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The Mediterranean diet could be the key to blasting belly fat.

A new study from the Prevención con Dieta Mediterránea-Plus (PREDIMED-Plus) revealed that the Mediterranean diet, partnered with physical activity, can counter aging-related body changes suchh as fat gain and loss of muscle mass.

The study, published in JAMA Network Open on Oct. 18, was designed to determine whether the diet could prevent cardiovascular disease — but in the meantime, a subgroup was evaluated to measure the impact on body composition after a three-year period.

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The results showed that an energy-reduced (lower-calorie) Mediterranean diet and increased physical activity appeared to reduce aging-related weight gain and muscle loss.

A total of 1,521 middle-aged and older participants, who were either overweight or had obesity and metabolic syndrome, were separated into two groups.

The first group followed a Mediterranean diet while reducing their calorie intake by 30% and increasing their physical activity.

The second group followed a Mediterranean diet without calorie restrictions or changes in physical activity.

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The participants in the first group experienced "clinically meaningful" changes in body composition throughout the three-year experiment, according to the researchers.

This included a 5% or greater improvement in fat mass, visceral (belly) fat mass and loss of lean muscle mass after only one year of following the diet.

Fox News Digital reached out to the researchers for comment.

Nutritionist and registered dietitian Ilana Muhlstein, who was not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital that the Mediterranean diet has been "touted for many years as the healthiest diet in the world."

She added, "And while that may be true, it is extremely arbitrary advice for a health professional to deliver to an average person."

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The diet encompasses a "broad array of advice" beyond just emphasizing whole foods, Muhlstein said.

The "great aspects" of the diet include beans, legumes, whole grains, healthy fats, seeds, nuts and fish-centered entrées, the nutritionist said.

An energy-reduced Mediterranean diet differs from the original by incorporating more protein, having less added sugars and containing higher volumes of fresh vegetables or fruit instead of dried fruit.

"Yet the healthiest part of the Mediterranean diet that so many Americans overlook is the absolute obsession with veggies and fresh herbs," Muhlstein said. 

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"These high-volume, nutrient-dense, low-calorie ingredients are the heart and soul of the true Mediterranean diet that sadly get dismissed."

Countries that have a "much better cardiovascular health status compared to America," like Israel or Greece, have an "abundance" of vegetables present at every meal, according to the dietitian.

"These countries don’t just eat vegetables — they celebrate them and would never think to have a meal without them," she said. 

"When they serve dips, like hummus, and tzatziki, they are always accompanied by a tray of sliced cucumbers or a mixed salad." 

She added, "However, in the United States, I see people devour high-calorie Mediterranean delicacies, like pita, shawarma and falafel, with almost no veggies in sight, which misses the point."

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Muhlstein said people in these other countries "tend to live healthier" since they "easily maintain a healthy body weight by filling up on lots of low-starch veggies every single day."

She encouraged Americans to limit the pita bread and fill half of their plates with Mediterranean diet staples like roasted eggplants, pickled turnips and chopped salads.

As far as physical activity is concerned, Muhlstein recommended about 45 minutes of exercise six days a week to align with the "naturally active lifestyles" of people living in the Mediterranean.

Participants in the study were contacted by trained dietitians three times a month throughout the study, which Muhlstein said most likely led to "significantly improving" their relationship with food.

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"Sadly, in America, our view of food has become really unhealthy," she said. 

"We’ve been encouraged to seek carbs and sugar for emotional comfort, and only turn to vegetables if we have to go on a diet."

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She noted, "This is a type of unhealthy mindset that can result [in] poor health and obesity … Giving the participants an opportunity to meet with a dietitian and to regularly and steadily Excellerate their eating behaviors and relationships with food is key for creating results that last."

For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health.

Have a challenging goal ahead? Some anger could help you achieve it, according to new research.

For the study, published recently in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers analyzed the role of anger in different scenarios, including a variety of challenges and a survey. One experiment, for example, focused on participants' completion of word puzzles after being shown images designed to elicit specific emotional responses.  

Across all the experiments, researchers found anger improved the participants' ability to reach challenging goals compared to a neutral emotional condition. In some cases, anger was associated with higher scores or faster response times — while in one experiment, they found, it increased the rate of cheating to win prizes.

Anger did not, however, seem to Excellerate outcomes when the goals were easier instead of challenging. In certain experiments, amusement or desire were also associated with increased goal attainment, but anger was associated with increased success across the board.

