0 Votes You may be aware that there are certain chemicals that make up part of the environment and food supply today that can generate more estrogen inside our bodies. Some examples of these are pesticides, herbicides and petrochemicals.
You may or may not know that these can cause an increase in stomach fat for both Men and Women. This is something that everyone should know, especially if you are trying to lose stomach fat.
The name of these chemincals are xenoestrogens (they even have a horrible name, don't they?), and when you are exposed to them through the food supply, water supply or the environment, they will stop your body from getting rid of stomach fat.
"No problem" - I hear you say. You can just stay away from the offending foods and that's it, right? Wrong.
Although you may be careful with what you eat and stick to organic food, it is very hard not to get some amount of daily exposure to xenoestrogens. They are found all over the place - even in the perfume you wear and the cleaning products you use in your house.
So, what can be done to battle the impact of the xenoestrogens in causing you to retain unwelcome stomach fat?
The great news is that there are certain types of vegetables that will assist you in your aim of losing stomach fat.
There are many types of vegetables, teas, spices, etc that have compounds which can help to fight the negative effects of xenoestrogens. Possibly the most effectual are cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, kale, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, etc.
These vegetables have very special and unique compounds (such as indole-3-carbinol - if you are interested) that can help to fight against the negative impact of of xenoestrogens on your body, and therefore, can assist you to burn off belly fat more effectively.
There are already loads of terrific reasons for consuming broccoli and cauliflower - now you can add losing stomach fat to the list!
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Monday 13 December 2010
Sunday 12 December 2010
Healthy Foods That Help Burn Fat
0 Votes Have you woken up one morning realizing you are overweight and as hard as you try, you can't recall how you came to this state? You can't seem to track it back to any particular event or series of events, because its something that over years from eating poorly and leading sedentary lives. Because this is something that has built up over many years, its also something that won't go away over night.
Fortunately the reverse is true if you were to start eating healthy and getting some regular exercise. The situation is not out of your hands yet.
Anyone who wants to lose weight needs to watch their intake of food. It's important to eat healthy, because you are what you eat.
If you are going to watch what you eat, you need to focus on the key foods that will not only promote fat loss but are also helpful for your good health.
When you make the decision to start eating healthier, its better not to quit cold turkey as this can be a very stressful change, and stress isn't good for us. So start by making a few changes at a time, replacing some of the junk foods with the foods below slowly.
Soy Protein
As omnivores, we eat both plant and animal, and from these food sources we get protein. Protein is vital in building and repairing our bodily tissues (Muscles and Organs). Because many of the animal based proteins carry some unnecessary fats (some fats are good, and some are bad), and through the growing, feeding and slaughtering process may come in contact with chemicals or biologicals that we do not want, there is a growing push for the tiny but powerful soy bean. The soy bean is a complete protein which is not that common for plants or vegetables, and its protein is not as high quality as the whey or animal proteins, it comes about as close to a magic weight loss pill as we can get.
Proteins require a great deal of calories just to digest so by eating a clean light source of protein such as soy we are gaining a double benefit.
Whole Grains
You have a whole grain when you have bran, germ and endosperm present. Whole grains are a great source of key nutrients. They are one of the top sources of vitamin B, E, iron, magnesium and fibre.
Here is a list of some good whole grain foods...
Whole Wheat
Wild Rice
Oatmeal
Brown Rice
Whole Oats
Whole Rye
Barley
Popcorn (no salt or butter)
Not only do whole grains provide the benefit of decreasing the chance for heart disease, and the potential for blood clots, they are also good for fat loss.
The Grapefruit
You may remember the grapefruit diet, its remarkable fat loss properties being attributed to crazy and mythological qualities of the grapefruit, well crazy as all that sounds...the grapefruit is a great fat loss food, but for more realistic reasons.
The grapefruit has been shown to reduce insulin levels in the body by a very small amount, and this means that you will store less sugar as fat, not to mention lower insulin levels lower your appetite.
The grapefruit is also a highly fibrous food and low in calories and it actually takes more calories to digest it than there exist in the fruit itself. As a result the grapefruit is a great food to add to your morning breakfast or any meal.
Apples
Water rich fruits like apples contain pectin and this can limit how much fat your cells will absorb. There are other benefits to apples and small berries as they contain considerable antioxidants and are just plain good for you. The age old saying.
View the Original article
Fortunately the reverse is true if you were to start eating healthy and getting some regular exercise. The situation is not out of your hands yet.
Anyone who wants to lose weight needs to watch their intake of food. It's important to eat healthy, because you are what you eat.
If you are going to watch what you eat, you need to focus on the key foods that will not only promote fat loss but are also helpful for your good health.
When you make the decision to start eating healthier, its better not to quit cold turkey as this can be a very stressful change, and stress isn't good for us. So start by making a few changes at a time, replacing some of the junk foods with the foods below slowly.
Soy Protein
As omnivores, we eat both plant and animal, and from these food sources we get protein. Protein is vital in building and repairing our bodily tissues (Muscles and Organs). Because many of the animal based proteins carry some unnecessary fats (some fats are good, and some are bad), and through the growing, feeding and slaughtering process may come in contact with chemicals or biologicals that we do not want, there is a growing push for the tiny but powerful soy bean. The soy bean is a complete protein which is not that common for plants or vegetables, and its protein is not as high quality as the whey or animal proteins, it comes about as close to a magic weight loss pill as we can get.
Proteins require a great deal of calories just to digest so by eating a clean light source of protein such as soy we are gaining a double benefit.
Whole Grains
You have a whole grain when you have bran, germ and endosperm present. Whole grains are a great source of key nutrients. They are one of the top sources of vitamin B, E, iron, magnesium and fibre.
Here is a list of some good whole grain foods...
Whole Wheat
Wild Rice
Oatmeal
Brown Rice
Whole Oats
Whole Rye
Barley
Popcorn (no salt or butter)
Not only do whole grains provide the benefit of decreasing the chance for heart disease, and the potential for blood clots, they are also good for fat loss.
The Grapefruit
You may remember the grapefruit diet, its remarkable fat loss properties being attributed to crazy and mythological qualities of the grapefruit, well crazy as all that sounds...the grapefruit is a great fat loss food, but for more realistic reasons.
The grapefruit has been shown to reduce insulin levels in the body by a very small amount, and this means that you will store less sugar as fat, not to mention lower insulin levels lower your appetite.
The grapefruit is also a highly fibrous food and low in calories and it actually takes more calories to digest it than there exist in the fruit itself. As a result the grapefruit is a great food to add to your morning breakfast or any meal.
Apples
Water rich fruits like apples contain pectin and this can limit how much fat your cells will absorb. There are other benefits to apples and small berries as they contain considerable antioxidants and are just plain good for you. The age old saying.
View the Original article
Top 7 Tips To Stretch Your Back, Hip And Leg Flexibility
1 Votes How much time should you spend stretching? This is up to you. To do all the repetitions of all exercises in the following would take at least 30 minutes. It is encouraged to try all the stretches and then decide what works best for you. You may choose to do only a few exercises that seem most helpful for your back condition. Or you may decide to do fewer repetitions of each exercise. Or you may do everything. You are the best person to decide what works for you. The exercises do not all have to be done at once. You can do a little here and there over the course of your day. Here are some of the tips that you can consider to adopt.
1. Trunk Rotation
Lie on your back with your arms out to your sides. Bend your knees and either place your feet flat on the floor or pull your knees up toward your chest. Roll your legs to one side and then the other. Experiment with leg positions to find the one that is most comfortable for you. Move from side to side 20 times. Hold the last stretch to each side for 20 seconds while you relax and breathe easily.
2. Knees To Chest
While lying on your back, pull one leg at a time up to your chest. Then raise your knees and pull both toward your chest at the same time. Do 20 repetitions of each motion, holding the last repetition for 20 seconds.
3. Hamstring Stretch
Lie flat on your back in the neutral position. Keeping your left leg straight, bend your right leg, at a 90-degree angle so that the lower right leg is parallel to the ground. Clasp your hands behind your right knee, and begin to straighten your right leg. Do a gradual stretch three to five times, holding it for 20 to 30 seconds. Repeat the stretch with the opposite leg.
4. Hip Flexor Stretch
Kneel down on your right knee. Make sure that your upper body is straight and that your left leg is bent a 90-degree angle. Keeping your hips square and your upper body perpendicular to the ground, drive your hips forward. As you move forward, you should feel the stretch in your right hip. Hold the stretch for 20 to 30 seconds and repeat three to five times. Repeat with the other leg.
