted as offering special nutritional benefits. [ABC News]

What are Probiotics anyway? According to Dannon’s own website, “Probiotics are living microorganisms, usually lactic acid bacteria, that when consumed in sufficient numbers can provide health benefits that go beyond basic nutrition”. In other words, it’s a form of live-and-active-culture called “Bifidus Regularis” that is added to the yogurt with certain characteristics that are supposed to make it extra-beneficial: safe to eat, high shelf-life and presence n enough quantity to be of help.

But what quantities of these cultures are “enough” and what real benefits do they confer?

…medical experts disagree over what the right amounts are and what kind of benefits they could have, according to Dr. Roshini Rajapaksa, an assistant professor of medicine at New York University.
“Probiotic bacteria have only been proven to help with very specific disorders,” she says. “Probiotics is an exciting field, but it is too early to make … general claims like ‘regulates your digestive system.’ That doesn’t mean anything in medical terms.”

So, while it’s probably true that more of the bacteria in this product survive the stomach acids and reach your colon than from regular yogurt (Consumer Reports article), the question is what real effect these bacteria have and is the extra cost worth it? Also note this from Triathlete:
“If you stop eating it, the bacteria levels rapidly return to their normal levels”. (All those opposed to this lifetime commitment speak now or forever just try to be fit!)

And what about DanActive’s claim that it strengthens your body’s defenses? Again, there is no conclusive proof that this is true and in fact according to the ABC News article, a Dannon-funded study itself concurred with this lack of evidence:

…a report issued last year by the American Academy of Microbiology, a report that Dannon helped fund, says, “To date, there is no conclusive evidence that altering the microbiota of a healthy human adult is beneficial.” The report goes on to say that “the efficacy … of probiotic treatments has yet to be determined.”

Now Dannon has a website for everything so there’s one for Activia, one for DanActive, then there’s the Probiotics Center and - surprise! - even one for their “Two Week Challenge” (everyone does these by the way, because apparently consumers just love a good challenge!) But even a cursory glance of these websites (which, by the way are loaded with way more technical information than the average consumer can - or would even care to - understand), brings up so many of the “usual suspects” keywords that their claims begin to sound more and more shaky:

• Activia with Bifidus Regularis is scientifically proven to help with slow intestinal transit when eaten daily for two weeks, as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle. [Activia Site]
• Taken every day, DanActive can help strengthen your body’s defenses. [DanActive Site]
• DanActive is believed to have a positive effect on the balance of your intestinal bacteria. [DanActive Site]

As a consumer, it’s in your best interest to look out for catch-phrases like those highlighted above - for these are the exact phrases companies can later use to wriggle out of taking any responsibility for tall claims. Now, don’t get me wrong - the benefits of active cultures may well be true and present, but claiming conclusive results on as yet unsubstantiated research is certainly not in the best interest of millions of consumers.

Just for kicks (well, not really - I do this for all products), I checked the nutrition and ingredient information for Activia Strawberry Yogurt. Well what do you know? Fructose Syrup, Sugar and modified corn starch must make for some yummy yogurt … with 17g of sugar!

If you haven’t already, read my earlier post from last summer about the Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie yogurt. In that ad, Yoplait claimed that eating yogurt would help you lose weight as long as it was part of a sensible diet and active life. Do you see the pattern? Eat Cheerios, lower cholesterol when eaten as part of a healthy diet and active lifestyle. Eat Special K and lose weight when eaten as part of a healthy diet and active lifestyle. Wait a minute, should we all just skip the extraneous stuff and just eat sensibly and be more active?

Well, I certainly think so!

Yes, we live in a world of high-stress with kids, commutes, pollution and more demands on our time than we can think we can handle. Maybe, just maybe, we can solve this by preventing the causes of this stress rather than rushing out to get the next big (unproven) cure.

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Welcome to “FitnessMantra Weekend”, your once-a-week health news update. As always you can also stay updated with the latest in fitness news by subscribing separately to the Fitness Mantra del.icio.us feed.

Sleep has always been known to have various beneficial effects on the human body. Other than the obvious rest and relaxation it offers to the mind and body, sleep is also the time when a predictably large secretion of Human Growth Hormone (HGH) occurs. HGH is vital for building cells and muscle fibers (back to the old adage: You don’t build muscles in the gym, you do it while sleeping!).

But just this week, two separate articles on sleep bring in a whole new nutrition angle to sleep that makes it all the more important that we all get our daily dose of shut-eye each and every night - particularly children. For it turns out that “Children Who Sleep Less Weigh More“. The New Zealand study reveals that children who sleep less than 9 hours a day are at an increased risk for being overweight or obese:

Sleep-deprived kids also have more than a 3 percent increase in body fat on average compared to youngsters who sleep for more than nine hours nightly.

OK, so we can make sure the kids get their sleep (most of them hate waking up early in the morning anyway!). So are we adults off the hook? Well, not so fast! As far as we go, a “disturbed sleep link to diabetes” has been discovered and it’s not pretty. Lack of sleep hits at the very crux of weight gain: insulin!:

The US team discovered that volunteers who were roused whenever they were about to fall into the deepest sleep developed insulin resistance.

This is scarier than I could have imagined. Essentially insulin resistance occurs when the body stops reacting to regular levels of insulin and requires more and more to be produced to handle the same level of sugar (typically occurs as a response to prolonged periods of unhealthy, high-sugar foods). The test subjects were definitely quite small in number: just nine. But when their glucose tolerance was measured after deep-sleep periods were disturbed, eight out of nine had become less sensitive to insulin - a precursor to Type-2 Diabetes!

Before you doze right at your desk, read through the week’s top health and fitness stories. Good night!

1. Battle of the Bulge Bucks: From online to the airwaves, the race is on for your diet dollars.
2. Confessions of a lapsed exerciser: When life gets crazy-busy, even a little sweat goes a long way
3. Oklahoma City mayor puts city on a diet: Mick Cornett has challenged the city to shed 1 million pounds as its New Year’s resolution.
4. Dieting is out, healthy is in, poll shows: Eight out of 10 dieters said their goal was both to lose weight and improve their health — a sign of growing acceptance that a healthy weight may not equate to slimness.
5. Exercise Eases Some Menopause Symptoms: Exercise is not a cure for hot flashes, but it does help postmenopausal women cope with stress, anxiety and depression
6. Drugmakers vie for magic weight-loss pill: The race for a magic weight-loss pill will heat up in 2008
7. Diabetes Group Backs Low-Carb Diets: For the first time, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) has come out in support of low-carbohydrate diets for people with diabetes who want to manage their weight.
8. Disturbed sleep link to diabetes: A disturbed night’s sleep may increase the risk of developing diabetes, US research has suggested.
9. Add exercise to diet for best weight-loss results: Exercise or diet for weight loss? It’s an issue that millions of Americans with a New Year’s resolution to lose weight are considering right now.
10. Children Who Sleep Less Weigh More: Children who get less than nine hours of sleep a night are more likely to be overweight or obese, new research shows.
11. UK and US ‘keenest on fast food’: The UK is the country most attached to fast food, closely followed by the United States, a survey has suggested.
12. Do those holiday pounds feel like 36 Big Macs?: To gain 5 pounds, you’d need to consume a whopping 19,500 calories — roughly 71 Snickers bars or 36 Big Mac hamburgers.
13. Ban on junk food ads introduced: A ban on adverts for junk food during television programmes aimed at children under 16 has come into force.
14. Ban forces Maryland restaurants to lose trans fats: Starting today, the toast at Tastee Diner in Bethesda, Md., will be buttered with something unusual: butter.

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Have a great weekend!

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