"People often believe that a state of happiness is ideal, and the majority of people consider the pursuit of happiness a major life goal," lead author Heather Lench, a professor at Texas A&M University, said in a news release. "The view that positive emotion is ideal for mental health and well-being has been prominent in lay and psychological accounts of emotion, but previous research suggests that a mix of emotions, including negative emotions like anger, result in the best outcomes."

Researchers also analyzed survey data collected from the 2016 and 2020 U.S. presidential elections, where people were asked how angry they'd be if their candidate didn't win. Though it had no effect on who they voted for, those who said they would be angry were more likely to vote in the election. 

"These findings demonstrate that anger increases effort toward attaining a desired goal, frequently resulting in greater success," Lench said.

Nicholette Leanza, a licensed professional clinical counselor with mental health care company LifeStance Health, who was not involved in the study, told CBS News that the findings didn't surprise her. 

"Often with my own clients, I've noticed when they move from being sad about something that didn't happen for them to feeling angry about it, they're more likely to take action to make things better for themselves," she said. "Their anger about the situation is the motivator behind moving them forward."

Alyssa Mairanz, owner and executive director of Empower Your Mind Therapy, who was also not involved in the study, explained how emotions can be strong motivators.

"In Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) we like to look at emotions as neither good nor bad; they are the reality," she says. "In DBT we also talk about emotions having three main functions: Emotions can communicate to and influence others; they can organize and motivate for action, which is what the study showed; and they can be self-validating and indicators of our needs."

While any emotion, including anger, is valid, Mairanz says, they should be used as guidance on how to proceed — but this can be done effectively or ineffectively.

"Impulsively acting on an emotion can lead to negative consequences if we don't act in our best interests," she says. "Anger is an especially risky emotion because it tends to be the one where people act most impulsively. Acting on anger without thought can cause someone to lash out verbally or even physically. Generally, that is not the most effective action in the situation."

Even if anger can help with certain goals, prolonged states or intense bouts of it can be unhealthy for your mind and body. It has also been linked to mental health challenges including depression.

"As we can see from the study, anger can be a motivator. But if a person stays angry for extended periods of time, that is not helpful or healthy at all," Leanza says. "We often say anger turned inward is depression, and we definitely see this when people struggle to manage their anger over long periods of time. So, anger can be positive for short blasts of motivation, but long periods of it can really turn a person toxic."

And because of the connection between brain and body, anger can also impact our physical health.

"Like other emotions, (anger) is accompanied by physiological and biological changes; when you get angry, your heart rate and blood pressure go up, as do the levels of your energy hormones, adrenaline, and noradrenaline," according to the American Psychological Association.

A Slingerlands yoga studio may be able to help Capital Region people who may deal with depression. That’s because new research has found hot yoga can actually be really good for your mental well-being.

Hot yoga can help treat symptoms of depression, according to researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital.

In the study, adults with moderate to severe depression performed 90 minutes of yoga in a 105-degree room at least twice a week for eight weeks. The study found nearly 60% of participants had a 50% or greater reduction in symptoms.

Jai Yoga School in Slingerlands offers different types of classes, which include warm and hot yoga. Jai is the only studio in the Capital Region with infrared heat.

Owner Meg Horan has been practicing yoga for about 20 years. She said the new study doesn’t surprise her.

“There’s a lot of magic to it beyond just doing the physical poses,” Horan said. “Any type of endorphin releasing, physical practice, working out in any way, they focus on the breath, and reassociating with your body, rather than just going through the motions, disassociating with your body, so becoming more mindful and becoming more present and taking the experience as it is, I think it gives people the opportunity to create space and clarity in their life, which helps navigate this crazy world we live in.” 

Click here to learn more about Jai Yoga School, or call 518-496-8382.

Certain types of music can help people feel less pain, according to a new study.

Earlier this week, the study, which was published in the journal Frontiers in Pain Research, highlighted that listening to favorite songs can reduce an individual's perception of pain.

The study gathered 63 healthy young adult participants at the Roy pain laboratory at McGill University in Canada, where researchers used a device to heat an area on their left arm that created a sensation that researchers described as being similar to a hot cup of coffee being held against their skin.

