Reinventing the Fountain of Youth
Posts tagged Supplements
Everything you thought you knew about food is WRONG
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We think we know what to eat: less red meat and more fiber, less saturated fat and more fruit and veg, right? Wrong, according to a controversial new book by obesity researcher and nutritionist Zoe Harcombe.
In The Obesity Epidemic: What Caused It? How Can We Stop It? Harcombe charts her meticulous journey of research into studies that underpin dietary advice – and her myth-busting conclusions are startling.
Ditch conventional diet advice: Zoe Harcombe says vitamins and minerals in meat are better than those in fruit.Myth: The rapid rise in obesity is due to modern lifestyles
According to Zoe Harcombe, the obesity epidemic has less to do with our lifestyles than with what we are eating.
‘The key thing that people don’t realize is that throughout history, right until the Seventies, obesity levels never went above 2 per cent of the population in the UK,” she says. Yet by the turn of the millennium, obesity levels were 25 per cent.
What happened? In 1983, the government changed its diet advice. After that, if you look at the graphs, you can see obesity rates taking off like an airplane. You might feel it is coincidence, but to me it is blindingly obvious.
The older dietary advice was simple; foods based on flour and grains were fattening, and sweet foods were most fattening of all.
Mum and Granny told us to eat liver, eggs, sardines and to put butter on our vegetables. The new advice was ‘base your meals on starchy foods’ – the things that we used to know made us fat (rice, pasta, potatoes and bread). That’s a U-turn.
Myth: Starchy carbohydrates should be the main building blocks of our diet
We’ve been told that carbohydrates such as rice, pasta, bread and potatoes should form the bulk of what we eat. The trouble with this, says Zoe Harcombe, is that as carbs are digested, they are broken down into glucose.
This process makes your body produce insulin, in order to deal with the extra glucose. One of insulin’s main roles in the body is fat storage, so whenever you eat carbs, you are switching on your body’s fat-storing mechanism. Whatever carbs you don’t use up as energy will be quickly stored away in the body as fat.
We should get back to doing as nature intended and eat real, unprocessed food, starting with meat, fish, eggs, vegetables and salads.
Myth: Losing weight is about calories in versus calories out
“If only it were that simple,” says Harcombe. People think that if they cut out 500 calories a day, they will lose 1lb a week.
They might at first, but then the body will recognize that it is in a state of starvation and turn down its systems to conserve energy.
‘So you may be putting fewer calories in, but at the same time you will be using up fewer calories to get through the day.
Losing weight is more a question of fat storage and fat utilization. You need the body to move into a fat-burning mode and, to do that, you need to cut down your consumption not of calories, but of carbohydrates.’
Don’t over do it: Too much exercise could make you hungry so you eat more.Myth: More exercise is a cure for the obesity epidemic
This is standard wisdom: “exercise, we think, will burn calories, lose fat and speed up our metabolism. Think again,” says Harcombe.
If you push yourself into doing extra exercise, it will be counterproductive because you will get hungry – your body will be craving carbohydrate to replenish its lost stores.
If you are trying to control weight, it is so much easier to control what you put into your mouth. Not how much, but what. Then it doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do by way of exercise.
Myth: Fat is bad for us
“Real fat is not bad for us,” says Harcombe. “It’s man-made fats we should be demonizing.” Why do we have this idea that meat is full of saturated fat? In a 100g pork chop, there is 2.3g of unsaturated fat and 1.5g of saturated fat.
Fat is essential for every cell in the body. In Britain [according to the Family Food Survey of 2008], we are deficient in the fat-soluble vitamins A, D and E, which are responsible for healthy eyesight, bone strength, mental health, cancer and blood vessel protection and, therefore, heart health. We need to eat real fat in order for these vital vitamins to be absorbed into the body.
Myth: Saturated fat causes heart disease
Over the past 50 years, we have accepted this as one of the basic nutritional truths. But Zoe Harcombe says: “No research has ever properly proved that eating saturated fat is associated with heart disease, let alone that it causes it.”
Myth: Cholesterol is a dietary enemy
Controversially, Harcombe does not consider ‘high’ cholesterol levels a bad thing!
