Dr. J Won’t See You Now – Part 2
5 years ago
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
11 Healthy Foods Not Usually Found In Our Diets
1. Beets: Think of beets as red spinach, Dr. Bowden said, because they are a rich source of folate as well as natural red pigments that may be cancer fighters.
An interesting list from the NYT a few weeks ago on twelve healthy foods not normally found in the American diet.
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Here is the list from the NYT:
How to eat: Fresh, raw and grated to make a salad. Heating decreases the antioxidant power.
2. Cabbage: Loaded with nutrients like sulforaphane, a chemical said to boost cancer-fighting enzymes.
How to eat: Asian-style slaw or as a crunchy topping on burgers and sandwiches.
3. Swiss chard: A leafy green vegetable packed with carotenoids that protect aging eyes.
How to eat it: Chop and saute in olive oil.
4. Cinnamon: May help control blood sugar and cholesterol.
How to eat it: Sprinkle on coffee or oatmeal.
5. Pomegranate juice: Appears to lower blood pressure and loaded with antioxidants.
How to eat: Just drink it.
6. Dried plums: Okay, so they are really prunes, but they are packed with antioxidants.
How to eat: Wrapped in prosciutto and baked.
7. Pumpkin seeds: The most nutritious part of the pumpkin and packed with magnesium; high levels of the mineral are associated with lower risk for early death.
How to eat: Roasted as a snack, or sprinkled on salad.
8. Sardines: Dr. Bowden calls them “health food in a can.'’ They are high in omega-3’s, contain virtually no mercury and are loaded with calcium. They also contain iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, copper and manganese as well as a full complement of B vitamins.
How to eat: Choose sardines packed in olive or sardine oil. Eat plain, mixed with salad, on toast, or mashed with dijon mustard and onions as a spread.
9. Turmeric: The “superstar of spices,'’ it may have anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties.
How to eat: Mix with scrambled eggs or in any vegetable dish.
10. Frozen blueberries: Even though freezing can degrade some of the nutrients in fruits and vegetables, frozen blueberries are available year-round and don’t spoil; associated with better memory in animal studies.
How to eat: Blended with yogurt or chocolate soy milk and sprinkled with crushed almonds.
11. Canned pumpkin: A low-calorie vegetable that is high in fiber and immune-stimulating vitamin A; fills you up on very few calories.
How to eat: Mix with a little butter, cinnamon and nutmeg.
Declining Activity Levels & Childhood Obesity
A disturbing new study is coming out about kids and their exercise habits. The bottom line: As kids grow from pre-pubescence into teens, their rate of exercise declines sharply. Read the entire article. Parents today face a problem unique in the human experience. Forcing kids to get outside and play is not something one finds as an issue in the written record. It can be done, but it is going to take a lot of work.
Our bodies were built to hunt and gather, to be active. But in the digital age, with more kids playing World of Warcraft than playing basketball or training in tae kwon do, etc., we are witnessing the emergence of a huge nationwide problem. The "gamers" are packing on the pounds. How bad is it? The American Academy of Pediatrics' recommendation issued on July 7, are that some children, as young as 8, be put on cholesterol medicine and receive lipid screening to help fight heart disease. Its bad.
The problem, while somewhat attributable to diet, is likely far more attributable to declines in physical activity. Indeed, as the post below on the health of the Masai tribesman indicates, physical activity can erase a bad diet. But a new study shows that kids across the nation and across all cultural and socio-economic divides are showing a precipitous decline in physical activity.
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This from ABC News:
The findings are revealed in the Journal of the American Medical Association that comes out Wednesday. Dr. Philip Nader, professor emeritus of pediatrics at the University of California-San Diego, conducted the comprehensive study, which followed more than 1,000 children for six years.
"What shocked me was the sharp decline in activity," Nader said. The study monitored the habits of the same children from different parts of the country, with different family incomes and different races.
At 9 years old, the kids got about three hours of moderate to vigorous physical activity a day from activities like bike riding, tag or basketball.
However, by the time the kids turned 15, their activity had dropped down to about 49 minutes a day. On the weekends, it was even worse -- kids got about 35 minutes a day.
Researchers estimated that kids' physical activity declined about 40 minutes per day, each year until age 15, when activity fell far below the recommended level.
The Department of Health and Human Service's Dietary Guidelines for Americans suggest that children and adolescents get a minimum of 60 minutes of physical activity, seven days a week.
. . . What makes this study so compelling is how the kids' activities were tracked.
For a full week when the kids were 9, 11, 13, and 15 years old, they wore a computerized device on their belt, called an accelerometer, which measured their movement. The tool gave researchers an accurate view of how kids move and exercise.
