Dr. Jonny Bowden

Tag: diet

  • Does a pH Balancing Diet Work?

    Does a pH Balancing Diet Work?

    Guest article by Monica Reinagel, MS, LD/N aka “The Nutrition Diva” ™

    Many people are convinced that balancing the pH of your diet will help keep you healthier. There are several popular diet books based on this idea and you can find lists of acid- and alkaline-forming foods on the Internet. Lots of you have written to ask whether this is something you need to pay attention to.

    The Acid/Alkaline Theory of Health

    The acid/alkaline theory of health and disease goes something like this: Every food you eat leaves a residue in the body after it is fully digested. That residue, or ash, is either acidic or alkaline. This has nothing to do with whether the food itself is acidic. Lemons, for example, are acidic, as you can tell by their pucker-factor. And yet lemons leave an alkaline residue.

    To keep this from getting confusing, the preferred terminology is that a lemon is an acidic food, but not an acid-forming food. Some people believe that if we eat too many acid-forming foods our blood and/or tissues become acidic and that this promotes disease. They reason that eating more alkaline-forming foods will balance the pH in our bodies and restore health.

    What are the Acid- and Alkaline-Forming Foods?

    In general, fruits and vegetables are alkaline-forming, and meats and grains are acid-forming. But it gets way more complicated than that. You can find lists of acid- and alkaline-forming foods on the Internet–but I’m not entirely sure where these lists come from or how they are generated. I’ve never seen one that had any citation or source information attached to it. Furthermore, they tend to contradict one another–foods are listed as acid-forming on one website and alkaline-forming on another.

    That’s one of things that makes me wonder about the validity of this theory. The other thing that I find notable is that in all the medical literature, I cannot find one study that’s ever tested this theory.

    Researchers love to test theories. That’s what they do! And just about every diet theory that’s been proposed in the last thirty years has been the subject of some sort of published research. You can find studies on the effects of anti-inflammatory diets, low-carb diets, low-glycemic diets, high-protein diets, vegan diets, and Mediterranean diets. But apparently, no serious researchers have ever found the acid/alkaline theory plausible enough to look into.

    Why not? After all, it’s absolutely true that maintaining the proper pH in your body is crucial–not just to staying healthy, but to staying alive at all. If your blood got even slightly too acidic or too alkaline and stayed that way for more than a few minutes, you’d be in a coma or worse. But what you eat actually has very little effect on the pH of your blood. Believe me, nature is not about to let your survival hinge on dietary discretion.We have several systems in place to maintain pH balance in our bodies, no matter what we eat.

    Flushing the Evidence

    If you’ve read anything about this theory, you might have come across the part where they tell you to test the pH of your urine. You can buy inexpensive pH sticks at the drug store and pee on them. If you try this, you’ll see that what you eat does change the pH of your urine. And to some, that is proof that the acid/alkaline theory is true. But actually, the reason that the pH of your urine is changing is so that the pH of your blood doesn’t. The kidneys are one of the major ways that your body maintains a constant pH.

    Worrying about the pH of your urine makes about as much sense as worrying about the dirt in your trash. Both are leaving the premises. The trash is carried out to the curb and any dirt it contains isn’t going to make your house dirtier. Likewise, the urine is being flushed and isn’t making your body any more acidic.

    Are There Consequences to Eating Too Many Acid-Forming Foods?

    There’s a slightly more sophisticated version of this theory that acknowledges that a healthy body is able to maintain its pH no matter what you eat. However, if you eat too many acid-forming foods, the effort of maintaining pH will deplete the body’s energy or resources, leaving you vulnerable to disease. For example, another way that your body balances pH is to pull calcium from the bones. So, it follows that eating too many acid-forming foods might promote bone loss.

    Again, I’ll just point out that the long-term consequences of a so-called acidic diet are purely theoretical. They have never been confirmed by any sort of direct research that links the acid/alkaline residue of the diet with health outcomes. But we certainly have plenty of indirect research. For example, the effects of high-protein diets, which are presumably high in acid-forming foods, have been studied.

    In fact, you might recall a recent episode that I did on nutrition and bone health. I mentioned that high-protein diets can increase bone loss—but only in people who are calcium deficient. In other words, if you are getting enough calcium and other minerals in your diet, you’ll have more than enough to maintain your bone mass and buffer the effects of acid-forming foods.

    Why You Might Want to Follow a pH Balanced Diet ANYWAY

    For now, the acid/alkaline theory of disease is just that: a theory. Parts of the theory are plausible; some are a little silly. Most are untested. And, maybe one day, researchers will do some large-scale studies on the effects of dietary pH on health. When they do, I have a feeling they might discover that people who eat more alkaline foods are, in fact, healthier.

