How to Improve Restrictive Diets with A Few Tweaks – Atkins, Ornish, Vegan

I’m not a big fan of low-carbohydrate diets, or most other restrictive diets for that matter. For one thing I’ve been doing hard exercise since I was 10 years old and I’m not about to stop anytime soon. You need optimal quantities of carbohydrates and a reasonable quantity of quality fats and protein for health and performance: ask any serious sports nutritionist or athlete. (As opposed to some of the quacks one reads on the net.)

Even so, healthy eating requires that you eat a good proportion of those carbs and fats as quality carbohydrates and fats and proteins –  fibrous wholegrains, fruits and vegetables, beans and nuts, and lean meats and unsaturated oils.

But let’s say you like low-carb Atkins type diets (20% carbohydrate) or an Ornish very low-fat diet (10% fat) or a vegan diet with no animal products; yet some aspects of the diet just doesn’t suit you and you struggle to stay with it, which is not surprising because less than 10 percent of people who try such restrictive diets actually maintain them for more than about 6 months.

For example, you don’t exercise well on low-carb or you get too lean and lose some muscle on very low-fat or vegan. The answer to this problem is just to move the baseline a little to modify the existing diet to a point where you can follow, more or less, the general principles of the regimen you like, yet maintain a quality eating pattern day in, day out. You adjust the eating rules so that the pattern moves closer to what you’re comfortable with, yet without compromising dietary quality or your preference for that particular dietary style. You do this by implementing healthy eating principles within the confines of your dietary approach. Here’s how you might do this with various restrictive diets.

How to improve a low-carbohydrate diet and stay on track

Low-carbohydrate, Atkins type diets are still somewhat popular, although many followers are moving emphasis to healthy fats and a little more quality carbohydrate in order to sustain them.

1. Increase carbohydrate consumption to around 40% of total energy intake.
2. Keep saturated fat and trans fats low (under 10% saturated and trans). This means choosing lean and low-fat animal foods and including more vegetable protein.
3. Include plenty of high-fibre or low-GI carbohydrate and eat more fruit. If you don’t like wheat or gluten, eat wholegrain rice, buckwheat or polenta, and choose more berries or low-carbohydrate fruits like oranges or other citrus.
4. Some might argue that 40% is not low-carb, but this site is not called Food, Fitness, Health for nothing — I expect an exercise program — and this is the minimum quantity of carbohydrate you can get away with if you want to hit the workout hard, week in, week out. Even then, it may not be ideal for many heavy exercisers.

How to improve a very low-fat diet and stay on track

Ornish very low-fat diets have been used in heart disease rehabilitation with some degree of success. The Pritikin Diet of 20 or more years ago was very similar. At 10% dietary fat, this is a very restrictive diet for most people. A few changes might not alter the overall utility, and may even improve the success of it for most people.

1. Increase fat intake from 10% to around 20% of total energy of the diet.
2. Eat at least two pieces of oily fish per week (or supplements).
3. Stay with the very lean proteins like chicken and turkey breast, or possibly add them if you were doing a vegan version and you have no objection to an upgrade (see below).
4. Add some wholefood vegetable fats like avocado, and nuts like almonds and walnuts. You can keep the screws on added oils and just increase plant-based fats in whole foods.
5. Continue to avoid added sugars and refined carbohydrate foods.

How to improve a vegan diet and stay on track

Vegans eat no animal foods at all — meat, eggs or dairy. A little care is required to get the best out of a vegan diet.

1. We’ll make similar changes to the vegan diet as for the very low-fat, Ornish type diet – without the meat. Aim for at least a 20% fat diet.
2. In my experience, vegans often under-eat, especially those who do a reasonable amount of exercise. The quantity of fibre in vegan diets can be up around the 50 to 60 grams/day mark, about 3 times the average intake. This amount of fibre, although likely a healthy quantity, is very filling and can reduce appetite.
3. The dietary constituents on the low side – other than the commonly deficient B12 — are likely to be fat and protein. Vegans should ensure they consume plenty of nuts, avocado, bean foods, full-fat soy milk and the regular stir fry — and not get into the habit of existing on salads, fruits and bread and cereals and pasta.

Summing up

There you have it – your cake and eat it too — as long as it’s a bran and blueberry oat cake.

Acid and Alkaline Foods – What Are They?

We all know that citrus fruits and pineapple are acid foods: right? Coffee and tea are acid forming: right?

A Low-Fat Mediterranean Diet – Is It Possible?

This may seem like a contradiction in terms for anyone who has been used to the propaganda that the traditional dietitians’ low-fat diet and the traditional Mediterranean diet are poles apart. Frankly, it’s bunkum. In fact, the differences between the early Mediterranean diets of Crete and similar regions, and a well-constructed low-fat diet are not much at all.

Here’s what it all boils down to. Take a look at the Oldways diet pyramid and recommendations. The people at Oldways have been studying and promoting Mediterranean diets for 20 years. They note that the Mediterranean diet was not highly specific, but a variable eating pattern within which a range of consistent food consumption and lifestyle behaviours were evident. Here’s what they list:

1. An abundance of food from plant sources, including fruits and vegetables, potatoes, breads and grains, beans, nuts, and seeds.
2. Emphasis on a variety of minimally processed and, wherever possible, seasonally fresh and locally grown foods (which often maximizes the health-promoting micronutrient and antioxidant content of these foods).
3. Olive oil as the principal fat, replacing other fats and oils (including butter and margarine).
4. Total fat ranging from less than 25 percent to over 35 percent of energy, with saturated fat no more than 7 to 8 percent of energy (calories).
5. Daily consumption of low to moderate amounts of cheese and yogurt (low-fat and non-fat versions may be preferable).
6. Weekly consumption of low to moderate amounts of fish and poultry (recent research suggests that fish be somewhat favored over poultry); from zero to four eggs per week (including those used in cooking and baking).
7. Fresh fruit as the typical daily dessert; sweets with a significant amount of sugar (often as honey) and saturated fat consumed not more than a few times per week.
8. Red meat a few times per month (recent research suggests that if red meat is eaten, its consumption should be limited to a maximum of 12 to 16 ounces [340 to 450 grams] per month; where the flavor is acceptable, lean versions may be preferable).
9. Regular physical activity at a level which promotes a healthy weight, fitness and well-being.
10. Moderate consumption of wine, normally with meals; about one to two glasses per day for men and one glass per day for women (from a contemporary public health perspective, wine should be considered optional and avoided when consumption would put the individual or others at risk.)

I don’t necessarily agree with some minor points in this list, but note item number 4. This suggests a range of total fat consumption —  from less than 25% to 35%. The low-fat diets of the American Heart Association (AHA), traditionally regarded as the devil itself by the low-carbohydrate crowd, are in the range 25% to 30% — not much difference.

At number 8, consumption of red meat is very limited — by much more than most people would assume in a Mediterranean diet. So, let’s not pussyfoot around with this: the real Mediterranean diet is quite a restrictive diet for those who are used to eating large amounts of red meat. The idea that you can  splash olive oil on everything, eat some walnuts, drink red wine with the lamb shanks and baklava every night and go to Corfu in 1965 in your dreams is exactly that. Although I would suggest that slightly more red meat in the diet would not necessarily be unhealthy. (Limiting red meat in the diet has received much impetus in recent years from studies showing increased risks of bowel cancer in individuals who eat diets high in red meat.)