5. Quadriceps Stretch
While standing, reach back and grab your right foot or ankle with your right hand. Pull your foot up toward your buttock to stretch the muscles on the front of your thigh. Keep your knee pointing down and next to the other knee. Be sure to stand up straight and avoid twisting. Hold for 20 to 30 seconds and repeat three to five times. Repeat with the opposite leg.
6. Calf Stretch
Stand with one foot in front of the other or with your feet together. Keep your toes pointing forward and your heels on the floor. Lean forward to feel a stretch at the back of your ankle and calf. Hold it for 20 to 30 seconds. Relax and repeat three to five times.
7. Gluteal Stretch
Lie on your back with both legs flat on the floor. Grab your knee and ankle with your hands and pull it toward the opposite shoulder. Hold it for 20 to 30 seconds and repeat three to five times. Repeat with the other leg.Back To Articles
View the Original article
1. Trunk Rotation
Lie on your back with your arms out to your sides. Bend your knees and either place your feet flat on the floor or pull your knees up toward your chest. Roll your legs to one side and then the other. Experiment with leg positions to find the one that is most comfortable for you. Move from side to side 20 times. Hold the last stretch to each side for 20 seconds while you relax and breathe easily.
2. Knees To Chest
While lying on your back, pull one leg at a time up to your chest. Then raise your knees and pull both toward your chest at the same time. Do 20 repetitions of each motion, holding the last repetition for 20 seconds.
3. Hamstring Stretch
Lie flat on your back in the neutral position. Keeping your left leg straight, bend your right leg, at a 90-degree angle so that the lower right leg is parallel to the ground. Clasp your hands behind your right knee, and begin to straighten your right leg. Do a gradual stretch three to five times, holding it for 20 to 30 seconds. Repeat the stretch with the opposite leg.
4. Hip Flexor Stretch
Kneel down on your right knee. Make sure that your upper body is straight and that your left leg is bent a 90-degree angle. Keeping your hips square and your upper body perpendicular to the ground, drive your hips forward. As you move forward, you should feel the stretch in your right hip. Hold the stretch for 20 to 30 seconds and repeat three to five times. Repeat with the other leg.
5. Quadriceps Stretch
While standing, reach back and grab your right foot or ankle with your right hand. Pull your foot up toward your buttock to stretch the muscles on the front of your thigh. Keep your knee pointing down and next to the other knee. Be sure to stand up straight and avoid twisting. Hold for 20 to 30 seconds and repeat three to five times. Repeat with the opposite leg.
6. Calf Stretch
Stand with one foot in front of the other or with your feet together. Keep your toes pointing forward and your heels on the floor. Lean forward to feel a stretch at the back of your ankle and calf. Hold it for 20 to 30 seconds. Relax and repeat three to five times.
7. Gluteal Stretch
Lie on your back with both legs flat on the floor. Grab your knee and ankle with your hands and pull it toward the opposite shoulder. Hold it for 20 to 30 seconds and repeat three to five times. Repeat with the other leg.Back To Articles
View the Original article
Saturday 11 December 2010
A Treadmill Exercise Routine Provides Advantages for Your Health
0 Votes Studies have shown that walking is the premiere exercise. It can be done by almost anyone at anytime. Walking on a regular basis helps one live longer and healthier.
There are many people who do not exercise simply because they don't know what to do or exercise is inconvenient. A simple treadmill exercise routine is the answer for many people as it is convenient, readily can fit into one's schedule, offers healthy benefits anc can be fun too. Taking control of the exercise is important for a good treadmill exercise routine.
Treadmill exercise routines provide the typical benefits of a cardio exercise. A person walking on a treadmill can strengthen the heart and improve their cardiovascular fitness. This will improve one's blood circulation and maintain good heart blood pressure.
Of course using this exercise machine does not guarantee a longer life but the fitness benefits gained will provide a healthier and better overall quality of life. Additionally this exercise tends to play on a person's genetic traits and in this respect may prolong one's life.
The use of a treadmill exercise routine does not take a great deal of time to provide beneficial results. Many people are able to do their routines over a lunch break. Experts can recommend a complete series of plans for routines to do on different days to keep your exercise from becoming too routine and mundane.
A typical routine usually provides a mix of hill climbs, long slow easy walks, brisk power walks, and speed intervals. One can also add unique strength moves and perhaps use hand weights to create a cumulative effect for overall fitness.
One idea for a treadmill exercise routine is to create a 3 month plan. During each week within this plan create different routines and goals for each week. If you are just starting week one might just be slower walks to get comfortable on the treadmill. Then for the next few weeks you might designate some days of the week as cardio days, some as strength days etc. Then craft a plan so that each Monday you will be doing a particular routine until you get everyday planned for you 3 months.
You will want to have some days for inclines and some for intervals. You may choose to have one day that has a little bit of each technique. Write your plan down and keep a journal of your progress. At the end of your 3 months, evaluate your treadmill exercise routine and use your notes to create a new plan or just tweak your existing plan for use for another 3 months.
While this is just an example to get you thinking, remember there are internet resources and books that give additional ideas that you can use to create your own treadmill exercise routine. Back To Articles
View the Original article
There are many people who do not exercise simply because they don't know what to do or exercise is inconvenient. A simple treadmill exercise routine is the answer for many people as it is convenient, readily can fit into one's schedule, offers healthy benefits anc can be fun too. Taking control of the exercise is important for a good treadmill exercise routine.
Treadmill exercise routines provide the typical benefits of a cardio exercise. A person walking on a treadmill can strengthen the heart and improve their cardiovascular fitness. This will improve one's blood circulation and maintain good heart blood pressure.
Of course using this exercise machine does not guarantee a longer life but the fitness benefits gained will provide a healthier and better overall quality of life. Additionally this exercise tends to play on a person's genetic traits and in this respect may prolong one's life.
The use of a treadmill exercise routine does not take a great deal of time to provide beneficial results. Many people are able to do their routines over a lunch break. Experts can recommend a complete series of plans for routines to do on different days to keep your exercise from becoming too routine and mundane.
A typical routine usually provides a mix of hill climbs, long slow easy walks, brisk power walks, and speed intervals. One can also add unique strength moves and perhaps use hand weights to create a cumulative effect for overall fitness.
One idea for a treadmill exercise routine is to create a 3 month plan. During each week within this plan create different routines and goals for each week. If you are just starting week one might just be slower walks to get comfortable on the treadmill. Then for the next few weeks you might designate some days of the week as cardio days, some as strength days etc. Then craft a plan so that each Monday you will be doing a particular routine until you get everyday planned for you 3 months.
You will want to have some days for inclines and some for intervals. You may choose to have one day that has a little bit of each technique. Write your plan down and keep a journal of your progress. At the end of your 3 months, evaluate your treadmill exercise routine and use your notes to create a new plan or just tweak your existing plan for use for another 3 months.
While this is just an example to get you thinking, remember there are internet resources and books that give additional ideas that you can use to create your own treadmill exercise routine. Back To Articles
View the Original article
Diet-Heart Controlled Trials: a New Literature Review
Many controlled studies have measured the cardiovascular effects of replacing animal ("saturated") fats with seed oils (predominantly the omega-6 polyunsaturated fat linoleic acid) in humans. A number of these studies recorded heart attacks and total mortality during the following 1-8 years. Several investigators have done meta-analyses (literature reviews) to try to tease out overall conclusions from these studies.
I'm pleased to point out a new meta-analysis of these controlled trials by Dr. Christopher Ramsden and colleagues (1). This paper finally cleans up the mess that previous meta-analyses have made of the diet-heart literature. One recent paper in particular by Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian and colleagues concluded that overall, the controlled trials show that replacing animal fat with linoleic acid (LA)-rich seed oils reduces heart attack risk (2). I disagreed strongly with their conclusion because I felt their methods were faulty (3).
Dr. Ramsden and colleagues pointed out several fundamental flaws in the review paper by Dr. Mozaffarian and colleagues, as well as in the prevailing interpretation of these studies in the scientific literature in general. These overlap with the concerns that I voiced in my post (4):
Omission of unfavorable studies, including the Rose corn oil trial and the Sydney diet-heart trial.Inclusion of weak trials with major confounding variables, such as the Finnish mental hospital trial.Failure to distinguish between omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids.Failure to acknowledge that seed oils often replaced large quantities of industrial trans fats in addition to animal fat in these trials.
Dr. Ramsden and colleagues accounted for all of these factors in their analysis, which has never been done before. They chose inclusion criteria
View the Original article
I'm pleased to point out a new meta-analysis of these controlled trials by Dr. Christopher Ramsden and colleagues (1). This paper finally cleans up the mess that previous meta-analyses have made of the diet-heart literature. One recent paper in particular by Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian and colleagues concluded that overall, the controlled trials show that replacing animal fat with linoleic acid (LA)-rich seed oils reduces heart attack risk (2). I disagreed strongly with their conclusion because I felt their methods were faulty (3).
