THURSDAY, June 19 (HealthDay News) -- Starting your day with a large meal packed with both carbohydrates and lean protein, and even a small piece of chocolate, can help lessen cravings and hunger the rest of the day, which can lead to significant weight loss, new research suggests.

Presented at this week's Endocrine Society annual meeting, in San Francisco, the new research found that sedentary, obese women lost almost five times as much weight on the "big breakfast" diet as did women following a traditional, restrictive low-carbohydrate diet.

"We treat obese people by telling them to eat less and exercise more, but that does not take into account feelings of carb cravings and hunger. We have to change our approach and find a diet that can control cravings and hunger," said the study's lead author, Dr. Daniela Jakubowicz, a clinical professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and an endocrinologist at the Hospital de Clinicas Caracas in Venezuela.

Jakubowicz explained that when you wake in the morning, your body is primed to look for food. Your metabolism is revved up, and levels of cortisol and adrenaline are at their highest. Your brain needs energy right away, and if you don't eat or you eat too little, the brain needs to find another fuel source. To do this, it activates an emergency system that pulls energy from muscle, destroying muscle tissue in the process. Then when you eat later, the body and brain are still in high-alert mode, so the body saves energy from the food as fat, she said.

Compounding the problem, your levels of the brain chemical serotonin are highest in the morning, which means your craving levels are at the lowest when you first wake up, and you may not feel much like eating, Jakubowicz said. But, as the day wears on, serotonin levels dip, and you get cravings for chocolate or cookies, and the like. If you eat these foods, your serotonin levels rise, and your body begins to associate good feelings with them, creating an addictive cycle, she said.

To combat both the addiction cycle and the hunger that inevitably seems to come with calorie reduction, Jakubowicz and her colleagues designed the "big breakfast" diet. In this eating plan, your breakfast accounts for roughly half of your daily calories, and breakfast includes milk, 3 ounces of lean meat, two slices of cheese, two whole grain servings, one fat serving and one ounce of milk chocolate or candy.

The high protein, carbohydrate mix gives the body the initial energy boost it needs in the morning. Throughout the rest of the day, the meals are made up of protein and complex carbohydrates, like vegetables. Because protein is digested slowly, Jakubowicz said, you won't feel hungry.

And, she said, by having a small piece of chocolate or candy when serotonin levels are high, it won't taste as good, and the brain won't feel the same serotonin boost, which will eventually help cut down on cravings.

In the study of 94 obese, sedentary women with metabolic syndrome, half were told to eat the big breakfast diet containing about 1,240 calories, while the other half ate a 1,085 calorie high-protein, low carbohydrate diet for eight months.

At the end of the eight months, those on the more restrictive low-carb diet lost an average of almost 9 pounds. But those on the big breakfast diet lost nearly 40 pounds. That translated to an average body mass loss of 4.5 percent for those on the low-carb diet and a 21.3 percent average loss for those on the big breakfast plan.

Additionally, those on the big breakfast plan reported feeling less hungry and had fewer carbohydrate cravings.

Nutritionist Geri Brewster, a wellness consultant at Northern Westchester Hospital Center in Mount Kisco, N.Y., said she already recommends a large, well-balanced breakfast to all of her clients, because it helps to keep blood sugar levels stable.

She said if you eat a traditional breakfast, something like cereal or a doughnut, your blood sugar and insulin levels spike. Once that blood sugar is used up, you'll still have excess insulin circulating, which makes you hungry and makes you crave carbohydrates.

A second study presented at the meeting reinforced the idea that biological changes occur when you carry excess weight, Brewster said. This study found that women who are overweight don't experience a drop in leptin levels after exercise like lean women do.

Leptin is a hormone that plays a role in appetite regulation and metabolism. Brewster said she wasn't surprised by these findings, because once the body is overweight, it tries to maintain that size. "Fat cells become mini-endocrine systems themselves to maintain obesity," she said, and keeping leptin levels elevated is likely one way the body does that.

More information

Learn more about weight loss from the U.S. National Women's Health Information Center.

FRIDAY, June 13 (HealthDay News) -- Consuming fish and other foods that contain omega-3 fatty acids may reduce the risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of severe vision loss in elderly people.