The study also found that activity declined for all children across the board, regardless of where they lived, what their family income was or their race. This overarching trend of increasing inactivity points to the raised risk of obesity and heart disease facing America's children.
Nader's findings underscore changes in how children socialize in a digital age. Children spend more time at the computer and television screen, playing video games, than on the street shooting hoops.
"Here's the first time that we have a large group of kids, and it's the same kids from age 9 to 15," Nader said. "So, we are really seeing a culture and a societal decline in activity with age."
The cultural decline in activity that Nader's study identified has much wider implications. The eventual cost is more kids growing into unhealthy adults.
The study's authors called for greater governmental action and programs, beginning at the local level and within the schools, to encourage physical activity within this extremely inactive age group.
Nader also encouraged families to take their own steps to support exercise and general activity in their children and teens.
Monday, July 21, 2008
The Masi - Staying Slim & In Good Health On A High Animal Fat Diet & Active Lifestyle
Scientists have long been puzzled by how the Masai can avoid cardiovascular disease despite having a diet rich in animal fats. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet believe that their secret is in their regular walking. Read the entire article.
The Masi Tribe have a diet very rich in animal fats and deficient in carbohydrates. Yet the average Masi tribesperson is lean, free of cardiovascular disease and has a good blood lipid profile. The reason is not genetics, its an active lifestyle. The Masi walk . . . and walk, and walk and walk averaging 13.22 miles a day. The study does not say, but I wonder what the Omega 3,6,9 ratio is of the animals the Masai consume. If I recall correctly, our animals raised on something of an unnatural diet of grains tend to have a lipid profile weighted toward Omega 6 and that, in the West, the ratios have gotten vastly out of sync. Unfortunately, the study does not address this issue.
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This from Science Daily:
There is strong evidence that the high consumption of animal fats increases the risk of developing cardiovascular disease. Many scientists have therefore been surprised that the nomadic Masai of Kenya and Tanzania are seldom afflicted by the disease, despite having a diet that is rich in animal fats and deficient in carbohydrates.
This fact, which has been known to scientists for 40 years, has raised speculations that the Masai are genetically protected from cardiovascular disease. Now, a unique study by Dr Julia Mbalilaki in association with colleagues from Norway and Tanzania, suggests that the reason is more likely to be the Masai’s active lifestyle.
Their results are based on examinations of the lifestyles, diets and cardiovascular risk factors of 985 middle-aged men and women in Tanzania, 130 of who were Masai, 371 farmers and 484 urbanites. In line with previous studies, their results show that the Masai not only have a diet richer in animal fat than that of the other subjects, but also run the lowest cardiovascular risk, which is to say that they have the lowest body weights, waist-measurements and blood pressure, combined with a healthy blood lipid profile.
What sets the Masai lifestyle apart is also a very high degree of physical activity. The Masai studied expended 2,500 kilocalories a day more than the basic requirement, compared with 1,500 kilocalories a day for the farmers and 891 kilocalories a day for the urbanites. According to the team, most Westerners would have to walk roughly 20 km a day to achieve the Masai level of energy expenditure.
The scientists believe that the Masai are protected by their high physical activity rather than by some unknown genetic factor.
“This is the first time that cardiovascular risk factors have been fully studied in the Masai,” says Dr Mbalilaki. “Bearing in mind the vast amount of walking they do, it no longer seems strange that the Masai have low waist-measurements and good blood lipid profiles, despite the levels of animal fat in their food.”
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Move Over Gatorade
Chocolate milk has scored a valuable spot on and off the court. Studies suggest the unique mix of key nutrients in chocolate milk can help refuel and rehydrate your body after exercise, making it an ideal post-exercise choice. Read the entire article.
The big new sports drink is . . . chocolate milk? Given that the person pushing this is the head Olympic strength coach at the University of Minnesota, this rather strange idea merits some attention.
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This from the Carolina Coast Online:
"Athletes who choose chocolate milk can help benefit their body and their training," says Cal Dietz, head Olympic strength coach at the University of Minnesota. "That's why coaches are increasingly encouraging teen-athletes to drink lowfat chocolate milk to help replenish muscles after practice. Researchers theorize the ratio of carbohydrates and protein in chocolate milk helps muscles recover. Plus, it tastes good and provides nine essential nutrients like calcium, vitamin D, and potassium - nutrients especially important for teen diets."
Scientists have evaluated chocolate milk as a post-exercise drink and have identified several reasons why it may be an effective recovery aid: chocolate milk contains a combination of carbohydrates and protein to help replenish exhausted muscles after exercise, and it provides fluids and electrolytes such as potassium to assist with rehydration.