Dr. Ramsden and colleagues pointed out several fundamental flaws in the review paper by Dr. Mozaffarian and colleagues, as well as in the prevailing interpretation of these studies in the scientific literature in general. These overlap with the concerns that I voiced in my post (4):
Omission of unfavorable studies, including the Rose corn oil trial and the Sydney diet-heart trial.Inclusion of weak trials with major confounding variables, such as the Finnish mental hospital trial.Failure to distinguish between omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids.Failure to acknowledge that seed oils often replaced large quantities of industrial trans fats in addition to animal fat in these trials.
Dr. Ramsden and colleagues accounted for all of these factors in their analysis, which has never been done before. They chose inclusion criteria
View the Original article
Friday 10 December 2010
Interview with a Kitavan
Kitava is a Melanesian island that has maintained an almost entirely traditional, non-industrial diet until very recently. It was the subject of a study by Dr. Staffan Lindeberg and colleagues, which I have written about many times, in which they demonstrated that Kitavans have a very low (undetectable) rate of heart attack, stroke, diabetes and overweight. Dr. Lindeberg described their diet as consisting mostly of yam, sweet potato, taro, cassava, coconut, fruit, fish and vegetables. Over the seven days that Dr. Lindeberg measured food intake, they ate 69% of their calories as carbohydrate, 21% as fat (mostly from coconut) and 10% as protein.
I recently received an e-mail from a Kitavan by the name of Job Daniel. He's working at the Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research in Madang, studying the social and economic impacts of malaria and related health issues in Papua New Guinea. He recalls many details of Dr. Lindeberg's visit to Kitava, which Dr. Lindeberg has confirmed are correct. Job generously offered to answer some of my questions about the traditional Kitavan diet. My questions are in bold, and his responses are below.
How many meals a day do Kitavans eat?
People on the island eat mostly two meals a day. But nowadays, breakfast is mainly comprised of tubers (yam and sweet potato and greens all cooked in coconut cream and salt) and dinner is the same with the inclusion of fish as protein most often. In between these two meals, lunch is seen as a light refreshment with fruits or young coconut only to mention these two popular ones. In between the morning and the evening, we mostly eat fruits as snack or lunch. Generally speaking, there are only two main meals per day, i.e breakfast and dinner.
Do Kitavans eat any fermented food?
There are fermented fruits and nuts like you've said for breadfruit, nuts, yams and not forgetting fish. We ferment them by using the traditional method of drying them over the fire for months. And this fermented foods last for almost one to two years without getting stale or spoiled. Food preservation is a skill inherited from our great grand fathers taking into consideration the island's location and availability of food. Foods such as bread fruit and fish are fermented and preserved to serve as substitutes to fresh food in times of trouble or shortage. Otherwise, they're eaten along the way.
Is this really fermentation or simply drying?
To your query about the fermentation methods we use, apart from drying food over the fire, we also use this method like the Hawaiians do with taro
View the Original article
I recently received an e-mail from a Kitavan by the name of Job Daniel. He's working at the Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research in Madang, studying the social and economic impacts of malaria and related health issues in Papua New Guinea. He recalls many details of Dr. Lindeberg's visit to Kitava, which Dr. Lindeberg has confirmed are correct. Job generously offered to answer some of my questions about the traditional Kitavan diet. My questions are in bold, and his responses are below.
How many meals a day do Kitavans eat?
People on the island eat mostly two meals a day. But nowadays, breakfast is mainly comprised of tubers (yam and sweet potato and greens all cooked in coconut cream and salt) and dinner is the same with the inclusion of fish as protein most often. In between these two meals, lunch is seen as a light refreshment with fruits or young coconut only to mention these two popular ones. In between the morning and the evening, we mostly eat fruits as snack or lunch. Generally speaking, there are only two main meals per day, i.e breakfast and dinner.
Do Kitavans eat any fermented food?
There are fermented fruits and nuts like you've said for breadfruit, nuts, yams and not forgetting fish. We ferment them by using the traditional method of drying them over the fire for months. And this fermented foods last for almost one to two years without getting stale or spoiled. Food preservation is a skill inherited from our great grand fathers taking into consideration the island's location and availability of food. Foods such as bread fruit and fish are fermented and preserved to serve as substitutes to fresh food in times of trouble or shortage. Otherwise, they're eaten along the way.
Is this really fermentation or simply drying?
To your query about the fermentation methods we use, apart from drying food over the fire, we also use this method like the Hawaiians do with taro
View the Original article
Squats and deadlifts after 40: Don't do it
0 Votes I am one of those persons who think that squats and dead lifts, two compound movements, should ideally be used as the foundation of any high-intensity resistance training program. Compound movements combine several large muscle groups as opposed to isolation movements (such as arm curls) which concentrate on a single muscle (or part thereof). For those of you who are not familiar with these two very popular exercises, you can refer to these Wikipedia articles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadlift
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squat_%28exercise%29
UNIQUE BENEFITS OF WEIGHT-BEARING EXERCISES
Many believe that the benefits of squats and dead lifts go beyond developing the muscle groups specifically targeted by these movements, i.e. quadriceps (front leg muscles), gluteus (buttock muscles) and hamstrings (back leg muscles). The theory is that because these movements are the most intense of all resistance training exercises they induce the most hormonal response from the body, especially in the form of increased production of growth hormone. I would add that such movements provide the most intense workout in the least time and can therefore be considered as the most efficient of all exercises.
Finally, movements that put direct downward pressure on the spine, such as squats and dead lifts, are proved to be effective in preventing osteoporosis. When pressured is consistently applied top down on a bone like the
femur, this bone will react by creating additional mass. By the same token, swimming and riding a bicycle, while excellent aerobic exercises are not weight-bearing activities (very little pressure is applied downwards on the spine) and thus are not efficient in preventing osteoporosis.
As an avid biker, I am very aware of this limitation and have thus included weight-bearing exercises (leg press, see below) in my weekly training routine.
UNBEARABLE RISKS
In an ideal world then, everybody should include dead lifts and squats in their weekly resistance training routine.
I WOULD HOWEVER RECOMMEND NOT TO USE SQUATS OR DEADLIFTS if you are a typical reader of fitandwise. There are two reasons to this:
First and foremost, for even the youngest and most proficient resistance athlete these two movements are the most dangerous of any resistant training exercises I know. They demand an extreme degree of accuracy in their execution to avoid serious injury risk. I have stopped counting the number of times I have seen even experienced body-builders destroying their spine in front of my eyes by incorrectly executing these movements. They would typically bend too far over, creating a deadly (no pun intended) lever between their upper and lower body, thus exerting a huge pressure on their lumbar region.
Second, around the age of about 40, physiological changes appear that make conjunctive tissues more vulnerable to injuries. If you sprain your ankle in your 40's or 50's (which I did last year) your body will therefore take a longer time to heal and the healing may be less complete than when you were younger.
The only (relative) exception I can see to this recommendation of not using dead lifts and squats would be a life-long athlete (typically a competitive weight lifter) using a flawless technique who would still accept to reduce the weight lifted compared to when he was younger. I doubt this kind of person is a typical reader of fitandwise.
THE SENSIBLE ALTERNATIVE TO SQUATS AND DEAD LIFTS
So is there an alternative to these two sacrosanct movements for the over-40 crowd? Yes there is. Since the 1970's Fitness equipment manufacturers have developed machines that mimic the squat exercise while greatly reducing the risk. These are called leg presses of which there are several variants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leg_press
To be perfectly honest I do not believe that a leg press exercise is 100% as efficient as its equivalent using a barbell because it does not involve stabilizer muscles (also called "core" muscles). Having said that, the choice is a no-brainer for me: I much prefer getting 80% of the benefits of a squat movement with 10% of the risk. So I never squat. I use a bench press once a week (among other leg exercises).
If you start using a bench press, be very careful though in using good form as incorrect exercise technique may also lead to injury. Never use a leg press if you have existing back pain and always consult a physician first if you are over 45. Back To Articles
View the Original article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadlift
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squat_%28exercise%29
UNIQUE BENEFITS OF WEIGHT-BEARING EXERCISES
Many believe that the benefits of squats and dead lifts go beyond developing the muscle groups specifically targeted by these movements, i.e. quadriceps (front leg muscles), gluteus (buttock muscles) and hamstrings (back leg muscles). The theory is that because these movements are the most intense of all resistance training exercises they induce the most hormonal response from the body, especially in the form of increased production of growth hormone. I would add that such movements provide the most intense workout in the least time and can therefore be considered as the most efficient of all exercises.