‘To pick a number – 5 (mmol/l) – and to say everyone should have cholesterol levels no higher than this is like declaring the average height should be 5ft 4in and not 5ft 9in and medicating everyone who doesn’t reach this meaningless number to reduce their height. It really is that horrific.
Ancel Keys, who studied cholesterol extensively in the Fifties, said categorically that cholesterol in food does not have any impact on cholesterol in the blood.
What is abnormal is the amount of carbohydrate we eat, especially refined carbohydrate, and this has been shown to determine triglyceride levels – the part of the cholesterol reading your GP may be most concerned about.
It’s the ultimate irony. We only told people to eat carbs because we demonized fat and, having picked the wrong villain, we are making things worse.
Myth: We should eat more fiber
For three decades, we have crammed fiber into our bodies to help us feel full and keep our digestive systems moving. This is not a good idea, says Harcombe.
The advice to eat more fiber is put forward along with the theory that we need to flush out our digestive systems. But essential minerals are absorbed from food while it is in the intestines, so why do we want to flush everything out? Concentrate on not putting bad foods in.
Avoid fruit to lose weight: The sugar in them will be stored as fat.Myth: You need to eat five portions of fruit and veg a day
“Five-a-day is the most well-known piece of nutritional advice,” says Harcombe.” You’d think it was based on firm evidence of health benefit. Think again!
Five-a-day started as a marketing campaign by 25 fruit and veg companies and the American National Cancer Institute in 1991. There was no evidence for any cancer benefit.
Myth: Fruit and veg are the most nutritious things to eat
Apparently not. Harcombe allows that vegetables are a great addition to the diet – if served in butter to deliver the fat-soluble vitamins they contain – but fructose, the fruit sugar in fruit, goes straight to the liver and is stored as fat.
Fruit is best avoided by those trying to lose weight, says Harcombe, who adds: ‘Vitamins and minerals in animal foods – meat, fish, eggs and dairy products – beat those in fruit hands down.”
Myth: Food advisory bodies give us sound, impartial advice
the organizations we turn to for advice on food are sponsored by the food industry. The British Dietetic Association (BDA), whose members have a monopoly on delivering Department of Health and NHS dietary advice, is sponsored by Danone, the yogurt people, and Abbott Nutrition, which manufactures infant formula and energy bars.
The British Nutrition Foundation, founded in 1967 to ‘deliver authoritative, evidence-based information on food and nutrition in the context of health and lifestyle’, has among its ‘sustaining members’ British Sugar plc, Cadbury, Coca-Cola, J Sainsbury PLC and Kraft Foods.
‘When the food and drink industry is so actively embracing public health advice, isn’t it time to wonder how healthy that advice can be?’ says Harcombe.
Alice Hart-davis, The Daily Mail, UK, Sun, 31 Oct 2010 22:06 CDT
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Brain Food: How to Eat Smart
3447 days
It’s common to resolve to lose weight, but any sane person dreads a diet’s dulling effect on the brain.
In fact, many studies have shown that counting calories, carbs or fat grams, is truly distracting to the point that it taxes short-term memory. But how we eat can affect our minds at more fundamental levels, too.
Whether you are seeking brain food for exams or just want to be at your sharpest ever day, here are five things you should know about feeding your brain:
1. Fuel it up
The brain, which accounts for 2 percent of our body weight, sucks down roughly 20 percent of our daily calories. A picky eater, it demands a constant supply of glucose primarily obtained from recently eaten carbohydrates (fruits, vegetables, grains etc.). Only in extreme instances of deprivation will the brain use other substances for fuel.
More recently evolved areas of the brain, such as the frontal cortex (it’s like the CEO of the brain), are particularly sensitive to falling glucose levels, while brain areas regulating vital functions are more hardy, said Leigh Gibson of Roehampton University in England. “When your glucose level drops, the symptom is confused thinking, not a change in breathing pattern,” he said.
This is not to suggest that we should constantly slurp soda to keep our brains functioning optimally. On the contrary, high glucose levels slowly but surely damage cells everywhere in the body, including those in the brain, said Marc Montminy of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California.