Additionally, chocolate milk has high-quality protein that helps build lean muscle when combined with exercise and the added bonus of providing additional nutrients not found in most traditional sports drinks. Milk contains nine essential nutrients, including calcium and vitamin D to maintain bone strength, and high-quality protein that along with exercise helps build muscle. Just three 8-ounce glasses of lowfat or fat-free milk provides about half of the protein teenagers of all fitness levels need each day. . . .
Six Diet Myths - & Corey Everson
MSNBC posts on the "six myths" associated with carbohydrates and weight loss. Most are well known but bear repeating, such as the myth that "all natural" means "healthy," that "low fat" means that the food is acceptable for dieting, or that weight training for woment will make them "bulk up." The only one that I had not heard before was the myth that fiber cancels out calories. This sounds like a misperception growing out the diet plan from Weight Watcher's that subtracts fiber from total carbs in evaluating what one eats. Myth: Fiber cancels out calories In general, high fiber foods like whole grains, beans, fruits and vegetables tend to be lower in calories and healthier for you. Fiber contributes to satiety (feeling full) and keeps the GI tract running smoothly. However, adding wheat germ and walnuts to your hot fudge sundae or beef and cheese to your three-bean chili will not cancel out the hundred of calories or the bad saturated fat! Shoot for 20-30 grams of fiber a day. Most of us only get about 15 grams. . . . The truth is “all-natural” foods can still be high in bad saturated fat, sugar, sodium and calories and low in fiber, vitamins, minerals, photochemicals and antioxidants. . . . It's a myth that the food stays in your stomach all night and then turns immediately to fat. Your body does not turn off when you go to bed. There is no magic time of day that your body starts storing fat and stops digesting food. . . . The hazards of late-night eating include being starving by the time you eat dinner and overeating . . . Sodas and low fat ice cream are “low” or “no” fat but they can still cram in a lot of calories. Low-fat peanut butter has the same number of calories as the regular version because the healthy fats were removed, and sugar added. The no-fat cookie craze still has people believing they can eat a whole box of cookies and not worry about calories. Of course this is not true. We need to keep an eye on how much of everything we eat, even if it is low-fat or healthy. . . . Carbohydrates are the primary and preferred source of energy for your working muscles and brain. Choose whole grains like whole wheat breads and pastas, beans, fruits and vegetables to fill your fuel tank. If you go low on carbs you will not be feeling very energetic or alert. Women like cardio because we want to burn fat. Unless women are engaging in heavy-duty weight lifting it is doubtful that bulking up will be a problem. With the right amount of weight and strength training exercises you’ll tone and strengthen. Men can bulk up with proper training but that is in part due to their much higher levels of the hormone testosterone. Read the entire article. As to that last one . . . Corey Everson would seem to be living proof of precisely what weight training can do for women . . .
This from MSNBC:
Myth: All-natural means it’s healthy
Myth: Eating late at night is bad
Myth: Low fat means you can eat as much as you want
Because of low-fat trends, people have become fearful of fats. But healthy fats that come from plants like olive, canola, walnut and peanut oils and fish are good for you. They are necessary for a healthy heart, immune system and brain function and help satisfy your taste buds.
Myth: Carbs make you fat
Myth: Women who weight train will become bulky
In addition, as we get age we lose muscle mass and gain fat. Strength training helps stave off the aging process by helping us stay fit, lean and strong.
Israeli Study: Low Fat Diet Is The Least Healthy & Effective
. . . In the two-year study, 322 moderately obese people were intensively monitored and were randomly assigned one of three diets: a low-fat, calorie-restricted diet; a Mediterranean calorie-restricted diet with the highest level of dietary fiber and monounsaturated/saturated fat; or a low-carbohydrate diet with the least amount of carbohydrates, highest fat, protein, and dietary cholesterol. The low-carb dieters had no caloric intake restrictions. Read the entire article.
The statue above is the Venus of Willendorf. It is 30,000 years old, predating the written record by some 20 millenium. But it is an anatomically correct statue of an obese woman, thus letting us know that the problem of obesity has been with us for a long time - and apparently was possible even on a hunter gatherer diet.
"Low Fat" diets have been a fad for years and companies have been cashing in on "low fat" foods of all stripes. But fat plays a critical role in depressing appetite and the proper mix of fats (omegas 3, 6 and 9) plays a crucial role in long term health. At any rate, it is no surprise to learn today that a two year study of 322 people by researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has found that the "Mediterranian" Diet and the low carb diet, both of which are moderately high in fats, are safer and more effective at creating sustained weight loss than the low fat diet typically recommended by physicians.
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This from an article on the study:
Although participants actually decreased their total daily calories consumed by a similar amount, net weight loss from the low-fat diet after two years was only 6.5 lbs. (2.9 kg) compared to 10 lbs. (4.4 kg) on the Mediterranean diet, and 10.3 lbs. (4.7 kg) on the low-carbohydrate diet. "These weight reduction rates are comparable to results from physician-prescribed weight loss medications," explains Dr. Iris Shai, the lead researcher.