Finally, movements that put direct downward pressure on the spine, such as squats and dead lifts, are proved to be effective in preventing osteoporosis. When pressured is consistently applied top down on a bone like the
femur, this bone will react by creating additional mass. By the same token, swimming and riding a bicycle, while excellent aerobic exercises are not weight-bearing activities (very little pressure is applied downwards on the spine) and thus are not efficient in preventing osteoporosis.
As an avid biker, I am very aware of this limitation and have thus included weight-bearing exercises (leg press, see below) in my weekly training routine.
UNBEARABLE RISKS
In an ideal world then, everybody should include dead lifts and squats in their weekly resistance training routine.
I WOULD HOWEVER RECOMMEND NOT TO USE SQUATS OR DEADLIFTS if you are a typical reader of fitandwise. There are two reasons to this:
First and foremost, for even the youngest and most proficient resistance athlete these two movements are the most dangerous of any resistant training exercises I know. They demand an extreme degree of accuracy in their execution to avoid serious injury risk. I have stopped counting the number of times I have seen even experienced body-builders destroying their spine in front of my eyes by incorrectly executing these movements. They would typically bend too far over, creating a deadly (no pun intended) lever between their upper and lower body, thus exerting a huge pressure on their lumbar region.
Second, around the age of about 40, physiological changes appear that make conjunctive tissues more vulnerable to injuries. If you sprain your ankle in your 40's or 50's (which I did last year) your body will therefore take a longer time to heal and the healing may be less complete than when you were younger.
The only (relative) exception I can see to this recommendation of not using dead lifts and squats would be a life-long athlete (typically a competitive weight lifter) using a flawless technique who would still accept to reduce the weight lifted compared to when he was younger. I doubt this kind of person is a typical reader of fitandwise.
THE SENSIBLE ALTERNATIVE TO SQUATS AND DEAD LIFTS
So is there an alternative to these two sacrosanct movements for the over-40 crowd? Yes there is. Since the 1970's Fitness equipment manufacturers have developed machines that mimic the squat exercise while greatly reducing the risk. These are called leg presses of which there are several variants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leg_press
To be perfectly honest I do not believe that a leg press exercise is 100% as efficient as its equivalent using a barbell because it does not involve stabilizer muscles (also called "core" muscles). Having said that, the choice is a no-brainer for me: I much prefer getting 80% of the benefits of a squat movement with 10% of the risk. So I never squat. I use a bench press once a week (among other leg exercises).
If you start using a bench press, be very careful though in using good form as incorrect exercise technique may also lead to injury. Never use a leg press if you have existing back pain and always consult a physician first if you are over 45. Back To Articles
View the Original article
Thursday 9 December 2010
Vitamin E for Acne
0 Votes Acne is one of the most troubling dermatological conditions for millions of young adults all over the world.1 Although medical opinion differs as to exactly what causes the eruption of acne on skin, it is believed to be associated with overactive sebaceous glands, imbalance of hormones, bacteria, and hyper proliferation of follicular cells.2
Epidemiological studies conducted in 2007 and 2008 show that healthy skin requires a healthy diet. These studies showed that a diet with a low glycemic load may be able to improve symptoms of acne.3-4 As a result, a variety of skin, hair and nail vitamins and minerals are often used to help fight premature aging, skin dryness and sun damage. The most popular nutrients that may support skin health are key minerals like zinc and copper along with the antioxidant vitamins A, C and especially E!
Just how does Vitamin E help to combat acne?
Vitamin E is a lipophilic vitamin. Like other lipophilic vitamins, such as Vitamins A and D which are soluble in lipids, these nutrients (and their metabolites) may affect skin hydration, metabolism and hyperproliferation. Vitamin E is carried on to the skin by the activity of the sebaceous gland.5-6 It is here that Vitamin E may play a role in helping to prevent lipid peroxidation of sebum. Lipid peroxidation of sebum is believed to aggravate the inflammatory condition of acne. Studies are still ongoing, but so far the evidence suggests that Vitamin E may play a role in reducing inflammation in acute acne conditions.
Although research is still inconclusive, there appears to be a connection between lack of Vitamin E and the onset of acne, A study published in the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Dermatology in May 2006 showed that low plasma levels of Vitamins E and A may play a role in the cause and development of acne. Results showed that when test participants were administered an oral form of Vitamin E and A, acne conditions were seen to improve.7 Other research suggests that by manipulating nutrition in our diets to include specific vitamins and minerals known to promote skin health, we may be able to alleviate acne to some degree.8
Dietary Supplements for Skin Health
To support skin health, most people recognize the need to maintain a healthy diet which includes plenty of fruits and vegetables. However, for many of us this is easier said than done. According to the surveys of Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), only 33 percent of American adults meet their daily requirement of fruits, and 27 percent for vegetables.9 A multi-vitamin supplement containing hair skin and nail vitamins that target skin health can help fill this nutritional gap.
Based on scientific support of vitamins and minerals required for skin health and for fighting acne, Vitacaps Labs has a ready formula that contains a wide array of hair skin and nail nutrients, including Vitamins A, B, C and E, minerals such as zinc and copper, as well as a proprietary blend of herbs. Their GMP-certified facilities ensure you of a high-quality manufacturing process that produces premium supplements. With Vitacap Labs, you also get the unique advantage of mixing and matching an assortment of private label formulas to meet the minimum order quantity of just 96 bottles! For more information, or to place an order, contact one of their knowledgeable service professionals today, or Click Here to request a free quote.
References:
1. Overview of acne and its treatment. Cutis. 2008;81:3
View the Original article
Epidemiological studies conducted in 2007 and 2008 show that healthy skin requires a healthy diet. These studies showed that a diet with a low glycemic load may be able to improve symptoms of acne.3-4 As a result, a variety of skin, hair and nail vitamins and minerals are often used to help fight premature aging, skin dryness and sun damage. The most popular nutrients that may support skin health are key minerals like zinc and copper along with the antioxidant vitamins A, C and especially E!
Just how does Vitamin E help to combat acne?
Vitamin E is a lipophilic vitamin. Like other lipophilic vitamins, such as Vitamins A and D which are soluble in lipids, these nutrients (and their metabolites) may affect skin hydration, metabolism and hyperproliferation. Vitamin E is carried on to the skin by the activity of the sebaceous gland.5-6 It is here that Vitamin E may play a role in helping to prevent lipid peroxidation of sebum. Lipid peroxidation of sebum is believed to aggravate the inflammatory condition of acne. Studies are still ongoing, but so far the evidence suggests that Vitamin E may play a role in reducing inflammation in acute acne conditions.
Although research is still inconclusive, there appears to be a connection between lack of Vitamin E and the onset of acne, A study published in the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Dermatology in May 2006 showed that low plasma levels of Vitamins E and A may play a role in the cause and development of acne. Results showed that when test participants were administered an oral form of Vitamin E and A, acne conditions were seen to improve.7 Other research suggests that by manipulating nutrition in our diets to include specific vitamins and minerals known to promote skin health, we may be able to alleviate acne to some degree.8
Dietary Supplements for Skin Health
To support skin health, most people recognize the need to maintain a healthy diet which includes plenty of fruits and vegetables. However, for many of us this is easier said than done. According to the surveys of Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), only 33 percent of American adults meet their daily requirement of fruits, and 27 percent for vegetables.9 A multi-vitamin supplement containing hair skin and nail vitamins that target skin health can help fill this nutritional gap.
Based on scientific support of vitamins and minerals required for skin health and for fighting acne, Vitacaps Labs has a ready formula that contains a wide array of hair skin and nail nutrients, including Vitamins A, B, C and E, minerals such as zinc and copper, as well as a proprietary blend of herbs. Their GMP-certified facilities ensure you of a high-quality manufacturing process that produces premium supplements. With Vitacap Labs, you also get the unique advantage of mixing and matching an assortment of private label formulas to meet the minimum order quantity of just 96 bottles! For more information, or to place an order, contact one of their knowledgeable service professionals today, or Click Here to request a free quote.
References:
1. Overview of acne and its treatment. Cutis. 2008;81:3
View the Original article
Losing Stomach Fat � Which vegetables can help?
0 Votes You may be aware that there are certain chemicals that make up part of the environment and food supply today that can generate more estrogen inside our bodies. Some examples of these are pesticides, herbicides and petrochemicals.
You may or may not know that these can cause an increase in stomach fat for both Men and Women. This is something that everyone should know, especially if you are trying to lose stomach fat.
