Health:Bad Diets Are Responsible For More Deaths Than Smoking/NewsELA: Stressed-out cats

Bad Diets Are Responsible For More Deaths Than Smoking, Global Study Finds About 11 million deaths a year are linked to poor diet around the globe. What's driving this? As a planet we don't eat enough healthy foods including whole grains, nuts, seeds, fruits and vegetables. At the same time, we consume too many sugary drinks, too much salt and too much processed meat. As part of a new study published in The Lancet, researchers analyzed the diets of people in 195 countries using survey data, as well as sales data and household expenditure data. Then they estimated the impact of poor diets on the risk of death from diseases including heart disease, certain cancers and diabetes. (They also calculated the number of deaths related to other risk factors, such as smoking and drug use, at the global level.) "This study shows that poor diet is the leading risk factor for deaths in the majority of the countries of the world," says study author Ashkan Afshin of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. Unhealthy diets are "a larger determinant of ill health than either tobacco or high blood pressure," he says. Which countries do best when it comes to diet? Israel, France, Spain and Japan were among the countries with the lowest rates of diet-related disease. The U.S ranked 43rd, and China ranked 140th. It should be noted that there were data gaps for intake of key foods in some countries, so some estimates could be off. "Generally, the countries that have a diet close to the Mediterranean diet, which has higher intake of fruits, vegetables, nuts and healthy oils [including olive oil and omega-3 fatty acids from fish] are the countries where we see the lowest number of [diet-related] deaths," Afshin says. And as we've reported, the Mediterranean pattern of eating is linked to a reduced risk of heart attacks and memory decline. I asked Afshin which ranking surprised him and why. "Mexico is interesting," Afshin told me. The country ranked 57th on the list. On the one hand, people in Mexico consume a lot of whole grain corn tortillas, he says — and whole grains are beneficial. But on the other hand, "Mexico has one of the highest levels of consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages." It's hard to say how the benefits of whole grains may influence the risks of too much sugar, but Afshin says it underscores a problem seen in many countries: The overall pattern of eating could be improved. Of course, there are obstacles to eating well, including access and affordability. As the Trump administration and U.S. lawmakers debate whether able-bodied people who don't work should be entitled to public food assistance, it's clear that many people around the globe struggle to afford healthy foods. And at a time when 800 million people around the globe don't get enough to eat, and 1.9 billion people weigh too much, it's important to remember that hunger and obesity are both forms of malnutrition. And the costs are staggering. Consider a recent report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which notes: "Worldwide, malnutrition costs $3.5 trillion annually, with overweight- and obesity-related noncommunicable diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, adding $2 trillion." Globally, these findings may serve as a reminder that when it comes to ending hunger and improving health, people don't just need food. They need nourishment. If you fill up on a diet of packaged snacks made from refined-carbohydrates and sugary sodas, you may get the calories you need, but those calories will put you on a path toward disease. What would happen if everyone around the globe began to eat a healthy diet, filling three-fourths of their plates with fruits, vegetables and whole grains? We'd run out. Yep, that's right. A recent study published in the journal PLOS One by researchers at the University of Guelph found that there would not be enough fruit and vegetables to go around. "We simply can't all adopt a healthy diet under the current global agriculture system," says study co-author Evan Fraser, director of the Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph. Fraser says we produce too much fat, too much sugar and too many starchy products. So, food companies and farmers play a role, too. "At a global level, we have a mismatch between what we should be eating, and what we're producing," Fraser says. Perhaps that's why the authors of the new Lancet study say their findings point to the need for coordinated, global efforts. Improving diets won't be easy: A range of initiatives may be needed, including nutrition education and increased access to healthy foods, as well as rethinking agricultural production. NewsELA: Stressed-out cats seek comfort in caregivers, new study says Cats don't tend to be the most effusively affectionate animals, but that doesn't mean our feline friends are indifferent to their owners. According to a new study in Current Biology, cats display distinct signs of attachment to their caregivers, much in the way that dogs and human babies do. The team behind the study replicated a test that was developed in the 1970s to measure parent-infant bonds. One part of the original experiment involved placing a mother and baby in an unfamiliar room, where they would stay together for a few minutes, and then the mother would leave. Researchers watched to see how the baby reacted, and what his or her response was upon the mother's return. "Securely attached" babies, according to that experiment, would be distressed when their mother leaves, but easily soothed upon her return. They also used their moms as a "safe base" to explore the unfamiliar environment. Babies with "insecure attachments" were divided into two categories. Those with "insecure-ambivalent attachments" were difficult to soothe when distressed, and exhibited clinginess to the parent. Those with "insecure-avoidant attachments" were not distressed when their moms left the room, and didn't orient themselves to their parent while exploring the unfamiliar environment. This model has been used to assess attachment security in dogs, but lead author Kristyn Vitale, a researcher at Oregon State University's Human-Animal Interaction Lab, and her colleagues were curious as to how cats would fare. So they assembled 79 kittens and had them each spend two minutes in a new space with their owner. Then the owner would leave for two minutes, followed by a two-minute reunion period. Many kittens did show signs of distress — like unhappy vocalizations —when their humans left. The researchers weren't able to classify nine of the kittens, but 70 did seem to fit a distinct attachment style. About 64.3 percent were "securely attached" to their owner, meaning that they appeared less stressed upon the human's return to the room and balanced their time between giving attention to their human and exploring the new space. Around 36 percent of kittens continued to show signs of stress upon their owners' return, and were classified as "insecure"; some clung to their owner and refused to check out the room, leading the researchers to classify them as "ambivalent," while others steered clear of their humans altogether and were classified as "avoidant." Crucially, the proportion of secure-to-insecure cats roughly followed the pattern seen in both children and dogs. Or as Vitale tells Gizmodo's Ed Cara, "The majority of cats are securely attached to their owner and use them as a source of security." These results remained consistent when the researchers tested both kittens that had undergone six-week socialization training, and a group of 38 older cats. "Once an attachment style has been established between the cat and its caregiver, it appears to remain relatively stable over time, even after a training and socialization intervention," Vitale explains. Speaking to Cara, Vitale cautions that the experiment doesn't tell us much about whether cats "like" or "dislike" their owners — only that many seem to look to humans for security when they feel stressed out. Daniel Mills, an expert in veterinary behavioral medicine at the University of Lincoln who was not involved in the research, tells the Guardian's Nicola Davis that it's also hard to know whether the cats' responses were particular to their individual owners, or whether they were simply finding comfort in a human presence. The new study, after all, did not test how the cats responded to a stranger. But as Vitale points out, it would make sense for domesticated cats to have developed attachments to the humans who care for them. "In both dogs and cats, attachment to humans may represent an adaptation of the offspring-caretaker bond," she says. "Attachment is a biologically relevant behavior." And though your cat might not lose its mind when you walk into the room, it could still be bonded to you. "Despite fewer studies [of feline attachments]," the study authors note, "research suggests we may be underestimating cats' socio-cognitive abilities."