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Trying to cut back on calories by drinking diet soda or flavored sparkling water may not help with weight loss, and some research suggest it may actually lead to weight gain. But why, and what are the alternatives?

Diet, exercise, and sleep work together, and all three can have an effect on our daily well-being and longevity. Sleep impacts our eating patterns, and our eating patterns affect our sleep: lack of quality sleep may make people eat more, and make less healthy food choices, but certain foods contain substances that may enhance sleep.

Research we're watching

Widely considered the healthiest diet for your heart, the Mediterranean diet is rich in plant-based foods and features only small amounts of meat and dairy products. But a variation that includes more green plant foods may be even better for you, a small study suggests.

The study included 294 sedentary, moderately obese people whom researchers randomly divided into three groups. Each received different dietary advice: a standard healthy diet, a low-calorie Mediterranean diet, or a "green" Mediterranean diet. Both Mediterranean diet groups included about a quarter-cup of walnuts daily, and poultry and fish replaced beef and lamb.

Ask the doctors

Q. I eat a lot of shellfish and recently developed gout in my knee. Did my diet cause the condition?

A. As you probably know, gout is a painful form of arthritis that occurs when high levels of a waste product called uric acid build up in the body. It can settle into joints, where it forms sharp crystals that can trigger inflammation, redness, and pain. Your diet may have aggravated the condition, but didn't cause it.

Body mass index is commonly used to assess a person鈥檚 weight status and health risk, but it does not indicate how much fat a person has or how it is distributed throughout the body 鈥� indicators of metabolic health. A recent study analyzed different measures of body shape to determine which are most predictive of premature death.

Losing weight sometimes takes experimentation. If you give a diet your best shot and it doesn't work long term, maybe it wasn't the right one for you, your metabolism, or your situation. Genes, family, your environment 鈥� even your friends 鈥� influence how, why, what, and how much you eat, so don't get too discouraged or beat yourself up because a diet that "worked for everybody" didn't pay off for you. Try another, keeping in mind that almost any diet will help you shed pounds 鈥� at least for a short time.

Here's a look at three common diet approaches.

Stress eating can ruin your weight loss goals 鈥� the key is to find ways to relieve stress without overeating

There is much truth behind the phrase "stress eating." Stress, the hormones it unleashes, and the effects of high-fat, sugary "comfort foods" push people toward overeating. Researchers have linked weight gain to stress, and according to an American Psychological Association survey, about one-fourth of Americans rate their stress level as 8 or more on a 10-point scale.

In the short term, stress can shut down appetite.聽The nervous system sends messages to the adrenal glands atop the kidneys to pump out the hormone epinephrine (also known as adrenaline). Epinephrine helps trigger the body's fight-or-flight response, a revved-up physiological state that temporarily puts eating on hold.

Whittle your waist for better health.

You've probably heard that extra pounds around your middle are bad for your heart. But a new study has found that excess weight in your belly 鈥� a body shape doctors refer to as central adiposity 鈥� may be even worse for women's heart health than men's.

The study, in the March 6 issue of the Journal of the American Heart Association, involved about 500,000 people (55% of them women), ages 40 to 69, in the United Kingdom. The researchers took body measurements of the participants and then kept track of who had heart attacks over the next seven years. During that period, the women who carried more weight around their middles (measured by waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio, or waist-to-height ratio) had a 10% to 20% greater risk of heart attack than women who were just heavier over all (measured by body mass index, or BMI, a calculation of weight in relation to height).