    After all, what would that diet look like? It would be high in fruits and vegetables. And, unless this is the very first episode you’ve ever listened to, you can probably recite with me the many benefits of eating more fruits and vegetables.

    A diet high in fruits and vegetables is going to be high in antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Plus, if you’re also trying to limit your intake of acid-producing foods– which are meats and grains–you’re probably going to end up cutting out a lot of foods that are also high in sugar, fat, calories, and sodium. Regardless of the pH aspect, that sounds to me like a good way to improve your health.

    In other words, I don’t think anybody is going to get hurt following a pH-balanced diet, as long as the diet is otherwise balanced and nutritious. I just think that it’s an unnecessarily complicated way to get to the same old punch-line: Eat more vegetables, less junk, and nothing to excess.

     

    About the Author: Monica Reinagel is a licensed nutritionist and author of Secrets for a Healthy Diet: What to Eat, What to Avoid, and What to Stop Worrying About. For more of Monica’s evidence-based nutrition advice, check out her weekly Nutrition Diva podcast. View the complete archive »

  • Infographic: Heart-Healthy Moving Advice

    Infographic: Heart-Healthy Moving Advice

    Heart-Healthy Moving

    Infographic design and illustration by Kena Ravel for MyMove

  • My New Morning Ritual

    My New Morning Ritual

    From time to time, I stumble upon a product I didn’t expect to like but actually do—which is exactly what happened with Garden of Life’s Raw Meal.

    It’s no secret that I’ve never been a huge fan of Garden of Life, but I’ll be the first to admit that the reason for that has little to do with their product.

    No, my prejudice came from the fact that the founder of Garden of Life and I were in a class together many years ago and, frankly, I just didn’t much like the guy. So there, I admit it, my prejudice about the company was very colored by an insignificant incident 15 years ago, but then again, who ever said prejudices were smart?

    So I’m browsing through the catalogues of the various companies, and I see this product by Garden of Life—Raw Meal—and the description sounds so fascinating that I decide to order it.

    Which I did.

    Well, let me just be honest and say this: It’s great.

    I mean, seriously great. Like it’s my go-to meal replacement these days. And let me tell you why:

    • First of all, it tastes great. (I’ll tell you how I personally prepare it at the end of this newsletter.)
    • Second of all, it has 17 grams of protein in a half serving, 34 grams in a complete serving. (More about this “serving” business in a minute.)
    • Third of all, a full serving has a remarkable 10 grams of fiber, and even a half serving has 5 grams, more than 95% of the crummy cereals we’re told to eat for their “high fiber” content.. (but don’t get me started).

    Full Serving vs. Half Serving

    Here’s the deal with the “full serving” and “half serving”. You can use this powder as a meal replacement (full serving) in which case you use two scoops and it provides 310 calories; or you can use it as a mini-meal or snack, in which case you use one scoop and it provides 155 calories. If you use it as a meal replacement, you can throw in all kinds of goodies like berries, raw oats, raw milk,  almond milk, Forti-Flax, even a handful of nuts if you like, essentially designing your own meal with as many (or as few) calories as you like.

    You can even add a scoop of protein powder, like Designs for Health Whey Cool, to up the protein content a bit. And you can do the same for the fiber by adding in a small scoop of Paleo-Fiber. It’s like adding options to the base model of a car. You can add them on—but you don’t have to!

    Raw Meal provides twenty essential vitamins and minerals, in many cases 100% of the RDA (pitiful as that number is). In addition, there’s a RAW probiotic and enzyme blend, with about 3 billion CFU of lactobaccilus acidophilus and digestive enzymes. The protein is completely derived from plant sources.

    It’s “Green” Too!

    I was also pleased to find that this company really cares about the planet, and seems to have a true commitment to sustainability. They use only certified organic plant protein from sprouted grains and legumes, and they use only recyclable packaging, vegetable inks, sustainably farmed papers and 100% certified renewable wind energy credits to run their operations. Gotta give ‘em props for that.

    How I Enjoy Raw Meal

    All this probably wouldn’t matter so much if the product didn’t taste great, but it does. Seriously, folks.

    Here’s the way I personally like it. Try this and tell me if it’s not the greatest thing ever. (A warning note, though. I make things in the kitchen entirely by feel, so please forgive me if this doesn’t exactly follow recipe protocol. Experiment with it and I promise you’ll find a mix you love!)

    1. Take a glass of raw, whole milk and put it in a blender. (Raw milk is still legal in a couple of states. If you can’t get raw, whole milk, use almond milk. I usually use about 7/8 raw whole milk and then top it off with a dollop of almond milk anyway, just for flavor.)
    2. Throw in one scoop of Raw Meal
    3. Add a small handful of berries
    4. Add a tablespoon or so of Forti-Flax
    5. Throw in a small handful of almonds (I like dry roasted in Bragg’s Aminos, but any good almonds will do.)
    6. Throw in a small handful of coconut flakes (we get these prepackaged at the supermarket—in either little containers or in plastic bags.)
    7. A tiny spoonful (probably a ½ teaspoon to teaspoon) of Manuka Honey
    8. A scoop of fiber – I like PaleoFiber
    9. Blend and drink!