Quality Fats, Protein and Carbohydrate Is the Key

The big mistake the AHA and associated nutritionists and dietitians made with early low-fat diet recommendations was that they made little attempt to recommend quality macronutrients — fat, protein and carbohydrates.  Keep saturated fat very low (poly and monounsaturated fats are best); eat a high-fibre diet with nuts and seeds;  concentrate protein on fish, chicken, low-fat dairy, beans and pulses; choose wholegrain cereals and bread; and keep added sugars and refined carbohydrates to a minimum. We’ve known this was a healthy diet for 40 years. They mucked it up. People gorged themselves fat on low-fat cookies, soft drinks and junk food. How stupid was that!

I suspect it’s not the red wine or the olive oil but the abundance of whole, fibrous, natural plant foods and a diet low in animal fats and cholesterol that works in Mediterranean diet studies to reduce heart disease — and probably cancer. Substituting canola oil or even soy or peanut oil for olive oil would probably make little difference. In any case I’d rather keep added oils to a minimum and get healthy fats from whole foods like nuts, seeds, avocados, peanuts and beans.

A low-fat diet of 25% to 30% of mostly good fats within the above eating pattern IS the low-fat Mediterranean diet.

Regular Exercise Rules

Number 9 is a recommendation for regular physical activity. It’s not that the early practitioners of this Mediterranean eating pattern put on their jogging shoes or headed off down to the gym every day to work out. No, they were too busy doing hard manual labour much of the day in the fields and gardens or out on the fishing boats. Try working out how much extra energy you would use working in a job like farming/gardening every day compared to sitting in an office. Don’t worry I’ve done it for you: six hours at walking pace is about 1200 kcalories. Many would have worked much harder and longer than that. What does your regular gym session or run use? Average about 400 to 600 kcalories for 45 minutes.

The thing is, if you work or play hard enough, you can get away with eating and drinking a few refined carbohydrates and sugars. In fact, you may need  them to fuel your work or play. A nice sourdough white bread is a real treat. Honey or even modest amounts of sugar in fruits, juices and desserts is not going to be an issue for those who workout or work hard. Physical activity really is an essential part of any diet pyramid these days. And it should not be an add-on but an integrated component that possibly affects the macronutrient composition of the diet. Try telling a marathoner that he can only eat a 35% carbohydrate diet! Or a hand cane cutter or woodchopper.

The Diet Wars Are Over

Yes, they are, as that article says. Call it Mediterranean, low-fat high-fibre, semi-vegetarian or whatever you like. The principles are pretty much laid out now. All you need  is the will to do it. And the thing is, it’s probably the easiest healthy diet to implement compared to the stringency of low-carb, very low fat and all the other extreme ideas. Go to it.

What You Don’t Know About Saturated Fat That Could Harm You

What you probably do know is that most dietary recommendations say that you should keep your consumption of saturated fat and cholesterol in food low in order to lower your blood cholesterol and consequently your risk of heart disease.

The usual recommendations are that saturated fat should be no more than 10% of total calories and cholesterol less than 300 milligrams each day – and for people with existing signs of heart disease, less than 7% saturated fat and under 200 milligrams of cholesterol each day.

If you read widely of internet health and nutrition sites, you may also be aware that fringe movements exist that say this is not true; that it’s a government conspiracy and so on, and that saturated fat and cholesterol are as harmless as soft fruit. You can read one of my responses to that. It’s surprising how many otherwise knowledgeable pundits get taken in by this stuff.

What you may not know is that too much saturated fat in the diet has other adverse effects beyond how it raises blood cholesterol. Here is a short summary.

Saturated Fats Cause Dementia

Here is what one research team has to say about saturated (and trans) fat and cognitive function.

“Diets high in fat, especially trans and saturated fats, adversely affect cognition, while those high in fruits, vegetables, cereals, and fish are associated with better cognitive function and lower risk of dementia. While the precise physiologic mechanisms underlying these dietary influences are not completely understood, modulation of brain insulin activity and neuroinflammation likely contribute.” (Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2007 Oct;1114:389-97.)

And another:

“Moderate intake of unsaturated fats at midlife is protective, whereas a moderate intake of saturated fats may increase the risk of dementia and AD, especially among ApoE epsilon4 carriers. “ (Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord. 2006;22(1):99-107. )

Saturated Fats Cause Insulin Resistance

This conclusion provides a pointer to findings from several similar studies:

“A change of the proportions of dietary fatty acids, decreasing saturated fatty acid and increasing monounsaturated fatty acid, improves insulin sensitivity . . . ” (Diabetologia. 2001 Mar;44(3):312-9.)

And:

“Therefore, prevention of the metabolic syndrome has to be targeted . . . and . . . to improve insulin sensitivity and associated metabolic abnormalities through a reduction of dietary saturated fat, partially replaced, when appropriate, by monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats.” (Clin Nutr. 2004 Aug;23(4):447-56.)

 Saturated Fat Slows Blood Flow in the Arteries

Here is what recent studies found about how saturated fat essentially clogs the arteries. (The endothelium is the layer of cells lining the inside of blood vessels and arteries. It is important in regulating blood flow.)

“High SFA (saturated fat) caused deterioration in FMD (flow-mediated dilation) compared with high PUFA, MUFA, or CARB diets. Inflammatory responses may also be increased on this diet.” (Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 2005 Jun;25(6):1274-9.)

And:

 ”Consumption of saturated fat reduces the anti-inflammatory potential of HDL and impairs arterial endothelial function. In contrast, the anti-inflammatory activity of HDL improves after consumption of polyunsaturated fat.” (J Am Coll Cardiol. 2006 Aug 15;48(4):715-20.)

And:

“Consumption of an SAFA-rich meal is harmful for the endothelium, while a MUFA-rich meal does not impair endothelial function in subjects with type 2 diabetes.” (Diabetes Care. 2008 Dec;31(12):2276-8.)

Overall, you should be able to see that the case against too much saturated fat in the diet is convincing – one way or another — and it’s not just about cholesterol. Bear in mind that vegetable sources of saturated fat are not inconsequential. Olive and soy oil are about 15%, corn and sunflower about 12% and peanut oil around 20%. However, consuming saturated fat and cholesterol together in animal foods may present the greatest combined risk, and whole nuts or seeds, even with some saturated fat, the least risk.

- Parrott MD, Greenwood CE. Dietary influences on cognitive function with aging: from high-fat diets to
healthful eating. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2007 Oct;1114:389-97. Review.
- Laitinen MH, Ngandu T, Rovio S, et al. Fat intake at midlife and risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease: a
population-based study. Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord. 2006;22(1):99-107.
- Morris MC, Evans DA, Bienias JL, et al. Dietary fats and the risk of incident Alzheimer disease. Arch Neurol. 2003 Feb;60(2):194-200. Erratum in: Arch Neurol. 2003
- Vessby B, Unsitupa M, Hermansen K, et al. Substituting dietary saturated for monounsaturated fat impairs insulin sensitivity in healthy men and women: The KANWU Study. Diabetologia. 2001 Mar;44(3):312-9.
- Riccardi G, Giacco R, Rivellese AA. Dietary fat, insulin sensitivity and the metabolic syndrome. Clin Nutr. 2004 Aug;23(4):447-56. Review.
- Keogh JB, Grieger JA, Noakes M, Clifton PM. Flow-mediated dilatation is impaired by a high-saturated fat diet but not by a high-carbohydrate diet. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 2005 Jun;25(6):1274-9.
- Tentolouris N, Arapostathi C, Perrea D, et al. Differential effects of two isoenergetic meals rich in saturated or monounsaturated fat on endothelial function in subjects with type 2 diabetes. Diabetes Care. 2008 Dec;31(12):2276-8.
- Nicholls SJ, Lundman P, Harmer JA, et al. Consumption of saturated fat impairs the anti-inflammatory properties of high-density lipoproteins and endothelial function.J Am Coll Cardiol. 2006 Aug 15;48(4):715-20.

