Posted on October 31, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Yesterday I found this article on WebMD. It debunks "diet myths" like eating at night makes you fat and drinking water helps you lose weight. For kicks, I passed it along to Dr. Fuhrman.
Now, their claim about caffeine NOT being unhealthy, really set him off. Here's what he said:
They ignored the downside and gave a one-sided view. Caffeine is a mild drug, addictive and like other drugs, can have both risks and benefits. In higher dosages the risks, such as irregular heart beat is potentially dangerous.
But because some people with the potential to abuse caffeine, like young people, are sensitive to rationalizations that promote caffeine and justify their addiction. This advice could be potentially dangerous and even fatal due to life-threatening cardiac arrhythmia.
Dr. Fuhrman is right. Especially about young people! All those super-caffeinated energy drinks are aimed POINTBLANK at kids, prompting many states to crackdown on energy drinks.
And yet, some company still thinks it’s a good idea to put caffeine in soap! Nope, its not a joke.
Posted on October 30, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Dr. Fuhrman has helped A LOT people. They’ve lost weight and overcame chronic conditions like diabetes, heart disease and much, much more!
Even me, DiseaseProof’s dopey blogger, slimmed down and straightened up using nutritional excellence. And, I was crazy enough to post it on the blog!
So, are YOU brave enough? Will you share your story with thousands of readers? That’s right. I’m calling you out.
If you’ve lost weight, beat diabetes, kicked heart disease or just learned how to eat better, whatever! We want your story.
Send an email to diseaseproof@gmail.com and I’ll give you the details. I look forward to it!
Posted on October 27, 2008 by Guest Blogger
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Jim Foster of Diet-Blog and does NOT necessarily represent the opinions of DiseaseProof or Dr. Fuhrman.
Do you ever feel baffled, overwhelmed, and fatigued by all the diet advice that’s out there? Over the last few decades we’ve seen books that cover a bewildering array of nutritional combinations. Some become instant bestsellers – while others are thrown in the bargain bin before you can say “revolutionary new plan“.
It becomes mind-numbingly banal after a while – and in my view most people simply want to get on with life - enjoying their food and experiencing good health. Following rigid plans can feel empowering for a while – but in an ever-increasingly hectic life – simplicity begins to look very attractive.
Today’s information highway is strewn with 30-point plans for achieving better bodies. We have more assistance and guidance at our fingertips than ever before. How much of that knowledge we actually retain is up for debate.
Let’s distill all the complexity down into one easy sentence. It won’t lose you “4 pounds in 7 days”. It won’t “melt fat”, and it is no “revolutionary secret”.
Here we go, 6 words: Eat more fruit and fibrous vegetables.
Don’t stress, don’t strain. Don’t count, don’t obsess. Focus on which fruits and veggies you enjoy. Buy (or grow) them. Eat them.
Life is too short to spend it on angst and worry.
You may be surprised at the number of positive follow-on affects from simply focusing on fruit and vegetables. It’s more helpful to focus on foods you can add rather than stressing about what you have to avoid. If you’re stomach has filled up on broccoli – you’re unlikely to binge on a tub of ice cream.
Keep it simple. Keep it positive.
Posted on October 23, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Last year, the dairy industry DUMPED a harebrained campaign promoting milk for weight-loss. Because NO science supported it! Experts assert it’s counter-intuitive to associate fat and calorie-laden foods, like milk and other dairy foods, with weight-loss.
And now, new research in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition shows dairy supplementation FAILED to alter fat metabolism and energy expenditure in overweight individuals; via the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
Milk and dairy are NOT your friends. Dairy products cause disease. Previous reports link cow’s milk with diabetes and Crohn’s disease and both milk and meat INCREASE prostate cancer-risk. Not mention, milk-production STRAINS the environment!
Posted on October 17, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Obesity is NOT genetic. According to Dr. Fuhrman, even people with slim parents can become obese. Because they DON’T exercise and make POOR food choices!
And yet, new research in Science claims our GENES prod us to overeat and gain excess weight, because when we eat our BRAINS release feel-good chemicals; HealthDay News reports.
This sounds like TOXIC hunger. Toxic hunger is the cranky, sick feeling you get from food withdrawals of a poor diet. Dr. Fuhrman recommends a HEALTHY diet eliminates this problem!
Posted on October 16, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Thieves made a DUMB mistake! These dopes stole 660 pounds of hazelnuts. The problem is they’re full of hydrogen phosphate gas, used to extend self life, making them poisonous! German authorities have warned them NOT to eat them; Reuters reports.
I find that HILARIOUS, but don’t let it distract you. Nuts are SUPER foods; pistachios lower cholesterol, nuts and seeds promote weight-loss, cashews make bones strong and almonds fight free radicals and reduce inflammation. Nuts, eat some!
Posted on October 15, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
New research in the journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, claims pectin, the stuff used in jams and found naturally in citrus fruits, INHIBITS the growth of proteins responsible for cancer progression; ScienceDaily reports.
Fascinating stuff! Dr. Fuhrman points out that modified citrus pectin (MCP), a compound obtained from the peel and pulp of citrus fruits, also has EFFECTIVE anti-metastatic properties. Metastasis is one of the MOST life-threatening aspects of cancer.
Apples and oranges are packed with pectin! And in general, fruits and veggies beat up cancer! Foods like broccoli, leafy greens and beans possess AMAZING anti-cancer abilities. So go eat some!
Posted on October 7, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
A new study, presented at the2008 American Physiological Society Intersociety Meeting, claims, just ONE session of exercise speeds up metabolism in obese people; after ONLY 90-minutes of activity study participants burned 700 excess calories; Reuters reports.
Exercise is POWERFUL medicine! Running helps people live longer, active video games allow people to overcome obesity genes and other activities, like weight-lifting, improve heart health, cut diabetes-risk and reduce depression.
That’s why I exercise like a lunatic!
Posted on October 2, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
No doubt, obesity is WHACKING the world. The United States is fat, China is fat and getting fatter, even poor countries, like Nigeria and Uganda, are obese and the British have even started printing bodyweight on children’s report cards to help control fatness.
Even global warming has been linked to obesity! Clearly, we got a problem. Now, South Korea has its own solution for combating weight-gain in kids. They’re providing FREE vouchers to health clubs for obese children; Reuters reports.
I think, like healthy eating, good fitness and exercise habits start with the parents. Bev Sklar of That’sFit watched her young daughter become very intrigued by Yoga when she saw mommy doing it. Hey, my passion for exercise was ignited by my mother—who still gets up at 4AM to run!
Posted on October 1, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Mexico is on the fast track to become one of the world’s FATTEST countries—joining the United States—prompting Mexican officials to initiate a national campaign to encourage Mexicans to lose 2 million pounds; the Associated Press reports.
Other countries have also instituted programs to help control obesity. Japan started measuring the waistlines of people between the ages of 40 and 74 and the mayor of Varallo, Italy is PAYING citizens to lose weight.
And this past January, Oklahoma City called for residents to drop 1 million pounds. Now this is odd. I’m sure Mexico has a MUCH larger population than Oklahoma City and they only pledged to lose 2 million. Either someone is overestimating or underestimating.
Posted on September 29, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Angela Stokes used to weigh 300 pounds, fed up she switched to a raw food diet. No more meat, animal products or processed foods, just LOTS of fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds. She lost an AMAZING 160 pounds; CNN reports.
Kudos to Angela, great job! Plants foods promote healthy bodyweight and disease-prevention and cutting saturated fats—found in animal foods—helps lower cholesterol and maintain heart health; from Health magazine.
Now, raw food diets DO help people consume MORE fruits and vegetables, but raw food isn’t the ONLY answer. Eating cooked foods in fine, Dr. Fuhrman explains low-temperature cooking and steaming can actually enhance the nutrient-quality of vegetables.
Nevertheless, Angela’s accomplishment is STILL a great ambassador for vegetable-based diets!
Posted on September 26, 2008 by Joel Fuhrman
This is an excerpt from Dr. Fuhrman’s book Eat For Health.
Our hunger drive craves volume. A key skill that you are developing for your health is the ability to eat large volumes of raw and cooked, high-nutrient, low-calorie foods every single day. This means eating lots of vegetables.
When you are actively trying to lose weight, you should strive to satisfy your volume requirements first, before addressing the other dimensions of hunger. This may feel strange at first because you may not immediately feel satisfied by the higher volume of food. This is because you are accustomed to eating large quantities of high-calorie foods that cause a dopamine rush, a rush that low-calorie foods don’t deliver. However, your body will adjust, be less dependent on the dopamine surge in the brain, and will gradually become more and more satisfied with fewer calories. Give yourself time, and use the knowledge you have gained. Striving to fulfill your body’s volume and nutrient requirements can help you resolve food cravings and your toxic hunger.
The trick to get you to desire fewer calories faster is to eat lots of these high-volume, high-nutrient foods. You are already familiar with these, but many of the foods that you have been incorporating into your diet because of their nutrient values are also great tools in meeting your volume requirements. They include:
- Raw Vegetables: lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, celery, anise, snow pea pods, carrots, beets, cucumbers, water chestnuts, red cabbage, onion
- Most Fresh Fruits: melons, oranges, grapefruits, apples, kiwis, berries, papaya
- Cooked Green Vegetables: Brussels sprouts, string beans, artichokes, asparagus, broccoli, Chinese cabbage, bok choy
- Other Non-Green Vegetables: mushrooms, eggplant, sun-dried tomatoes, onions, bean sprouts, cauliflower, spaghetti squash
Especially on holidays and days when you know that you will be around a lot of unhealthy foods, pre-fill with these high-nutrient, low-calorie foods. Never go to a party or event with an empty stomach. Eat a large salad with assorted raw vegetables and a bowl of vegetable soup before going to the places that may tempt your desire to eat unhealthily. Being healthy is about being in control. You must control your hunger, and the more low-calorie, high-volume foods you consume, the less high-calorie food you will be able to eat. When you increase these super healthy foods in your diet, you will feel less temptation, and you will be in control of your food cravings and appetite.
Posted on September 24, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Weight-loss surgery is risky! A previous report showed an INCREASED risk of depression and suicide with weight-loss surgery. And now, new research by Columbia University reveals a connection between gastric bypass and deficiencies of calcium and bone loss.
The study appears in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. More from ScienceDaily:
"Our research shows that deficiencies of calcium and vitamin D absorption occur following gastric bypass surgery," said Dr. Shonni J. Silverberg, professor of medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons in New York, N.Y., and coauthor of the study. "When analyzing hip bone density, we found that those who lost the most weight also lost the most bone."
In this study, researchers evaluated 23 morbidly obese men and women who underwent gastric bypass surgery. Dr. Silverberg and her colleagues measured serum calcium, vitamin D, and parathyroid hormone levels before surgery and at three, six, and twelve months after surgery. Researchers also measured bone mineral density before and after surgery using dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA). One year after weight loss surgery, patients had lost an average of 99 pounds and had significant declines in hip bone mineral density (both total hip and femoral neck measurements).
"The calcium and vitamin D deficiencies may be due to the alterations in the gastrointestinal tract that take place during these procedures," said Dr. Silverberg. "These deficiencies may be restored if the amount of calcium and vitamin D supplementation is increased appropriately."
Now, this only a FRACTION of the potential complications! Dr. Fuhrman also lists gastritis, dilated pouch, incisional hernia and vitamin B12 deficiency as other possible consequences of weight-loss stomach surgery. Seems like A LOT of risks to me!
There’s a simpler. You know it already—diet and exercise! Exercise keeps us moving, but a diet change is REALLY crucial. Some foods, like green vegetables, actually allow you to eat MORE and still lose weight. No scalpels needed!
Posted on September 18, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
This report is a no-brainer, but still worth a mention. Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women's Hospital have determined that women living healthfully have a DECREASED risk of premature death.
The study appears in The British Medical Journal. Reuters is on it:
Dr. Rob van Dam and a team from the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women's Hospital followed 80,000 nurses for more than two decades.
The women kept detailed records of their diet, physical activity, alcohol consumption, weight, smoking and disease history. Over the study period, 8,882 of the women died, including 1,790 from heart disease and 4,527 from cancer.
Some 28 percent of these deaths could have been avoided if the women had never smoked, the researchers said.
And 55 percent of the deaths could have been avoided if the women had never smoked and exercised regularly, eaten a healthy diet low in red meat and trans-fats and maintained a healthy weight, they said.
Smoking played the biggest role in causing premature death, and alcohol consumption played the smallest, they said.
I’m no scientist—just a BIG dummy—but I’m pretty sure this would apply to men too. But ladies, your health is important. Take obesity. Not only will it ruin your figure, but being overweight can boost your risk of pancreatic cancer.
Oh, and make sure you EXERCISE! Previous research suggests exercise can help ward off breast cancer. And if you’re looking for a good workout, consider using kettlebells; from The Washington Post.
Posted on September 11, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Usually diaries are reserved for dirty little secrets, love crushes and forget-me-nots, but new research by the University of Wisconsin-Madison claims that photographic food diaries may help people control their weight.
The study appears in the International Journal of Consumer Studies. Kate Devlin of The Telegraph reports:
To test if encouraging slimmers to photograph everything they eat might also encourage them to change their diet, scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison asked 43 people to record what they ate for one week in pictures as well as in words.
When the volunteers were later quizzed the photo diary appeared more effective at encouraging them to change their eating habits to more healthy alternatives.
The photographs also acted as a powerful reminder of any snacking binges, the researchers found.
"I had to think more carefully about what I was going to eat because I had to take a picture of it," was a typical response from volunteers, the scientists found.
Prof Lydia Zepeda and David Deal, the researchers who carried out the study reported in New Scientist magazine, found that written food diaries were often filled in hours after the meal and were not as powerful in creating an impression of how much food had been consumed.
Well, I guess this would only work if you eat GOOD stuff—who wants pictures of gross food! Reminds me of a previous study that suggested recalling what you previously ate triggers you to eat less food later—via Diet-Blog.
You won’t hear Dr. Fuhrman telling you to snap shots of your meals, but he will tell you WHAT you eat matters, like how eating veggies actually allows you to eat MORE and still lose weight.
Posted on September 4, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
New research by Royal Children's Hospital in Australia claims fad diets—like Slim Fast, Weight Watchers, Atkins and the "Eat Yourself Slim" Diet—do little to increase people’s intake of fruits and vegetables. Wow, what a shocker!