The name of these chemincals are xenoestrogens (they even have a horrible name, don't they?), and when you are exposed to them through the food supply, water supply or the environment, they will stop your body from getting rid of stomach fat.
"No problem" - I hear you say. You can just stay away from the offending foods and that's it, right? Wrong.
Although you may be careful with what you eat and stick to organic food, it is very hard not to get some amount of daily exposure to xenoestrogens. They are found all over the place - even in the perfume you wear and the cleaning products you use in your house.
So, what can be done to battle the impact of the xenoestrogens in causing you to retain unwelcome stomach fat?
The great news is that there are certain types of vegetables that will assist you in your aim of losing stomach fat.
There are many types of vegetables, teas, spices, etc that have compounds which can help to fight the negative effects of xenoestrogens. Possibly the most effectual are cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, kale, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, etc.
These vegetables have very special and unique compounds (such as indole-3-carbinol - if you are interested) that can help to fight against the negative impact of of xenoestrogens on your body, and therefore, can assist you to burn off belly fat more effectively.
There are already loads of terrific reasons for consuming broccoli and cauliflower - now you can add losing stomach fat to the list!
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View the Original article
You may or may not know that these can cause an increase in stomach fat for both Men and Women. This is something that everyone should know, especially if you are trying to lose stomach fat.
The name of these chemincals are xenoestrogens (they even have a horrible name, don't they?), and when you are exposed to them through the food supply, water supply or the environment, they will stop your body from getting rid of stomach fat.
"No problem" - I hear you say. You can just stay away from the offending foods and that's it, right? Wrong.
Although you may be careful with what you eat and stick to organic food, it is very hard not to get some amount of daily exposure to xenoestrogens. They are found all over the place - even in the perfume you wear and the cleaning products you use in your house.
So, what can be done to battle the impact of the xenoestrogens in causing you to retain unwelcome stomach fat?
The great news is that there are certain types of vegetables that will assist you in your aim of losing stomach fat.
There are many types of vegetables, teas, spices, etc that have compounds which can help to fight the negative effects of xenoestrogens. Possibly the most effectual are cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, kale, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, etc.
These vegetables have very special and unique compounds (such as indole-3-carbinol - if you are interested) that can help to fight against the negative impact of of xenoestrogens on your body, and therefore, can assist you to burn off belly fat more effectively.
There are already loads of terrific reasons for consuming broccoli and cauliflower - now you can add losing stomach fat to the list!
Back To Articles
View the Original article
Wednesday 8 December 2010
Losing Stomach Fat - 3 Tips to Get You There
0 Votes If losing stomach fat is your goal then here are 3 great tips that will help you get there faster and easier.
This article focuses on nutrition, as that's the first place you need to focus to lose belly fat fast. Of course, exercise is really important for a healthy life and should not be overlooked. But, ensuring you have a good diet is the starting point to losing stomach fat. I hope these tips help you get started on your path to achieve your goals.
1) Make sure that you consume healthy fats in most of the food that you eat. This is really important to help you control your appetite and the levels of hormones in your body that control muscle building and fat burning.
Healthy fats are contained in egg yolks, raw nuts., extra virgin olive oil, avocados, grass-fed meats and coconut oil, amongst other foods.
Have a go at eating a handful of raw nuts, such as almonds or walnuts, each day about half an hour before meal times. This will curb your appetite while giving you some much needed protein, fiber and healthy fats. This has a dual benefit - it will mean you will eat less and have better nutrition - two benefits in one.
2) Make sure you get a high quality protein source with each meal. These proteins can come from grass-fed raw dairy and meats, as well as sources such as nuts and beans.
A good supply of protein will help to develop your lean muscle, if you are weight training on a regular basis, and will cause your metabolism to run at a higher rate. This will help you to burn off those extra calories much quicker and aid you in your goal of losing stomach fat.
3) Beware of your intake of processed carbohydrates. Examples of these are refined grain-based starches and refined sugars. Eating these on a regular basis can be a major contributor to the challenge so many people have with their stomach fat.
Try to stick to the natural sugars that you find in whole fruits and berries. These are really good, as the fiber will help to put the breaks on the creation of too much blood sugar in the body. Do stay away from processed fruit juices as they have most of the fiber removed from them and are mostly sugar. Not good if you want to lose belly fat.
Very often, when people begin to reduce their grain consumption, they find it easier to burn belly fat. If you are wondering if this will work for you, why not try it. Set yourself a target to cut out the grain for a trial period and see what happens. Do you notice a difference?
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View the Original article
This article focuses on nutrition, as that's the first place you need to focus to lose belly fat fast. Of course, exercise is really important for a healthy life and should not be overlooked. But, ensuring you have a good diet is the starting point to losing stomach fat. I hope these tips help you get started on your path to achieve your goals.
1) Make sure that you consume healthy fats in most of the food that you eat. This is really important to help you control your appetite and the levels of hormones in your body that control muscle building and fat burning.
Healthy fats are contained in egg yolks, raw nuts., extra virgin olive oil, avocados, grass-fed meats and coconut oil, amongst other foods.
Have a go at eating a handful of raw nuts, such as almonds or walnuts, each day about half an hour before meal times. This will curb your appetite while giving you some much needed protein, fiber and healthy fats. This has a dual benefit - it will mean you will eat less and have better nutrition - two benefits in one.
2) Make sure you get a high quality protein source with each meal. These proteins can come from grass-fed raw dairy and meats, as well as sources such as nuts and beans.
A good supply of protein will help to develop your lean muscle, if you are weight training on a regular basis, and will cause your metabolism to run at a higher rate. This will help you to burn off those extra calories much quicker and aid you in your goal of losing stomach fat.
3) Beware of your intake of processed carbohydrates. Examples of these are refined grain-based starches and refined sugars. Eating these on a regular basis can be a major contributor to the challenge so many people have with their stomach fat.
Try to stick to the natural sugars that you find in whole fruits and berries. These are really good, as the fiber will help to put the breaks on the creation of too much blood sugar in the body. Do stay away from processed fruit juices as they have most of the fiber removed from them and are mostly sugar. Not good if you want to lose belly fat.
Very often, when people begin to reduce their grain consumption, they find it easier to burn belly fat. If you are wondering if this will work for you, why not try it. Set yourself a target to cut out the grain for a trial period and see what happens. Do you notice a difference?
Back To Articles
View the Original article
Tuesday 7 December 2010
Interview with Jimmy Moore
About two months ago, I did an of the Livin' la Vida Low Carb internet empire. I hardly remember what we talked about, but I think it went well. I enjoyed Jimmy's pleasant and open-minded attitude. Head over to Jimmy's website and listen to the interview here.
I do recall making at least one mistake. When discussing heart attacks,I said "atrial fibrillation" when I meant "ventricular fibrillation".Posted byStephanat6:30 PM
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I do recall making at least one mistake. When discussing heart attacks,I said "atrial fibrillation" when I meant "ventricular fibrillation".Posted byStephanat6:30 PM
View the Original article
Monday 6 December 2010
China Study Problems of Interpretation
The China study was an observational study that collected a massive amount of information about diet and health in 65 different rural regions of China. It's been popularized by Dr. T. Colin Campbell, who has argued that the study shows that plant foods are generally superior to animal foods for health, and even a small amount of animal food is harmful. Campbell's book has been at the center of the strict vegetarian (vegan) movement since its publication.
Richard from Free the Animal just passed on some information that many of you may find interesting. A woman named Denise Minger recently published a series of posts on the China study. She looked up the raw data and applied statistics to it. It's the most thorough review of the data I've seen so far. She raises some points about Campbell's interpretation of the data that are frankly disturbing. As I like to say, the problem is usually not in the data-- it's in the interpretation.
One of the things Minger points out is that wheat intake had a massive correlation with coronary heart disease-- one of the strongest correlations the investigators found. Is that because wheat causes CHD, or is it because wheat eating regions tend to be further North and thus have worse vitamin D status? I don't know, but it's an interesting observation nevertheless. Check out Denise Minger's posts... if you have the stamina:
The China Study: Fact or Fallacy
Also, see posts on the China study by Richard Nikoley, Chris Masterjohn and Anthony Colpo:
T. Colin Campbell's the China Study
The Truth About the China Study
The China Study: More Vegan Nonsense
And my previous post on the association between wheat intake and obesity in China:
Wheat in ChinaPosted byStephanat10:51 AM
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Richard from Free the Animal just passed on some information that many of you may find interesting. A woman named Denise Minger recently published a series of posts on the China study. She looked up the raw data and applied statistics to it. It's the most thorough review of the data I've seen so far. She raises some points about Campbell's interpretation of the data that are frankly disturbing. As I like to say, the problem is usually not in the data-- it's in the interpretation.