Recommended Dietary Intakes – Do You Need Supplements?

Here’s a quick definition of RDIs — or RDAs as they are called in some countries.

Recommended Dietary Intakes (RDIs) (or allowances, RDA) are the levels of intake of essential nutrients considered, in the judgment of national health and nutrition authorities on the basis of available scientific knowledge, to be adequate to meet the known nutritional needs of practically all healthy people.

RDIs are given for vitamins, minerals, protein and some fats, and for different life stages, and pregnancy, and are usually daily quantities. They represent the needs for sustenance and avoiding deficiency disease.  See examples for Australia and the US.

Now that sounds simple enough, but unfortunately the RDIs and other measures of nutritional adequacy are widely misunderstood. That definition above does not imply that the RDIs are the “minimum” quantity required to stave off malnutrition or starvation.

In calculating RDIs, a safety margin is used so that biological differences from person to person can be accommodated. It may be that some individuals have less of a margin than others, but overall, the RDIs and RDAs are designed to exceed the minimum requirements for just about everyone, significantly. The idea that they are minimum values finds great comfort in the vitamin and mineral supplement industry of course.

Optimising Diets for Chronic Disease Risk

 Even so, there is recognition that higher intakes may help prevent some chronic diseases. To be fair, this is likely to be where misunderstandings occur. For example, the RDI for vitamin C is 45 milligrams/day, yet the suggested target for reducing chronic disease risk is 220 milligrams/day — quite a difference. Folate is another example where the suggested dietary target or SDT is much higher than the RDI.

Other Standards in Nutrient Reference Values

Although terminology can differ from country to country, here is a full list of acronyms worth noting within the broad range of nutrient reference value (NRV) or dietary reference intake (DRI) standards as applicable in the US, Canada and Australia based on the Institute of Medicine proceedings.

• EAR (Estimated Average Requirement). A daily nutrient level estimated to meet the requirements of half the healthy individuals in a particular life stage and gender group.
• RDI (Recommended Dietary Intake). The average daily dietary intake level that is sufficient to meet the nutrient requirements of nearly all (97–98 per cent) healthy individuals in a particular life stage and gender group.
• AI (Adequate Intake – used when a recommended dietary intake cannot be determined). The average daily nutrient intake level based on observed or experimentally-determined approximations or estimates of nutrient intake by a group (or groups) of apparently healthy people that are assumed to be adequate.
• EER (Estimated Energy Requirement). The average dietary energy intake that is predicted to maintain energy balance in a healthy adult of defined age, gender, weight, height and level of physical activity, consistent with good health. In children and pregnant and lactating women, the EER is taken to include the needs associated with the deposition of tissues or the secretion of milk at rates consistent with good health.
• UL (Upper Level of Intake). The highest average daily nutrient intake level likely to pose no adverse health effects to almost all individuals in the general population. As intake increases above the UL, the potential risk of adverse effects increases.
• AMDR (Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Range). An estimate of the range of intake for each macronutrient for individuals (expressed as per cent contribution to energy), which would allow for an adequate intake of all the other nutrients whilst maximising general health outcomes.
• SDT (Suggested Dietary Target). A daily average intake from food and beverages for certain nutrients that that may help to prevent chronic disease.

Dietary Supplements

Supplementation has a role to play, but it needs to be done with caution, restraint and knowledge. The bottom line is that there will be individuals and population groups that do not meet the RDIs for individual nutrients.

• This can result from poor nutrition practices or even special diets poorly implemented. Low-carbers could be short on fibre and vitamin E; vegans on zinc, iron and B12; and very low-fat dieters on long chain omega-3.
• Populations in nutrient poor regions might lack iodine and selenium; and certain cultural habits like full body clothing can result in inadequate vitamin D intake in the absence of food or supplement sources.
• Athletes and heavy exercisers may need a modest increase in some nutrients, but this is usually accounted for by increased calorie intake — as long as the extra food is nutrient dense for the most part.
• Older people absorb vitamin B12 less well and this may require supplementation. The ill or infirm who do not get adequate sun exposure may require vitamin D supplements.
• Pre- and during pregnancy, folate supplementation is a useful reassurance against neural tube abnormalities.

However, not only is it likely wasteful to take mega-doses of supplements, it may even be unsafe. The recent scientific examination of vitamin E and beta carotene in high supplement doses has not yielded promise and has suggested adverse effects. If you feel you need to take an individual supplement or a multi, first check out the excellent information at the Office of Dietary Supplements at the NIH. then try not to exceed the RDI by more than a few times for any individual nutrient, unless there are indications that it’s safe and effective to do so.

The Diet Wars Really Are Over

John Tierney over at TierneyLab recently had a bit to say about the New England Journal of Medicine study that compared an American Heart Association low-fat diet with Atkins and Mediterranean diets.

I’ve discussed the details and the implications in a longer page post called Diet Wars, but the upshot of this and many other bits and pieces of nutrition research from recent times pretty much suggests that we stop wasting time debating low-fat or low-carb or in between and get on with recommending a healthy eating pattern that spans a wider macronutrient range for fat, protein and carbohydrate.

Let’s get the faddists, fanatics and false prophets on the run.

How to Boost Immunity With Diet and Exercise

How many times have you seen an ad for some wonder ‘erb or other that’s supposed to boost the immune system. It’s echinacea today and some Chinese herb the next, as well as a vast array of products that the supplement industry claim “support the immune system” — whatever that means.

Diet and Immunity

I’m not suggesting that diet and nutrition don’t have an important role to play in maintaining a healthy immune system. Meeting the recommended intake of macronutrients, vitamins and minerals and fats, and consuming copious quantities of antioxidant nutrients as part of healthy eating is bound to promote good immune system function — as far as it goes. However, the evidence for consuming individual dietary components or special foods or supplements beyond the RDI (recommended dietary intake) is mostly speculative or at least inconclusive.

Exercise and Immunity

If you follow a healthy lifestyle approach with healthy eating and a program of physical activity, here are a few things to note about how the immune system responds to exercise:

• A regular, low to moderate intensity exercise habit is associated with a reduced incidence of infection compared with those who do very little exercise or physical activity.
• Heavy, and or prolonged exercise training can impair the immune system, possibly leading to susceptibility to infection, particularly in a period of up to 24 hours after a heavy training session or event.
• Exercising at high intensity for prolonged periods without food — 90 minutes and beyond for example — may make you especially vulnerable to infection as a result of immune system depression.
• Consuming carbohydrate at the rate of 30-60 grams an hour during intense and prolonged exercise can help to maintain immune system function. That’s 1-2 sports drinks and hour or equivalent. (One drink is probably adequate for most situations except for extreme conditions and intensity.)
• Meeting your daily requirements for micronutrients like zinc, iron, and B and C vitamins is essential. Although a multivitamin supplement may help, consuming mega quantities of vitamins and minerals may be counterproductive. See article on Vitamin C and training adaptation.
• A recent review confirmed the value of carbohydrate supplementation and a possible role for vitamin C (note caution above), but no other supplement showed up as useful for heavy exercisers.