The study's in Biomed Central's Nutrition Journal. Reuters reports:
There was no significant difference between the diets in how much weight people lost, Helen Truby of Royal Children's Hospital in Australia and her British colleagues reported in Biomed Central's Nutrition Journal.
"Health professionals and those working in community and public health should be reassured of the nutritional adequacy of the diets tested," the researchers wrote.
Truby and colleagues asked 293 people on diets across Britain to record how much food they ate during a two-month period and compared the results with a group who ate normally.
They found that all four diets led to weight loss but that only people on the Weight Watchers plan boosted the amount of fruit and vegetables they ate even when the plans advised them to do so.
This shouldn’t be taken as a glowing endorsement for Weight Watchers. Dr. Fuhrman considers Weight Watchers an obsolete approach to weight-loss. Not to mention, portion-restricting diets have dismal failure rates or only post modest results.
Now, what this research does show is too many people are still veggie-phobic. Some REALLY freak out over vegetables!
Posted on September 2, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
More proof that trans-fat is health-destroying garbage. New research in the American Journal of Epidemiology contends that trans-fatty acids are linked to pre-cancerous colon growths—boosting colorectal cancer-risk. Reuters explains:
To investigate a possible link, they looked at 622 people who had colonoscopies at University of North Carolina Hospitals in 2001 and 2002. Study participants were interviewed about their diet, physical activity and other health issues within 12 weeks of having the screening test.
People in the top fourth based on trans-fatty acid consumption, most of whom took in 6.54 grams daily, were 86 percent more likely to have colon polyps than those in the bottom quartile for trans fat intake, for whom median intake was 3.63 g, the researchers found. There appeared to be a threshold effect, with no increased risk seen for people in the bottom three quarters of fatty acid consumption.
Among the 38.5 percent of study participants found to have colon polyps, average trans fatty acid intake was 4.97 g, while most consumed 4.12 g. Average intakes for people who were free of the colon growths was 4.42 g, while the median was 3.61 g.
These results suggest that consumption of high amounts of trans-fatty acid may increase the risk of colorectal polyps, the researchers write, adding that the findings also back current recommendations to limit trans fat intake.
Trans-fat is pretty simple to figure out—unhealthy, cheap and lasts a long time—NOT for eating! In fact, not too long along ago New York City banned the stuff. Not mention Dr. Fuhrman associates it with cancer and heart disease.
Now, in addition to avoiding trans-fat, a recent study in the American Journal of Gastroenterology claims weight-loss may also reduce the risk of colorectal growths—via Reuters. Okay, so no trans-fat and stay slim, simple—right?
Posted on August 29, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Alright, obesity is bad—that's common knowledge—but new research in Diabetes claims that fat people actually have “sick” fat cells that make insulin-resistant proteins. Krisha McCoy of HealthDay News reports:
The fat cells we found in our obese patients were deficient in several areas," study author Guenther Boden, the Laura H. Carnell Professor of Medicine and chief of endocrinology, said in Temple press release.
Boden said that the obese people's fat cells showed stress on the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), which helps cells synthesize proteins and monitor how they are folded. When the ER is stressed, Boden explained, it produces several proteins that ultimately lead to insulin resistance. Insulin resistance, in turn, plays a major role in the development of obesity-related conditions.
The differences in the fat cells between obese and lean people may help explain the link between obesity and a higher risk of diabetes, heart disease, and stroke, Boden theorized.
Certainly follows in line with what we already know about obesity and diabetes. As Dr. Fuhrman points out, extra body fat increases risk of type-2 diabetes, which screws up insulin and can eventually cause pancreatic poop out!
People need to eat more mushrooms—they can stop obesity! Speaking of obesity, rocker Ted Nugent recently called obese people vulgar and displeasing to look at. Eep!
Posted on August 28, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Patrons of a “weight-loss camp” in North Carolina and New York are finding that parents and kids can lose weight TOGETHER. Paul Smith of the Associated Press reports:
At the Adirondack camp, visiting family members join campers in the mornings for a long walk and at every meal. The rest of the time, parents attend classes on cooking, exercise and how to shop for healthy food. Siblings can tag along with campers to watch the daily activities.
"That had a big impression on her," Kelsey Galer said of her sister's visit to camp. "She just got a taste of my new lifestyle. We had spent a lot of time together (before camp), but it was never time like that -- being active and eating healthy."
The results of a three-year Wellspring survey of campers suggests that family support is beneficial, according to Daniel Kirschenbaum, Wellspring clinical director. The campers who reported having strong family support or used the post-camp program did better at maintaining or continuing to lose weight than those without strong support.
At the Wellspring camp in Pinehurst, North Carolina, about 60 miles southwest of Raleigh, parents join children between the ages of 5 and 14 for sessions that include sports, personal training and a spa.
Therapy is part of both programs to help people understand why they overeat and how to manage stress. Parents learn how to motivate their children to be healthy instead of discouraging them or emphasizing bad body image.
No doubt, families should get healthy together. Heck, we just found out kids will eat veggies if their parents do. Why not get your friends in the mix too?
Posted on August 21, 2008 by Joel Fuhrman
This is an excerpt from Dr. Fuhrman’s book Eat For Health.
If you are significantly overweight and want to maximize your weight loss, you should limit your intake of seeds, nuts and avocados to one (one ounce) serving a day since they are calorie-rich. However, you should not exclude these healthy, high-fat foods completely from your diet. It may seem illogical to include such high fat foods in your diet (since fat is 9 calories a gram compared with 4 calories a gram for carbohydrates and protein) however epidemiological studies show an inverse relationship between seed and nut consumption and body weight. Interestingly, these studies show including some seeds and nuts in your diet actually aids in appetite suppression and weight loss. Well-controlled trials that looked to see if eating nuts and seeds resulted in weight gain, found the opposite—eating raw nuts and seeds promoted weight loss, not weight gain.1 Because seeds and nuts are rich in minerals and fiber and have a low glycemic index, they are favorable foods to include in a diet designed for diabetics and even the obese. Researchers noted that people eating one ounce of nuts five times a week reduced their risk of developing diabetes by 27 percent.2
There is another important reason to include nuts and seeds in your diet as you lose weight and that is they prevent the formation of gallstones. Weight loss in general can increase one’s risk of gallstone formation and certainly that is a reasonable risk to take when one considers the ill health and life-threatening effects from significant body fat. It is important to note, as reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, when over 80,000 women were followed for 20 years it was found that the regular consumption of nuts and seeds offered dramatic protection against gallstone formation. These findings have been duplicated in men too.3
The health properties of nuts and seeds notwithstanding, it is important that you do not overeat them. Don’t sit in front of the TV and eat an entire bag of nuts in an hour. Healthful eating means avoiding excessive calories and not eating for recreation. Besides being aware of the amount of seeds and nuts consumed, the only other modification that one needs to make to maximize weight loss in a plant-based diet is to limit the consumption of flour-containing baked goods and oils. Your carbohydrate consumption should come mostly from fresh fruit, squashes, carrots, peas and beans, not bread; and of course your fat consumption should come from seeds and nuts, not oils.
Continue Reading...
Posted on August 12, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
And, they help you make wonderful music! But seriously, That’sFit passes along some info on beans’ fiber-full powers. Here’s a snippet:
Beans. The more you eat, the ... less you weigh. That's what science says, that bean-eaters weigh less on average than non-bean-eaters. About 6.6 pounds less, to be exact.
RealAge expert John La Puma, MD, author of ChefMD's Big Book of Culinary Medicine, says it makes sense that beans have the power to knock off a few pounds. They are full of fiber, full of protein, and low in fat. This means they'll keep you fuller longer and will make only a small dent in your calorie intake.
Dr. Fuhrman considers beans—also called legumes—are serious health foods. Check it out:
A large recent study examined the eating habits of 32,000 adults for six years and then watched the incidence of cancer for these subjects over the next six years. Those who avoided red meat but at white meat regularly had a more than 300 percent increase in colon cancer incidence.1 The same study showed that eating beans, peas, or lentils, at least twice a week was associated with a 50 percent lower risk than never eating these foods. Beans, in general, not just soy, have additional anti-cancer benefits against reproductive cancers, such as breast and prostate cancer.2
And not only are beans packed with fiber, but they’re also loaded with protein. More from Dr. Fuhrman:
Eating more plant protein is the key to increasing our micronutrient intake. It is interesting to note that foods such as peas, green vegetables, and beans have lots of protein—even more protein per calorie than meat. But what is generally considered is that foods that are rich in plant protein are generally the foods that are richest in nutrients and phytochemicals. By eating more of these high-nutrient, low-calorie foods, we get plenty of protein, and our bodies get flooded with protective micronutrients simultaneously. Animal protein does not contain antioxidants and phytochemical; plant protein does. Plus, animal protein is married to saturated fat. Excesses of saturated fat are not favorable to good health.
Although, not everyone is excited about beans—like this little girl. Take a look:
Now, for more on beans and healthy bodyweight, don’t forget about this post: Beans and Obesity Prevention.
Continue Reading...
Posted on August 12, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
With 23 percent of British children now considered overweight or obese, parents have increasing difficulty judging whether their own child is too heavy and most consider their overweight children normal, Ivan Lewis, the British health minister, warned. The letters home are designed as an early wake-up call, aimed at helping kids avoid later health problems, including diabetes and heart disease.
Starting next month, about 1.2 million British kindergartners and children in their last year of primary school will be weighed and notes about their weight mailed home, school and health officials said.
To avoid stigma, all parents—not just those of the overweight—will get an assessment of their child. And to avoid offense, the letters will avoid the use of "obese" or "fat," substituting instead "overweight" or "very overweight."
The recall is of beef prepared for shipment to retailers but not yet cut up in supermarket sized portions.
The recall is "Class 1," meaning there is a "reasonable probability" that eating the beef "will cause serious, adverse health consequences or death," the USDA said. It is the most dangerous level of the three classes of recall.
USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service said the beef was sent to processing establishments and retail stores across the United States and had been produced June 17, June 24 and July 8.
The recall is of primal and subprimal cuts that are larger sections of cows, such as chuck and rib, that can be cut down for individual or family-sized packaging. It also is of "boxed beef" or carcasses that have been partially disassembled for shipping.
There is little dispute that bisphenol A can disrupt the hormonal system, but scientists differ on whether the very low amounts found in food and beverage containers can be harmful.
The National Toxicology Program, a partnership of federal health agencies, said in a recent draft report that there is "some concern" that the chemical can cause changes in behavior and the brain, and that it may reduce survival and birth weight in fetuses. The conclusion was based on animal studies.
However, the Food and Drug Administration's associate commissioner for science, Dr. Norris Alderson, told Congress in June that there was no reason for consumers to stop using products that contain the chemical.
Despite the uncertainty, consumer concern has prompted some governments and retailers to act.
A report from Brigham Young University shows only 36 percent of babies are breast-fed through six months. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breast-feeding through the first year.
The data are based on a weighted sample of more than 60,000 children, collected from national immunization surveys compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although the data are focused on childhood immunization rates, questions also were asked about breast-feeding, giving the researchers a representative sample of nursing patterns in the United States.
The researchers found that children who were most likely to be breast-fed for more than six months typically had mothers with higher levels of education and income. Married women and those who lived in Western states were also more likely to breast-feed. Hispanic women and women born in other countries were also more likely to breast-feed.
Returning to work, being a smoker or living in the Northeast decreased the likelihood of long-term breast-feeding. Notably, low-income women who participated in the subsidized Women, Infants and Children program, which provides food, milk and formula to mothers and young children, were also more likely to stop breast-feeding sooner.
Wright is not an exotic dancer in a strip club. She's a 38-year-old mother of two from Atlanta, Georgia, looking to get in a decent workout.
"It works the abs, oh my goodness, muscles I didn't even know I had," Wright chuckled.
On this night, Wright is among more than a dozen women of all shapes and sizes -- no men allowed -- attending a beginner class at PoleLaTeaz, an Atlanta dance studio owned by Angela Edwards.
"We get preachers' wives, teachers, nurses, accountants, lawyers, anyone between the age of 18 and 70," Edwards said. "It's not boring...you get to wear fun clothes, listen to good music...and release your inner sexpot."
If online listings across the country are an indication, the popularity of pole dancing is spreading across the country from Southern California to Chicago to the Bible Belt.
Researchers say those strong feelings pro and con show in themselves that it will take a large study to see what, if anything, stretching really accomplishes. If stretching were remarkably effective, athletes would notice its effects right away and everyone would agree on when to stretch and what stretching does.
The study in Norway was the inspiration of Dr. Andy Oxman, a senior scientist at the Norwegian Knowledge Center for the Health Services. He had just completed what he calls a public clinical trial. It was a sort of reality show on public television that asked whether the nutritional supplement Valerian helped with insomnia; 405 people signed up to receive Valerian or a placebo and reported on their sleep by logging onto a Web site. Some participants insisted that because they slept so well they were taking Valerian. Or they said they knew they had taken the placebo because their sleep didn’t improve.
Then, the results were announced on the TV show and published: Valerian had little or no effect on sleep. Some who maintained they had the supplement actually had the placebo and vice versa.
Yet many people are not getting enough vitamin D, which the skin makes naturally when exposed to sunlight. A nationwide survey found that 41 percent of men and 53 percent of women in the United States were not getting enough of this vital nutrient.
"The importance of vitamin D may be underappreciated," said lead author Dr. Michal Melamed, a clinical fellow at Johns Hopkins University. "There are studies that link low vitamin D levels to the development of heart disease, peripheral arterial disease, diabetes, hypertension and different cancers," she said.
The report was published in the Aug. 11 online edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
For the study, Melamed's team collected data on more than 13,000 men and women who took part in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Levels of vitamin D were collected in 1988 and 1994, and the participants were followed through 2000.
Nebraska Beef, an Omaha meat packer, has been linked to two separate outbreaks of E. coli O157:H7 in the past two months. The first triggered a ground beef recall by Kroger's supermarkets. The second outbreak kicked off a ground beef recall by Dorothy Lane Market, a small chain in Ohio. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention consider these two separate outbreaks because they involve two genetically distinct strains of O157:H7.
