Archive for Healthy Diet
How to Avoid Unhealthy Foods that Seem Good For You
Posted by: | CommentsThere’s a new study claiming that lowering blood pressure (BP) below the standard 140/90 (systolic/diastolic) is not beneficial. While this has been the de facto BP target of physicians and patients, there has been a trend towards lower targets by hypertension experts setting treatment guidelines. According to the study, “using more drugs in lower target groups did achieve modestly lower BP. However, this strategy did not prolong survival or reduce stroke, heart attack, heart failure or kidney failure. At present there is no evidence to support aiming for a BP target lower than 140/90 in any hypertensive patient.”
It’s very easy to take this study out of context. Notice that the study refers to the use of anti-hypertensive drugs to lower BP. There is a vital difference between using drugs to lower BP and using lifestyle measures (i.e., a plant based diet, exercise, and maintaining a healthy body weight).
What the study is saying is that if one is using BP-lowering drugs, it’s not worth it to take more drugs in order to go below 140/90. The study is NOT saying that 140/90 is a “healthy” metric. Neither is it refuting the benefits of a healthy diet and lifestyle approach that results in levels like 115/70. (The current article in Medscape cites the Lewington meta-analysis of one million patients showing convincing evidence that people have fewer strokes and heart attacks when their ‘usual’ BP is 115/70 compared with those with a ‘usual” BP of 130/90).
It is simply saying that pumping more drugs simply to lower BP beneath 140/90 is marginally effective.
I like to think of BP as an “effect” (or “dependent variable,” in research-speak). The cause (or independent variable) of the metric is actually how we eat and live. The better we eat, the more consistently we exercise intelligently, the better our BP fares. What has happened in today’s medicalist gestalt is that we tend to confuse BP (or some other metric) as the “root cause” of the disease, and therefore any intervention (i.e., medication) that causes BP to go lower is “good.” We’re targeting the symptom, rather than the cause of the disease itself.
This is not to knock antihypertension medication, or any “symptom targetting” protocol (such as statins for high cholesterol). Ultimately, what we need to address are the basic issues causing the symptoms in the first place. In the majority of cases, the causes would be being overweight or obese, lack of exercise, and eating a nutrient-poor, calorie dense diet.
A quick and easy way to lose weight
Posted by: | CommentsWeight loss can occur effortlessly by simply avoiding or minimizing:
- processed foods
- sweets, and other “foods” containing sugar
- white bread and pasta (substitute whole-grain varieties instead),
- foods with a high percentage of calories from fat,
- alcoholic drinks.
In this approach you simply become more conscious of those items that change you body and brain chemistry, more aware of controlling portion sizes, while simultaneously adding more vigorous exercise (a total of 2 to 3 hours a week) to the mix.
In this moderate, “sensible,” watch-what-you-eat approach, you gradually replace poor food choices with healthy ones. You’re likely to decrease overall caloric intake, and with the addition of regular cardio and strength exercises several times a week, you’ll naturally enter into a caloric deficit.
In my opinion and experience, this conservative approach could be effective in slightly overweight people wanting to lose around 5 to 10 percent of their body weight. There is a tremendous payback for this strategy, since even a 10% loss of excess fat (especially if it’s in the abdominal area) yields tremendous health benefits.
The China Study, cliffnotes version
Posted by: | CommentsHere are the key points of Dr. C. Campbell’s The China-Oxford-Cornell Diet and Health Project aka The China Study. This is the most comprehensive study ever done on the relationship between diet and disease.
1. Do not obsess about single nutrients, food, or supplements. By eating from the proper food groups (i.e., whole foods like vegetables, legumes, fruits, nuts and seeds) you will have a nutritionally excellent diet.
2. What you eat is as important as how much you eat. The least active people in rural China consumed 30% more calories per pound of body weight. Yet had a 20% lower body mass index than average Americans.
3. What you eat plays a vital role in your overall health. This even extends to specific immunity to viral infections.
4. A nutrient rich diet and physically active lifestyle reduces the risks for several diseases at the same time. One observation was that diseases cluster together in the same geographic regions and for the same populations, which suggests that they may have a common cause.
5. Cholesterol is a strong predictor not only of heart disease risk, but also of cancer. Furthermore, diet is strongly linked to cholesterol levels. The best foods for disease prevention: unrefined, plant-based foods.