It’s worth noting the value of carbohydrate to immunity in a balanced diet and exercise program. Low-carbohydrate intake with low blood glucose, plus the stresses of exercise, increases cortisol production to the point where the immune system is compromised. Low-carb, high-fat diets, especially saturated fat, are not appropriate if you have a robust exercise program. In addition, saturated fat has been shown to impair immune response. Low-carb is not where you want to be if you exercise a lot.

J Sports Sci. 2004 Jan;22(1):115-25. Exercise, nutrition and immune function. Gleeson M, Nieman DC, Pedersen BK.
JEur J Clin Nutr. 2007 Apr;61(4):443-60. Nutritional modulation of exercise-induced immunodepression in athletes: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Moreira A, Kekkonen RA, Delgado L, Fonseca J, Korpela R, Haahtela T.
Scand J Immunol. 2008 Jul;68(1):30 42. Differential effects of a saturated and a monounsaturated fatty acid on MHC class I antigen presentation. Shaikh SR, Mitchell D, Carroll E, Li M, Schneck J, Edidin M.

Food and Fitness Science Roundup

For this regular roundup, I try to find work that tells us something significant or new in the context of the field of study.

New Recommendations for Vitamin D Intake for Children from the American Academy of Pediatrics

A recommendation for a doubling of recommended dietary intake of an essential nutrient for any population sector is substantial news in nutrition science. The AAP list the reasons and the strategy here.

http://www.aap.org/pressroom/nce/nce08vitamind.htm

Coffee Drinking Does not Raise Mortality

Up to 6 cups a day and risks were still normal and even slightly lower than the consumers of much more moderate quantities. Adjustment of cardiovascular risk seems to be the difference — perhaps by lowering the risk of type 2 diabetes?

http://tinyurl.com/6al7ho

Ann Intern Med. 2008 Jun 17;148(12):904-14. The relationship of coffee consumption with mortality. Lopez-Garcia E, van Dam RM, Li TY, Rodriguez-Artalejo F, Hu FB.

Also see: Does Coffee Kill or Cure?

Red Wine Seems to Cut Risk of Lung Cancer

What? Not another reason to drink red wine! The authors do counsel against excessive consumption.

http://tinyurl.com/5u2wd3

Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2008 Oct;17(10):2692-9. Alcoholic Beverage Intake and Risk of Lung Cancer: The California Men’s Health Study. Chao C, Slezak JM, Caan BJ, Quinn VP.

Vitamin C Interferes with Training Adaptation and Performance

I noticed the possibility of this a few years ago while researching the utility of antioxidants like vitamin C to benefit athletic performance. Vitamin C seemed to inhibit phosphofructokinase, which is an important enzyme in glycolysis (breakdown and use of glucose for energy). Considering that many athletes and fitness buffs seem to take vitamin C supplements, it may be worth noting. Moderate dietary intake is likely not a problem. We need more information on this one before the panic sets in.

Am J Clin Nutr. 2008 Jan;87(1):142-9. Oral administration of vitamin C decreases muscle mitochondrial biogenesis and hampers training-induced adaptations in endurance performance. Gomez-Cabrera MC, Domenech E, Romagnoli M, Arduini A, Borras C, Pallardo FV, Sastre J, Viña J.

http://tinyurl.com/5t85lh

Caffeine Plus Carbohydrate Increases Glycogen Storage

As far as I am aware, this is the first time this has been shown. About 500 mg caffeine is a lot of coffee though.

J Appl Physiol. 2008 Jul;105(1):7-13. High rates of muscle glycogen resynthesis after exhaustive exercise when carbohydrate is coingested with caffeine. Pedersen DJ, Lessard SJ, Coffey VG, Churchley EG, Wootton AM, Ng T, Watt MJ, Hawley JA.

http://tinyurl.com/6bwtv8

New Glycemic Index and Load Tables

If you’re into the GI, you’ll need this. More on the GI in another article. I’m not a big fan.

http://tinyurl.com/6flcjc

Click through to here from the abstract and you can download the free tables.

Diabetes Care. 2008 Oct 3. International tables of glycemic index and glycemic load values: 2008. Atkinson FS, Foster-Powell K, Brand-Miller JC.

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Check out the Food for Life, Fit for Life Training Program. Free download available.

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The Truth About Organic Food

I’ve been a keen gardener most of my life, following a strong family tradition. We’ve grown everything from flowers and ornamentals to fruit trees and vegetables — with varying measures of success. Organic growing in a home garden, and wherever feasible commercially, just seems like sensible environmental management to me . . . and it’s especially applicable to home gardening. I’ve also written about organic growing and been a member of a growers group for decades.

Organics may not be the only solution

Even so, I’m not an absolutist, and I am a pragmatist . . . I accept that there may be other farming and cultivation systems that could indeed be regarded as “sustainable and healthy” even though they may not pass organic certification. But that’s not my argument here. I’m going to look critically at the notion of why you should buy organic food and whether the advantages stack up — give or take a few generalisations.

Here are the usual reasons for supporting organic food production:

• It’s healthier because few, and low-toxic pesticides are used and residues on crops are not a problem
• It’s healthier because organic food is higher in dietary nutrients
• It’s more sustainable because soil is managed better without chemical fertilizers
• It’s safer and sustainable because beneficial organisms like bees and predatory organisms and wildlife are not poisoned by pesticides
• It’s safer because humans are not poisoned by pesticides as they use them.

Pesticide residues

Even allowing for cheating, it is clear from testing that organic food has fewer residues of detectable pesticides than non-organic food. The issue is whether the presence of residues in non-organic food is a health hazard. Clearly, in some cases it is. The cases of aldicarb pesticide poisoning from melons in California is a classic case. This was only detected because of the severe symptoms. Many other cases are likely in which the victim has less acute symptoms and the cause remains unidentified. And, the effect of long-term exposure to small quantities of residues is unknown, but could be significant.

Testing for safe food. With the world food supply increasingly traded across borders, ensuring “clean” food by monitoring it for contaminants has become increasingly difficult. Recent issues in food safety in relation to food products imported from China make this all too clear.

Organic food has more nutrients

This is the one the professional agriculture, health and nutrition communities have resisted so strongly for so many years. In essence, it is a complex issue. To measure this accurately, you really need to set up controlled growing conditions for a reasonable comparison, and even though quite a few early studies showed advantages for organics in some nutrients like vitamin C, iron, omega-3s and a few other minerals, the design was often somewhat amateurish — until the European Union Newcastle University study came along. Read the results here: “Organic produce better for you”.

Variability abounds. The authors caution that variations in qualities exist across the organic and non-organic spectrum. What this might mean for you, as a purchaser, is that a badly grown organic apple could very well be inferior to a well-grown non-organic apple. One might expect that across a continuum of organic produce, the nutrient value may be higher, but don’t expect that any one purchase will give you that guarantee.

