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SUNDAY, Jan. 14 (HealthDay News) -- While people estimate that they make about 15 food and beverage decisions each day, they actually make more than 200 such choices, Cornell University researchers say.

Their study, published in the January issue of Environment and Behavior, surveyed 139 Cornell staff and students to estimate how many decisions they make about food each day.

On average, the participants estimated they made about 15 food decisions per day. But, when they answered specific questions about when, what, how much and where they ate, and who made decisions about meals, the participants actually made an average of 221 food-related decisions each day.

"So many food decisions are made on mindless autopilot," Brian Wansink, the John S. Dyson Professor of Marketing and of Applied Economics at Cornell, said in a prepared statement. Wansink said that the problem with making more food decisions than we are aware of is that each decision can be influenced by the environment.

"It's really easier than we think to let small things around us -- plate size, package size, people around us, distractions -- influence these 200-plus decisions, because we are not aware of them in the first place," Wansink said.

Wansink added that, instead of trying to obsess over food decisions, people should change the environment so that it works for them. He offers the following tips to prevent overeating, from his recent book, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think" (Bantam Books):

• Use smaller bowls.
• Avoid eating directly from the package.
• Bank your calories(e.g., skip the appetizer if you want to indulge in dessert).
• Dine next to the slowest eater at the table.
• Eat the foods you love but in smaller portions.
• Pick two of the following: appetizer, drink or dessert.
• Fill half your plate with vegetables, and the other half with protein and starch.
• Keep tempting treats out of sight.
• Sit at least an arm's length away from the buffet table or snack bowl.

More information

The American Academy of Family Physicians has more about healthful eating  .

(HealthDay News) -- Research has shown that excess abdominal fat is a good indicator that you're at higher risk for conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure, the National Dairy Council says.

A waist circumference of greater than 40 for men and 35 for women is cause for concern, the council suggests.

The organization offers these suggestions on how to measure your waist circumference:

• Find the upper hip bone and the top of the right iliac crest, the portion of the pelvic bone at the belt line.
• Wrap a measuring tape around your middle at the level of the belt area at the top of your pelvic bone.
• Breathe out -- don't hold your breath or suck in your stomach.
• Make sure the measuring tape is not too loose or too tight around your middle, and make sure you aren't holding the tape at an angle.

TUESDAY, Jan. 16 (HealthDay News) -- Broccoli and tomato -- two vegetables known to help fight cancer -- are more effective against prostate cancer if they're eaten together as part of a daily diet than if they're eaten alone, a new study with rats suggests.

University of Illinois researchers fed a diet containing 10 percent broccoli powder and 10 percent tomato powder to a group of rats that had been implanted with prostate cancer cells. Other groups of rats received either tomato powder or broccoli powder alone; a supplemental dose of lycopene (the red pigment in tomatoes believed to be an anti-cancer agent); or finasteride, a drug prescribed for men with enlarged prostates. Another group of rats was castrated.

After 22 weeks, the researchers found that the combined tomato/broccoli diet was the most effective at prostate tumor reduction. Of the other treatments, castration was the only one that came close to being as effective.

"When tomatoes and broccoli are eaten together, we see an additive effect. We think it's because different bioactive compounds in each food work on different anti-cancer pathways," study co-author John Erdman, a professor of food science and human nutrition, said in a prepared statement.

"Older men with slow-growing prostate cancer who have chosen watchful waiting over chemotherapy and radiation should seriously consider altering their diets to included more tomatoes and broccoli," added study co-author and doctoral candidate Kirstie Canene-Adams.

"To get these effects, men should consume daily 1.4 cups of raw broccoli and 2.5 cups of fresh tomato, or 1 cup of tomato sauce, or 1/2 cup of tomato paste. I think it's very doable for a man to eat a cup and a half of broccoli per day or to put broccoli on a pizza with 1/2 cup of tomato paste," Canene-Adams said.

The study was published in the Jan. 15 issue of the journal Cancer Research.

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more about cancer prevention.

FRIDAY, Jan. 12 (HealthDay News) -- Genes related to inflammation may be a key to high blood pressure, according to researchers.

High blood pressure, or hypertension, affects almost one in three Americans. And more than half of those who are hypertensive have salt-sensitive hypertension, which means changing the amount of sodium in the diet affects blood pressure.

Researchers at the Medical College of Georgia's (MCG's) Georgia Prevention Institute are looking at how inflammation, which is an immune response, may help translate stress into high blood pressure.

"There is a concept that hypertension is an inflammatory condition," Haidong Zhu, a molecular geneticist at MCG, said in a prepared statement. She believes that stress, inflammation and hypertension are connected by the kidneys' ability to release sodium.

When stress activates the body's fight-or-flight mechanism, the body produces interleukin 6, a pro-inflammatory factor. In addition, stress prompts the body to hold onto sodium to temporarily raise blood pressure so you can deal with the situation, according to George Harshfield, the director of the institute.

Zhu and her colleagues are conducting research to see if mutations in four sets of stress-activated inflammatory genes -- interleukin 6, interleukin 6 receptor, cytokine signal transducer and C-reactive protein -- may cause sodium handling to go awry, causing the stress-induced high blood pressure to persist after the stressful situation has passed.

In their study, the MCG researchers are investigating genetic variations of the four genes in 500 teenagers aged 15 to 19 with normal blood pressure. The teens were put on a four-day diet to regulate their sodium intake, and then they were monitored for a few hours in the laboratory.

Pilot data indicate that black teens with normal blood pressure and a certain variation of the interleukin 6 gene have reduced sodium excretion in their urine following stress. In addition, following stress, circulating levels of interleukin 6 rise and are still up an hour after the stressor is gone.

"Our long-term goal is to be able to identify a subgroup of individuals with a certain genetic profile that has an increased risk of developing high blood pressure in a stressful environment," Zhu said.

The researchers hope that their work may lead to the identification of people who could benefit from targeted therapy, including a low-salt diet, physical activity and possibly anti-inflammatory drugs, Zhu said.

More information

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has more about high blood pressure.