    If it comes out too thick—or looks like it will—add more almond milk, or even some ice cubes to thin it out a bit. But don’t thin it out too much. When it’s just right it’s creamily delicious, with a nutty, crunchy texture.

    And let me know if you don’t love Raw Meal as much as I do!

    Supplements Mentioned in This Article

    Raw Meal by Garden of Life

     

    Forti-Flax by Barlean’s Greens

     

    PaleoFiber by Designs for Health

     

    Whey Cool by Designs for Health

     

     

  • Diabetes: Prevention and Cure

    Diabetes: Prevention and Cure

    It’s almost impossible to talk about diabetes these days without also mentioning its constant companion: obesity.

    In fact, the two have become so linked that health practitioners have come up with their own nickname for the pair, a kind of medical version of “Brangelina”-they call it Diabesity.

    According to Linda Geiss, a statistician with the Center for Disease Control, obesity is a major factor in the increase in diabetes. And what an increase it is- just in the six year period between 1997 and 2003 there was a 41% increase in the incidence of diagnosed diabetes. Unquestionably, obesity is part of the reason. In 2003, only 2 of 1000 normal-weight people had diabetes, but 18.3 of every 1000 obese people had it. Even being overweight increases risk- 5.5 out of every 1000 overweight people have the disease as well, almost three times as many as those of normal weight.(1)

    Should we be worried?

    Well, if current trends continue, 1 in 3 Americans will develop diabetes sometime in their lifetime.

    And in case you’re wondering, those with diabetes will lose on average 10-15 years of life.

    Diabetes is the leading cause of new cases of blindness among adults, not to mention kidney failure and non-traumatic lower-extremity amputations. And as of 2006, it was the 7th leading cause of death in the US-the risk of dying for a person with diabetes is about twice that of a person without the disease. (2)

    But here’s the thing: type ll diabetes, which is what we’re mainly talking about here, is virtually 100 percent preventable.

    It’s also treatable. And interestingly, the same things that benefit those with diabetes benefit those who are overweight and obese.

    To understand why dietary changes can have such a profound impact on diabetes, it helps to understand just what happens in the body when a person with a “normal” metabolism eats food:

    1. Food is broken down in the digestive system to smaller units that the body can do something with; carbs break down to glucose (sugar), protein breaks down to amino acids (some of which can be turned into sugar), and fat breaks down to fatty acids.
    2. The glucose (from the carbs and some of the amino acids) gets into the bloodstream, raising your blood sugar.
    3. In response, the pancreas secretes a hormone called insulin which- among its many jobs- helps escort that extra sugar out of the bloodstream and into the cells (especially the muscle cells) where it can be “burned” for energy.

    That’s when everything is going right.

    But there’s very little that’s “right” about the typical American diet.

    The Standard American Diet is Making Us Fat

    We eat far too much sugar, far too many carbs (which, as we’ve seen, turn into sugar) and far too many calories. Couple this with the fact that our sedentary lifestyle creates very little demand among the muscle cells for “fuel” (sugar).

    The result?

    Many of us have much more sugar floating around our bloodstream than we could possibly use. The pancreas tries desperately to keep up with the increased demand for insulin which is needed to bring blood sugar back down to normal.

    Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. The pancreas might manage to secrete enough insulin to keep blood sugar from being in the “diabetic” range, but the cost is a high level of insulin, which keeps fat from being “burned” (it also raises blood pressure). Your blood sugar may stay just under the cutoff for a diabetes diagnosis, but your high levels of insulin (and the inevitable inability of the cells to “listen” to insulin) classify you as “pre-diabetic”.

    In some cases even that extra insulin that the pancreas labored to produce can’t manage to get blood sugar down into the relatively “safe” (or non-diabetic) range. At this point, with elevated insulin and elevated blood sugar- you’ve got full blown type ll diabetes.

    Once you understand this, the importance of diet and exercise become very clear. Your diet needs to be one that doesn’t send your blood sugar through the roof. And exercise creates a natural demand from the muscle cells for sugar, therefore helping to reduce blood sugar naturally.

    Low-Carb Diets Work for Diabetes… and Weight Loss!

    In my opinion, the absolute best strategy for treating (and preventing!) diabetes is a controlled carbohydrate diet. Why? Because of the three “macronutrients” in every diet- protein, carbs and fats– the one that raises blood sugar the most is carbohydrates. Protein raises blood sugar and insulin a bit, but not nearly as much as carbs do. And fat raises it not at all.