Phytonutrients finally. Over the years of this organic nutrient debate, the one thing that has mostly been absent is an evaluation of the non-vitamin and mineral nutrients. These are the antioxidants, the polyphenolics, carotenes, sulphur compounds, the omega-3s and many more that are known to be health-giving principles in foods. Finally, this also seems to have been answered. In the Newcastle University study:

They found levels of antioxidants in milk from organic cattle were between 50% and 80% higher than normal milk.

This is not surprising, overall, because Alyson Mitchell, associate professor and food chemist at the University of California, Davis, found exactly the same thing in her work analysing tomatoes. Soluble fertilisers, especially nitrogen, and strong pesticides may inhibit the plant production of phenolic compounds. See Mitchell again for a discussion.

One would have to say that early professional bias against the idea of organics having higher overall nutrient values, in a dietary sense, seems to have been ill-founded and perhaps influenced by various vested interests. However, this should not suggest that eating organic foods, even with a premium supply of antioxidants, results in superior health outcomes: that is yet to be proven.

Organic growing is more sustainable

As a general rule this is probably true, and is likely to be more so for smallholdings rather than large commercial enterprises. The definition and evaluation of “sustainability” is variable, but one issue is the recycling of inputs to the system versus importing inputs like organic fertilizers from elsewhere. Sustainability is about being able to make systems last without degrading the system.

Nevertheless, several recent studies — University of Michigan, the USDA and the FAO and others, have found that organics actually outperform conventional agriculture in measures of soil sustainability and biological sustainability — and may even approach the production efficiency of non-organic farms in some cases.

Safer for wildlife and diversity

New Scientist reports: “Organic farming boosts diversity”.

Organic farming increases biodiversity at every level of the food chain – all the way from lowly bacteria to mammals. This is the conclusion of the largest review ever done of studies from around the world comparing organic and conventional agriculture.

Enough said about that one.

Occupational health and safety

This is the sleeper issue in organic production. It receives less attention than other aspects. The human health legacy of toxic pesticides in developing nations has been monumental. And even in the developed nations, the misuse and overuse of pesticides has resulted in substantial impacts on human health. The US Agricultural Health Study has reported on some such results.

Here is what esteemed toxicologists Levine and Doull said about pesticide poisoning worldwide in 1992:

Global estimates of acute pesticide morbidity and mortality. Levine RS, Doull J. Rev Environ Contam Toxicol. 1992;129:29-50.

Mathematical models have projected increasing numbers of pesticide poisoning throughout the world, rising from 500,000 cases/yr in 1972 to 25,000,000 cases/yr in a 1990 estimate.

Summing up

Organic food is more expensive; you have to decide if it’s worth it. In addition, the science of organics is a bit fuzzy at times. Some modern pesticides actually have lower toxicity than approved organic pesticides. The more popular and affordable organic food becomes, the more we will see mainstream food manufacturers taking advantage of it. No folks, the organic pop tart is not a health food. Overall, though, organics is a neat package of environmental health and safety practice. I support it strongly.

Low-Carb Diets Make You Dumber and Slower

Low-carb diets have had their share of weight loss success; and most of it can be attributed to dietary restriction of food choice. That’s how most restrictive diets work, from low-fat to low-carb and vegan: tell people they can’t eat something that’s clearly identifiable, and they will lose weight because choice is curtailed and they find it easier to eat fewer calories.

The trouble starts when they find they can’t maintain such a restrictive regimen — and then they get discouraged, guilty, and the relapse occurs.

But what if low-carb dieting helped you lose weight for the time being, but actually inhibited your personal performance in day-to-day living? Would you continue with it as a lifestyle choice?

What I’m about to discuss does not necessarily apply to moderately low-carb diets, but mostly to ketogenic diets, in which carbohydrate intake is usually less than 20 percent. Even so, there is a possibility that the effects apply across a continuum of low-carb eating from very low to low.

And those adverse effects? Low-carb makes you think slower and move slower.

Low Carb Makes You Dumber

In a study in 2007 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers compared the cognitive abilities of dieters on a low-carb, high-fat (LCHF) diet with another group of dieters on a high-carb, low-fat diet (HCLF) . Here is what they found:

However, the IT test score (a measure of the speed of visual information processing) was affected by diet composition. The results showed that participants consuming the LCHF had significantly less improvement in the minimum stimulus time required to make a correct response than did those consuming the HCLF diet . . . Our findings are consistent with those of an earlier study in obese women showing that performance of a complex, cognitively demanding task assessing mental flexibility was significantly worse after the consumption of a very-low-energy, low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet than after the consumption of an isocaloric, nonketogenic diet with higher carbohydrate and lower fat content. Similarly, the treatment of young rats with a ketogenic LCHF diet for 1 month resulted in severe cognitive impairment, and a series of rat studies showed that the chronic ingestion of a high-fat diet, in particular a high-saturated-fat diet, can adversely affect cognitive performance.

Low Carb Makes You Slower

In a study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association in 2007, a team of investigators measured the fatigue and perceived effort of one group of dieters on a ketogenic low-carb diet and another group on a diet with much higher quantities of carbohydrate. Here’s what they concluded:

These pilot data indicate that ketogenic, low-carbohydrate diets enhance fatigability and can reduce the desire to exercise in free-living individuals.

This is not surprising because athletes know that glucose (and phosphocreatine) supply energy at a rate that supports fast, high-powered activities, whereas fat and ketones can only supply energy at a rate biochemically rapid enough for mostly slower activities.

Evidence from the Paleolithic

Now, you might think that would be a good place to leave this discussion — the evidence is reasonably clear — but just for speculative fun, let’s take a look at our evolutionary pre-history and the diets of emerging Homo sapiens — modern humans — in the Paleolithic period of evolution.

About 800,000 years ago, primates moved out of Africa to the north and into Europe to colder climates. This early pre-human form was called Homo erectus, and this species probably evolved into Homo neanderthalis, the Neanderthals, while erectus lived on as a parallel species.

The curious thing is that a second migration of early humans north from Africa started about 50,000 years ago and spread throughout Europe and beyond. It seems that this smart new species, Homo sapiens or ‘intelligent human’, was much more intelligent than earlier species such as erectus and neanderthalis. As far as evolutionary science can establish, Homo sapiens swept all before it and replaced the Neanderthals and erectus with modern humans throughout the world. The other species were out-competed and did not survive.

Paleo Diets and the Evolution of Power and Intelligence

Enthusiasts of Paleo dieting like to contend that early humans were very healthy on a diet mostly of meat, vegetables and some fruit, but virtually no grains or tubers — that is, a low-carbohydrate diet. However, it’s pretty clear that early humans started to eat grains about 20,000 years ago, perhaps earlier, and, according to Richard Wrangham, Elizabeth Pennisi and others, probably ate tubers well before then. See Did Cooked Tubers Spur the Evolution of Big Brains?

Paleontologists have speculated as to why Homo sapiens so dominated the other species in Europe and beyond as they moved into their territory from 50,000 years ago.

Here’s where I speculate that the burgeoning consumption of carbohydrate foods in the form of tubers and grains in East Africa, the cradle of early humans, fed a growing brain that thrives on glucose. Glucose from carbohydrates supplied abundant energy substrate for the evolving brain to build those complex neural networks that we know provides the complex reasoning capabilities of modern humans.

Carbohydrate foods were abundant in the East African savannah. As Wrangham points out: “Today, there are 40,000 kilograms of tubers per square kilometer in Tanzania’s savanna woodlands.” The book The Lost Crops of Africa, documents the prolific grain resources in this region. It would be unlikely if the evolving Homo sapiens did not take advantage of these abundant food resources at some time.