Whole Foods initiated the recall after Massachusetts health officials investigating a cluster of E. coli illnesses discovered all seven victims had bought meat at Whole Foods. The chain pulled ground beef from some of its stores on Wednesday. The Nebraska Beef recall was announced late Friday night.
My colleague Ylan Mui and I have gotten some comments from people who noted that the natural food chain is telling folks no contaminated Whole Foods meat has been found yet and we reported that in our story on Sunday. But before anyone is lulled into some false sense of security, there is other microbiological evidence linking Whole Foods to the outbreak.
Posted on August 8, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Imagine being told to feed your child meat broth and sea salt and limiting their intake of fruits and vegetables—crazy, right? Indeed, but those are just a few of the insane recommendations by The Weston A. Price Foundation.
According to Dr. Fuhrman, Weston Price is a relatively small non-profit that has been very effective in advocating a meat, butter, and raw milk-centered diet—foods that are NOT health and longevity-supporting.
Actually, we’ve debunked Weston Price and its cronies before. Remember these posts:
So, if Weston Price is a dead horse—why start beating it again? Because of this article in The Washington Post, in it Sally Fallon, founder of The Weston A. Price Foundation and co-author of Nourishing Traditions, attempts to convince people that foods like raw milk, butter, bone broth, and chicken liver pate are great for us.
Here’s a bit of reporter’s Jane Black’s article. You might recognize one of the names mentioned. Take a look:
In 1989, Fallon began to think about spreading the gospel of Price. She did not have any formal nutrition training, so she recruited Mary Enig, a Washington nutritionist whose controversial work promotes saturated fats, to co-write a cookbook. It had two goals: to explain Price's findings and to provide a range of recipes for traditional foods such as chicken liver pâté, sauerkraut and sourdough breads that deliver the requisite fat and nutrients for good health. (Some of the book's recommendations, such as the importance of bone broths, are inspired by the work of California doctor Francis Pottenger, a contemporary of Price's.)
The result was "Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook That Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats." The first edition, released in 1996, was riddled with typos and errors. But it sold…
…Some independent studies, such as the ones charted in Gary Taubes's recent book, "Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control and Disease," do support the premise that saturated fat isn't the enemy. But not everyone agrees with the foundation's claims. Joel Fuhrman, doctor and author of "Eat for Health," which advocates a nutrient-dense diet with limited animal products, calls it "unconscionable" to advocate a diet high in saturated fat, especially for children. He also alleges that the evidence Fallon and Enig use to support their claims is based on antiquated studies with poor observations.
"The worst people can say about us is that we use older studies," Fallon says. "Would you jump off a building because the law of gravity was discovered 300 years ago? This is good science."
Apparently time has stood still in Fallon’s world. You talk about blind evangelism! Despite the avalanche of research that negates her group’s views. She remains unwavering? That’s a dangerous way to think. Hey Fallon, its not 1939!
Try opening your eyes to new research or AT LEAST something within the past 20 years! Recently Dr. Fuhrman and T. Colin Campbell, PhD, author of The China Study, published this study on weight-loss using Dr. Fuhrman’s nutrient-dense vegetable-based diet style. It appears in Alternative-Therapies in Health and Medicine. Here’s a bit:
Weight loss was sustained in patients who returned for follow-up and was more substantial in those who reported good adherence to the recommendations...
...Favorable changes in lipid profile and blood pressure were noted. An HND diet has the potential to provide sustainable, significant, long-term weight loss and may provide substantial lowering of cardiac risk in patients who are motivated...
...An HND diet as demonstrated with this group may be the most health-favorable and effective way to lose weight for appropriately motivated patients.
No doubt this’ll leave Sally Fallon and Weston Price scratching their heads. After all, they’re probably still pondering the lunar landing, rubik's cube, and Tang.
I’ve said it before—and this is just my opinion—but people and organizations that advocate animal product-heavy diets are just looking to benefit from America’s love affair with rich, disease-causing foods. They know their recommendations are dangerous!
Lots of people have suffered and died prematurely from such advice, but this doesn't stop groups like Weston Price and Atkins from blatantly CASHING in on people’s emotional attachments to bacon, steak, and grease.
Shame on Weston Price, Sally Fallon, Atkins and others like them for polluting modern scientific research with their outdated unsupported nonsense—anyone who thinks giving their newborn a bottle of meat broth is a good idea, needs their head examined!
UPDATE: Here's a follow up from Dr. Fuhrman: Weston Price, Take Your Pseudo-Science Elsewhere.
Posted on August 1, 2008 by Joel Fuhrman
This is an excerpt from Dr. Fuhrman’s book Eat For Health.
If you are slim or desirous of gaining weight, a larger amount of seeds, nuts and avocado is appropriate. The amount you should consume is based on your body weight, how much fat you have on your body, and how much you exercise. A pregnant or nursing woman should consume about two ounces of seeds and nuts a day, even if overweight, and may consume more than that if slim. A competitive athlete may require 4 – 6 ounces of raw seeds and nuts a day, in addition to an avocado. In other words, some of us have a higher requirement for these higher-protein, higher-fat foods, and others need less. We do not need as much fat in our diet when we have extra fat on our body that needs to be utilized for energy, but if we are thin (and especially if your physical activity level is high) we may have a substantially higher requirement for fat and calories. So even though we need to consume a significant amount of the lower calorie, very high micronutrient foods, some of these higher calorie foods are also important to fuel our caloric needs.
I provide nutritional counseling to world class and professional athletes to maximize their performance and to increase their resistance to infection. One key feature of the eating-style I recommend to them is that most of their protein and fat needs are met by consuming seeds, nuts, legumes and avocados instead of more animal products. I am not suggesting that these highly active individuals eat a low-fat diet; rather it is a diet with lots of healthy, whole-food fats from seeds, nuts and avocados. A diet with fifteen percent of calories from fat could be appropriate for an overweight person with heart disease, but a slim, healthy person may find 30 percent of calories from fat is more appropriate to their needs. A highly active teenager or athlete may function best on a diet that is 40 percent of calories from fat or more.
Most healthy, normal weight individuals who exercise moderately and are in good shape can eat 3 – 4 ounces of seeds and nuts a day. That will bring their fat intake up to about 30 percent of total calories. Believing fat is the villain is wrong. Eating a bread, potato, and pasta-based diet is not as healthful as a diet higher in fat, where the extra calories (and extra fat and protein) come from seeds and nuts. Eating more beans and whole grains can also be helpful for a person who wants to gain weight. Do not be tempted to eat more animal products to gain weight and don’t get sucked in by the myth that you need more animal products to build muscle.
Keep in mind that eating to maintain extra fat stores on your body, because you or others think you look better heavier, is never healthful. A healthy person is slim and muscular. If you think you are too thin and desire more weight on your frame, the right way to achieve that is from working out in the gym, not in the kitchen. The muscular demands on your body will then increase your appetite, hunger will occur more frequently, and your caloric intake will increase proportional to the increased muscular demand. If you want to gain weight, try to make your thighs, shoulders and chest a little bigger, with more exercise. Don’t expand your waistline by over-exercising your knife and fork
Posted on July 25, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Roughly 19 percent of U.S. energy consumption goes toward producing and supplying food, David Pimentel and his colleagues at Cornell University write in the current issue of the journal Human Ecology. Considering that the average American consumes an estimated 3,747 calories a day, — at least 1,200 more than health experts advise — the researchers suggest everyone cut back.
Animal products and junk food, in particular, use more energy and other resources for their production than staples such as potatoes, rice, fruits and vegetables.
Producing all the stuff that goes into a single hamburger, for example, requires some 1,300 gallons of water, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. A study in 2006 by University of Chicago researchers Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin found that a vegetarian diet is the most energy-efficient, followed by one that includes poultry. Diets with red meat or fish are the least efficient.
"By just reducing junk food intake and converting to diets lower in meat, the average American could have a massive impact on fuel consumption as well as improving his or her health," Pimentel and his team write in a statement released today.
Researchers at the University of Colorado Hospital recruited 80 seniors, age 65 to 89, and found that three-quarters of them had insufficient levels of Vitamin D.
That's probably because they thought the old levels were sufficient, said Sunny Linnebur, associate professor at the CU-Denver School of Pharmacy.
"It was a surprise because in Denver we have so much sun," she said. "And these were ambulatory elderly, people who can walk around and go outside. We were expecting more of them to have normal levels of Vitamin D."
Sara Jane Barru of Denver said she had assumed she was taking plenty of Vitamin D, but when a test found her levels were low she eagerly jumped into the study.
She said she started taking a lot more Vitamin D while in the study "and I'm continuing to keep it up there.
More risk assessment studies are needed to understand what exactly defines toxicity due to nanoparticles, and what kind of regulations the sector needs, said Hermann Stamm, head of nanotechnology and molecular imaging at the Institute for Health and Consumer Protection in the European Commission's Joint Research Council.
Speaking at the Euroscience Open Forum in Barcelona this week (20 July), Stamm said concern over possible health risks due to nano-sized particles arises from several studies that found a link between ultra-fine particles from exhaust engines and air pollution to lung cancers and heart disease.
Nanotechnology — the use of particles as small as one-billionth of a metre — holds tremendous potential for the health sector, particularly in drug delivery.
Developing countries are keen to use nanotechnology in healthcare and agriculture. India, for example, in 2007 launched a US$225 million programme for nanoscience and technology.
In June 2007, the Government of Canada called on industry to voluntarily reduce the levels of trans fat in the Canadian food supply to the levels recommended by the Trans Fat Task Force, and announced that the Government would monitor the progress.
The Trans Fat Task Force recommended a trans fat limit of 2% of the total fat content for all vegetable oils and soft, spreadable margarines, and a limit of 5% of the total fat content for all other foods, including ingredients sold to restaurants.
"I am very pleased to see that industry is continuing to make progress to reduce the levels of trans fat," said Parliamentary Secretary Fletcher. "This second set of data, which focused on popular fast food chains and family restaurants in Canada, further illustrates the commitment of industry to achieve the limits recommended by the Trans Fat Task Force. The fact that we're seeing reductions in the levels of trans fat in so many areas is great news for all Canadians."
Armstrong, a seven-time winner of the Tour de France, said the United States needs to make more progress against the various types of cancer.
"As a survivor, I think I can say this -- we have taken our eye off the ball," Armstrong told a news conference along with former surgeons general Richard Carmona, David Satcher, Joycelyn Elders and Antonia Novello.
Cancer is the No. 2 cause of death in the United States, and is expected to kill about 566,000 this year. Only heart disease kills more.
At Armstrong's request, the four doctors developed a national "call to action" against cancer that emphasizes prevention efforts such as not smoking, eating more fruit and vegetables, getting less fat in the diet, getting more exercise, using sunscreen and avoiding indoor tanning beds.
Dawn Page, 52, has been awarded £810,000 in damages from her nutritionist, although the practitioner denies fault.
Mother of two Mrs Page, who weighed 12st, became ill within days of taking up the Amazing Hydration Diet.
She had been told by the nutritionist to drink four extra pints of water a day and drastically reduce her salt intake.
The first stage of the regime left her suffering from severe vomiting and stomach cramps, but she was told these were just part of the detoxification process.
She was told by her dietician to increase the amount of water to six pints and consume still less salt.
Days later she suffered a massive epileptic fit and brain damage caused by severe sodium deficiency.
A Los Angeles city council planning committee unanimously approved a 1-year ban, which could be extended for a further year, on new fast food outlets in a 32-square-mile (82-sq-km) area of Los Angeles.
The measure, the latest in efforts by U.S. cities to promote healthier eating, will go to the full council for a vote next month.
If passed, it would affect about half a million Angelenos living in an area that supporters say already has about 400 fast-food eateries and few grocery stores.
The proposed moratorium follows a report last year which found that about 30 percent of children living in the South Los Angeles, West Adams, Baldwin Hills and Leimert Park areas are obese compared to about 21 percent in the rest of the city.
"For cattle and pigs, food safety concerns are considered unlikely. But we must acknowledge that the evidence base is still small. We would like to have a broader data base and we need further clarification."
In its initial response to the issue of cloning -- which many consumer and religious groups strongly oppose -- EFSA said in January that cloned animals could be safe to eat.
It also said it saw "no environmental impact" from animal cloning, which takes cells from an adult and fuses them with others before implanting them in a surrogate mother.
But when asked if cloned products such as meat and dairy would be safe for people to buy in European supermarkets, Dr. Dan Collins of EFSA said: "There are possible concerns ... there is an impact of animal health and welfare on food safety. We need more data."
Posted on July 14, 2008 by Joel Fuhrman
This is an excerpt from Dr. Fuhrman’s book Eat For Health.
I consider the ideal version of this diet to be one that contains at least 90 percent of calories from the healthiest foods; vegetables, fruits, beans, raw nuts and seeds, avocados, and whole grains. For many others, this amount of change may feel too dramatic because they are giving up foods that they love and replacing them with foods that aren’t familiar, while adjusting to the physical symptoms of a changing diet at the same time. This modified approach is the one you are learning here and was designed to work in sync with your brain so that you won’t feel withdrawal or deprivation.
The focus here is on eating more, not less. The more raw and cooked green vegetables you consume, the less space you will have to eat high-calorie, low-nutrient foods. As the below graphic demonstrates, you will fill a sizeable volume of space in your stomach with a very small number of calories. This will help you comfortably cut the number of calories that you eat each day. This is very much like gastric bypass surgery without the surgery.
You will need to adjust the amount of raw vegetables you eat to what your body will comfortably tolerate. If you have uncomfortable gas, cut back a little on raw vegetables and beans. Don’t remove these foods, just cut back partially, because the goal is to let the body adjust the timing and secretion of its digestive enzymes and peristalsis to accommodate this healthy, more natural diet-style. You should be able to increase the amount of raw vegetables gradually without a problem. Don’t forget to concentrate on chewing better, because that may solve the problem. For some, it takes time for their digestive system to build up the capacity to digest raw, whole foods, especially after eating so little fiber for so long.
Posted on July 11, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
I was reading
That’sFit and found this link to
Jonny Bowden’s Simple Ways to Improve Your Cholesterol—Now, on
Remedy Life. Here are Jonny’s 5 tips:
- Eat more fiber.
- Lose weight.
- Exercise.
- Choose cholesterol-lowering foods.
