Is sweet potato water the next diet fad?

There’s been the cabbage soup diet, the charcoal cleanse – and we could soon be saying hello to the sweet potato water detox.

It may sound gross, but scientists have discovered that the proteins in the starchy wastewater from the orange carb have helpful slimming properties in them.

Mice were fed a high diet and that contained a sweet potato peptide in their meals for a study conducted by the National Agriculture and Food Research Organisation in Japan.

After 28 days, their levels of fat cholesterol were lower than normal -suggesting the peptide helps activate appetite suppression and control metabolism.

“We throw out huge volumes of wastewater that contains sweet potato proteins,” lead scientist Dr. Koji Ishiguro says.

“We hypothesised that these could affect body weight, fat tissue and other factors. Finding alternative uses for the sweet potato proteins in wastewater could be good for the environment and industry, and also potentially for health.

“We were surprised that SPP reduced the levels of fat molecules in the mice and that it appears to be involved controlling appetite suppression molecules."

However, further studies on humans need to be carried out.

This comes after researchers found another carb helps people lose weight.

In news that’s set to see women everywhere fist pumping their way to the supermarket, a new study says pasta can actually keep your weight steady and help you lose weight.

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Done by Italian researchers (who else?), the study examined 20,000 people and their eating habits, finding that when eaten as part of a healthy Mediterranean diet, pasta is your food friend, not foe.

"As a traditional component of Mediterranean diet, pasta consumption was negatively associated with BMI, waist circumference, and waist-to-hip ratio and with a lower prevalence of overweight and obesity," researchers from the Neuromed Institute found.

So what does the Mediterranean diet involve? Think foods high in complex carbohydrates and fibre such as legumes and rice, plus fish, tomatoes, cheese and olives. Cheese and pasta? You don't need to tell us twice.

That doesn’t mean you can let yourself loose on parmesan loaded Latina Fresh every night though. It’s still a case of eating in moderation and watching your portion sizes.

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