And according to a recent study published in the Oct. 3 issue of the journal Cell, by Dongsheng Cai and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, the brain may react to excess food as if it were a pathogen. The resulting immune response, which occurs irrespective of weight gain, may cause cognitive deficits such as those associated with Alzheimer’s.
Similarly, high blood sugar, coupled with a cognitive task, is associated with elevated cortisol – a hormone known to impair memory in high doses, Gibson said. In other words, don’t get out the flash cards after that second (or third) piece of cake.
2. Become a grazer
The brain needs Goldilocks portions of energy: not too much, not too little.
To optimize brain power, Michael Green of Aston University in England suggests one tactic would be “more frequent but smaller meals.” The brain works best with about 25 grams of glucose circulating in the blood stream – about the amount found in a banana, said Gibson.
If trading three-meals-a-day for an all-day nibble seems unappealing, unpractical or simply anti-social, read on.
3. Eat lower on the glycemic index (GI)
The glycemic index ranks foods according to how they affect blood glucose levels. Pretzels are high on the index, because they cause blood sugar to rise very quickly. Raw carrots, by comparison, have a low glycemic ranking.
Carbs in lower glycemic food are broken into glucose molecules more slowly, thereby providing a steadier supply of energy to the brain. Low GI meals, gratefully, also best satiate hunger, writes J.M. Bourre of the French National Medicine Academy in the September 2006 issue of The Journal of Nutrition, Health and Aging.
High fiber carbohydrates are relatively low glycemic but combining them with fat or protein can slow absorption even more. For example, the traditional white Wonder Bread is high glycemic; it is digested quickly, causing a stressful, and brief, spike in glucose levels. Dark fiber-rich whole wheat bread is lower on the index; its spike is slightly less sharp. But add some meat or other protein to the bread and the glucose absorption rate becomes a gentle curve. Top it off with a little olive oil and presto: brain-friendly fuel masquerading as a tasty lunch.
The key is a balanced diet, where all macronutrients – carbohydrates, fats and proteins – are given their due, Green said.
4. Know your fats
Despite fat’s ability to lower the GI of a meal, not all fats are equal. Trans fats, common in fast food, are the worst. Saturated fats are not great. Unsaturated fat is the healthiest.
“People who eat diets high in saturated fat are more susceptible to cognitive deficits,” said Gibson. The increased likelihood of strokes is just one acute example. Rats that gorged on saturated fat for several weeks had obvious damage to the hippocampus – a brain area critical to memory formation, he said.
Still, “the brain is 60 percent fat,” Green said, and very low levels of cholesterol have been associated with depression, aggression and anti-social behavior. While most people in developed countries need to limit their fat intake, “zero fat is definitely not the way to go,” he said.
Essential fatty acids, such as Omega-3s, are proving valuable in treating depression and other psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, as well as benefiting infant brain development, Green said. However, he added, the effect of supplements on a healthy adult brain is controversial. It may be best to stick to natural sources, such as cold-water fish, seeds and nuts.
5. Know yourself
Despite broad similarities, food affects everyone’s brain a little differently. For example, Gibson explained, extroverts are more likely to succumb to the “post-lunch dip” – that desire to nap, or chug coffee, mid-afternoon. And size matters: Children and the very thin may feel faint or grumpy due to low blood glucose faster than an average-sized adult, explained Montminy.
Thinking about brain food is wise. But overall nutritional habits are also important. People who chronically under-eat, over-exercise or regularly skip meals can become fuzzy-headed even after a minor dip in glucose. They become sensitized to not getting enough, Gibson said.
But with the Goldilocks approach, there is no need to diet to distraction. “Every single fad diet is total rubbish,” Green said, but there is merit to eating low glycemically.
By Robin Nixon, Special to LiveScience, posted: 07 January 2009 07:17 am ET
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Eternally youthful: Cliff Richard, 69, appears toned and bare chested in his 2011 calendar
The Official 2011 Cliff Richard calendar is on sale in stationery stores or online at www.danilo.comHow Dietary Supplements Reduce Health Care Costs
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Spending just pennies a day on healthcare can reduce our expenditures by $24 billion over five years.