- Take your supplements.
I was a little skeptical at first because
Jonny has popped up on low-carb blogs—
we all know how kooky those are—but his tips are right on point; especially when he suggests eating healthy foods like fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, cereals, and legumes.
As for taking supplements,
Dr. Fuhrman sells his own, so that’s a good place to start. Also, Jonny recently provided the
Well blog with his
list of super foods. If you skip the canned sardines and canned pumpkin, it’s pretty good too. Via
Well:
- Beets
- Cabbage
- Swiss chard
- Cinnamon
- Pomegranate juice
- Dried plums
- Pumpkin seeds
- Turmeric
- Frozen blueberries
You should also check out Dr. Fuhrman’s
Ten Super Foods and his
Seven Best and Seven Worst Foods for Health and Longevity.
Posted on July 3, 2008 by Joel Fuhrman
The heavier you are, the greater the risk you will develop type-2 diabetes. For some susceptible individuals, even moderate amounts of excess fat on the body can trigger diabetes. When we have more fat on the body, more insulin is required to deliver glucose to the cells as the coating of fat around our cells makes it difficult for the hormone insulin to easily transport the glucose into the cells.
The pancreas is then required to produce even higher amounts of insulin to accommodate the heightened insulin requirements. This stresses the pancreas’s beta cells to work harder and eventually poop out, but also the effects of NOT eating a diet high in veggies, beans, seeds and fruits places the pancreas at further risk from oxidative stress.
For example, twenty pounds of extra fat may force the pancreas to produce twice as much insulin to do the necessary job. Fifty pounds or more of excess fat on our frame and the pancreas may be forced to produce 6 to 10 times as much insulin as a normal person who is lean. What do you think occurs after ten or twenty years of overworking the pancreas? Again, it poops out and loses the ability to keep up with such huge insulin demands. The pancreas is still overworked, pumping out much more insulin than a thinner person might need, but still not enough to cover all that disease-causing body fat.
Adult diabetes is a disease of insulin resistance, not of insulin deficiency. The pancreas's ability to secrete insulin continues to diminish as the diabetes continues and the overweight condition continues year after year. Total destruction of insulin secreting ability almost never occurs in type-2 (adult onset) as it does in type-1 (childhood onset) diabetes. But the sooner the type-2 diabetic can lose the extra weight causing the diabetes, the more functional reserve of insulin secreting cells in the pancreas will remain.
Posted on July 3, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
With healthcare costs soaring, many businesses have instituted mandatory health guidelines—like refusing to hire smokers—which have kicked off a fiery debate,
are employee health guidelines good or just an invasion of privacy.
CNN reports:
"Health and wellness programs at work are a win/win situation for everybody," says Richard Taylor, vice president of human resources at Intel. "We keep our insurance costs down, and the employees are offered free health and wellness opportunities."
Alfred Sanchez, the CEO of the YMCA of Greater Miami, agrees. He started a free health and fitness program in March for his staff and their families that include weigh-ins, meetings with health counselors, nutritional guidance and exercise plans. Out of a staff of 170, all but 40 employees signed up…
…Some people, however, bristle at what they perceive as having lifestyle choices dictated by an employer.
This May, for example, the University of Massachusetts Medical School banned all tobacco use from their campus and hospital, including parking lots. If an employee is caught smoking, they risk being fired.
"They won't even allow people to smoke in their cars," says James LeBlanc, 45, an employee at the university and himself an ex-smoker who kicked the habit prior to the ban. "We all know smoking is bad for you, but last time I checked it was still legal in this country."
Some companies forbid their employees to light up at all -- even at home. There are at least 20 states that allow for this type of work policy, including Ohio, where the state's second-largest employer, the Cleveland Clinic, stopped hiring smokers in September.
This is tough. Everyone wants a healthier workforce, but this is America. If you want to ruin your health, you can. It’s your right. But then again, don’t companies also have the right to hire or not hire whoever they want—barring any civil rights infractions that is.
Posted on July 2, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Denmark is the happiest nation and Zimbabwe the the most glum, he found. (Zimbabwe's longtime ruler Robert Mugabe was sworn in as president for a sixth term Sunday after a widely discredited runoff in which he was the only candidate. Observers said the runoff was marred by violence and intimidation.)
The United States ranks 16th.
The results of the survey, going back an average of 17 years in 52 countries and involving 350,000 people, will be published in the July 2008 issue of the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science. Researchers have asked the same two questions over the years: "Taking all things together, would you say you are very happy, rather happy, not very happy, not at all happy?" And, "All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?"
The study, researchers say, suggests that CKD should be added to the list of conditions that are associated with weight gain, including diabetes and high blood pressure.
Obesity is a known risk factor for CKD, but the impact of weight gain in normal-weight individuals without high blood pressure or diabetes is unknown, Dr. Seungho Ryu, at Kangbuk Samsung Hospital in Seoul, and associates note in their report.
In Korea, workers are required to undergo periodic health examinations. Using these data, Ryu's team followed 8792 healthy men ages 30 to 59 years with no known risk factors for CKD between 2002 and 2007. The prevalence of obesity was about 33 percent.
For example, for apricots, a cup of fresh halves is 86 percent water, with 74 calories, and a half cup of dried fruit is 76 percent water, with 212 calories. Fresh apricots have 3.1 grams of fiber versus 6.5 for dried; 0.6 milligrams of iron versus 2.35 milligrams; 15.5 milligrams of vitamin C versus 0.8 milligrams; and 149 retinol activity equivalents of vitamin A versus 160.
A cup of fresh Thompson seedless grapes is 80 percent water, with 104 calories, and a half cup of raisins is 15 percent water, with 434 calories. The grapes have 1.4 grams of fiber, versus 5.4 grams for the raisins; 0.54 milligrams of iron versus 2.73 milligrams; 288 milligrams of potassium versus 1,086 milligrams; and 16.3 milligrams of vitamin C versus 3.3 milligrams.
At a meeting of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, a joint body of the WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), officials also set benchmarks for producing gluten-free foods.
Peter Ben Embarek, a scientist in the WHO's food safety division, said the adoption of the "landmark" code of hygienic practices for powdered formula could reduce contamination from two bacteria that can cause severe illness and death in babies.
People with wheat allergies would also be protected by the standards for gluten-free food that countries pledged to work into their national legislation, and to meet in food exports under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.
Most trade shows are the stuff of, if not nightmares, then at least a sleepwalk from one charmless kiosk to the next. Not so at the 54th Summer Fancy Food Show, where 20,000+ gourmet retailers, restaurateurs, chefs, media folks and plain ol' food fans spend three days chomping their way through a fever dream of some 180,000 specialty foods. The throwback "Fancy" is a bit of a misnomer by now, as there's a very wide slice of products on offer, ranging from swankity wines, oils, cheeses and caviar to humble chewing gums, ketchups, chili seasonings and snack mixes.
Most commercial brands of mayonnaise contain vinegar and other ingredients that make them acidic — and therefore very likely to protect against spoilage. When problems occur, they usually result from other contaminated or low-acid ingredients (like chicken and seafood), improper storage and handling, or homemade versions that contain unpasteurized eggs.
One prominent study published in The Journal of Food Protection found, for example, that in the presence of commercial mayonnaise, the growth of salmonella and staphylococcus bacteria in contaminated chicken and ham salad either slowed or stopped altogether. As the amount of mayonnaise increased, the rate of growth decreased. When temperatures rose to those of a hot summer day, the growth increased, but not as much as in samples that did not contain mayonnaise.
After following over 5,700 men for 23 years, researchers concluded that the faster your rate drops after exercise, the lower your risk of dying of a heart attack. To perform the calculation, first take note of your heart rate at exactly one minute after you've finished your workout. Then, take that number and subtract it from the maximum heart rate you reached during the workout. If the difference is more than 35bpm, there's a good chance you do not face an increased risk.
If, however, it is less than 35bpm, the study suggests there's need for caution. Specifically, if the difference is between 31-35bpm, your risk is increased by 40 percent; 25-30bpm, risk increase is 30 percent; less than 25bpm, risk increase is 110 percent.
In Berlin, where a ban took effect on January 1, smokers were granted a six-month period of grace that expired on Tuesday and those who breach the ban now face fines of 1,000 euros (1,575 dollars).
In the eastern state of Saxony, fines can run up to 5,000 euros but in the northern port of Hamburg and Thuringia, in eastern Germany, the highest fine authorities can issue is 500 euros.
The wealthy southern state of Bavaria is considered to have the country's toughest public smoking ban because it prohibits restaurants from opening separate smoking sections -- a practice allowed in other states.
Posted on July 1, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
The report by scientists at the WHO's International Agency for Cancer Research urged more countries to adopt smoking bans in public and at the workplace, saying there was enough evidence to prove they work, without hurting businesses such as restaurants and bars.
"Implementation of such policies can have a broader population effect of increasing smoke-free environments," the researchers wrote in the Lancet Oncology special report.
"Not only do these policies achieve their aim of protecting the health of non-smokers by decreasing exposure to second-hand smoke, they also have many effects on smoking behavior, which compound the health benefits."
Watching television in America takes some getting used to. Apart from the accent, it is strange to hear companies marketing drugs directly to the consumer. Not only do they sell their own brand, but they actively name and shame their competitors' products. During a commercial break there may be two different brands of antihistamine telling you how bad the other is.
Direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) is the promotion of prescription drugs through newspaper, magazine, television and internet marketing. Although the drug industry is mounting major campaigns to have DTCA allowed in Europe and Canada, the only two developed countries where it is currently legal are the U.S. and New Zealand.
Studies have shown that increases in DTCA have contributed to overall increases in spending on both the advertised drug itself and on other drugs that treat the same conditions. For example, one study of 64 drugs found a median increase in sales of $2.20 for every $1 spent on DTCA. It has been reported that 10 of the leading 12 brand-name drugs with DTCA campaigns have sales in excess of $1 billion annually.
The Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Office on Women's Health launched BodyWorks in 2006 by training instructors in the hopes that they would bring the program home to their communities. All materials are provided free, but communities must find the resources to pay trainers and a place to offer the program.
"Throughout the years I've worked with nutritionists, I've worked with diet programs, and it's very frustrating," Dr. Monica Richter, a pediatrician on staff at the Children's Hospital Seattle and a BodyWorks instructor who coordinates fundraising to help support the program, told Reuters Health. "I'm hoping that this will be one of the answers to this growing problem."
Girls 9 to 13 years old who are overweight or obese are referred to BodyWorks through their pediatrician, or by word of mouth. Parents and caregivers attend 10 weekly 90-minute sessions, and girls are expected to show up for at least three. The goal is to give parents and caregivers "hands-on tools to make small behavior changes to prevent obesity and help maintain a healthier weight," according to the BodyWorks Web site (http://www.womenshealth.gov/bodyworks/).
However, a new study suggests that the Nutrition Facts panel found on the side of grocery store products does a poor job of getting that message across to consumers.
"It's very misleading to just throw a number out there," contends study author Elizabeth Howlett, a professor of marketing at the University of Arkansas, in Little Rock.
Her team found that the average health-conscious consumer is often misled by trans fat information found on the Nutrition Facts panel.
The main problem is that because no amount of trans fat is good for you, it makes no sense to post a percentage of the "recommended daily value" -- as is done with other ingredients such as sugar, or total or saturated fats. So consumers are just left with a number -- such as 2, 3 or 4 grams of trans fat per serving -- and no way of interpreting how unhealthy that might be.
What surprises me most about it is that the parking lot next to the field is not full. I would think people would be lined up to climb up on that roof and get a good look at the art from above.
Even a bra that perfectly maximized motion (without sacrificing support and comfort) would be useful to me only if there were a way to turn that motion into energy. For a primer on how to do that, I turned to Professor Zhong Lin Wang of Georgia Tech, who is currently working to develop fabric made from nanowires that will capture energy from motion. Wang's wires are about 1/1,000th the width of a human hair. When woven together in a fabric, these nanowires rub up against one another and convert the mechanical energy from the friction into an electric charge. According to Wang, the fabric is cheap to produce and surprisingly efficient; his team hopes to use it to create energy-generating T-shirts and other articles of clothing. A square meter of fiber produces about 80 milliwatts of power, which is enough to run a small device like a cell phone. Wang expects to have a shirt available for purchase within five years.
Many bra patterns call for about a meter of fabric, which would probably mean that a regular bra would have enough energy to power an iPod. But the fabric could also be layered, doubling or even tripling the amount of energy produced. I asked Wang whether his fabric could be used to make a bra. "Bras would be ideal," he said. "There is a lot of friction and movement in that general area. And the fabric would be thick."
Parents secretly putting things (even if it's broccoli) into their children's food without their knowing it? When they grow up, I wonder what they'll think of that?
Seems a trust is broken here, and I'm not sure it won't affect food issues these children may have down the line.
Delicious is key where food and children are concerned. If a parent wants to get a child to eat fruit, he or she can wash, chop and freeze fresh strawberries, then take a blender and pour in one cup of fat-free milk. Add three packages of artificial sweetener. Add four or five frozen strawberries, and blend. Keep adding strawberries until you have a thick, luscious strawberry milkshake that could stand toe-to-toe with any fast-food shake you've ever had.
Condition worsened
The girl grew increasingly weak and feverish and "became more limp, appears sleepy, acts as if drunk," the report said. She was hospitalized and underwent surgery and was finally withdrawn from life support. She died April 5, according to the report.
The 9- and 6-year-olds suffered from mitochondrial disorders, a spectrum of genetic diseases that has received almost no attention from federal health officials. The 9-year-old, Hannah Poling, was 19 months old and developing normally in 2000 when she received five shots against nine infectious diseases. Two days later, she developed a fever, cried inconsolably and refused to walk. In the next seven months, she spiraled downward, and in 2001, she was diagnosed with autism.
Posted on June 24, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
We’ve all got foods we’re powerless to resist. At times, I’ve single-handily made peanut M&M’s an endangered species. Maybe I’m low on leptin.
Leptin is a hormone secreted by fat cells that regulates the body’s appetite.
A new study has determined that low levels of leptin—commonly found in people who have lost weight—makes it harder to resist “tempting” foods.
"When you lose weight you've created about the perfect storm for regaining weight," said Michael Rosenbaum of Columbia University Medical Center in New York, whose research appears in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, “Areas of your brain involved in telling you not to eat seem to be less active. You are more responsive to food and you are less in control of it.”