One of the things Minger points out is that wheat intake had a massive correlation with coronary heart disease-- one of the strongest correlations the investigators found. Is that because wheat causes CHD, or is it because wheat eating regions tend to be further North and thus have worse vitamin D status? I don't know, but it's an interesting observation nevertheless. Check out Denise Minger's posts... if you have the stamina:
The China Study: Fact or Fallacy
Also, see posts on the China study by Richard Nikoley, Chris Masterjohn and Anthony Colpo:
T. Colin Campbell's the China Study
The Truth About the China Study
The China Study: More Vegan Nonsense
And my previous post on the association between wheat intake and obesity in China:
Wheat in ChinaPosted byStephanat10:51 AM
View the Original article
Sunday 5 December 2010
Minger Responds to Campbell
Hot off the presses: Dr. Colin Campbell's response to Denise Minger's China Study posts, and Minger's retort:
A Challenge and Response to the China Study
The China Study: My Response to Campbell
This is required reading for anyone who wants to evaluate Dr. Campbell's claims about the China Study data. Denise points out that Dr. Campbell's claims rest mostly on uncorrected associations, which is exactly what he was accusing Minger, Chris Masterjohn and Anthony Colpo of doing. He also appears to have selectively reported data that support his philosophy, and ignored data that didn't, even when the latter were stronger. This is true both in Dr. Campbell's book, and in his peer-reviewed papers. This type of thing is actually pretty common in the diet-health literature.
I respect everyone's food choices, whether they're omnivores, carnivores, or raw vegans, as long as they're doing it in a way that's thoughtful toward other people, animals and the environment. I'm sure there are plenty of vegans out there who are doing it gracefully, not spamming non-vegan blogs with arrogant comments.
As human beings, we're blessed and cursed with an ego, which is basically a self-esteem and self-image reinforcement machine. Since being wrong hurts our self-esteem and self-image, the ego makes us think we're right about more than we actually are. That can take the form of elaborate justifications, and the more intelligent the person, the more elaborate the justifications. An economic policy that makes you richer becomes the best way to improve everyone's bottom line. A dietary philosophy that was embraced for humane reasons becomes the path to optimum health... such is the human mind. Science is basically an attempt to remove as much of this psychic distortion as possible from an investigation. Ultimately, the scientific method requires rigorous and vigilant stewardship to achieve what it was designed to do.Posted byStephanat12:51 PM
View the Original article
A Challenge and Response to the China Study
The China Study: My Response to Campbell
This is required reading for anyone who wants to evaluate Dr. Campbell's claims about the China Study data. Denise points out that Dr. Campbell's claims rest mostly on uncorrected associations, which is exactly what he was accusing Minger, Chris Masterjohn and Anthony Colpo of doing. He also appears to have selectively reported data that support his philosophy, and ignored data that didn't, even when the latter were stronger. This is true both in Dr. Campbell's book, and in his peer-reviewed papers. This type of thing is actually pretty common in the diet-health literature.
I respect everyone's food choices, whether they're omnivores, carnivores, or raw vegans, as long as they're doing it in a way that's thoughtful toward other people, animals and the environment. I'm sure there are plenty of vegans out there who are doing it gracefully, not spamming non-vegan blogs with arrogant comments.
As human beings, we're blessed and cursed with an ego, which is basically a self-esteem and self-image reinforcement machine. Since being wrong hurts our self-esteem and self-image, the ego makes us think we're right about more than we actually are. That can take the form of elaborate justifications, and the more intelligent the person, the more elaborate the justifications. An economic policy that makes you richer becomes the best way to improve everyone's bottom line. A dietary philosophy that was embraced for humane reasons becomes the path to optimum health... such is the human mind. Science is basically an attempt to remove as much of this psychic distortion as possible from an investigation. Ultimately, the scientific method requires rigorous and vigilant stewardship to achieve what it was designed to do.Posted byStephanat12:51 PM
View the Original article
Parkour Visions Summit and Talk
On August 13-15th, my friends Rafe Kelley and Tyson Cecka are hosting a parkour summit at their Seattle gym Parkour Visions. For those of you not familiar with the sport, here's a description from the Parkour Visions site:
"The essence of Parkour can be stated simply: it is the art of overcoming obstacles as swiftly and efficiently as possible using only your body. The fundamentals include running, jumping, and climbing, and we build on these fundamentals to improve our ability to pass over, under, around and through obstacles with more complex movements. Parkour is a system of fitness training that improves strength, speed, agility, co-ordination, stamina, endurance, and precision. It offers a full-body workout at any level of experience, and improves your ability to move, to harness your confidence, to change how you see the world. Parkour practitioners are called traceurs."The summit will include seminars on strength training, injury prevention and rehab, and nutrition, as well as parkour jams, a roundtable and a dinner. I'll be giving a talk titled "Natural Eating for Sustainable Athletic Performance" on Saturday, August 14 from noon to 1:00 pm.
Registration is $40 for the whole summit. You can read a description of it here, and find a link to the registration system at the bottom of this page.Posted byStephanat2:03 PM
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"The essence of Parkour can be stated simply: it is the art of overcoming obstacles as swiftly and efficiently as possible using only your body. The fundamentals include running, jumping, and climbing, and we build on these fundamentals to improve our ability to pass over, under, around and through obstacles with more complex movements. Parkour is a system of fitness training that improves strength, speed, agility, co-ordination, stamina, endurance, and precision. It offers a full-body workout at any level of experience, and improves your ability to move, to harness your confidence, to change how you see the world. Parkour practitioners are called traceurs."The summit will include seminars on strength training, injury prevention and rehab, and nutrition, as well as parkour jams, a roundtable and a dinner. I'll be giving a talk titled "Natural Eating for Sustainable Athletic Performance" on Saturday, August 14 from noon to 1:00 pm.
Registration is $40 for the whole summit. You can read a description of it here, and find a link to the registration system at the bottom of this page.Posted byStephanat2:03 PM
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Saturday 4 December 2010
Saturated Fat Consumption Still isn't Associated with Cardiovascular Disease
The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition just published the results of a major Japanese study on saturated fat intake and cardiovascular disease (1). Investigators measured dietary habits, then followed 58,453 men and women for 14.1 years. They found that people who ate the most saturated fat had the same heart attack risk as those who ate the least
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View the Original article
Can a Statin Neutralize the Cardiovascular Risk of Unhealthy Dietary Choices?
The title of this post is the exact title of a recent editorial in the American Journal of Cardiology (1). Investigators calculated the "risk for cardiovascular disease associated with the total fat and trans fat content of fast foods", and compared it to the "risk decrease provided by daily statin consumption". Here's what they found:
The risk reduction associated with the daily consumption of most statins, with the exception of pravastatin, is more powerful than the risk increase caused by the daily extra fat intake associated with a 7-oz hamburger (Quarter Pounder®) with cheese and a small milkshake. In conclusion, statin therapy can neutralize the cardiovascular risk caused by harmful diet choices.
Routine accessibility of statins in establishments providing unhealthy food might be a rational modern means to offset the cardiovascular risk. Fast food outlets already offer free condiments to supplement meals. A free statin-containing accompaniment would offer cardiovascular benefits, opposite to the effects of equally available salt, sugar, and high-fat condiments. Although no substitute for systematic lifestyle improvements, including healthy diet, regular exercise, weight loss, and smoking cessation, complimentary statin packets would add, at little cost, 1 positive choice to a panoply of negative ones.Wow. Later in the editorial, they recommend "a new and protective packet, “MacStatin,” which could be sprinkled onto a Quarter Pounder or into a milkshake." I'm not making this up!
I can't be sure, but I think there's a pretty good chance the authors were being facetious in this editorial, in which case I think a) it's hilarious, b) most people aren't going to get the joke. If they are joking, the editorial is designed to shine a light on the sad state of mainstream preventive healthcare. Rather than trying to educate people and change the deadly industrial food system, which is at the root of a constellation of health problems, many people think it's acceptable to partially correct one health risk by tinkering with the human metabolism using drugs. To be fair, most people aren't willing to change their diet and lifestyle habits (and perhaps for some it's even too late), so frustrated physicians prescribe drugs to mitigate the risk. I accept that. But if our society is really committed to its own health and well-being, we'll remove the artificial incentives that favor industrial food, and educate children from a young age on how to eat well.