New research from the Lewin Group has shown that spending pennies a day on a few key nutritional supplements can dramatically reduce sickness and chronic disease — and greatly decrease healthcare expenditures as a result.(i) How did they come to this conclusion? And why haven’t we heard about it?
The Lewin Group looked only at rigorous scientific studies that documented the benefits of nutritional supplements. They used the Congressional Budget Office’s accounting methods to determine the economic impact of supplements. And they kept their analysis specifically to Medicare patients and women of childbearing age.
Today I will review the Lewin Group’s research, explain the remarkable conclusions they came to, and outline the supplements I recommend you take every day if you want to optimize your health and possible reduce health care costs in the process.
Reviewing the Research: Supplements Have Dramatic Health Benefits
Although nutritional therapies can help a broad range of illnesses, the group only looked at four supplements and disease combinations because of the rigor and validity of the scientific evidence available for these nutrients and diseases.
While there are many other beneficial nutritional therapies that have been proven helpful in studies, the ones in this particular study are only those that are unquestionable, beyond scientific doubt, well-accepted, and proven to help. Yet they are also under-used and not generally recommended by healthcare providers. The study looked at:
1. Calcium and vitamin D and their effect on osteoporosis
2. Folic acid and its ability to prevent birth defects
3. Omega-3 fatty acids and their benefits for heart disease
4. Lutein and zeaxanthin and their benefit in preventing major age-related blindness, or macular degeneration
In this study, the researchers were extremely strict and only looked at nutrient interventions that met three criteria.
1. The supplement had to produce a measurable physiological effect.
2. This physiological effect had to create a change in health status.
3. The researchers only looked at health problems where a change in health status is associated with a decrease in healthcare expenditures.
Now, most of us hear the refrain from our physicians that nutritional supplements just produce expensive urine, that you do not know what you are getting, or that there is no scientific proof to support their claims. Based on this study and many others like it, my advice to these doctors is to do their scientific homework. Let’s start by looking at the effects of calcium and vitamin D.
First, I want to point out the vitamin D research referred to in The Lewin Group study is older research. Newer research, as I discussed in my vitamin D blog, suggests that higher doses of vitamin D3, such as 1,000 to 2,000 IU a day, have even greater benefit.
Yet even by focusing only on the older research, this study’s authors determined that providing Medicare-age citizens with 1,200 mg of calcium and 400 IU of vitamin D would result in reduced bone loss and fewer hip fractures. The researchers estimated these supplements could prevent more than 776,000 hospitalizations for hip fractures over five years and save $16.1 billion.
Next let’s look at omega-3 fats. Omega-3 fatty acids help prevent cardiac arrhythmias, improve cell membrane function, reduce inflammation, lower cholesterol and blood pressure, and have many other benefits.
The Lewin Group found that giving the Medicare population about 1,800 mg of omega-3 fats a day would prevent 374,000 hospitalizations from heart disease over five years. The Medicare savings from reduced hospital and physician expenses would be $3.2 billion.
This is pretty convincing data, but it doesn’t stop there. The Lewin Group also analyzed the economic effects of lutein and zeaxanthin–carotenoids that are found in yellow and orange vegetables. I recommend taking them in combination with the hundreds of other carotenoids found in yellow and orange foods.
Taken as supplements, these have been shown to treat macular degeneration, which is the loss of central vision, a major reason people over age 65 require nursing home care. The study found that taking 6 to 10 mg of lutein and zeaxanthin daily would help 190,000 individuals avoid dependent care and would result in $3.6 billion in savings over five years.
Lastly the Lewin Group looked at the effects of taking folic acid. 44 million women of childbearing age are not taking folic acid. If only 11.3 million of them began taking just 400 mcg of folic acid on a daily basis before conception, we could prevent birth defects called neural tube defects in 600 babies and save $344,700,000 in lifetime healthcare costs for these children. Over 5 years, this would account for $1.4 billion in savings.