The low-fat diet reduced the total cholesterol to HDL ratio by only 12 percent, while the low-carbohydrate diet improved the same ratio by 20 percent. Lipids improved the most in the low-carbohydrate, with a 20% increase in the HDL ("good") cholesterol and, 14% decrease in triglycerides. In all three diets, inflammatory and liver function biomarkers was equally improved. However, among diabetic participants, the standard low-fat diet actually increased the fasting glucose levels by 12mg/dL, while the Mediterranean diet induced a decrease in fasting glucose levels by 33mg/dL.
In addition to the findings, this two-year study is also significant because of the relatively large number of participants coupled with a low drop-out rate – 95 percent were in the study after one year and 85 percent were still participating after the second.
Dr. Iris Shai is a researcher at the S. Daniel Abraham International Center for Health and Nutrition in the Department of Epidemiology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She conceived the study with Dr. Stampfer, the senior author, while she was a Fulbright fellow at Harvard School of Public Health and Channing Laboratory in Boston, Massachusetts.
. . . "Clearly, there is not one diet that is ideal for everyone," Shai concludes. "We believe that this study will open clinical medicine to considering low-carb and Mediterranean diets as safe effective alternatives for patients, based on personal preference and the medical goals set for such intervention. Furthermore, the improvement in levels of some biomarkers continued until the 24-month point, although maximum weight loss was achieved by 6 months. This suggests that healthy diet has beneficial effects beyond weight loss."
Cross posted from Wolf Howling
Healty Diets & The Israeli Study
Healthy diets will improve health, even if resulting in only a modest sustained weight loss, according to the NYT analysis of the recent Israeli study of three different diets - low fat, Mediterranean, and low carb - over a two year period. Further, the study is of note because the vast majority of people who started the study completed it - something which the plans authors attribute to diet restrictions that were modest at inception and did not vary throughout the study. In a tightly controlled dieting experiment, obese people lost an average of just 6 to 10 pounds over two years. Read the entire article.
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This from the NYT:
The study, published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine, was supposed to determine which of three types of diets works best. Instead, the results highlight the difficulty of weight loss and the fact that most diets do not work well.
The researchers followed 322 dieters, 277 men and 45 women. The dieters were assigned to follow one of three types of diets — a diet with about 30 percent fat, based on American Heart Association guidelines; a Mediterranean diet; and a low-carbohydrate diet based on the Atkins diet plan. The study was partly financed by the Atkins Research Foundation.
The trial was conducted at the Nuclear Research Center in Dimona, Israel, an isolated workplace that has its own medical department.
In addition to regular meetings and telephone calls with dietitians for the participants, the plan included nutrition counseling for spouses and a revamping of the food served in the center’s cafeteria.
Because the center is in an isolated area, the dieters consistently ate lunch, the largest meal of the day, in the company cafeteria, where food was color-coded to help dieters comply with their eating plan.
The biggest weight loss happened in the first five months of the diet — low-fat and Mediterranean dieters lost about 10 pounds, and low-carbohydrate dieters lost 14 pounds.
By the end of two years, all the dieters had regained some, but not all, of the lost weight. The low-fat dieters showed a net loss of six pounds, and the Mediterranean and low-carbohydrate dieters both lost about 10 pounds.
Researchers said the results sound modest, but they said the small weight loss had resulted in improvements in cholesterol and other health markers.
“In order to keep participants on the diet for long term as a way of life, we did not impose extreme diet protocols,” said Iris Shai, the study’s lead author and a registered dietitian at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev at the S. Daniel Abraham International Center for Health and Nutrition. “More dramatic diet protocols could probably reduce more weight for the short term, but participants would have dropped out.”
There were subtle differences in the three diets studied. Men did better on the low-carbohydrate diets, losing 11 pounds compared with about 9 pounds for the Mediterranean diet.
Women fared best on the Mediterranean diet, losing about 14 pounds compared with about 5 pounds on the low-carbohydrate plan.
For all dieters, there were improvements in the ratios of good to bad cholesterol.
“This suggests that healthy diet has beneficial effects beyond weight loss,” Ms. Shai said.
As an aside, it seems apparent that significant weight loss cannot be sustained, irrespective of diet, unless accompanied by at least an hour a day of excercise of sufficient rigor to get the endorphins pumping. That seems to be borne out by an analysis done at the National Weight Control Registry of people who have lost significant amounts of their bodyweight and then have kept it off. Over 90% of these people maintain a robust exercise regime of over an hour per day.
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