Courtesy POM Wonderful

POM's line of products

First the Federal Trade Commission took on those butt-shaping shoes that were supposed to help you get a Kim Kardashian derriere, now a federal judge has upheld a complaint by the FTC that the healthful claims surrounding POM Wonderful juice products are deceptively unsubstantiated.

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Flickr/ralph and jenny

Margarita

We're reminded that booze and artificially sweetened mixers sometimes can be a problematic combo. The study that figured this out has been around for a while, but it's being given fresh attention thanks to the June edition of the University of California, Berkeley Wellness Letter, which offers news and expert advice from the School of Public Health.

Citing a 2006 Australian study, the "Wellness Made Easy" column warns us of the dangers of consuming alcohol and diet mixers on an empty stomach. The problem is that the fake sweeteners leave the stomach faster than mixers made with regular sugar, allowing the alcohol to be absorbed into the blood more quickly. (In contrast, sugar slows down the absorption of alcohol.) The research suggests that even carbonated, no-calorie mixers like club soda may jump-start the absorption of booze in our bloodstream.

Says the newsletter: "Just one mixed drink containing diet soda may be enough to raise your blood alcohol level beyond the legal limit."

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Flickr/Perry McKenna

corn

We all know corn syrup can make you fat, but dumb too? According to a UCLA study published in the May 15 issue of the Journal of Physiology, regular intake of high fructose, such as that found in corn syrup, can negatively impact memory and learning ability -- in as little as six weeks.

Researchers tested the ability of maze-trained rats to find their way to the finish after having been dosed with corn syrup for six weeks. The rats moved slower and their brains showed a "decline in synaptic activity," said Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, professor of neurosurgery, integrative biology and physiology at UCLA, in a press release.

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Hooters

The search for America's next top bikini-clad waitress is on. The Hooters bus has hit the road to search for its 2013 calendar girls. Its mission: "To provide our customers with something beautiful to look at every single day of the year! We provide over 200 girls in each of our calendars." Over the next three months, two teams of photographers will take more than 20,000 photos, travel to 200-plus cities and photograph at least 600 bikini-clad girls.

The bus will hit Los Angeles from May 14-16. "The photo tour is the most grueling and rewarding part of the year for our team," says Dylan Melcher, the photographer for the calendar. "It is a chance to get out to the local markets and see firsthand the excitement and anticipation of the Hooters Girls as they vie to be featured in the Hooters calendar." The full tour schedule can be found here.

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flickr/geezaweeza

Kitchen fires

Cooking can be dangerous, as anyone who has spent much time in a kitchen can attest. Now consider the hazards of a career surrounded by flames, superheated liquids and sharp objects. So we queried some notable area chefs (Ricardo Zarate! Michael Voltaggio! Eric Greenspan!) for the stories behind their worst kitchen-related injuries. (They also sent us many interesting photos, but we'll spare you those.) Turn the page.

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Boska

Toastabags

It's difficult to decide what to say first about this new product, called Toastabags and created by the Dutch company Boska, a toastable sandwich bag that supposedly simplifies the process of making grilled cheese sandwiches. Because, you know, they're so hard to make already. So maybe we'll just quote @gastropoda, whose tweet was what led us to a discovery of the product in the first place: "One more reason my big fear is reincarnation: Evolving world too inept to grill cheese." Exactly.

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Screenshot of Anthony Bourdain's Twitter page

Flickr/jeffreyw

Pizza, how depressing

Eating commercial baked goods and fast food can make you depressed, according to a new study. Scientists from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and the University of Granada in Spain found that consumers of foods such as doughnuts, croissants, hamburgers, hot dogs and pizza were 51% more likely to develop depression than those who consume little or none.

A dose-response relationship was observed, meaning "the more fast food you consume, the greater the risk of depression," explained Almudena Sánchez-Villegas, lead author of the study, which was published in the journal Public Health Nutrition. However, "Even eating small quantities is linked to a significantly higher chance of developing depression."

The study found that those who eat the most fast food and commercial baked goods are more likely to be single, less active and have poor dietary habits, which include eating less fruit, nuts, fish, vegetables and olive oil. They also tend to smoke and work more than 45 hours per week.

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stu_spivack/Flickr

French fries

Adding to the long list of why trans fats aren't good for you, University of California, San Diego School of Medicine scientists have linked the consumption of dietary trans fatty acids to increases in aggression and irritability. The study, the researchers say, is the first to make the connection.

Researchers analyzed the habits of 945 adult men and women, considering a number of dietary and lifestyle baseline factors to determine whether eating foods high in trans fats affected their moods. Subjects were asked about their history of aggression, conflict resolution methods and "self-rated impatience and irritability" and filled out an "'overt aggression scale that tallies recent aggressive behaviors."

After analyzing the data, lead researcher Dr. Beatrice Golomb and her team found that "greater trans fatty acids were significantly associated with greater aggression, and were more consistently predictive of aggression and irritability, across the measures tested, than the other known aggression predictors that were assessed."

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G. Snyder

Death by Meat

The latest addition to the list of things that can send you to an untimely grave: red meat. A study published yesterday by the Archives of Internal Medicine suggests that eating a single serving of red meat per day may raise the risk of early mortality by as much as 13 percent.

The results of the study were based on 120,000 participants who recorded their lifestyle habits by filling out surveys over a period of several years. Those who consumed red meat regularly tended to have other bad health habits, like smoking, drinking alcohol, being physically inactive and eating fewer fruits and vegetables. Even when those factors were discounted, though, the link between early death and red meat remained.

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