    That’s why a low-fat high-carb diet is precisely the wrong way to go when you’re dealing with diabetes.

    Now this view is controversial (though becoming less so, particularly in view of mounting research showing the positive effect of low-carb diets on blood sugar and insulin). There have been successes with conventional low-fat diets, but they are nearly always loaded with fiber and vegetables (the so-called “low-glycemic” carbs), not with the processed carbs and sugar that are rampant in the conventional American diet. But reducing carbohydrate intake (especially from sugars and starches) virtually always normalizes insulin metabolism, and helps bring blood glucose (sugar) under control.

    What is Exactly Constitutes “Low-Carb” These Days?

    The following guidelines are adapted from the (sadly) out-of-print masterpiece, “Diabetes: Prevention and Cure” by C. Leigh Broadhurst, PhD. I’ve modernized them slightly, but the essence of her recommendations are hard to improve upon.

    • Limit carb consumption to fruits and vegetables.
    • Eat no pasta, bread, noodles, macaroni, rice, cereal or crackers.
    • Eat absolutely no sugar or sugary foods. “If it’s sugar-sweet or made of wheat, don’t eat”, she says.
    • Don’t drink fruit juices, except for a little in blender drinks. Eat the whole fruit.
    • Don’t eat meals or snacks composed mainly or wholly of carbs, especially at breakfast and late at night. Meals and snacks need to be a balance of protein, carbs and fat.
    • Eat copious quantities of fresh non-starchy vegetables (first choice) and fruits (second choice).
    • Don’t drink alcohol. “Alcohol, like refined sugars and starches, forces you to cannibalize your body’s nutrient stores just to metabolize it”.
    • Always consume your daily protein requirement. Donald Layman, PhD, one of the premiere researchers in the field of low-carb diets, routinely puts everyone on a diet of 125 grams a day of protein (along with 60 grams of fat and 100 grams or less of carbs, mostly from vegetables and fruits).
    • And, of course, start exercising. Every single day.

    Remember, a controlled carb diet doesn’t have to be extreme. Most Americans eat over 300 grams of the stuff on a daily basis. You should get huge benefits if you can cut that to 100, though some people may find that they need even greater restriction.

    My Recommended Reading List

    Some of the best information on diet and diabetes comes from Richard Bernstein, MD, a doc who himself has type l diabetes. His book “The Diabetes Diet” should be required reading.

    Also worth reading: “The Atkins Diabetes Revolution” by Mary Vernon, MD.

    Diabetes is one of those conditions where you actually can take control of your own health. Do it. As the kids would say, “it’s so worth it”.

     

    Sources

    1. WebMD, “Diabetes Up, Obesity to Blame”, April 20, 2006
    2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Diabetes: At A Glance 2009
  • Mediterranean Diet…The Best Diet Ever? Not So Fast!

    Mediterranean Diet…The Best Diet Ever? Not So Fast!

    Last week, the New England Journal of Medicine published a study which, according to the fawning mainstream press, proved “conclusively” that the best diet in the world was the Mediterranean diet, that it protected everyone from heart disease and stroke, and that everyone in the world should be on it.

    Except the study showed no such thing.

    Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m a big fan of the concept of Mediterranean eating, even though I’ve never seen anyone definitively define what “The Mediterranean Diet” actually is. (Check the definitions: most are squishy and vague with phrases like “higher in vegetables” or “lower in dairy”.) We do know that in all styles of Mediterranean eating there is way less sugar. And there’s lots of olive oil, nuts and other good stuff.

    We also know that Mediterranean folks eat their big meal of the day in the middle of afternoon. And that they take naps. And that the men talk about their feelings. (A lot.) And they get lots of sun. And that all of these things have a great deal of impact, though that’s not what gets mentioned when the press talks about “The Mediterranean Diet”.

    But I digress.

    Back to the study. What the researchers actually did was create three groups of people. Group one ate what is generally thought of as a Mediterranean-type diet, but supplemented with lots of extra-virgin olive oil. Group two ate the same diet, but supplemented with lots of nuts. And group three ate the standard, American, low-fat high-carb diet that the diet dictocrats have been pushing on us for decades. The one recommended by such groups as the American Heart Association and the god-awful moribund American Dietetic Association (or whatever it is they’re calling themselves these days to try to reinvent themselves as contemporary. Good luck with that.)

    Here’s what the results showed with laser-sharp clarity: The low-fat diet is a complete and utter failure.

    Both “Mediterranean diet” groups did well on measures of cardiovascular health, and there wasn’t much difference between the two groups. But the low-fat group did horribly. In fact, they did so badly that in the middle of the study, the researchers intervened, and tried to give the low-fat group more instruction and attention to bring them up to speed. Didn’t matter. They bombed anyway.