I think one of the main challenges we face is that our current system is immensely lucrative for powerful financial interests. Industrial agriculture lines the pockets of a few large farmers and executives (while smaller farmers go broke and get bought out), industrial food processing concentrates profit among a handful of mega-manufacturers, and then people who are made ill by the resulting food spend an exorbitant amount of money on increasingly sophisticated (and expensive) healthcare. It's a system that effectively milks US citizens for a huge amount of money, and keeps the economy rolling at the expense of the average person's well-being. All of these groups have powerful lobbies that ensure the continuity of the current system. Litigation isn't the main reason our healthcare is so expensive in the US; high levels of chronic disease, expensive new technology, a "kitchen sink" treatment approach, and inefficient private companies are the real reasons.
If the editorial is serious, there are so many things wrong with it I don't even know where to begin. Here are a few problems:
They assume the risk of heart attack conveyed by eating fast food is due to its total and trans fat content, which is simplistic. To support that supposition, they cite one study: the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (2). This is one of the best diet-health observational studies conducted to date. The authors of the editorial appear not to have read the study carefully, because it found no association between total or saturated fat intake and heart attack risk, when adjusted for confounding variables. The number they quoted (relative risk
View the Original article
The risk reduction associated with the daily consumption of most statins, with the exception of pravastatin, is more powerful than the risk increase caused by the daily extra fat intake associated with a 7-oz hamburger (Quarter Pounder®) with cheese and a small milkshake. In conclusion, statin therapy can neutralize the cardiovascular risk caused by harmful diet choices.
Routine accessibility of statins in establishments providing unhealthy food might be a rational modern means to offset the cardiovascular risk. Fast food outlets already offer free condiments to supplement meals. A free statin-containing accompaniment would offer cardiovascular benefits, opposite to the effects of equally available salt, sugar, and high-fat condiments. Although no substitute for systematic lifestyle improvements, including healthy diet, regular exercise, weight loss, and smoking cessation, complimentary statin packets would add, at little cost, 1 positive choice to a panoply of negative ones.Wow. Later in the editorial, they recommend "a new and protective packet, “MacStatin,” which could be sprinkled onto a Quarter Pounder or into a milkshake." I'm not making this up!
I can't be sure, but I think there's a pretty good chance the authors were being facetious in this editorial, in which case I think a) it's hilarious, b) most people aren't going to get the joke. If they are joking, the editorial is designed to shine a light on the sad state of mainstream preventive healthcare. Rather than trying to educate people and change the deadly industrial food system, which is at the root of a constellation of health problems, many people think it's acceptable to partially correct one health risk by tinkering with the human metabolism using drugs. To be fair, most people aren't willing to change their diet and lifestyle habits (and perhaps for some it's even too late), so frustrated physicians prescribe drugs to mitigate the risk. I accept that. But if our society is really committed to its own health and well-being, we'll remove the artificial incentives that favor industrial food, and educate children from a young age on how to eat well.
I think one of the main challenges we face is that our current system is immensely lucrative for powerful financial interests. Industrial agriculture lines the pockets of a few large farmers and executives (while smaller farmers go broke and get bought out), industrial food processing concentrates profit among a handful of mega-manufacturers, and then people who are made ill by the resulting food spend an exorbitant amount of money on increasingly sophisticated (and expensive) healthcare. It's a system that effectively milks US citizens for a huge amount of money, and keeps the economy rolling at the expense of the average person's well-being. All of these groups have powerful lobbies that ensure the continuity of the current system. Litigation isn't the main reason our healthcare is so expensive in the US; high levels of chronic disease, expensive new technology, a "kitchen sink" treatment approach, and inefficient private companies are the real reasons.
If the editorial is serious, there are so many things wrong with it I don't even know where to begin. Here are a few problems:
They assume the risk of heart attack conveyed by eating fast food is due to its total and trans fat content, which is simplistic. To support that supposition, they cite one study: the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (2). This is one of the best diet-health observational studies conducted to date. The authors of the editorial appear not to have read the study carefully, because it found no association between total or saturated fat intake and heart attack risk, when adjusted for confounding variables. The number they quoted (relative risk
View the Original article
Friday 3 December 2010
Saturated Fat, Glycemic Index and Insulin Sensitivity: Another Nail in the Coffin
Insulin is a hormone that drives glucose and other nutrients from the bloodstream into cells, among other things. A loss of sensitivity to the insulin signal, called insulin resistance, is a core feature of modern metabolic dysfunction and can lead to type II diabetes and other health problems. Insulin resistance affects a large percentage of people in affluent nations, in fact the majority of people in some places. What causes insulin resistance? Researchers have been trying to figure this out for decades.
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View the Original article
The China Study on Wheat
Denise Minger has just put up another great China Study post that's worth reading if you haven't already. Denise has been busy applying her statistics skills to the mountain of data the study collected. She noted in a previous post that wheat intake was strongly associated with coronary heart disease (CHD), the quintessential modern cardiovascular disease. I, and several other people, requested that she work her mathmagic to see if the association could be due to some other factor. For example, wheat is eaten mostly in the Northern regions of China, and CHD rates are generally higher at higher latitudes (vitamin D insufficiency?). This is true in Europe as well, and may be partly responsible for the purported benefits of the Mediterranean diet. You can mathematically determine if the association between wheat and CHD is simply due to the fact that wheat eaters live further North.
To make a long story short, nothing could explain the association except wheat itself, even latitude. Furthermore, she found a strong association between wheat intake and body mass index, typically a predictor of fat mass although we can't say that for sure. That finding echos a previous study in China where wheat eaters were more likely to be overweight than rice eaters (1, 2). Head over to Denise's post for the full story.
The China Study has major limitations built into its basic design, due to the fact that it was observational and pooled the blood samples of many individuals. Therefore, its findings can never prove anything, they can only suggest or be consistent with hypotheses. However, the study also has some unique advantages, such as a diversity of diets and regions, and the fact that people had presumably been eating a similar diet for a long time. I feel that Denise's efforts are really teasing out some useful information from the study that have been de-emphasized by other investigators.
There has been so little serious investigation into the health effects of wheat in the general population that I have to rely mostly on indirect evidence, such as the observation that the diseases of civilization tend to closely follow the introduction of white flour around the globe. Researchers studying celiac disease and other forms of gluten allergy, and the efforts of the paleolithic diet community in spreading that information (for example, Loren Cordain and Pedro Bastos), have been major contributors to understanding the health effects of wheat. Denise's analysis is one of the strongest pieces of evidence I've come by so far. One of these days, I'll post all of my references incriminating wheat. There are quite a few, although none of them is the smoking gun. I think there's enough indirect evidence that investigators should begin taking the idea seriously that wheat, particularly in the form of industrial flour products, may contribute to chronic disease in more than just a small subset of the population.Posted byStephanat9:32 PM
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To make a long story short, nothing could explain the association except wheat itself, even latitude. Furthermore, she found a strong association between wheat intake and body mass index, typically a predictor of fat mass although we can't say that for sure. That finding echos a previous study in China where wheat eaters were more likely to be overweight than rice eaters (1, 2). Head over to Denise's post for the full story.
The China Study has major limitations built into its basic design, due to the fact that it was observational and pooled the blood samples of many individuals. Therefore, its findings can never prove anything, they can only suggest or be consistent with hypotheses. However, the study also has some unique advantages, such as a diversity of diets and regions, and the fact that people had presumably been eating a similar diet for a long time. I feel that Denise's efforts are really teasing out some useful information from the study that have been de-emphasized by other investigators.
There has been so little serious investigation into the health effects of wheat in the general population that I have to rely mostly on indirect evidence, such as the observation that the diseases of civilization tend to closely follow the introduction of white flour around the globe. Researchers studying celiac disease and other forms of gluten allergy, and the efforts of the paleolithic diet community in spreading that information (for example, Loren Cordain and Pedro Bastos), have been major contributors to understanding the health effects of wheat. Denise's analysis is one of the strongest pieces of evidence I've come by so far. One of these days, I'll post all of my references incriminating wheat. There are quite a few, although none of them is the smoking gun. I think there's enough indirect evidence that investigators should begin taking the idea seriously that wheat, particularly in the form of industrial flour products, may contribute to chronic disease in more than just a small subset of the population.Posted byStephanat9:32 PM
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Thursday 2 December 2010
Dogen Zenji on Nutritionism
Dogen Zenji was the man who brought the Soto lineage of Zen Buddhism to Japan. He was a prolific writer, and many of his texts are respected both inside and outside the Soto Zen community. Last week, my Zen group was discussing the Genjo Koan, one of his works that is frequently used as a chant. Here's an excerpt. It may seem cryptic but bear with me:
...when you sail out in a boat to the middle of an ocean where no land is in sight, and view the four directions, the ocean looks circular, and does not look any other way. But the ocean is neither round or square; its features are infinite in variety... It only look circular as far as you can see at that time. All things are like this.