Almost sounds like you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t! Alright, in case you’re in a panic about leptin now, fear not!
Previous research determined that getting plenty of sleep is a great way to increase leptin production and reduce weight gain.
Good. So all I need now is a bag of peanut M&M’s and a pillow. Kidding.
Posted on June 19, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
A new study has determined that calling a child overweight or forcing a diet down their throat doesn’t work, but parents creating a healthier home environment does. Here’s the abstract from
Pediatrics:
OBJECTIVE: Our goal was to explore whether parents of overweight adolescents who recognize that their children are overweight engage in behaviors that are likely to help their adolescents with long-term weight management.
METHODS: The study population included overweight adolescents (BMI ≥ 85th percentile) who participated in Project EAT (Eating Among Teens) I (1999) and II (2004) and their parents who were interviewed by telephone in Project EAT I. Cross-sectional analyses were conducted with 314 adolescent-parent dyads, and longitudinal analyses were completed with 170 dyads.
RESULTS: Parents who correctly classified their children as overweight were no more likely than parents who did not correctly classify their children as overweight to engage in the following potentially helpful behaviors: having more fruits/vegetables and fewer soft drinks, salty snacks, candy, and fast food available at home; having more family meals; watching less television during dinner; and encouraging children to make healthful food choices and be more physically active. However, parents who recognized that their children were overweight were more likely to encourage them to diet. Parental encouragement to diet predicted poorer adolescent weight outcomes 5 years later, particularly for girls. Parental classification of their children's weight status did not predict child weight status 5 years later.
CONCLUSIONS: Accurate classification of child overweight status may not translate into helpful behaviors and may lead to unhealthy behaviors such as encouragement to diet. Instead of focusing on weight per se, it may be more helpful to direct efforts toward helping parents provide a home environment that supports healthful eating, physical activity, and well-being.
I think Dr. Fuhrman would agree with this. He explores this topic in his book
Disease-Proof Your Child. Check out this excerpt:
Parents are entrusted with the responsibility of securing the selection of healthy foods for the family and preparing the food in a way that makes it desirable. Children are responsible for deciding how much they eat. If they are in an environmental of healthful foods they will have no problem regulating variety and timing. They can choose what they eat, when they eat, and if they will eat. Don’t use food as a reward or punishment. Don’t offer a treat because the child was good or ate well. Offer healthy treats as part of the normal well-balanced diet.
So yeah,
raising your child on French fries isn’t a “healthy” environment.
Posted on June 15, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
In order to beat the bulge, Japan has started measuring the waists of people between the ages of 40 and 74 as part of their annual checkup. Norimitsu Onishi of
The New York Times reports:
Summoned by the city of Amagasaki one recent morning, Minoru Nogiri, 45, a flower shop owner, found himself lining up to have his waistline measured. With no visible paunch, he seemed to run little risk of being classified as overweight, or metabo, the preferred word in Japan these days.
But because the new state-prescribed limit for male waistlines is a strict 33.5 inches, he had anxiously measured himself at home a couple of days earlier. “I’m on the border,” he said.
Under a national law that came into effect two months ago, companies and local governments must now measure the waistlines of Japanese people between the ages of 40 and 74 as part of their annual checkups. That represents more than 56 million waistlines, or about 44 percent of the entire population.
Those exceeding government limits — 33.5 inches for men and 35.4 inches for women, which are identical to thresholds established in 2005 for Japan by the International Diabetes Federation as an easy guideline for identifying health risks — and having a weight-related ailment will be given dieting guidance if after three months they do not lose weight. If necessary, those people will be steered toward further re-education after six more months.
This seems a little “big brother-ish” to me.
Posted on June 13, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
According to a new study,
if you live in a neighborhood with access to healthy food and physical activity, you’re likely to be leaner. Joene Hendry of
Reuters reports:
The researchers found that men and women living in neighborhoods with better walking environments and availability of healthy foods were leaner than those living in less physically desirable neighborhoods.
Neighborhoods rated higher in social qualities, such as safety, aesthetics, and social cohesion, were associated with lower overall body mass index among women. However men showed the opposite -- higher body mass index among those residing in highly rated social neighborhoods -- and the investigators say further research must confirm this unexpected finding.
Overall, Dr. Mahasin S. Mujahid of Harvard University's School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts notes, these findings add to a growing body of evidence that indicates genes and individual choice, as well as the environments in which people live affect health. Continuing research needs to further assess links between environment and obesity, Mujahid and colleagues conclude.
This falls in line with the majority of the reports I’ve read. Here are some posts that come to mind. Take a look:
But, I think if you really want to be healthy, you find a way. You think I like driving 30 minutes to get to Yoga!
Posted on June 11, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Ali Hale of Diet Blog investigates why your friends, drinking, and stress can hinder your diet. Here’s a bit:
Alcohol
For many of us, good intentions dissolve somewhere in the first glass, and after a few drinks, stodgy comfort food like a big plate of fries or creamy pasta seems far more attractive than a salad.
Friends
Do you have friends who urge you to order dessert, even when you're stuffed, or who insist on sharing their huge tub of popcorn with you at the movies? Perhaps every social occasion involves pizza, humungous bags of chips, or a trip to a new restaurant.
Stress
Whether it's a horrendous day at work, a toddler having a tantrum, an impending visit from your mother-in-law, or a teenager threatening to run away from home, stress often leads straight to the fridge door.
Yup, they’re all important things to consider. Check out these posts for more:
Posted on June 10, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
TMZ is questioning the timing of Kirstie Alley’s weight-gain now that she is starting her own diet plan. Check it out:
After losing over 75 Scientolopounds on Jenny Craig, Kirstie said she was planning to start her very own slim down system that she'd launch next year. But these days it's clear ... Kirstie isn't taking her own medicine.
But how's this for a theory -- she can't sell a weight loss program if there's no dramatic before and after fresh in people's minds. So she balloons up, then slims down, and then sells tons (you'll pardon the expression) of her magic weight loss stuff.
Blah, blah, blah—just another celebutard.
Posted on June 9, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
“Nutritional research today is typically the blind leading the blind. People following nutritional belief systems like religion,” explains Dr. Fuhrman and
this study claiming that high protein diets help preserve bone integrity during weight-loss is no different. From the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign:
The scientists recruited and randomized 130 middle-aged, overweight persons at two sites—the U of I and Pennsylvania State University. Participants then followed either the higher-protein weight-loss diet or a conventional higher-carbohydrate weight-loss diet based on the food-guide pyramid for four months of active weight loss followed by eight months of weight maintenance.
"Essentially we substituted lean meats and low-fat milk, cheese, yogurt, etc., for some of the high-carbohydrate foods in the food-pyramid diet. Participants also ate five servings of vegetables and two to three servings of fruit each day," Evans said.
Bone mineral content and density were measured with DXA scans of the whole body, lumbar spine, and hip at the beginning of the study, at four months, at eight months, and at the end of the 12-month period.
"In the higher-protein group, bone density remained fairly stable, but bone health declined over time in the group that followed the conventional higher-carbohydrate diet. A statistically significant treatment effect favored the higher-protein diet group," said Matthew Thorpe, a medical scholars (MD/PhD) student who works in Evans's lab and was the primary author of the study.
I asked Dr. Fuhrman about this research and here’s what he had to say. Take a look:
There are so many variables that the conclusions are simplistic. First of all, the vast majority of Americans are severely Vitamin D deficient and their higher protein group was given more Vitamin D fortified milk. Second, the intervention group was encouraged to eat more green vegetables and less sugar, bread and white potato, getting higher level of bone building nutrients, including Vitamin K, and thirdly, the intervention group, though eating less refined carbohydrates were only given a diet a little higher in protein (30 percent) which is not a very high protein diet.
All in all, if they are going to claim some benefit to lean muscle or bone for the higher protein diet, they have to control for Vitamin D, K and other bone supportive nutrients that were higher in the intervention group. Even though this was a poorly designed and poorly controlled study, I basically agree with what they found—that a moderate protein diet with more fruits and vegetable and less refined foods bread and pasta, with attention to more Vitamin D from fortified skim milk will result in better bone mass with dieting compared to a diet not paying attention to these details. However, I think the better results stem from numerous factors, and not likely from a higher percentage of protein and less carbohydrate.
No doubt, this report will whip the low-carb congregation into their usual zealotry.
Posted on June 6, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
New research claims that parents of overweight kids are all talk and no action when it comes to getting their children healthy. More from
WebMD:
Minneapolis-based researchers have found that parents need to "talk less and do more" when encouraging their kids to become fit and trim. Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, PhD, MPH, RD, of the division of epidemiology and community health at the University of Minnesota, and colleagues found that parents who correctly recognized that their child had a weight problem talked with their kids about dieting, but this was not helpful.
Previous studies have suggested that parents do not correctly recognize if their child is overweight. Furthermore, little research has been done to determine how parents act when they correctly perceive their child's weight status.
Neumark-Sztainer's team explored whether parents of overweight teens who correctly recognized their child's weight status engaged in behaviors that helped their child's long-term weight management.
I’m no expert—or a parent for that matter—but I’d imagine, like everything else, its all about setting an example. I think Dr. Fuhrman would agree:
No rules only for children. If the parents are not willing to follow the rules set for the house, they should not be imposed on the children…Setting an example supported by both parents is the most important and most effective way for your children to develop a healthy attitude toward food.
Plus, parents and children getting healthy together has to be a great bonding experience—right?
Posted on June 3, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Change can be hard. Changing your diet can be doubly tough and America’s favorite foods don’t exactly help matters. Dr. Fuhrman explains in
Eat For Health:
Modern foods are designed to seduce your taste buds. You have been manipulated by profit motivated food manufacturers. We all have. The artificially concentrated flavors that the processed food industry uses to stimulate the brain’s pleasure center are designed to increase and retain sales. Tragically, the result is that they lead people’s taste buds astray. Artificial, intense flavors cause us to enjoy natural flavors less. Our taste buds become desensitized, and the more we succumb to the heightened, artificial flavors, the less appealing natural, whole foods become.
Now, Shari Roan of
The Los Angeles Times asks the question, “
Why it's hard to maintain weight loss?” Here’s an excerpt:
"There is a big shift toward understanding long-term weight maintenance," says Paul MacLean, associate professor of medicine at the University of Colorado, Denver. "We have a huge number of diet books and diet programs, and if you do them, you can lose weight. The big problem is keeping it off. The recent estimates are that 5% to 10% of people are successful at keeping weight off on a long-term basis."
But before you throw up your hands and reach for the Twinkies, consider this: Scientists think the truth will set us free -- that understanding the stubborn biological processes at work will lead to ways to fight back and outsmart them.
Exercise, it's known, buffers the post-diet body against regaining weight, in ways that researchers are just starting to comprehend. Certain foods, scientists believe, may help stave off weight regain too. And medications now in development target some of the biochemistry thought to be linked to packing the pounds back on…
…Appetite hormones change too. The hormone leptin, for example, is a major appetite regulator -- it tells the body to stop eating and store fat after meals. Some people may be genetically prone to having lower leptin levels, making them more prone to obesity. But studies also show that, after a weight loss, leptin levels are lower than what they used to be. That means appetite is less easily quelled. It's like a car that has suddenly lost its brakes.
Another hormone, ghrelin, stimulates food intake -- levels in the brain fall lower after a meal. However, after a weight loss, ghrelin levels in the blood generally increase, and the fall-off after mealtimes isn't as marked.
"You lose 10% of your body weight. All of a sudden all these systems kick in to try to keep you from losing weight," says Dr. Ken Fujioka, director of nutrition and metabolic research at the Scripps Clinic in San Diego. "People are mad at themselves or depressed after they regain the weight. But I explain: It's not you. Biology has kicked in now. . . . You are hungry all the time. You think about food all the time."
This is all well and good, but staying determined and keeping your eyes on the prize is a great way to buck to the trend. More from Dr. Fuhrman:
It is not easy to develop new habits, and there is no such thing as a quick shortcut to developing new skills and expertise. When you do something over and over, it creates a pathway in the brain that makes it easier and more comfortable to repeat again. That is one reason why it is so hard to change bad habits. However, if you are motivated to persevere and keep trying, the change becomes considerably easier. The more you make healthful meals and the more days you link together eating healthful foods, the more your brain will naturally prefer to eat that way. Of course, feeling better and losing weight is a great motivator, but through this process, your taste for a different way of eating can be established. It has been shown that a new food needs to be eaten about 15 times for it to become a preferred food. Keep in mind that the more days you eat healthfully, the more you will lose your addiction to unhealthful, stimulating substances, and, with time, you will look forward to, and prefer, a healthy diet. Don’t give up. The only failure is to stop trying.
I’m not an expert, but I think eating and living healthfully gets easier the longer you do it. For me, its as if my instincts changed—know what I mean?
Posted on June 2, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
You don’t read too many nice stories about the West Bank and Gaza Strip—especially on a health blog—but
one weight-loss support group is bringing Israelis and Palestinians together. More from
Armenian Medical Network:
“I never felt good about myself and my body, and that’s something that women all over the world struggle with,” said Yael Luttwak, an American-born Israeli who started the groups.
"I thought this would be a great way to bring together women who wouldn’t normally meet each other.”
Israelis and Palestinians around Jerusalem are separated by Israel’s West Bank barrier and a network of checkpoints, which Israel says are needed for security, but which Palestinians call collective punishment…
…Israeli women embraced diet support groups decades ago and the Jewish state was one of the first countries to establish a branch of U.S. weight loss group Weight Watchers.
Dieting is a more recent trend in Palestinian society, but it is catching on fast thanks to the influence of Western television shows and given relatively high obesity rates in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
At the “Slim Peace” groups, women are bound by a common and intimate interest: their bodies.
“Before, the only Israelis I knew were soldiers at checkpoints, I thought they were all brutal,” said Palestinian student Enas Smoom. “But in the group, we forget we are Israelis and Palestinians—we are just women talking about nutrition.”
Maybe I’m just a hopeful liberal and maybe this is just pie in the sky, but it’s a touching story nonetheless. Better health, fostering better relationships—I like it.