    Side note that was missed in all the media reporting: The researchers clearly state that they believe the excellent results achieved by both “Mediterranean” groups were largely driven by the supplemental nuts and the supplemental extra-virgin olive oil. Not necessarily the “diet” itself.

    So what have we learned, class?

    We’ve learned that the American, low-fat diet stinks. And that nuts and olive oil are extremely healthy foods.

    As far as the Mediterranean diet being the “best” diet ever, that’s still up for grabs. This study certainly didn’t show that, as it didn’t pit the “Mediterranean diet” against any other diet but the low-fat one; there was no group doing a “paleo” diet, or a “high-protein” diet or a “raw foods” diet.

    And we still don’t have a good definition of the Mediterranean diet. (As my mentor, the great Robert Crayhon once quipped, “People think the “Mediterranean Diet” means adding a bunch of olive oil to your corn flakes”.) And we still don’t know which aspects of the so-called Mediterranean lifestyle are the ones that really produce the results. Is it the olive oil? The nuts? The vegetables? The low level of red meat? The fact that they eat slowly and in the middle of the day? Maybe it’s all of those things, maybe it’s just some of them… this study certainly didn’t address that question, so we can’t say for sure.

    What we can say is this: No diet, ever, in the history of the world, has been higher in sugar and processed carbohydrate junk foods than the one that most people in America consume on a daily basis.

    And no diet is better designed to produce the epidemic of obesity, diabetes and heart disease we are currently witnessing.

    My own personal opinion is you could design a dozen diet studies showing the superiority of a dozen different diets (from Atkins to Ornish to Zone) as long as you compare each of them to the crap we’re eating now.

    With a bar that low, almost any diet is going to look like a superstar.

  • 150 Healthiest Foods: Green Beans

    150 Healthiest Foods: Green Beans

    The folate (folic acid) in green beans lowers the inflammatory compound called homocysteine which is usually high in people with heart disease and Alzheimer’s.

  • Egg Yolks as Dangerous as Smoking?

    Egg Yolks as Dangerous as Smoking?

    Oh brother, here we go again…

    Last week, the journal Atherosclerosis published a study examining the association between the number of egg yolks consumed per week and the amount of plaque in the carotid artery. The study concluded that eating egg yolks is almost as bad as smoking when it comes to speeding up plaque deposits.

    OK, everyone, relax and take a deep breath.

    The idea that a food which contains 13 essential vitamins and minerals, high-quality protein, antioxidants, eye-health supporting carotenoids (lutein and zeaxanthin) and brain supporting choline should have almost as bad an effect on the heart as a pack of Salems just doesn’t pass the smell test, even if your nose is clogged. And it doesn’t begin to jibe with previous research.

    But that’s just the beginning.

    Readers of this newsletter have heard me rail time and time again against drawing conclusions from what are known as observational studies, of which this is a prime example. If you’re new to my column, here’s the difference between clinical study (which this is most definitely not) and an observational one. It’s an important difference, and it’s essential to understanding why the present study is not only horrible science, it’s also useless.

    What Exactly Is An “Observational Study”?

    In an observational study from which many associations are generated, you take a whole bunch of people- thousands of them—and you gather data about a zillion different things.

    Maybe it’s blood pressure and cholesterol, maybe it’s heart disease, maybe it’s what they ate for breakfast, how often they brush their teeth, how many of their parents had diabetes, how many of them own television sets, practice the rhumba, love Lady Gaga, take antidepressants, or pop a Centrum now and then.

    OK now you’ve got a statistician’s version of heaven—tons and tons of data. A gazillion gigabytes of numbers from thousands of people, and it’s your job to see if there’s any pattern, to determine which things are “associated”, meaning “found together”. If two things are said to be associated (or correlated), that means there is some relationship between these two things.

    Get it?

    Of course, discovering that two things happen to be found together is only the first part of science. The second, important part, is finding out why. Observational studies don’t touch that question; they merely catalogue what’s found together and leave it to the big boys to run the actual clinical studies and find out what the found association actually means (if anything).

    This study didn’t even generate tons of data because they only looked at two- count ‘em, two—variables. Smoking and egg yolk consumption. We’ll come back to this in a minute.

    So this egg yolk study was an observational study, like all the other studies with weird and inexplicable “results” (i.e. taking a multivitamin will kill you). You cannot- repeat cannot– attribute cause and effect to an observational study. All you can say is that it’s been observed that two things are found together more frequently than might be by chance. You have no idea about why.

    (If you want to read a great story about the idiocy of drawing cause and effect conclusions from observational studies, read the following paragraphs. If you’d just as soon move on with the story, skip over the part about storks and babies.)

