A new study from the School of Nursing at the University of Texas/Austin finds that women who eat out frequently tend to consume more calories and fat when dining out, no matter how they usually eat at home.

This pattern held constant for women classified as binge eaters and dieters. Both groups, who ate out at least seven of the 14 days of the study, were found to eat an extra 200-300 calories per day on the days they ate out.

If you ate out 26 weeks of the year, that would translate to about a 12-13 pound weight gain, every year. (And keep in mind, the more you weigh, the more you eat to maintain that weight, so the weight gain might be 13 pounds the first year, and 15 the next, and so on).

Even in those women who skipped dessert, they consumed extra drinks or appetizers or more of their main meal, which translated to 200-300 more calories and about 16 grams more fat per meal.

Weight gain and fatty foods both can have negative impact on your skin. Gaining weight may lead to stretch marks, breakdown of the skin, and cellulite.

Eating a lot of fatty foods tends to mean you aren’t getting enough of the other vitamins and minerals your body and skin may need to perform at their best. Also, eating a high fat diet can decrease blood circulation, leading to dull skin, or skin which is oily or begins to break out (along with other medical problems).

A good rule of thumb may be to limit your eating out and to better manage your food choices when you do. Stick with an exercise program, as this can help keep your weight in check. Weight management is an ongoing challenge for all of us, especially when dining out.

Smokers admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) who receive nicotine replacement therapy during their hospitalization had a higher risk of death compared to smokers in the same conditions who did not receive nicotine replacement therapy (NRT).

These findings were presented by the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) at their recent annual international scientific meeting.

For some critically ill patients, nicotine withdrawal can worsen their prognosis; therefore, NRT is often given to active smokers in the ICU to prevent nicotine withdrawal symptoms.

Nicotine is known to increase heart rate, to increase body-wide arterial blood pressure, and to lead to constriction of the coronary arteries. These effects do not seem to worsen the outcome for healthy volunteers or those with stable coronary artery disease, but are harmful to critically ill patients.

In this study, the records of 112 patients were reviewed. After controlling for factors like age, ethnicity, gender, and severity of illness, patients who had been given NRT in the ICU were about 6x more likely to die compared to those who did not receive NRT.

This is a complex issue, because nicotine withdrawal symptoms may lead to problems with patient management, but treating the nicotine withdrawal symptoms using NRT may have even worse outcomes. The search continues for a new solution to manage this life and death issue.