The Neanderthals, by comparison, most likely had a more limited food supply, relying mostly on meat and some vegetables and fruits in season, and eggs but fewer carbohydrate resources, especially in the cold north.

I think it’s a fair bet that Homo sapiens, as they moved north out of Africa from 50,000 years ago, armed with complex brains fueled by rapidly accessible glucose from carbohydrate food resources, simply out-competed the slower moving and thinking Neanderthals and the remaining Homo erectus. Not only were modern humans smarter, they probably moved faster as well.

The thing is, we can still simulate the best qualities of the diets of our ancestors, which were most likely characterised by being low in saturated fat, high in plant foods and fibre, and with sufficient carbohydrate to keep us out of ketosis and to fuel the powerful movement and activity required for good health and fitness.

High carb. Simply smarter, faster.

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 86, No. 3, 580-587, 2007
J Am Diet Assoc. 2007 Oct;107(10):1792-6.

Exercise Really is Necessary to Maintain Weight

Recently I got into a discussion about whether exercise is really necessary in a weight loss program. The other guy was saying . . . ‘well, if you just cut calorie intake you’re going to lose weight . . . if you starve you lose weight; witness concentration camps and so on’. And of course, Gary Taubes has been stirring up the diet and exercise community with his irreverent, but flawed views.

It’s a trite argument isn’t it? If you don’t eat, or eat very little, inevitably you will lose weight, fat and muscle. We all know that; except that’s not what we’re really talking about today. If you’re overweight you need to find a pattern of living that allows you to maintain a normal weight and eat well enough so that you enjoy life without having to do “diets”.

What I recommend is moderate calorie restriction in conjunction with a substantial increase in physical activity. And I’m not alone. Increasingly the science supports this, as do many successful weight losers.

Calorie-restricted diets

The trouble with low-calorie diets by themselves is threefold:

1. You reset your metabolism — downward. This is diet-induced thermogenesis. The body senses a low-calorie environment and decides to reduce its basal energy expenditure. It’s a survival mechanism that’s evolved over thousands of years.
2. On low-calorie diets you lose not only muscle, but bone as well. Okay, when you stabilise your weight you may get some of this back, but it’s not ideal.
3. Without exercise, you don’t get all those other proven benefits like protection from heart disease and some cancers, improved bone density, mental health, and perhaps protection from dementias as well as a list of other benefits.

Proven as a practical approach

Professional physical activity guidelines have for several years recommended that one needs to exercise an hour a day for most days of the week to lose weight and to keep it off. This has recently been confirmed by a study of women published in the Archives of Internal Medicine

Not only that, but the US National Weight Control Registry – a program that keeps track of successful weight losers — found that most of their successful listers did just that: exercised for about an hour a day in addition to their day-to-day activities. It doesn’t have to be all high-intensity stuff, because many did a lot of walking.

Low energy density, high-nutrient foods

One way to trick the body into maintaining metabolism while you reduce calorie intake is to eat plenty of low energy density foods — along with the increase in exercise. That means fruit and vegetables, salads, soups, bowl foods, beans, lean meat and not too much fat, refined carbohydrates and sugars. This is a proven approach called Volumetrics, which originated with Barbara Rolls at Pennsylvania State University.

Giving the body plenty of fibre, water and bulk to deal with even though the calorie count is comparatively low, tends to keep that metabolism from dropping too much.

Exercise – the fourth macronutrient

Food pyramids increasingly include physical activity in their recommendations because the best evidence suggests that uncoupling physical activity from food consumption creates a body environment that is not ideal for weight loss and maintenance, or health. This also reflects an evolutionary state built over tens of thousands of years when early humans moved much more than we do today.

I understand that some people can’t do much exercise. The infirm, injured and invalid have additional challenges, but the effort may be just as important for many people in this situation.

Top 10 Antioxidants of All Time

Okay, I know that title is over the top, but it’s tongue-in-cheek as well. We hear so much about the value of antioxidants that I get a little unimpressed sometimes. But wait, this is the real deal. Everyone likes a list and the Nutrient Data Lab of the United States Department of Agriculture has released an updated ORAC list of the antioxidant power of plant foods.

Antioxidants rule, okay?

ORAC stands for ‘Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity’. Oxygen radicals or free radicals are reactive chemical particles created when an electron gets dislodged from a molecule leaving an unpaired electron. This makes the particle highly reactive. Oxygen radicals result from natural processes like digestion and metabolism but also from exposure to radiation and pollutants.

Antioxidants such as vitamin C, E and the mineral selenium are able to quench these free radicals and stop them from reacting with important molecules in the body like DNA and causing cancer and many other diseases. As well as antioxidant vitamins and minerals, a host of antioxidants exist as phytonutrients in plants. Polyphenols in red grapes and wine and cacao beans (chocolate) are well-publicised examples.

The ORAC database lists the scores for individual fruits, nuts, cereals, beans, herbs and vegetables. Here are my favourites. The higher the score, the greater the antioxidant capacity. The measures are in micromoles per 100 grams.

1. Herbs and spices. As a group these are powerful antioxidants. Values for tumeric, 159,000 and oregano 200,000 are good examples. Not all herbs and spices are as high as this, but when you see some other food scores you will understand how powerful these plants are in antioxidant value. On the other hand, we only consume them in comparatively small quantities compared to a whole apple for example.

2. Apples, raw. Both granny smith and red delicious are at the top of the apples scores at around 4000 units. You need to leave the skin on for best effect.

3. Red wine has excellent capacity, as we often read, at 5000 units compared to white wine at 400 per 100 grams. Raw grapes and grape juice are in the range of 800 to 1000, so you can see that processing the skins of red grapes in wine production seems to improve the antioxidant capacity substantially.

4. Artichokes (globe) cooked. Up around the 9000 units per 100 grams, so quite a powerful punch in this vegetable. I eat the canned varieties, lightly fried in olive oil, on vegetarian pizzas and in curries. Who would have thought it?

5. Chocolate, unsweetened, baking. Get your chocky fix and also around 50,000 units/100 grams. That’s a powerful dose, and if you keep the sugar and saturated fat low, quite a healthy dose as well. Cocoa powder is around 80,000/100 grams. A teaspoon of that is only a few grams.

6. Berries. Blueberries and blackberries are in the range 5000 to 6000, cranberries 9000, elderberries 14,000 and strawberries under 4000. I don’t know why blueberries seem to get all the publicity around the place. Apples and plums are close.

7. Plums, raw. 6000 to 7000 for various varieties and prunes even higher. Dried fruits generally rank higher than fresh fruits, so I’ve not included them here. (Dried fruits may be high in antioxidants but are also high in sugars, mainly fructose.)

8. Red cabbage, raw and cooked. In this case, the cooked red cabbage is 3000 and the raw cabbage closer to 2000. Again, processing the red tissue seems to release more antioxidants — like grapes. White cabbage is the same — cooked higher than uncooked — yet both are under 1000 units.

9. Nuts, raw. Most nuts are excellent. Almonds over 4000, pecans 17,000 and hazelnuts 9000, pistachios 7000 and walnuts 13,000.

10. Cereals and bran. Wholegrain consumption consistently shows up as protective for type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Not surprising when some of these numbers are computed: rice bran 15,000; sorghum brans up to 240,000. Heavy wholegrain breads and cereals generally rate in the 2000 units range.