Posted on May 21, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
DiseaseProof’s inbox is a busy place. New emails come in every second. Most are for cheap pharmaceuticals and male enhancement pills, but amidst all the SPAM, there’s plenty of good stuff. Like this email from Elysse. Here’s her dilemma:
I have been (trying) to follow the Eat to Live program for nearly 8 months now. I am 19 years old and a senior at UCLA and I have lost a total of 20 lbs following the ETL program. However, in the past month I have hit some bumpy spots that are making me gain weight and making me lose sight of the benefits of the program.
I eat well for 2-3 days and then I will have an off day where I overeat (more like a binge!) on terrible foods. I am 5' 9 and weighed 132 lbs a month ago and now weigh about 139 lbs. Any advice for avoiding these crashes? I have graduation in 4 weeks and I would love to regain control and get back to my previous weight. Any advice is appreciated!
Now, like I told Elysse, I’m just a dopey blogger. So, the first thing I did was ask Dr. Fuhrman. Here’s what he had to say:
Trying to be healthy in an unhealthy world is not always easy, but has to be a lifetime effort and the longer you do it and the more days you link together healthy eating, the less you miss the unhealthy stuff and the easier it gets.
And remember, that temporary weight loss is meaningless. It is the quality behaviors that you can maintain for a lifetime that are most important.
Dr. Fuhrman suggested that Elysse join the
Member Center at DrFuhrman.com and this is not a sales-pitch, but
DrFuhrman.com is the best place for one-on-one support and Q&A with Dr. Fuhrman.
DiseaseProof is just an information source, peppered with my stupidity.
But, I’ve been doing
DiseaseProof for a while now, and,
I’m a walking, talking, squawking success story. So, with Dr. Fuhrman’s blessing, here are my thoughts Elysse.
Now, I don’t know if four weeks is enough time—I never attached any timeframe to my weight-loss/lifestyle change—so I can’t help you there, but as for the “crashes” here’s what I did. Think long term. Sure, having beer and pizza tastes good now, but how will it effect your life long term?
When I crave my crutch-foods—like chocolate and grainy breads—I talk it out. It sounds something like this, “Okay Gerry, why do you want these foods?” Usually it’s because I’m a little depressed or angry. Or the opposite, I’m really happy or excited.
Then I say to myself, “Is there anything else you can do to fill this need?” That solution takes many forms; listening to music, going to the gym, doing Yoga, or, making something to eat that I like just as much and is totally Fuhrman-friendly; usually its
my chocolate pudding.
And I never keep any of my crutch-foods in the house, so I have to go out and buy them. That can be a major a deterrent, but let’s say I fail. I break down and buy something naughty. What do I do? Do I beat myself up? I’d be lying to you if I said no, but after I eat it I take a second to remind myself of why I don’t eat chocolate and bread on a regular basis.
I start thinking about living longer and healthier and that charges me up. Then weeks go by before I falter again. And in the end I realize that my episodes of cheating or “crashing” become more spread out and few and far-between.
So Elysse, what I’d say to you is this. Don’t get caught up on the occasional crash. Keep your eye on the prize, stay active, continue to eat healthy and learn more about healthy eating. As your knowledge and commitment grows, you’ll stop crashing, and before you know it you’ll be fit, trim, and healthy—and keep reading
DiseaseProof too!
I hope this helps, but if you need more encouragement. I’m sure your fellow
DiseaseProof readers would be more than happy to chime in—wink-wink, hint-hint. Oh, and if any you want to email
DiseaseProof its
diseaseproof@gmail.com. Until then, peace!
Posted on May 14, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
How do you keep your heart healthy? Well, for a long time Americans have turned to drugs. Has it worked? Tara Parker-Pope of
The New York Times investigates:
While doctors still advise patients to diet, exercise and stop smoking, the medical community has adopted an almost singular focus on cholesterol-lowering drugs as the fastest and best way to battle heart disease. Americans spend $18 billion a year on cholesterol-reducing drugs, making them the nation’s biggest-selling class of drugs.
Clearly, drug treatments have played a role in the health of American hearts. Since 1950, age-adjusted death rates from cardiovascular disease have dropped 60 percent, a statistic praised by government health officials.
Average blood pressure and cholesterol levels are dropping, partly because of drug treatments. But drugs don’t get all the credit. A sharp drop in smoking has had a huge impact on heart health. And major changes in diet have also played a role. Surveys of the food supply suggest that consumption of saturated fat and cholesterol has decreased since the early 1900s. Medical care has also improved.
But an important lesson from the last 50 years is that when it comes to improving heart health, it is important to look beyond the medicine cabinet.
Just a few small changes — eating more fish, vegetables, nuts and fiber — can have a major impact on your risk for heart problems. For some people, drinking moderate amounts of wine may offer additional benefits. Even a 55-year-old man who is about 20 pounds overweight and does not exercise regularly will have a heart-disease risk far below average if he regularly consumes fish, nuts, fiber and vegetables and drinks moderate amounts of wine.
Okay, it makes sense that drugs would make an impact, but, are they really the best option? Dr. Fuhrman has his doubts. He points out some the drawbacks of drugs:
When resorting to medical intervention, rather than dietary modifications, other problems arise, reducing the potential reduction in mortality possible, as these individuals are at risk of serious side effects from the medication. The known side effects for various statins (the most popular and effective medications to lower cholesterol) include hepatitis, jaundice, other liver problems, gastrointestinal upsets, muscle problems and a variety of blood complications such as reduced platelet levels and anemia.
So, what’s the answer? America’s got it half right. You do need to change your diet, but for OPTIMAL health you’ve got to make a profound change—not just a few small changes. More from Dr. Fuhrman:
When you drop body fat, your cholesterol lowers somewhat. But when you reduce animal protein intake and increase vegetable protein intake, your cholesterol lowers dramatically. In fact, when a high-fiber, high-nutrient, vegetable-heavy diet was tested in a scientific investigation, it was found to lower cholesterol even more than most cholesterol-lowering drugs.1
The cholesterol-lowering effects of vegetables and beans (high-protein foods) are without question. However, they contain an assortment of additional heart disease-fighting nutrients independent of their ability to lower cholesterol.2
In areas of the world where people eat a diet of unrefined plant foods, people have total cholesterol levels below 150, and there is zero incidence of heart disease in the population.3
The average cholesterol level in rural China, as documented in the massive China Cornell Project, was 127 mg/dl. Heart attacks were rare, and both cancer and heart disease rates plummeted as cholesterol levels fell, which reflected very low animal product consumption. The lowest occurrence of heart disease and cancer occurred in the group that consumed plant-based diets with less than two servings of animal products per week.
I think most people approach health and nutrition too cavalierly. You need to be vigilant. It’s a fulltime job. You can’t go half-assed—know what I mean?
Continue Reading...
Posted on May 14, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Harvard researcher Andrea Baccarelli, MD, PhD, and colleagues in Italy studied 870 people diagnosed with DVT from 1995 to 2005. They compared their particulate air pollution exposure in the year before their diagnosis to that of 1,210 matched people without DVT.
They found that DVT risk goes up 70% for every 10 microgram-per-cubic-meterrise in particulate air pollution above 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air (the lowest pollution level measured in the study).
The U.S. EPA standard for particulate air pollution is 150 micrograms per cubic meter of air. However, it's likely that fine and very fine particles cause most of the health risks linked to particulate air pollution.
The simple truth, experts say, is that pounds must also be shed to keep cardiovascular trouble away.
"There is a debate out there about whether this generation is going to live as long as their parents, and the truth is they probably won't," said study author Dr. Gregory L. Burke, director of the division of public health sciences at Wake Forest University School of medicine in Winston-Salem, NC.
"My ultimate worry is that we've seen a 50-year decline in cardiovascular disease mortality, but if you begin to look at recent trends, it's beginning to plateau," he added. "And my fear is that because of the increase in obesity we're going to begin to see a reversal of that trend where heart disease rates begin to go up."
On Saturday, a tornado with the second-strongest rating killed six people, destroyed a 20-block area, and blew dust off mountains of mining waste, or chat piles.
"You can look at the chat piles and see that a lot of the material has blown off," said John Sparkman, head of the Picher housing authority. "We went up on a chat pile an hour and a half after the tornado hit, and you could see dust blowing fine material all over the place from that vantage point."
Long-term exposure to lead dust poses a health risk, particularly to young children.
The two conditions appear to increase one's risk for retinal vein occlusion, a condition that leads to vision loss. It results from one or more veins carrying blood from the eye to the heart becoming blocked and causing bleeding or fluid build-up, according to background information in the report published in the May issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology.
The Irish study found that people with high blood pressure had more than 3.5 times the risk of developing retinal vein occlusion than those without it. People with high cholesterol levels had an approximately 2.5-fold higher risk of retinal vein occlusion.
The findings come from an analysis of 21 previously published studies involving 2,916 people with retinal vein occlusion and 28,646 people without the condition. It found that 63.6 percent of patients with retinal vein occlusion also had hypertension, compared with 36.2 percent of people without the eye condition. High cholesterol levels were more than twice as likely to be found in those with retinal vein occlusion as those without (35.1 percent vs. 16.7 percent).
Fairbank Farms is issuing a voluntary recall of selected ground beef products produced at its Ashville, N.Y., facility and sold through Price Chopper, Shaw's, BJ's, and Wilson Farms retail outlets and C&S Wholesale distributor.
The affected product may contain small pieces of hard plastic. All recalled products have either a "sell-by" date of 05/13/08, 05/15/08, or a "Julian date 124" on the package's label.
New research shows "alarming levels" of obesity in most ethnic groups in the United States, principal investigator Dr. Gregory L. Burke, of Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina told Reuters Health. The study also confirms the potentially deadly toll obesity exacts on the heart and blood vessels.
"The obesity epidemic has the potential to reduce further gains in U.S. life expectancy, largely through an effect on cardiovascular disease mortality (death)," Burke and colleagues warn in the latest issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.
Among 6,814 middle-age or older adults participating in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, or "MESA" study, researchers found that more than two thirds of white, African American and Hispanic participants were overweight and one third to one half were obese.
The question is loaded and points to a really interesting diagnosis: What IS the biggest environmental problem on the planet? The answer is subjective, of course. If you are talking about global warming then coal plants are the biggest problem on the planet. If you are talking about natural resource preservation then deforestation is the biggest problem. Insert water for life sustainability and disease, or plastics for waste. To be sure, cigarettes are no one’s friend: Neither health nor the environment. In fact, in terms of litter, they are the biggest source of it: More than two billion pounds of cigarette butts are discarded worldwide – more than two pounds for every person in China. I use that country as an example because as I traveled from Beijing southward along the Silk Route, people still smoked a lot – everywhere. In Southeast Asia too people light up.
Smokers’ waste is rather easy to calculate. Figure out how many cigarettes are smoked and you’ll find out how many butts are tossed. You can’t recycle ‘em. One thing I’d like to know is the emission factor, or pollution due to smoking.
The experiments were conducted with the brain cells of rats and they show that contact with this ingredient called methylisothiazoline, or MIT, causes neurological damage.
Which products contain this chemical compound MIT? Head and Shoulders, Suave, Clairol and Pantene Hair Conditioner all contain this ingredient. Researchers are concerned that exposure to this chemical by pregnant women could put their fetus at risk for abnormal brain development. In other people, exposure could also be a factor in the development of Alzheimer's disease and other nervous system disorders.
The chemical causes these effects by preventing communication between neurons. Essentially, it slows the networking of neurons, and since the nervous system and brain function on a system of neural networks, the slowing of this network will suppress and impair the normal function of the brain and nervous system.
Posted on May 9, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
York company voluntarily recalled more than 286,000 pounds of its products.
Officials said certain products labeled Gourmet Boutique, Jan's and Archer Farms may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, although there were no reports of illness before the recall.
Listeria can cause a potentially fatal disease that it is rarely contracted by healthy people, the Monterey County Health Department reported. Symptoms include high fever, severe headaches, neck stiffness and nausea. Rare but serious symptoms can occur in those with compromised immune systems. Pregnant women make up about a third of listeriosis cases, health officials said.
Arthritis strikes more than half of the 20.6 million American adults who have diabetes, and the painful joint condition may be a barrier to exercise among these patients, a new government report shows.
Being physically active helps people manage both diseases better by controlling blood sugar levels and reducing joint pain, according to the report in the May 9 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a publication of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"The prevalence of arthritis is astoundingly high in people with diabetes," said Dr. John H. Klippel, president and CEO of the Arthritis Foundation. "Over half the people with diabetes have arthritis."
Nudging reluctant seniors to take physical fitness classes represents just one strategy to reduce the risk of falling. It's also vital to evaluate their vision and the medications they're taking. Aged pupils, for example, don't dilate as well in darkness or constrict as well in brightness.
One study showed that falls decreased 34 percent among seniors who had the milky opaqueness of a cataract removed from their eyes. Some specialists also point to bifocals and trifocals, which can blur vision, as potentially contributing to falls.
It's also common for lighting to be so inadequate that navigation of hallways and rooms can be treacherous, said Dr. Gary Chu, vice president for community collaborations at the New England Eye Institute.
"I've asked all the presidential candidates whether America should be smoke-free," he told a Senate committee hearing on how to tackle cancer.
"The consensus is that it's better left to the cities and states," he said, agreeing that state- or community-level bans were "the way to go."
"Second-hand smoking is something I'm very passionate about," he told the committee.
Young children who live in neighborhoods with lots of trees have lower rates of asthma than children who reside in areas with fewer trees, a new study finds. Researchers looked at asthma rates among children age 4 to 5 in New York City. Asthma rates decreased by almost one-quarter for every standard deviation increase in tree density, equivalent to 343 trees per square kilometer, the study found. The researchers said that trees may help reduce asthma rates by encouraging children to play outdoors more or by improving air quality.
Male postpartum depression may have more negative effects on some aspects of a child's development than its female counterpart, says James F. Paulson, PhD, of the Center for Pediatric Research at the Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Va.
Paulson and colleagues reviewed data on more than 5,000 two-parent families with children aged 9 months.
They found that one in 10 new dads met standard criteria for moderate to severe postpartum depression.
That's a "striking increase" from the 3% to 5% of men in the general population that have depression, Paulson tells WebMD.