Taken together, these four simple interventions, which cost pennies a day, could produce a combined savings of $24 billion over five years. This does not even include benefits to people younger than 65 or any of the other benefits of nutritional supplementation, such as improved immunity, cognitive function, and mood.
The Lewin Group’s study is intriguing. The economic impact of investing a few pennies a day in nutritional supplements is compelling. But what’s downright frightening is that studies by the US Department of Health and Human Services prove that the typical American diet does not always provide a sufficient level of vitamins and minerals — meaning we are at greater risk for conditions like those outlined above.
Because of our consumption of low-nutrient, high-calorie foods that are highly processed, hybridized, genetically modified, shipped long distances, and grown in nutrient-depleted soils, many of us are nutritionally depleted.
In fact, a whopping 92 percent of us are deficient in one or more nutrients at the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) level, which is the minimum amount necessary to prevent deficiency diseases like rickets or scurvy — diseases that are the result of not getting enough vitamins and minerals. The RDA standards do not necessarily outline the amount needed for optimal health.
What’s more, our government’s nutrient guidelines ignore the fact that many Americans, because of genetic variations and unique needs, may need higher doses of vitamins and minerals than the RDA. Vitamin deficiency does not cause acute diseases such as scurvy or rickets, but they do cause what have been called “long-latency deficiency diseases.” These include conditions like blindness, osteoporosis, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, dementia, and more.
What all this adds up to is clear. Nutritional supplements do not just make expensive urine. Based on mounting evidence and confirmed by the Journal of the American Medical Association (ii) and The New England Journal of Medicine (iii), I strongly believe that we should all be taking certain basic supplements.
Supplements You Should Take Every Day
Here are the supplements I recommend for everyone:
1. A high-quality multivitamin and mineral. The multivitamin should contain mixed carotenoids, which include lutein and zeaxanthin as part of their mix, as well as at least 400 mcg of folate and a mixed B-complex vitamin.
2. Calcium-magnesium with at least 600 mg of calcium and 400 mg of magnesium. The calcium should be calcium citrate or chelated versions of minerals. Do not use calcium carbonate or magnesium oxide, which are cheap minerals that are poorly absorbed.
3. Vitamin D3, 1,000 to 2,000 IU a day (people who are deficient in vitamin D will need more).
4. Omega-3 fatty acids that contain the fats EPA and DHA, 1,000 to 2,000 mg a day.
The cost is low, the benefit is high, and the risk is non-existent for these nutritional supplements. Not only will you feel better, have better immune function, and improve your energy and brain function, but you will also prevent many problems down the road. So, eat a healthy diet — and take your nutritional supplements every day. It is essential for lifelong vibrant health.
by Mark Hyman, MD
http://www.lewin.com/content/publications/3393.pdf
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Antioxidants Do Help Arteries Stay Healthy
1563 days
Long-term supplementation with dietary antioxidants has beneficial effects on sugar and fat metabolism, blood pressure and arterial flexibility in patients with multiple cardiovascular risk factors. Researchers writing in BioMed Central’s open access journal Nutrition and Metabolism report these positive results in a randomized controlled trial of combined vitamin C, vitamin E, coenzyme Q10 and selenium capsules.
Reuven Zimlichman worked with a team of researchers from Wolfson Medical Center, Israel, to carry out the study in 70 patients from the centre’s hypertension clinic. He said, “Antioxidant supplementation significantly increased large and small artery elasticity in patients with multiple cardiovascular risk factors. This beneficial vascular effect was associated with an improvement in glucose and lipid metabolism as well as significant decrease in blood pressure.”
Previous results from clinical trials into the cardiovascular health effects of antioxidants have been equivocal. In order to shed more light onto the matter, Zimlichman and his colleagues randomised the 70 patients to receive either antioxidants or placebo capsules for six months. Tests at the beginning of the trial, after three months and at the six month mark revealed that the patients in the antioxidant group had more elastic arteries (a measure of increased cardiovascular health) and better blood sugar and cholesterol profiles.
According to Zimlichman, “The findings of the present study justify investigating the overall clinical impact of antioxidant treatment in patients with multiple cardiovascular risk factors.”
Source: ScienceDaily (July 6, 2010)