    Storks and Babies: A Short Tangent into Observational Studies

    In a certain region of Denmark, there is a correlation between the number of storks and the number of babies. Seriously. It’s a positive correlation, meaning the more storks there are, the more babies there are. According to my old Psych 101 professor, Dr. Scott Fraser—this stork-baby correlation thing has held up for years.

    So. A classic observational study shows more storks, more babies. Less storks, less babies. What do we conclude?

    Well, here’s what we do not conclude, unless of course, we’re three years old: Storks bring babies. We might not know why the correlation occurs—it’s admittedly puzzling and amusing at the same time– but we’re pretty sure that it’s not cause and effect.

    Dr. Fraser used this example back when I was in his psych class to introduce the concept of confounding variables.

    A confounding variable is one which is not measured directly, but which accounts for the relationship between the two things that were measured.

    See if you can find the “confounding variable” in the storks-babies correlation.

    Give up?

    Here’s the answer to the puzzle. In Denmark, the cities are largely populated by singles and by childless couples. When people want to have kids, they move to the suburbs. In the suburbs of Denmark, the houses tend to be A frames with tar-based sloping roofs. Storks love to nest on tar and sloping roofs.

    The tar-based sloping roofs are the “confounding” variable. Both storks and newlyweds flock to the same area. Puzzle solved.

    Back to Egg Yolks

    When statisticians do studies like this “egg yolks kill” study, they try to “correct” for the confounding variables by applying statistical techniques that nullify other potential influences, like age, sex, years smoking and all that other good stuff.

    But they can only “control” for the variables they think of. And they often don’t think of precisely the variables that are making the difference, particularly when they already have a point of view about what the outcome is going to be (it’s called “confirmation bias” and it’s rampant in research.)

    In this study, for example, investigators claim to have statistically controlled for smoking, but they failed to control for overall lifestyle behavior. “Can they truly statistically control for all health factors of smoking?” asks Donald Layman, PhD. No, folks. They can’t. They also didn’t control for sugar intake, nor for omega-6 intake. (The high ratio of omega-6’s to omega-3’s in the western diet is probably responsible for more heart disease than saturated fat ever was!)

    It gets worse. They also didn’t control for exercise. Not only that, they completely failed to mention whether the “high egg users” were also the “high smokers”. (Smoking is one of the biggest factors associated with increasing plaque area.) And did I mention that plaque generally increases with age? Subjects in the “high egg consumption” group had an average age of 69.7 years while subjects in the “low egg consumption” group were on average 12 years younger, with an average age of 55.7 years.

    But that’s not even the best part.

    Buried at the end of the study is the finding that there was no association between cholesterol and plaque growth. Not total cholesterol, not LDL cholesterol not HDL cholesterol. None of them had any association with greater plaque. So if eating 2 extra eggs a week—the difference between the “low egg consumers” and the “high egg consumers”—is causing plaque growth, it’s got to be by some other mechanism than the cholesterol in the eggs, since cholesterol wasn’t associated with the reported plaque growth at all. Yet they claim that the reason they did the study in the first place is because there’s reason to be concerned about the cholesterol in eggs!

    Let’s review.

    In a very limited observational study of 1200 people, researchers measured carotid artery thickness and then went back and examined data on two variables: smoking and egg yolk consumption. That’s all, folks. And they found that people (average age 57) who ate about 2 ¾ eggs a week had less plaque growth than people (average age 69) who ate about 4.1/2 eggs a week.

    Plaque growth might also have been positively correlated with portions of asparagus eaten on Wednesdays or number of pitches thrown in a little league game when the subjects were nine. Of course the researchers wouldn’t have looked at any of that, because they wouldn’t have thought it was relevant. And maybe it’s not. But is sugar consumption? Omega-6 fat consumption? Lifestyle choices? Smoking? Age? The investigators didn’t look at other “suspects” because they had already decided they had the guilty party.

    David Jenkins, one of the researchers on this paper, is a wonderful man, a very smart, gentle scholar who has made an enormous contribution to nutrition with his work on glycemic index. I questioned Dr. Jenkins after his presentation at the American College of Nutrition conference in New York in 2010, and it was abundantly clear that he was a strong believer in the cholesterol hypothesis and that he was concerned about the growing trend towards looking at cholesterol as just a minor player in heart disease. For those of us who believe that the cholesterol hypothesis is just a myth, I’m sure he feels this study is a wake-up call

    Unfortunately this study is nothing of the kind. Sad to say, it’s just really bad science and I’m honestly amazed that it got published at all.

  • Computer Use + Exercise = Reduced Memory Loss

    Computer Use + Exercise = Reduced Memory Loss

    A study in Mayo Clinic Proceedings  found that combining computer time with moderate exercise reduces your risk of memory loss compared with either activity alone.