Australian researchers reviewed nine published studies that included a total of 88,974 participants, including 3,203 people with AMD. The combined findings from the studies suggest that a high dietary intake of omega-3 fatty acids is associated with a 38 percent reduced risk of late (advanced) AMD, and that eating fish twice a week is associated with a reduced risk of both early and late AMD.

The study was published in the June issue of the journal Archives of Ophthalmology.

The University of Melbourne researchers noted that long-chain omega-3 fatty acids form an integral part of the layer of nerve cells in the retina. Outer cells of the retina are continually shed and regenerated. Because of this, deficiencies in omega-3 fatty acids may cause AMD.

"A diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids and fish, as a proxy for long-chain omega-3 fatty acid intake, has therefore been hypothesized as a means to prevent AMD," the researchers wrote.

While they did find an association between omega-3 fatty acid intake and reduced risk of AMD, they didn't go so far as to recommend regular consumption of omega-3 fatty acids to ward off AMD.

"Although this meta-analysis suggests that consumption of fish and food rich in omega-3 fatty acids may be associated with a lower risk of AMD, there is insufficient evidence from the current literature, with few prospective studies and no randomized clinical trials, to support their routine consumption for AMD," the researchers concluded.

More information

The National Eye Institute has more about age-related macular degeneration.

THURSDAY, June 12 (HealthDay News) -- Consumers should not consume raw (unpasteurized) milk or raw milk products because of the risk of E. coli O157:H7 and other infections, warn researchers who studied a number of cases involving children in California.

In September 2006, the California Department of Public Health was notified that two children had been hospitalized with hemolytic uremic syndrome, one of the most common causes of sudden, short-term kidney failure in children. Both children had consumed raw milk in the week before they became ill. One of the children was confirmed to have E. coli O157:H7 infection.

In the following three weeks, four more cases of E. coli O157:H7 infection were identified in children who'd consumed raw cow milk or raw cow colostrum produced by the same dairy.

The findings were published in Friday's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a publication of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

From 1998 to May 2005, raw milk or raw milk products were implicated in 45 food-borne illness outbreaks that resulted in more than 1,000 cases of illness in the United States, according to the CDC.

Because illnesses caused by raw milk continue to occur, additional efforts are needed to educate consumers and farmers about this issue, the study authors said.

More information

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has more about milk safety.

WEDNESDAY, April 9 (HealthDay News) -- Scrubbing the tub and other forms of housework may clean your house and boost your mood.

In fact, as little as 20 minutes of any kind of physical activity a week helped mental health, although the more vigorous the activity, the greater the benefit, said the authors of a study published online Thursday in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

"There's such a pervasive feeling in this country that, if there's a problem, there's always a pill to fix it," said Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, director of Women and Heart Disease at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "This study is just reminding us that it doesn't take much to actually have an effect even on your mood."

The physical benefits of exercise are well known: It reduces the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and even some cancers, among other things.

The mental benefits are less clear, although exercise is thought to improve blood flow and reduce inflammation, which have been related to depression and dementia. Exercise might also improve mood by reducing stress levels.

"It's pretty clear that physical activity does have some kind of positive relationship to good mental health," said Dr. Jane Ripperger-Suhler, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and a psychiatrist with Scott & White Mental Health Center in Temple. "They [the study authors] are trying to figure out how much you need to do."

For the new study, almost 20,000 men and women participating in the 1995, 1998 and 2003 Scottish Health Surveys answered questionnaires about physical activity and "psychological distress."

Daily physical activity of any kind -- including housework, gardening, walking, and sports -- was associated with a 41 percent lower risk of psychological distress. But sports reduced the risk of mood lows the most -- by 33 percent.

And just in case women are thinking this study is a ploy to engage in more housework, think again. The study showed that more sports and overall activity increased your mood even more, but extra mopping and scrubbing didn't.

"The message is do a little bit of housework and a lot of sports," Ripperger-Suhler said.

According to the study authors, from University College London, this appears to be the first research to look at different specific activities in relation to mental health. The study wasn't designed to look at a cause-and-effect relationship, only that a relationship exists.

More information

The American Heart Association   has more on mental health and physical activity.