6. Breast cancer is not just a function of fat intake. There is a complex biochemical network that determines risk of breast cancer and other cancers. Focusing on one nutrient at a time is unlikely to result in any special benefit. It is much more advantageous to simply eat the right types of whole, unrefined foods and let your body take care of the rest.
7. You can virtually eliminate the risk of heart disease, by combining a nutritionally excellent diet with an active lifestyle. In some populations in China, heart disease is almost nonexistent.
8. Type I diabetes, (which strikes young children) is strongly linked to cow’s milk consumption and premature weaning. For infants, the best food is human breast milk.
9. Eye diseases commonly associated with old age, including cataracts and macular degeneration, are linked to diet. Antioxidants found in fruits and vegetables protect against these diseases. The best foods for your eyes are dark, green, leafy vegetables like spinach.
10. Bone health is strongly related with the ratio of vegetable to animal protein intake. Eating more nutrient rich plant foods and less animal foods result in better bone health. Populations that consume mostly plant foods and lead more physically active lifestyles have much lower rates of hip fracture than we do in America, even if they don’t consume dairy foods or calcium supplements.
11. Type 2 diabetes can be reversed in patients simply by changing to a nutrient-dense, mainly plant-based diet.
12. Many studies have consistently shown that dairy intake is linked to prostate cancer . A high dairy intake is one of the “most consistent dietary predictors for prostate cancer in the published literature.”
13. People always worry about getting enough protein. The real danger really lies in overconsumption of protein, especially an over reliance on animal protein.
The sustainability factor of a diet
Posted by: | CommentsWhen humans are allowed to eat as much as they want of high quality, high nutrient, wholesome food, studies have shown that they can be satisfied with as little as 1,500 calories. When given refined and processed food, these same people will consume as much as 3,000 calories to feel equally satisfied.
Lessons learned: the quality of the food (in terms of nutritional density per calorie) has an effect on satiety levels, and in the long term, will determine the effectiveness of a weight management strategy. Caloric restriction, without regard to optimizing nutrient content, is difficult to sustain over the long run. I think this is one of the main reasons why typical (i.e., nutritionally defective) “dieting” has a built-in negative loop that makes it extremely difficult to practice and maintain as a lifestyle. It becomes very draining, psychologically and physically, to sustain a non-optimal, low caloric diet over the long haul. In contrast, a high nutrient, mostly plant-based, wholesome diet has its own “positive feedback loop” that makes it easier to maintain as a long-term practice.
Side effects of changing to a healthy weight loss diet
Posted by: | CommentsAn old friend from back home called me a few days ago with this question:
Q: “When I shifted to eating healthier, i.e., eating vegetables, fruits, legumes, and nuts & seeds, eliminating sugar and fast foods altogether, I started feeling weak and nauseous. My uncle (who’s a third-generation butcher and a serious afficionado of high-fat variants of Philippine cooking and chicharon-bulaklak connoisseur), told me that’s what I get from not eating meat. He suggested I eat meat immediately to get stronger. I used to eat a minimum of 16 ounces of red meat and/or chicken a day, mostly from fast food restaurants and steak houses. This is excluding my three times a week habit of eating pork chops (or sausages) and five eggs twice a week for breakfast. I love meat (and Meat Lover’s Pizza), but I want to give a healthy diet a chance since my total cholesterol is at 387 and my pressure is 170 over 125.”
A: Your body has been used to processing a very high amount of protein and salt, so the shift to better food needs time to re-adjust. You have been subjecting yourself to a high level of metabolic stress because of the excess protein your have been consuming and fat. The readjustment to lower protein and sodium levels will take some time, so in the beginning you’ll actually feel worse when you shift to a high-level, nutrient dense, lower calorie healthy diet. This detox process is no different from the withdrawal symptoms one gets when quitting addictive substances.
Some authorities would argue for a phased-in change, tapering off your high meat consumption as you increase your greens and healthy whole food intake. Supposedly this minimizes the toxic dumping that accompanies a shift to a lower caloric (and conceivably, healthier) diet. Losing weight fast can potentially have harmful effects.
Other sources, e.g., Dr. Joel Fuhrman, argues that shifting immediately to a nutritionally excellent diet would be a more strategically sound approach, given your alarming profile.
My feeling is that it really depends on how sound the new diet can be, and how informed, disciplined and motivated you will be with your new regimen. Nausea is usually not a good motivator, so it will depend on how well you’re going to weather the detox storms coming your way…