...when you sail out in a boat to the middle of an ocean where no land is in sight, and view the four directions, the ocean looks circular, and does not look any other way. But the ocean is neither round or square; its features are infinite in variety... It only look circular as far as you can see at that time. All things are like this.
Though there are many features in the dusty world and the world beyond conditions, you see and understand only what your eye of practice can reach. In order to learn the nature of the myriad things, you must know that although they may look round or square, the other features of oceans and mountains are infinite in variety; whole worlds are there. It is so not only around you, but also directly beneath your feet, or in a drop of water.
What Dogen meant, among other things, is that the world is much more complex than what our conscious minds can perceive or understand. It was true in the 13th century, and it's still true today, despite our greatly expanded understanding of the natural world.
We can apply this principle to nutrition. For example, what is red palm oil? Two hundred years ago, perhaps we only knew a few basic facts about it. It's a fat, it's red, it comes from an African palm fruit and it has a particular melting point and flavor. Then we learned about vitamins, so we knew it contained vitamin E, carotenes (provitamin A), and vitamin K. Then fatty acid composition, so we found out it's mostly palmitic and oleic acids. Now we know red palm oil contains an array of polyphenols, sterols, coenzyme Q10 and many other non-essential constituents. We don't know much about the biological effects of most of these substances, particularly in combination with one another.
Add to that the fact that every batch of red palm oil is different, due to strain, terroir, processing, storage, et cetera. We know what the concept "red palm oil" means, roughly, but the details are infinitely complex. Now feed it to a human, who is not only incredibly complex himself, but genetically and epigenetically unique. How can we possibly guess the outcome of this encounter based on the chemical composition of red palm oil? That's essentially what nutritionism attempts to do.
To be fair, nutritionism does work sometimes. For example, we can pretty well guess that a handful of wild almonds containing a lot of cyanide won't be healthy to eat, due at least in part to the cyanide. But outside extreme examples like this, we're in a gray zone that needs to be informed by empirical observation. In other words, what happens when the person in question actually eats the red palm oil? What happened when a large group of people in West Africa ate red palm oil for thousands of years? Those questions are the reason why I'm so interested in understanding the lives of healthy non-industrial cultures.
I'm not criticizing reductionist science or controlled experiments (which I perform myself); I just think they need to be kept in context. I believe they should be interpreted within the framework of more basic empirical observations
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Speaking at Wise Traditions 2010
I'm happy to announce that I'll be presenting at the Weston A. Price foundation's 2010 Wise Traditions conference. The conference will be held in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, Nov 12-14. The theme is the politics of food.
Sally Fallon Morell has invited me to give a talk on the diet and health of Pacific islanders. The talk will be titled "Kakana Dina: Diet and Health in the Pacific Islands", and it will take place on Sunday, November 14th from 4:00 to 5:20 pm. In preparation for the talk, I've read eight books and countless journal articles. Although some of the material will be familiar to people who follow the blog, I will not be rehashing what I've already published. I have nearly an hour and a half to talk, so I'll be going into some depth on the natural history and traditional food habits of Pacific island populations. Not just macronutrient breakdowns... specific foods and traditional preparation methods.
Learn about the health of traditional Pacific island populations, and what has changed since Western contact. Learn about traditional cooking and fermentation techniques. See unpublished photos from the Kitava study, courtesy of Dr. Staffan Lindeberg. Learn about the nutritional and ceremonial role of mammals including pork... and the most gruesome food of all.
I hope to see you there!
Kitava photo courtesy of Dr. Staffan LindebergPosted byStephanat6:30 PM
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Sally Fallon Morell has invited me to give a talk on the diet and health of Pacific islanders. The talk will be titled "Kakana Dina: Diet and Health in the Pacific Islands", and it will take place on Sunday, November 14th from 4:00 to 5:20 pm. In preparation for the talk, I've read eight books and countless journal articles. Although some of the material will be familiar to people who follow the blog, I will not be rehashing what I've already published. I have nearly an hour and a half to talk, so I'll be going into some depth on the natural history and traditional food habits of Pacific island populations. Not just macronutrient breakdowns... specific foods and traditional preparation methods.
Learn about the health of traditional Pacific island populations, and what has changed since Western contact. Learn about traditional cooking and fermentation techniques. See unpublished photos from the Kitava study, courtesy of Dr. Staffan Lindeberg. Learn about the nutritional and ceremonial role of mammals including pork... and the most gruesome food of all.
I hope to see you there!
Kitava photo courtesy of Dr. Staffan LindebergPosted byStephanat6:30 PM
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Wednesday 1 December 2010
The Big Sleep
This blog usually focuses on diet, because that's my specialty. But if you want Whole Health, you need the whole package: a diet and lifestyle that is broadly consistent with our evolutionary heritage. I think we all know that on some level, but a recent paper has reminded me of it.
I somehow managed to get on the press list of the Annals of Internal Medicine. That means they send me embargoed papers before they're released to the general public. That journal publishes a lot of high-impact diet studies, so it's a great privilege for me. I get to write about the studies, and publish my analysis at the time of general release, which is the same time the news outlets publish their stories.
One of the papers they sent me recently is a fat loss trial with an interesting twist (1; see below). All participants were told to eat 10% fewer calories that usual for two weeks, however half of them were instructed to sleep for 8 and a half hours per night, and the other half were instructed to sleep for 5 and a half hours
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I somehow managed to get on the press list of the Annals of Internal Medicine. That means they send me embargoed papers before they're released to the general public. That journal publishes a lot of high-impact diet studies, so it's a great privilege for me. I get to write about the studies, and publish my analysis at the time of general release, which is the same time the news outlets publish their stories.
One of the papers they sent me recently is a fat loss trial with an interesting twist (1; see below). All participants were told to eat 10% fewer calories that usual for two weeks, however half of them were instructed to sleep for 8 and a half hours per night, and the other half were instructed to sleep for 5 and a half hours
View the Original article
Sleep Post Correction
An astute commenter pointed out that I misread the numbers in the paper on sleep and fat loss. I wrote that out of the total 3.0 kg lost, the high-sleep group lost 2.4 kg as fat, and the low-sleep group lost 1.4 kg of fat out of 2.9 kg total.
In fact, the high-sleep group lost 1.4 out of 2.9 kg as fat, and the low-sleep group lost 0.6 out of 3.0 kg as fat. So I got the numbers all mixed up. Sorry for the mistake. The main point of the post still stands though: sleep deprivation negatively influences body composition.
The correct numbers are even more interesting than the ones I made up. Even in the high-sleep group, nearly half the body weight lost by simple calorie restriction was lean mass. That doesn't make calorie restriction look very good!
In the sleep-deprived group, 80% of the weight lost by calorie restriction came out of lean mass. Ouch!
That illustrates one of the reasons why I'm skeptical of simple calorie restriction as a means of fat loss. When the body "wants" to be fat, it will sacrifice lean mass to preserve fat tissue. For example, the genetically obese Zucker rat cannot be starved thin. If you try to put it on a severe calorie-restricted diet, it will literally die fat because it will cannibalize its own lean mass (muscle, heart, brain, etc.) to spare the fat. That's an extreme example, but it illustrates the point.
The key is not only to balance energy intake with expenditure (which the brain does automatically when it's working correctly), but to allocate energy appropriately to lean and fat mass.Posted byStephanat11:50 PM
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In fact, the high-sleep group lost 1.4 out of 2.9 kg as fat, and the low-sleep group lost 0.6 out of 3.0 kg as fat. So I got the numbers all mixed up. Sorry for the mistake. The main point of the post still stands though: sleep deprivation negatively influences body composition.
The correct numbers are even more interesting than the ones I made up. Even in the high-sleep group, nearly half the body weight lost by simple calorie restriction was lean mass. That doesn't make calorie restriction look very good!
In the sleep-deprived group, 80% of the weight lost by calorie restriction came out of lean mass. Ouch!
That illustrates one of the reasons why I'm skeptical of simple calorie restriction as a means of fat loss. When the body "wants" to be fat, it will sacrifice lean mass to preserve fat tissue. For example, the genetically obese Zucker rat cannot be starved thin. If you try to put it on a severe calorie-restricted diet, it will literally die fat because it will cannibalize its own lean mass (muscle, heart, brain, etc.) to spare the fat. That's an extreme example, but it illustrates the point.
The key is not only to balance energy intake with expenditure (which the brain does automatically when it's working correctly), but to allocate energy appropriately to lean and fat mass.Posted byStephanat11:50 PM
View the Original article
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