In the current study, researchers found that professional firefighters had higher-than-expected rates of colon cancer and brain cancer. There was also evidence, albeit weaker, that they had elevated risks of bladder and kidney cancers, as well as Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Dr. Letitia Davis with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health in Boston, and colleagues report the findings in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine.
Firefighters are exposed to many potentially cancer-causing chemicals released from burning materials. At the scene of the fire, toxic substances such as benzene, lead, uranium and asbestos can be inhaled or absorbed through the skin.
A drug from a new class of weight-loss treatments disrupted wiring needed for brain development in young mice, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday, raising concerns about using such medications in children.
Mark Bear and colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology studied the effects of a chemical that suppresses appetite by blocking cannabinoid receptors in the brain, the same brain mechanisms that make people hungry when they smoke marijuana.
"I think that the cautionary note is that these mechanisms play an important role in ... brain development," said Bear, whose study appears in the journal Neuron.
Even a benign lesion on a mammogram makes women and doctors nervous, and doctors sometimes recommend a biopsy anyway. But new data show that waiting six months for a follow-up mammogram is a safe option.
Researchers tracked more than 45,000 women who were given six-month follow-up mammograms after an initial scan found lesions that were “probably” benign. In most cases, they were. Only about one in 100 women were eventually diagnosed with cancer six to 12 months later, according to the study, which appears in the May issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology.
It is well known that high blood sugar levels indicative of the diabetes that occurs during pregnancy present risks for expectant mothers and their infants. The current study is believed to be the first to show that higher blood sugar levels -- not high enough to be considered diabetes -- also convey these increased risks.
In a study of nearly 24,000 pregnant women who had their blood sugar levels tested between 24 and 32 weeks of pregnancy, researchers found that the higher the mother's blood sugar level, the greater the chances that she would require Caesarean delivery and deliver an abnormally large baby.
Posted on April 29, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
If you’re a betting man or woman and you’ve got some pounds to lose,
Fatbet.net might be an option. Megan Sheppard of
The Seattle Times investigates this gambling versus gluttony website. Take a look:
By laying stakes on their weight-loss goals, John Dirks and Adam Orkand have stumbled upon a method — and a healthy hobby — that keeps them in shape.
After confronting their own corpulence on a February 2007 Maui vacation with their families, the friends vowed to get down to 200 pounds. In gentlemanly fashion, they decided that friendly wager would make things interesting: The loser — or "nonloser" — would pay the winner $200…
… After three months of careful eating, exercise, daily weigh-ins and good-natured jibes, both men had met their goal. And they've kept the weight off for more than a year. So in December, the two decided to share their experience and success by creating www.fatbet.net, a largely noncommercial Web site that allows the public to place their own fatbets.
"We originally created the site for guys, since they didn't seem to have a place to go for support," says Dirks.
"And men are often in denial," Orkand adds, "thinking they're still in shape for football when they're actually carrying 20 or 30 extra pounds."
Nonetheless, Fatbet is a gender-neutral, free tool. An on-screen graph plots weight entries in relation to a gradually descending blue line. The guys found immediate feedback particularly motivational.
Well, I’m not a gambling man, and, I’m not sure how I feel about
Fatbet, but, I guess you could get SOME social support from it and social support is a very important part of good health. Dr. Fuhrman explains:
Despite medical advances, 85 percent of Americans will still die from heart disease, cancer, or diabetes. The real key to longevity is not better treatment; it is prevention. By comparison with our sickly nation, people who survive past 100 years are remarkably disease-free. They are generally physically active, independent, and socially connected. They are not the feeble stereotypes that we often associate with getting old. This is not merely about living longer; it is also about staying younger and healthier into your later years, so life can be enjoyed to its fullest.
It’s radical and I’m not one to openly condone gambling, but if betting can help get you slim and healthy—what the heck!
Posted on April 16, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
The Institute of Medicine report found there are only about 7,100 doctors certified in geriatrics in the United States, 1 for every 2,500 older Americans.
The report urged that all health care workers be trained in basic geriatric care and that schools increase training in the treatment of older patients.
And it said pay for geriatric specialists, doctors, nurses and care workers needs to be increased.
A doctor specializing in elderly care earned $163,000 on average in 2005 compared with $175,000 for a general internist, even though the geriatric specialist required more training.
If approved, vaccination will take place before the end of the fiscal year in March 2009, and mark the first case in the world in which the vaccines -- based on strains of the H5N1 virus from China and Indonesia -- have been given to such a large group of people prior to a possible pandemic.
Japan has stockpiled vaccines for 10 million people using strains of the H5N1 virus from China, Indonesia and Vietnam. So far the government's stance has been to use them only after a breakout.
Complete cloud cover halves the energy of ultraviolet rays, and shade reduces it by 60 percent, according to the National Institutes of Health…
…To strike a balance between useful exposure and protection, the N.I.H. recommends an initial exposure of 10 to 15 minutes, followed by application of a sunscreen with an S.P.F. of at least 15. The institutes say this much exposure, at least two times a week, is usually sufficient to provide adequate vitamin D, though some researchers suggest it may not be enough. At the earth’s northern latitudes for much of the year, and at the midlatitudes in winter, the sun does not stay far enough above the horizon (45 degrees) for the angle of the sun’s rays to guarantee an efficient ultraviolet-B bath. Northerners may have to rely on the vitamin D synthesized in the summer or on foods and supplements.
Dental practices may be a source of a dangerous form of mercury contamination in the water supply, a small study suggests.
In tests of wastewater from two dental practices, researchers at the University of Illinois found high levels of methylated mercury -- a chemically altered form of the metal that is toxic to the brain and nervous system.
Mercury is part of the silver dental fillings that have long been used to treat cavities; in this form, mercury is believed to be safe.
- Seattle, Washington: An abundance of fresh local foods, walker-friendly streets, and inclusive attitudes helps make Seattle America's best city for healthy living.
- Portland, Oregon: Life is good in our second-ranked city, thanks to its seemingly endless supply of outdoor activities, cutting-edge restaurants, and vibrant environmental consciousness.
- Washington, D.C.: Our capital city sets an accommodating agenda with farm-fresh dining, diverse cultures, and ample opportunity for exploration on foot.
- Minneapolis, Minnesota: In our fourth-ranked best city, lush parks and shimmering lakes provide a natural backdrop to a rich cultural landscape.
- San Francisco, California: Our fifth-ranked city steps up with one of the world's most unforgettable settings–along with great cuisine and an energetic spirit.
So why is belly fat so bad for your brain? Although it makes up less than 5% of total body fat, belly or visceral fat is nestled around the heart, pancreas, and other organs, according to Tongjian You, PhD, an assistant professor in the department of exercise and nutrition sciences at the University at Buffalo in Buffalo, New York.
And it's different from other types of fat because it produces all kinds of inflammatory compounds that can contribute to heart disease, diabetes, and now, potentially, dementia.
"Visceral fat releases higher amounts of those cytokines, especially interleukin 6, that cause cardiovascular disease and diabetes," says Dr. You, who was not involved in the dementia study. But what's the brain connection? "Inflammation is a contributing factor to dementia, so that's a reasonable link," he says.
- Cravings can be beaten, just by sitting them out. Force yourself to wait 20 minutes before getting that snack, and nine times out of ten, you'll no longer want it.
- Find something to do - ideally, an activity that makes it hard to eat at the same time.
- Find a hobby or interest to occupy you, if you've got too much time on your hands
Roche Holding AG <ROG.VX> will aim to reassure that big-selling drugs can keep driving profit when it kicks off the European earnings season, as big pharma's blockbusters face growing threats.
Weakness in sales of top products will be a theme for European drugmakers, reflecting ageing portfolios, safety issues with certain products and tough conditions for promoting new drugs.
Roche's local rival Novartis AG <NOVN.VX> -- digesting a $39-billion move for eye care company Alcon <ACL.N> to broaden its business as it faces loss of exclusivity on top-seller Diovan for blood pressure -- will likely highlight some of those problems when it reports next week.
Posted on April 11, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
You hate to read news like this, but, apparently
weight discrimination is a major issue in the United States. Amy Norton of
Reuters is on it:
Discrimination against the overweight may be about as prevalent as racial discrimination, the results of a survey of U.S. adults suggest.
Using data from a survey of nearly 2,300 Americans, researchers at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut found that 5 percent of men and 10 percent of women said they had faced discrimination because of their weight -- ranging from job refusals to rude treatment in everyday life.
Among respondents who were severely obese -- having a body mass index
(BMI) of 35 or higher -- 40 percent reported instances of weight discrimination. A body mass index is the ratio between height and weight commonly used to classify individuals as over- or underweight.
Weight bias also rivaled the prevalence of other, long-recognized forms of discrimination, the researchers report in the International Journal of Obesity.
The good news is you can do something about it. Start eating a nutrient-dense vegetable-based diet and the pounds will just melt away. More from Dr. Fuhrman:
Eating more high-nutrient food is the only way to lose weight permanently, and eating more nutrients leads to permanent improvements in your health. Knowing these important facts and PUTTING THEM INTO PRACTICE is your key to health and longevity. Fortunately, eating more high-nutrient foods helps control food cravings and overeating behaviors, making it easier to reach your ideal weight. This knowledge can guide you for the rest of your life. It is not a fad, and it will never go out of style. High-nutrient eating is the way of the future, but you can enjoy it now. It can be your fountain of youth.
But in the meantime you can support those who are struggling with their weight.
Posted on April 8, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Ali Hale of
Diet Blog wants to know,
Could Writing a Blog Help You Lose Weight? Here’re five reasons why it could:
- Community support from other dieters: The "dieting blogosphere" contains some of the most supportive and friendly people you'll meet online.
- Making yourself accountable to others: Have you noticed how much harder you work at the gym if an instructor or personal trainer is watching?
- Seeing how far you've come: Once you've been blogging for a couple of months, look back at your earliest entries.
- Helping your readers to lose weight: The challenge that you've successfully managed to overcome is almost certainly something that others are still struggling with.
- Fame and fortune: If you write well and consistently, and have a great story to tell, you just might get lucky and join the elite group bloggers who've won book deals.
I’m not sure about the fame. You won’t find my butt on
Oprah anytime soon, but blogging might help you drop the pounds. Check out
Full of Veggies:
Keep it up Nicole!
Posted on April 8, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
The number of children who got fat during the two-year experiment was half the number of kids who got fat in schools that didn't make those efforts.
"It's a really dramatic effect from a public health point of view. That's the good news," said Gary Foster, director of the Center for Obesity Research and Education at Temple University and lead author of the Philadelphia schools study being published today in the April issue of Pediatrics.
The bad news: There were still plenty of new overweight kids in the five schools - over 7 percent of them became overweight compared with the 15 percent in the schools that didn't make changes.
The study, done with mice, found that lower doses of estrogen were safer, while moderate and high doses increased the risk of kidney and heart problems.
And although the findings were in rodents, they may provide a glimmer of insight for humans as well.
"It brings to our attention the fact that HRT [hormone replacement therapy] is not something we totally have to dismiss," said Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, director of Women and Heart Disease at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "There might be a way to give this more safely to women."
Wal-Mart Stores Inc said on Thursday that its private-label Great Value milk is now being sourced only from cows that have not been treated with artificial growth hormones, such as recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST).
The retailer said its Sam's Club chain also is offering milk selections from suppliers that have pledged not to treat cows with rbST.
People suffering from the addiction—usually those righteous raw foodists, vegetarians and vegans—obsessively check labels, avoid junk food, plan menus and often eat a healthy diet so they can feel "pure." Some even make fun of McDonald's customers.
It gets worse. While an anorexic tries to severely limit calories, an orthorexic might shun foods with artificial ingredients, trans fats or high-fructose corn syrup. Orthorexics also are generally unconcerned about their weight and do not feel fat. Their diet may make them feel virtuous.
Exercise during pregnancy has cardiovascular benefits not just for the mother but for the developing fetus as well, according to research presented Monday at the 121st annual meeting of the American Physiological Society, part of the Experimental Biology 2008 scientific conference.
The results of this pilot study "imply an exciting potential benefit of maternal exercise on fetal cardiac autonomic nervous system regulation," Dr. Linda E. May from Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences in Kansas City, Missouri told Reuters Health.
The autonomic nervous system controls the body's involuntary activities, such as the beating of the heart, blood pressure, breathing rate, and functions in the internal organs.
Not surprisingly, those with a bedroom TV were more apt to watch it a lot, clocking four to five more hours in front of a television per week, the researchers said. Twice as many of the teens with a bedroom TV were classified as heavy TV watchers -- at least five hours a day -- compared to those without one.
Girls with a bedroom television reported getting less vigorous exercise -- 1.8 hours per week compared to 2.5 hours for girls without a TV. They also ate fewer vegetables, drank more sweetened beverages and ate meals with their family less often, the researchers said.
Boys with a bedroom TV reported having a lower grade point average than boys without one, as well as eating less fruit and having fewer family meals, the researchers said.
Oteha Valley primary school, north of Auckland, has banned birthday cakes as part of a larger fat crack-down by the area's Ministry of Education.
Here's why cakes are a problem: Oteha Valley has a large number of pupils born in September and October. As a result, there's the potential for up to four cakes to arrive per week in some classes. Parents were starting to believe they were required to provide a cake for their child's birthday. Since this was both untrue and unhealthy, the school has advised parents in a newsletter to stop sending cakes to school.
During the study, the type 1 diabetics gained weight gained an average of 10.3 pounds and type 2 diabetics gained an average of 4.0. The weight gain could not be explained by a slowing of the body's metabolism, decrease in physical activity, or increase in sugar in the urine, leaving the authors to conclude that it was primarily due to overeating.
They also report that accurate assessment of calorie intake was "severely hampered by the underreporting of food intake, with (reported calorie) intakes being insufficient to meet even (the body's lowest) energy requirements."
Posted on April 2, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Quick, panic!
A new study claims that people with diabetes have the same heart attack risk as individuals who have already had a heart attack.
Reuters reports:
The finding, which appears in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation, comes from a study of 3.3 million residents of Denmark who were at least 30 years of age. Overall, 2.2 percent of subjects had diabetes and 2.4 percent had a prior heart attack.
Dr. Tina Ken Schramm and colleagues found that, compared with men without diabetes or a prior heart attack, those with diabetes were 2.32-times more likely to experience a stroke, heart attack or death from cardiovascular causes, and those with a prior heart attack were 2.48-times more likely.