Antioxidant strategies

To summarise, there’s a powerful punch available in many herbs and spices, fruits and nuts and whole grains, and to a lesser extent, in many of our favourite vegetables. Carrots and tomatoes are surprisingly unimpressive, but that doesn’t mean this is the last word. It’s possible factors other than what is measured in this database are at work. And it seems to me that low-carbers who like to avoid most fruits are missing out on a lot of antioxidant variety and power.

Here’s what you could do to maximise your antioxidant consumption.

1. Grow your own fruit and veges organically if possible. Recent analysis by Alyson Mitchell has shown that organically grown plants generally have higher antioxidant capacities than those conventionally grown. (An article on this is on the way.)
2. Make regular use of powerful herbs and spices like ginger, tumeric, galangal, oregano, thyme and many others. Grow them when you are able.
3. Eat plenty of non-starchy fruit and vegetables. That means adding lots of green leafy vegetables and non-starchy fruits and root vegetables to your bananas and potato consumption.
   Eat daily of raw nuts and cooked whole grains.
4. If you drink alcohol, a glass or two of red wine each day, preferably with meals, is a reasonable approach.

Why You Need to Eat Your Greens

Green leafy vegetables like spinach, lettuce, Chinese vegetables, kale and many others are part of the evolutionary heritage of primates — and humans are no exception. Eating carefully selected green leafy plants for millions of years must have made human biochemistry beautifully adapted to these foods. Too bad many of us don’t eat enough.

They contain valuable vitamins and minerals and antioxidants including iron, lutein for the eyes and other carotenoids, magnesium for heart and muscle, folate for the heart and pregnancy, vitamin K for bones — and one nutrient that regularly gets overlooked: the plant form of omega 3 called alpha linolenic acid or ALA, which is not to be confused with the other polyunsaturated fat called linoleic acid. ALA is a shorter chain length omega 3 that the body can covert to the longer chain EPA and DHA or fish oil omega 3s. ALA is also found in walnuts and canola oil.

The other omega 3
ALA also seems to protect us from heart disease like it’s longer-chain relations EPA and DHA. In fact, that’s how animals get EPA and DHA — from eating green grass and leaves and converting ALA. And that’s why free-range beef or chickens feeding on natural grass and litter are healthier to eat than lot or coop feed animals.

What to eat, and how to prepare
I make a real effort to eat leafy greens regularly. I’ve settled on ones that I like and I grow them organically as well as buy from the supermarket. I eat mainly spinach, cos lettuce, Italian parsley (not the curly leaf one) and rainbow silverbeet, called chard in some regions. I live in a sub-tropical climatic zone, so the spinach tends to be seasonal, requiring colder weather. The cos and silverbeet will grow in all except the hottest times of year, with the silverbeet being pretty much perennial if you allow it to be. The parsley dies off and self-seeds brilliantly for next year.

Last seasons cos self-seeded and grew like a wheat-field. Fantastic. Pick the dark greens leaves when you need them and they just keep coming after a touch of blood and bone fertiliser. Unfortunately, the rabbits also found them. Such is life.

Spinach can be eaten in salads or cooked lightly with a little olive oil, garlic, pepper and lemon juice. Like some southern Europeans, I like a large bowl, steaming hot. The silverbeet is a little stronger and works better in omelettes and stir-fries for me. Parsley is more useful with the tough stems cut off, but then you can use in stir fries, salads, omelettes, bowl noodles and soups or just nibble.

Fresh, dark cos with lemon juice, pepper to taste and a small amount of olive or soy oil (more ALA in soy), with a little low-fat feta if you like, makes a great companion for main courses.

How greens help
Find some greens that you can eat on a regular basis and make them a regular part of your diet. If you exercise a lot you need a potent brew of natural antioxidants to ward off the oxidation products of exercise. If you’re trying to lose weight with a low-calorie diet, nutrient-rich foods are important to ensure you get your recommended daily allowance of vitamins and minerasls for good health. I prefer not to juice — you’ll probably lower the GI anyway — and supplements are pretty much a waste of time. So go greens!

What if You Could Prevent Prostate Cancer with Diet and Exercise?

Preventing prostate cancer with lifestyle behaviours may not be that extreme a proposition considering the latest research from a group studying gene and prostate cancer interactions.

I should make it perfectly clear that this research is promising and profoundly interesting, but it is NOT a sure-fire cure for prostate cancer and you should not disregard advice from your treatment specialist if you have existing prostate cancer.

The prostate is a gland that sits at the neck of the urethra and bladder in men and the cancer usually occurs in men older than 40 and with increasing incidence as men age.

The study emphasized a diet high in plant foods and exercise

The pilot study, which involved well-known lifestyle researcher and nutritionist, Dr Dean Ornish, evaluated changes in prostate gene expression in men with low-risk prostate cancer who declined conventional treatments like surgery, hormone therapy or radiation and who trialled an intensive nutrition and exercise lifestyle program while undergoing evaluation for tumor progression.

The patients at a diet high in plant foods including soy, fish oil, the mineral selenium and vitamins C and E and very little of red meat and fats. They walked or did gym for at least 30 minutes, 6 days a week; did an hour of daily yoga and meditation type relaxation; and attended 1-hour weekly support sessions.

The authors emphasize that it is too early to know if this kept the cancer in check. Yet, to the surprise of the researchers, what they found was that at the gene level, genes that protect against cancer seemed to be turned on (tumor-suppressor genes) and genes that promote cancer (oncogenes) were turned off in substantial quantities.

University of California, San Francisco geneticist Christopher Haqq said”

“It is absolutely intriguing this lifestyle change can have as much effect as the most powerful drugs available to us now. We medical oncologists are always looking for drugs that can do this. It is delightful to find that diet and lifestyle can have profound effects and be complementary to drug therapies—with fewer side effects.”

What you need to know

While this looks like a valuable line of research, don’t get too carried away and reject all standard treatments if your doc advises it is too dangerous to do so. Remember that the experimental group had “low-risk” prostate cancer to start with.

Second, what this research does suggest is that this sort of lifestyle approach could be a really useful preventive approach to prostate cancer. You need to get that exercise and eat lots of nuts, beans, seeds like sunflower and pumpkin green vegetables, fruits and whole grains. Avoid the red meat and saturated fat as much as possible; chicken and fish is better. A few Brazil nuts each day will give you a good dose of natural selenium — about 100 micrograms or thereabout.

Read the complete study at Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 2008.

The Best Fat Loss Strategy That Really Works

It depends. It depends on how fat you are, how mobile you are, how much exercise you can do and not break, or get bored, or how well you can stick to a modified eating pattern. Many will need to start more moderately than this. But if you’re up for it, you can lose weight, rapidly, with this basically simple exercise and nutrition approach. No doubt.

In any case, here is the ultimate fat loss strategy — no ifs, no buts, no pussy-footing around. Get a medical to ensure you’re up for this. Can you do it?

Read more

Does Coffee Kill or Cure?

Coffee, Java, Joe, Mud, Beans, Cafe — whatever you call it — coffee is the most popular drink on the planet, in international terms. Even so, in “natural health” circles it was, and perhaps still is, regarded as just about as evil as alcohol. Natural health people don’t like substances that either stimulate or depress the nervous system like coffee and booze do respectively. A naive evaluation for sure.