    Researchers interviewed over 900 70 – 93 year olds after they completed a questionnaire about how often they exercised and used a computer.

    Just to clarify, “moderate exercise” included activities like:

    • brisk walking
    • doubles tennis
    • yoga
    • weightlifting.

    Mentally stimulating activities, on the other hand, included:

    • reading
    • social interaction
    • using a computer

    So why did researchers single out computers?

    Because so many people in this study used one on a regular basis.

    “The aging of baby boomers is projected to lead to dramatic increases in the prevalence of dementia,” lead researcher Dr. Yonas E. Geda said. “As frequent computer use has becoming increasingly common among all age groups, it is important to examine how it relates to aging and dementia. Our study further adds to this discussion.”

    Researchers found a combination of mental and physical stimulation reduced risk for mild cognitive impairment, a condition somewhere between age-related memory loss and early dementia.

    More specifically, they found:

    • For participants who neither exercised nor used a computer…
      • 20.1% had normal cognitive function
      • 37.6% showed signs of mild cognitive impairment.
    • For participants who exercised andused a computer…
      • 36% had normal cognitive function
      • 18.3% showed signs of mild cognitive impairment.

    In other words, the synergistic effects of exercise and mental stimulation best protected these participants against cognitive decline.

    51ZLpg8AQpL._SL110_
    If you’ve read any of my books, especially The Most Effective Ways to Live Longer  you know how much I value exercise and learning as critical tools to age better.

    Simply put, people who constantly challenge their minds and bodies live longer and more happily than complacent, sedentary people.

    After all, you probably saw the recent study in The Journal of the American Medical Association that showed people who sit more often have shorter life spans.

    Evolution designed us to use our bodies for physical activity and our minds for learning, and those demands don’t diminish as we age.

    In fact, a study in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise concluded that “no segment of the population…can benefit more from exercise than the elderly.”

    Those benefits go beyond physical health: a study in that same journal showed that moderate- and high-intensity resistance exercise programs both benefitted cognitive functioning.

    In other words, exercise can boost your mental power. And when your mind remains active and alert, you’re more likely to exercise than if you’re in a mental fog or TV-induced trance.

    No matter what your age, I want to propose two challenges to prevent memory loss and keep your mind and body in prime condition:

    1. Develop and maintain a vigorous exercise program. Brisk walking is good, but I want you to step it up a few notches. Try a new exercise class or sport, for instance, to boost your physical and mental skills. I never get tired of talking about my favorite exercise, burst training, which you can do in your own home and requires just minutes a day. You can devote all that time you save to learning a new language or rereading your favorite novel.
    2. Keep your mind active by always engaging in new activities. It doesn’t need to be anything rigorous: mental stimulation might include reading a new author or seeing a film outside your favorite genre. And as this study showed, online learning provides another way to keep your brain stimulated. Join forums about your favorite topics, for instance, or learn a new program.

    Harvard University made a list of seven activities you can do to keep your brain healthy and active at any age.

    Their number-one strategy is the same as mine: keep learning.

  • Protect Your Brain with… Onions!

    Protect Your Brain with… Onions!

    A new study suggests that compounds in onions may protect the brain from additional damage linked to stroke.


    This is hardly the first good news about onions, which I wrote about in depth in my book, “The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth”. In a number of impressive published studies, the consumption of onions (and other members of the allium vegetable family) demonstrated protective effects against stomach cancer.

    In one study, eating onions (as well as other members of its family like garlic, scallions, chives, and leeks) significantly lowered the risk for prostate cancer. Onions (and their close relatives have also been shown to have the same effect against esophageal cancer. In the new study, Korean researchers reduced blood flow in the brains of two groups of mice and then fed one of them onion extracts. The results showed that the onion group had significantly reduced brain edema (water in the brain, a common effect of stroke). No such reduction in brain edema was seen in the mice that didn’t get the onions. Other stroke-like damage was also reduced in the group that consumed the onion extracts.

    Onions belong to the allium family, which also includes leeks, garlic, and shallots. They contain a whole pharmacy of compounds with health benefits, including thiosulfinates, sulfides, sulfoxides, and other smelly sulfur compounds. (Sulfur is great for you, but it stinks—think the New Jersey Turnpike!)

    But those same smelly compounds offer a lot of nutrition bang for the relatively small price of a little eye-watering. In a study in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, onions are one of a very select group of foods that in combination was found to reduce mortality from coronary heart disease by an impressive 20 percent (the others included broccoli, tea, and apples).

    Onions contain powerful antioxidants and are anti-inflammatory, antibiotic, and antiviral.

    They are a great source of quercetin, one of my favorite anti-inflammatory compounds and one that is associated with beneficial effects on chronic disease like cancer and heart disease.

    This quercetin + stinging nettles combo is terrific for treating allergies.