As the device heated their skin, the participants listened to either two of their favorite songs, relaxing music selected for them, scrambled music or silence. As the selected track played, the study participants were then asked to rate the "intensity and unpleasantness" of the pain.

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In their findings, researchers discovered that participants rated the pain as less intense when listening to their favorite tracks, as compared to when they listened to silence or scrambled sounds.

Relaxing music selected for them, meanwhile, did not produce a similar less intense effect, according to the study.

“We can approximate that favorite music reduced pain by about one point on a 10-point scale, which is at least as strong as an over-the-counter painkiller like Advil under the same conditions," Darius Valevicius, one of the study's authors said, per The Guardian.

Valevicius added that emotional or "moving" music may have potentially had "an even stronger effect" on those who participated in the study.

When Adele debuted her 2011 single "Someone Like You," her bittersweet ballad resonated with millions worldwide. More than a decade later, it remains one of her most popular tunes. Her artistry, as well as that of many others who have mastered the art of tugging at our heartstrings with slow and emotional beats, has a way of managing the emotional pain of heartbreak and loss.There is no doubt that music can soothe the soul for some, and it turns out that it could also be a temporary soother for physical pain. Listening to favorite songs could reduce people's perception of pain, according to a new study published Wednesday in the journal Frontiers in Pain Research. And the most effective pain relievers were found to be sad songs detailing bittersweet and emotional experiences."It doesn't take the place of Tylenol when you have a headache, but music can help take the edge off," said Patrick Stroman, a professor of biomedical and molecular sciences at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. He was not involved in the latest study but has conducted his own research on the relationship between pain and music. Unlike other medications, he noted, there is no side effect or risk to listening to music (just keep the volume at a reasonable level).The small study invited 63 young adults to bring two of their favorite songs, and the only requirement was that they needed to be at least 3 minutes and 20 seconds long. One selection represented their favorite music of all time, and the other was the song they would bring with them on a desert island. The researchers also had the young adults pick one of seven songs that the team considered relaxing and were unfamiliar to the study participants. (The seven they could choose from were "Cotton Blues," "Jamaicare," "Légende Celtique," "Musique de Film," "Nuit Cubaine," "Reggae Calédonien" and "Sega Mizik Kèr".)The impact of melancholy songsEach person underwent 7-minute blocks where they were instructed to stare at a monitor screen while listening to their favorite music, one of the seven relaxing instrumental songs (each of which lasted for 6 minutes and 40 seconds), or a scrambled version of both songs and the relaxing song chosen. The scrambled music was a noisy jumble of all three songs, cut into fragments and randomly shuffled so that they lacked their original structure. One 7-minute block had people sitting in silence. All the while, the researchers stuck a hot object — similar to the pain of a boiling hot teacup on your skin — to the participants' left inner forearms.When rating their experiences, people were more likely to report feeling less pain when listening to their favorite songs compared with hearing an unfamiliar relaxing song or silence. The scrambled songs did not reduce pain either, which the authors suggested was evidence of music being more than a distraction from an unpleasant experience.With millions of songs available, one person's favorite song is likely not the same as another. After interviewing the participants about the song they brought and their rating of pain, the researchers found people who listened to bittersweet and moving songs felt less pain than when they listened to songs with calming or cheerful themes."It's a very cool result," said lead study author Darius Valevicius, a doctoral student of neurosciences at the University of Montreal. "I think it's something that myself and probably many people intuitively pick up on why we listen to bittersweet, melancholic or even spiritual music."Frisson-inducing music may modulate painPeople who listened to bittersweet songs also reported more chills — the thrill and shivers you get on your skin from listening to pleasurable music. This sensation was associated with lower ratings of unpleasantness elicited by the burning pain they felt in the experiment. While not thoroughly studied here, Valevicius said he thought those musical chills could be causing these pain-blocking effects.While he didn't research chills in this study, Valevicius hypothesized that these sensations might be signs of sensory gating. To prevent overloading the brain with every stimulus around a person, the brain filters out any it considers redundant or irrelevant. In this case, the brain might be tuning into the music and filtering out some messages of incoming pain. While our bodies still feel the pain, the messages to make our conscious mind perceive the pain may not be relayed. Your brain on music is likely tapping into the body's built-in system for regulating pain, Stroman said. The body's ability to engage emotions and feelings helps to gauge how important the pain is at that moment. Stroman and his research team recently used brain imaging to capture what goes on in the central nervous system when people are exposed to pain while listening to music. The researchers observed music-altering brain connectivity across multiple brain regions involved in pain, memory and processing subjective emotional states."When people are listening to music they enjoy, by our measurements it can reduce the pain that we're feeling by 10%," he said. Stroman cautioned, however, that this behavior is not enough of an analgesic to avoid medication or medical services.Still, there is nothing wrong with picking a more upbeat song if that is your preference. Music provides many other health benefits, including stress reduction and a good night's sleep. Valevicius said he has embraced this balm, stating "I definitely have let myself indulge a little more in listening to music."

Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes

ATLANTA — When Adele debuted her 2011 single "Someone Like You," her bittersweet ballad resonated with millions worldwide. More than a decade later, it remains one of her most popular tunes. Her artistry, as well as that of many others who have mastered the art of tugging at our heartstrings with slow and emotional beats, has a way of managing the emotional pain of heartbreak and loss.

There is no doubt that music can sooth the soul for some, and it turns out that it could also be a temporary soother for physical pain. Listening to favorite songs could reduce people's perception of pain, according to a new study published Wednesday in the journal Frontiers in Pain Research.

The most effective pain relievers were found to be sad songs detailing bittersweet and emotional experiences.

"It doesn't take the place of Tylenol when you have a headache, but music can help take the edge off," said Patrick Stroman, a professor of biomedical and molecular sciences at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada.

Stroman was not involved in the latest study but has conducted his own research on the relationship between pain and music. He noted that, unlike other medications, there is no side effect or risk to listening to music (at appropriate volumes).

The impact of melancholy songs

Each participant in the study underwent seven-minute blocks where they were instructed to stare at a monitor screen while listening to their favorite music, one of seven relaxing instrumental songs, each of which lasted for six minutes and 40 seconds, or a scrambled version of both songs and the relaxing song chosen.

The scrambled music was a noisy jumble of all three songs, cut into fragments and randomly shuffled so that they lacked their original structure. One seven-minute block had people sitting in silence. All the while, the researchers stuck a hot object — similar to the pain of a boiling hot teacup on your skin — to the participants' left inner forearms.

When rating their experiences, people were more likely to report feeling less pain when listening to their favorite songs compared with hearing the unfamiliar relaxing song or silence. The scrambled songs did not reduce pain either, which the authors suggested was evidence of music being more than a distraction from an unpleasant experience.

After interviewing the participants about the song they brought and their rating of pain, the researchers found people who listened to bittersweet and moving songs felt less pain than when they listened to songs with calming or cheerful themes.

"It's a very cool result," said lead study author Darius Valevicius, a doctoral student of neurosciences at the University of Montreal. "I think it's something that myself and probably many people intuitively pick up on why we listen to bittersweet, melancholic or even spiritual music."

Chills-inducing music may modulate pain

People who listened to bittersweet songs also reported more chills — the thrill and shivers you get on your skin from listening to pleasurable music. This sensation was associated with lower ratings of unpleasantness elicited by the burning pain they felt in the experiment. While not thoroughly studied here, Valevicius said he thought those musical chills could be causing these pain-blocking effects.

While he didn't research chills in this study, Valevicius hypothesized that these sensations might be signs of sensory gating. To prevent overloading the brain with every stimulus around a person, the brain filters out any it considers redundant or irrelevant. In this case, the brain might be tuning into the music and filtering out some messages of incoming pain.

While our bodies still feel the pain, the messages to make our conscious mind perceive the pain may not be relayed.

Your brain on music is likely tapping into the body's built-in system for regulating pain, Stroman said. The body's ability to engage emotions and feelings helps to gauge how important the pain is at that moment.

Stroman and his research team recently used brain imaging to capture what goes on in the central nervous system when people are exposed to pain while listening to music. The researchers observed music-altering brain connectivity across multiple brain regions involved in pain, memory and processing subjective emotional states.

"When people are listening to music they enjoy, by our measurements it can reduce the pain that we're feeling by 10%," he said. Stroman cautioned, however, that this behavior is not enough of an analgesic to avoid medication or medical services.

Still, there is nothing wrong with picking a more upbeat song if that is your preference. Music provides many other health benefits, including stress reduction and a good night's sleep. Valevicius said he has embraced this balm, stating "I definitely have let myself indulge a little more in listening to music."

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