But what if coffee turned out to be just about as health-giving a herb as you can get? Wouldn’t that be a surprise?

Here’s what recent research has discovered about coffee. Keep in mind that the coffee industry is enormously powerful and no doubt some scientific work is sponsored by the industry. However, enough reputable and independent scientists are involved in this research to suggest there is something to take note of.

Diabetes Prevention

Coffee consumption seems to lower the risk of type 2 diabetes significantly, and this association turns up in research as far afield as Europe, Japan and the USA in at least 12 different studies. Caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee seem to have similar effects and some component of the coffee bean other than caffeine is suggested as the protective compound. Chlorogenic acid is one such natural chemical compound, perhaps acting as an antioxidant.

Surprisingly, caffeine studied by itself seems to impair insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance, so one might expect coffee to have the opposite effect. It doesn’t seem to be so. Most authorities suggest limiting coffee consumption to around 3 cups each day to be on the safe side.

Parkinson’s Disease and Liver Disease

Similarly, there is reasonable evidence that coffee drinking protects against liver disease like cirrhosis, and also the debilitating Parkinson’s disease, a disease that affects the brain’s production of dopamine, a chemical neurotransmitter required for coordinated movement. There is some consistency to this evidence as well.

What’s Wrong with Coffee?

Heart disease
You may be aware that in the past, coffee and caffeine were assumed to be bad for the heart: raised blood pressure, increased heart rate, cholesterol and so on. People with heart disease and those recovering from heart bypass surgery were urged to avoid coffee and even tea, with the stimulant caffeine being the most problematic agent. But now, cardiologists are not so sure. It seems that the coffee/caffeine and heart disease risk may have been overestimated and that some aspects of coffee drinking could even be beneficial.

Distinctions are made between the effects of boiled and filtered or instant coffee. Boiled coffee is traditionally a Scandinavian method of brewing with coffee grinds subjected to hot water with no filtering. Filtering with paper or metal filters is supposed to take out the potentially harmful chemicals cafestol and kahweol, which are reported to raise cholesterol. Some studies show that boiled coffee could be more hazardous than filtered coffee for heart disease, but I think this needs more follow-up to be certain. While for some people blood pressure seems to adjust to coffee consumption, others seem to have a genetic tendency for increased blood pressure with coffee consumption.

Overall, moderate consumption of filtered or instant coffee — up to 3 cups daily — seems to have little effect on heart disease risk.

Osteoporosis and Miscarriage in Coffee Drinkers
I’ve put both of these long-held beliefs, or at least suspicions, related to coffee together because they mainly affect women directly. The most recent research suggests that caffeine may increase your risk of miscarriage when you drink more than about one cup of coffee or 100 milligrams of caffeine a day. Some research also points to marginally lower birth weights in higher caffeine consumers.

Moderate consumption in the range of up to 3 cups of coffee daily probably has little effect on osteoporosis or bone fractures according to the most recent studies.

Summary

As the epidemiologists like to say, more work is needed to confirm these associations, but overall, moderation is the way to go — around 3 cups a day is unlikely to be harmful and may even be beneficial in some respects — with perhaps a reduction of consumption when pregnant. Coffee is a stimulant and some people do not deal with the caffeine hit as well as others. I can drink coffee before bed and it won’ t keep me awake. But that’s not for everyone. If you get heart palpitations or sleeplessness, drinking less coffee, cola drinks or strong tea is worth a try.

Vitamin D Deficiency May Cause Heart Attacks

As reported by Reuters health, a new study by Harvard University health researchers has found that men with the lowest blood levels of vitamin D are more susceptible to heart attacks, especially fatal heart attacks.
Vitamin D improves calcium absorption and is important for bone health and to prevent osteoporosis. In addition, adequate vitamin D seems to offer protection against other diseases such as cancers of the colon, breast and perhaps pancreas. The lower level of normal is 30 nanograms per millilitre of blood. The men with the greatest risk in this study had levels as low as 15 nanograms.

What you need to know
Vitamin D is formed in the skin from sunlight exposure — and is available in fortified milk and margarine products and fatty fish like salmon and sardines. Sunscreen will block vitamin D absorption so it’s important to ensure a balance between sunlight exposure and the skin cancer risk of overexposure and sunburn. Supplements are an option, but you need to get medical advice because too much can be toxic.
Personally, I try to get as much gentle sun exposure in the early hours in summer or in winter when sunburn risk is least. I do this at the beach or by training outdoors. Tanning booths are not recommended and can be dangerous.

How Exercise and Healthy Eating Protect You

I know you’ve probably read a lot about why you should eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly, but I thought I’d summarize the essentials so that this blog kicks off on a sound basis. It’s a short, overview list and some points may need further explanation, and I’ll eventually get to that.

Manage weight. Being overweight means you have increased your risk of getting diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Eating a diet high in plant foods and fibre and low in animal fats and refined carbohydrates and sugars is a key strategy in managing excessive weight.

Exercise regularly. Physical activity assists with weight management and at the same time reduces internal or systemic inflammation, an important factor in lowering your risk of all of the above diseases.

Antioxidants rule. Plant foods contain antioxidants that regulate many factors in the disease process including the immune system, inflammation and tissue repair and protection. Antioxidants include vitamin C, E, selenium, beta-carotenes and many other plant ‘phytonutrients’ including polyphenols.

Cholesterol. Regular physical activity can raise the good cholesterol, HDL, and lower the bad cholesterol, LDL and triglycerides – probably mostly through weight loss. This reduces your cardiovascular disease risk. Yes, I know there are cholesterol ’skeptics’ out there, but I don’t agree with them, and neither does an overwhelming percentage of the medical and nutrition community.

Aerobic exercise (cardio). Increases your heart and lung fitness (cardiorespiratory), which is known to reduce your risk of heart disease — even if you carry a bit too much weight. This means regular repetitive exercise like walking, jogging, cycling, treadmill, swimming or rowing.

Weight training. Resistance exercise increases strength, balance and bone health and both cardio and weight training improve insulin sensitivity, which is important in controlling diabetes or pre-diabetes.

Animal fats. Too much saturated fat raises cholesterol yet also increases insulin resistance, which is a precursor to diabetes and heart disease. Some is okay, a lot is unhealthy.

Vegetable fats. Poly and monounsaturated fats like canola, olive, peanut and sunflower tend to improve cholesterol and heart disease risk. Trans fats, used in many commercial and fast-food products, are probably worse than animal fats. You don’t have to pour on the cooking or salad oils, just eat plenty of nuts and seeds and you get lots of fibre as well.

Fibre regulates. Fibre not only regulates your bowel habits, it also regulates your metabolism. It helps to keep control of those carbohydrates and fats you eat so that they don’t go rushing onward into the bloodstream or storage at too fast a rate, which has benefits for weight control and health.

Refined carbohydrates. These are the bagels, the biscuits, the donuts the white fluffy bread, the lollies and cakes and similar items that have become basic dietary items for many people. Too much is unhealthy, a little is okay, and athletes and hard exercisers can fit in a bit more. Keep them reigned in.

NEAT. This stands for ‘non-exercise activity thermogenesis’ — a fancy term for the activity you do when you’re not doing planned exercise. Gardening, housework, walking to the shops, chores, repairs, mowing lawn and so on. People who do most of this tend to have fewer problems with being overweight. Get off the couch or the internet and mow that lawn!

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