    The class of chemicals that quercetin belongs to—flavonoids—have antiallergic properties as well, and quercetin in particular is frequently used by nutritionists as part of their arsenal for treating allergies with natural substances.

    Quercetin can help relieve asthma and hay fever by blocking some of the inflammatory responses in the airways.

    Quercetin is one of the most anti-inflammatory plant compounds on the planet.

    Our bodies absorb quercetin from onions very easily, though you’ll probably need quercetin supplements if your main interest is using it therapeutically as an anti-inflammatory.

    Onions also contain a number of sulfides very similar to those in garlic, which may lower blood lipids and blood pressure.

  • 5 Fat-Phobic Fallacies to Avoid Like the Plague

    5 Fat-Phobic Fallacies to Avoid Like the Plague

    A study in the journal Molecular Nutrition & Food Research found even though your leafy greens are loaded with nutrients, you’re not fully absorbing them without the right kind of dressing.

    Researchers here gave 29 people a salad topped with either saturated, monounsaturated, or polyunsaturated fat-based dressing.

    In case you wondered, butter was the saturated fat, canola oil the monounsaturated fat, and corn oil the polyunsaturated fat.

    I know what you’re thinking: nobody eats butter on a salad! But butter represents saturated fat well, so that’s what researchers went with.

    They gave participants a salad topped with a dressing that contained three, eight, or 20 grams of fat.

    Researchers then collected blood samples to see how well these people absorbed the carotenoids in their veggies and leafy greens.

    Monounsaturated was the winner. People who ate monounsaturated-fat dressings absorbed the same amount of carotenoids regardless of whether they ate three or 20 grams of fat on their salad.

    Put another way: if you want to get the most bang from your dressing buck, stick to a monounsaturated fat dressing like olive oil.

    Polyunsaturated fat, on the other hand, proved the most dose-dependent. So those who put 20 grams of a polyunsaturated-fat dressing on their salad, in other words, absorbed the most carotenoids. Same with saturated fat, though to a lesser extent.

    Carotenoids encompass a full umbrella of compounds including lutein, lycopene, beta-carotene, and zeaxanthin. Beta-carotene, for instance, gives sweet potatoes their vivid orange hue.

    If you’ve read my book The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth, you’ll know I’m a huge fan of carotenoids to fight cancer, heart disease, and lots more.

    But here’s the deal. Carotenoids are fat-soluble nutrients. If you don’t eat some fat with them, you’re not going to fully absorb them.

    Cooking your veggies in fat, like butter or coconut oil, helps you best absorb carotenoids and fat-soluble nutrients like vitamins D, E, and K. Likewise, a full-fat dressing will help you absorb the leafy greens’ fat-soluble nutrients better than a fat-free dressing.

    “If you want to utilize more from your fruits and vegetables, you have to pair them correctly with fat-based dressings,” said lead author Mario Ferruzzi. “If you have a salad with a fat-free dressing, there is a reduction in calories, but you lose some of the benefits of the vegetables.”

    I hope we get more studies like this that put the low-fat and fat-free dogma to rest. If you’ve visited any grocery store lately or even talked to a friend who’s doing Weight Watchers or whatever diet, you’ll find the fat-is-bad mentality alive and well. (Do I need to remind you that sugar is fat free?)

    I’ll leave you with these 5 fat-phobic fallacies that you should avoid like the plague:

    1. Yogurt. Yeah, it’s got zero fat and 100 calories in that little container, but almost all the calories in those tiny packets of fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt come from sugar. Full-fat dairy, on the other hand, has a fatty acid called conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which studies show helps you burn fat. Kind of ironic that people are skipping the full-fat stuff when it could actually help burn fat, right?
    2. Beef. Stop it with the 96% fat free ground beef and fat-trimmed filets already. Grass-fed beef is higher in the above-mentioned CLA as well as omega-3 fatty acids. Spend the extra money and eat less of it.
    3. Wild-caught fish. Even though salmon and other fish are loaded with health-boosting omega 3s, I will occasionally see a can or package of, say, wild salmon that boasts a low-fat claim. Especially with wild-caught, you want your fish to be fatty so you’ll get optimal amounts of these essential fatty acids.
    4. Salad dressing. Tally up how many dressings on the grocery shelf proudly proclaim “fat free” or “low fat” on the label. Then turn those bottles around and count how many ingredients they contain. Put ‘em back and buy extra-virgin olive oil or make your own dressing.
    5. Ice cream. Skip those fat-free concoctions that taste like frozen wallpaper paste. If you’re going to indulge, make it the richest, fullest-fat ice cream you can find, and do it infrequently. You’ll eat less, and the fat will help buffer out the ice cream’s sugar. Better yet, look for a no-sugar-added ice cream like So Delicious coconut milk ice cream.