For women, the corresponding risks were raised 2.48- and 2.71-times.
You’ve got to do something! How about exercise?
New research suggests that modest exercise can fight heart disease. More from the
AFP:
French doctors on Tuesday said that an overview of the latest research into sport and good health proved that moderate, frequent exercise combated the risk of heart disease, diabetes, colon cancer, respiratory disease and depression.
The report by the National Institute for Health and Medical Research (Inserm) sets a benchmark, for adults, of at least 30 minutes of modest exercise, such as fast walking, at least five times a week, or 20 minutes of harder exercise, such as jogging, three times a week.
Young people are advised to do twice this regime to maintain fitness.
Good, but if you like bike riding. You might want to stay away from
The Stupidest Bike Lane in America. Well passes it along:
Now, just in case you haven’t had enough stupid yet.
Check out these Weight Loss Sunglasses. No, I’m not joking. Diet Blog is all over it:
This snazzy creation is designed to give food a blue tinge - theoretically rendering food dull and unpalatable. Kind of the opposite phenomenon of "beer goggles"?
While your first instinct may be to snicker (as it should be), there is actual physiological and psychological rationale to this theory: Certain colours tend to stimulate appetite, while others tend to deter it. Apparently, blue is considered to be the least appetizing color of the spectrum, with red and yellow being at the opposite end as a hunger stimulant.
Well George Carlin said it best, in life, there’re a few winners, and a whole-lot of losers. Short bike lanes and magic sunglasses—LOSERS!
Posted on April 1, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
The Mayo team examined the cardiovascular health of 233 retired NFL players, aged 35 to 65. They did this by measuring the internal diameter of the carotid (neck) artery and by assessing levels of plaque deposits that can block blood flow.
The researchers found that 82 percent of the retired players under age 50 had abnormal narrowing and blockages in their arteries greater than the 75th percentile of the general population. That means these retired players may be at increased risk for high blood pressure, heart attack or stroke.
The superintendent, Jody P. Weis, a former F.B.I. agent, came in last month as a reformer vowing to clean up the nation’s second-largest police force, and has already diversified the ranks and bolstered community relations. Now Mr. Weis, an exercise enthusiast, has shocked more than a few people with talk of mandatory fitness tests and maximum body-fat allowances (only after a year’s physical education and with exceptions, of course)…
“…I hope it’s not his opinion that this force is in bad shape as compared to others,” said Mark P. Donahue, president of the Chicago local of the Fraternal Order of Police. (Police departments across the country have long struggled with the problem of overweight officers; a chief in Florida lost his job in 2006 after sending a memo to his officers titled “Are You a Jelly Belly?”)
The requirement was supposed to take effect Monday, but a restaurant trade group has challenged it in court. The city Health Department said Thursday it was postponing the regulation's start date until April 15 because the court ruling is expected soon.
Health officials say the measure will combat obesity by forcing diners to face the caloric consequences of their orders. But the New York State Restaurant Association says the rule violates the First Amendment by forcing businesses to put what amounts to a message on their menus.
State health and agriculture officials said today that two recent cases of salmonellosis in Minnesota have been linked to raw, frozen, breaded and pre-browned, stuffed chicken entrees. The implicated product is Milford Valley Farms Chicken Cordon Bleu with a stamped code of C8021. This product is sold at many different grocery store chains.
This the fifth outbreak of salmonellosis in Minnesota linked to these types of products since 1998. The findings prompted the officials to urge consumers to make sure that all raw poultry products are handled carefully and cooked thoroughly, and to avoid cooking raw chicken products in the microwave because of the risk of undercooking.
People who are 35 or younger who keep smoking are far more prone to die from a heart-related event, have a repeat heart attack or need future treatments to clear blocked arteries compared to those who stopped smoking.
The study makes clear that smoking not only promotes a first heart attack, but poses heart risks in younger patients who have survived one, researchers said. The report was presented at the American College of Cardiology meeting in Chicago.
Patients with heart failure are especially vulnerable to influenza and most doctors recommend they get flu shots, but a study suggests these annual jabs may not offer them full protection, U.S. researchers said on Saturday.
They found heart failure patients in a study had lower immune responses to the vaccine compared with healthy people of similar ages, leaving them more vulnerable to infection.
Officials in southern China sealed more than 4,000 boxes of possibly contaminated milk and the manufacturer recalled another 2,700 boxes after children became sick on drinking the product, Xinhua news agency said on Saturday.
A total of 119 children, some in day care centers, fell ill on drinking the milk and 75 of them were hospitalized for two days, China's official news agency said.
Buy Local Groceries
It takes less fuel to transport locally grown or produced fruits, vegetables, meats, eggs, and dairy products than it does to transport foods over long distances. As such, less pollution is produced and less fuel is used to transport local food products.
Make Smart Fish Choices
Fish populations and the health of aquatic ecosystems are at risk from overfishing, bycatch (organisms that are inadvertently killed as a result of fishing practices), and the wastes produced by fish farms. Programs such as Vancouver B.C.’s Ocean Wise Program helps locals choose sustainable fish options. This Program was launched in 2005 by the Vancouver Aquarium to work with restaurants and markets to help them buy ocean-friendly fish. The program is also intended to help consumers purchase sustainably-harvested fish and to avoid fish on the endangered list.
Posted on March 21, 2008 by Joel Fuhrman
Educating yourself with the latest scientific findings and eating a diet of delicious, high-nutrient food allows you to protect yourself and your family from the health tragedies you see all around you—and not just the big tragedies like heart disease. Allergies, joint pain, fatigue, headaches, mental clarity, and digestive problems all can dramatically resolve though nutritional excellence.
Those who truly desire to protect themselves can do so, without expensive and risky prescription drugs. Proper self-care is more effective and overwhelmingly less expensive than conventional care.
It is not an exaggeration to say that you are in a fight for your life. Don’t let food manufacturers and fast food establishments take your health away. Fight back against junk food and food addiction.
Good information is the most powerful artillery you have to save your life and the lives of loved ones. Be a fighter. Learn and encourage others. Working together, we can change the nutritional landscape of America, save lives, and save our economy that is slowly being destroyed by out-of-control healthcare costs. Join the growing army of Americans who are choosing nutritional excellence, and reclaim your right to a long life of health and happiness.
Posted on March 20, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
I’d like to extend a big CONGRATULATIONS to
Scott Cutshall who went from 501 pounds to 232 in under three years thanks to Dr. Fuhrman’s Eat to Live.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune tells his tale:
The rebirth of Scott Cutshall began Thanksgiving day 2005, a bowl of vegetable soup for breakfast kicking off a new life where nothing would be the same. Cutshall, living in Jersey City at the time, weighed 501 pounds. He was having breakfast. And then he was getting ready to go on a bike ride…
… Back up to 2004. Cutshall, a freelance jazz drummer, husband and father, 38 years old, was not sure if he'd live to see 40. He wore size XXXXXXXXXXL pants and could not tie his own shoes. He could walk only nine steps at a time. Breathing was sometimes difficult. A doctor said he would be dead in six months without stomach-reduction surgery and heavy medication…
…He ate essentially the same thing every day, three base meals developed off research from the book "Eat to Live" by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, a New Jersey physician. The food equaled a daily dose of about 1,200 calories and provided all the nutrients, protein and vitamins essential for good health, though nothing more, Cutshall said…
…Cutshall emphasizes that this meal plan is not a diet. In fact, don't even say that word around him. After years of trying fad diets to lose weight, the D-word no longer exists in the Cutshall nomenclature. "It takes a total lifestyle change, with food being one part of a larger picture," he said.
But as they say, the proof is in the veggie-based pudding. Here’s Scott before:
Now get a load of Scott after:
Hey Scott, from one Jersey guy to another
—great job dude! Here’s to your newfound health and happiness! Keep it up and enjoy every bike ride.
Posted on March 20, 2008 by Joel Fuhrman
Keep in mind that nutrient density scoring is not the only factor that determines good health, and you should eat some of your diet from lower-nutrient categories. For example, if you only ate foods with the very highest nutrient density score, your diet could be too low in calories or too low in fat.
The percentage of fat intake can vary from 15-40% on a healthful diet, depending on the percentage of higher-fat fare such as avocados and raw nuts and seeds eaten as a percentage of total calories. Eating more of these higher-calorie, higher-fat foods is necessary for an active, thin person, athlete, or growing child. If an avid (or professional) athlete ate only the very highest-nutrient foods, she would become too full from all the food volume and fiber, and so satiated from the micronutrient fulfillment, that it could keep her from meeting her caloric (macronutrient) needs. She could become too thin. This, of course gives you a hint at the secret to permanent weight control. “Dieting” is not needed to maintain a healthful weight. You only need to eat more high-nutrient food and less low-nutrient food. The most healthful way to lose weight is to increase the overall nutrient density of your diet. The more high-nutrient foods you eat, the thinner you get.
Posted on March 18, 2008 by Joel Fuhrman
Temporary weight-loss techniques (what we all call “dieting”) serve no purpose. There is no health benefit to losing weight and then putting it back on again soon afterwards. Health benefits only occur when the weight loss is maintained FOREVER. That means that the only dietary change that can work is one that you stick with permanently. If the change you make to your diet is permanent, you are not on a diet; you merely have changed your eating habits.
Eating more high-nutrient food is the only way to lose weight permanently, and eating more nutrients leads to permanent improvements in your health. Knowing these important facts and PUTTING THEM INTO PRACTICE is your key to health and longevity. Fortunately, eating more high-nutrient foods helps control food cravings and overeating behaviors, making it easier to reach your ideal weight. This knowledge can guide you for the rest of your life. It is not a fad, and it will never go out of style. High-nutrient eating is the way of the future, but you can enjoy it now. It can be your fountain of youth.
Posted on March 13, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Yeah,
DiseaseProof is no fan of the low-carb fad. Most people know it’s just a big money-making scam. Now,
fear of carbs is one of the nutrition myths Maggie Vink of That’sFit decided to debunk. Take a look:
Eating carbohydrates causes weight gain. MYTH! The anti-carb crusade has really gotten out of control. Calories make you gain weight. Carbs are actually your body's preferred choice of fuel. The trick is to choose healthful complex carbs such as fruits, veggies, and whole grains. Simple, refined carbs like candy offer little to no nutrition and are just empty calories.
Quite frankly, it’s unnatural to avoid carbs. “Our bodies need carbohydrates more than any other substance. Our muscle cells and brains are designed to run on carbohydrates,” explains Dr. Fuhrman. Here’s more:
When you eat high-carbohydrate foods, such as fresh fruits and beans, you eat more food and still keep your caloric intake relatively low. The high fiber content of (unrefined) carbohydrate-rich food is another crucial reason you will feel more satisfied and not crave more food when you make unrefined carbohydrates the main source of calories in your diet. Carbohydrate-rich foods, when consumed in their natural state, are low in calories and high in fiber compared with fatty foods, processed foods, or animal products.
The real culprits are refined carbohydrates and animal products—i.e. meat, fat, and dairy—are not saviors. Of course, you’re really goofing up if you find yourself consuming both of these. Dr. Fuhrman talks about it:
The combination of fat and refined carbohydrates has an extremely powerful effect on driving the signals that promote fat accumulation on the body. Refined foods cause a swift and excessive rise in blood sugar, which in turn triggers insulin surges to drive the sugar out of the blood and into our cells. Unfortunately, insulin also promotes the storage of fat on the body and encourages your fat cells to swell.
And yes, I feel like a bully picking on the low-carb nonsense—but it’s just so darn easy!
Posted on March 12, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Do you remember when
dairy consumption was dumped for weight-loss? Kim Severson of
The New York Times reported:
The assertion that there is a link between weight loss and dairy consumption has long been contested by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine [PCRM], an advocacy and research group that promotes a diet free of animal products.
The group petitioned the F.T.C. in 2005 to argue that the advertisements were misleading. In a May 3 letter to the group, Lydia Parnes, director of the agency’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said Agriculture Department representatives and milk producers and processors had agreed to change the advertisements and related marketing materials “until further research provides stronger, more conclusive evidence of an association between dairy consumption and weight loss.”
As of Thursday, the National Dairy Council still had a section of its Web site devoted to the weight-loss claim. But the site, along with some of the advertisements, will be changed, said Greg Miller, who is executive vice president of the council and has a doctorate in nutrition.
According to Dr. Fuhrman dairy, is NOT good for weight-loss and not exactly health-promoting either. More from Dr. Fuhrman:
Fifty years of heavy advertising by an economically powerful industry has shaped the public's perception, illustrating the power of one-sided advertising, but the reality and true health effects is a different story. Besides the link between high-saturated-fat foods (dairy fat) and cancer, there is a body of scientific literature linking the consumption of cow's milk to many other diseases.
But
some people still insist that cow juice is a good idea. Check it out from Chris Sparling of
That’sFit:
Unless you've taken a dietary (or even ideological) stance against dairy, you'd do well to include it into your diet every day. Worried that it may get in the way of your efforts at weight loss? No need to fear, say researchers from Harvard Medical School. No need at all, in fact.
Researchers found that people who consumed three servings of dairy per day (providing them with around 1,200mg of calcium) were 60 percent less likely to be overweight. This is because calcium-rich foods actually burn many calories during their digestion.
More junk science in action, in fact the study is from 2005;
Study backs dairy weight loss claims. How current? More Dr. Fuhrman on dairy:
Using weight instead of calories in nutrient-analysis tables has evolved into a ploy to hide how nutritionally unsound many foods are. The role of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) was originally to promote the products of the animal agriculture industry.1 Over fifty years ago, the USDA began promoting the so-called four basic food groups, with meat and dairy products in the number one and two spots on the list. Financed by the meat and dairy industry and backed by nutritional scientists on the payroll of the meat and dairy industry, this promotion ignored science.2
I think milk and dairy products are just another food that Americans are chronically addicted too—WAKE UP—and get over it.
Continue Reading...
Posted on March 5, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
"Using technology to modify television viewing eliminates parental vigilance needed to enforce family rules and reduces the disciplinary action needed if a child exceeds his or her sedentary behavior limits," the authors concluded. "Perhaps most important, the device puts the choice of when to watch television in the child's control, as opposed to a rule such as 'no television time until homework is completed.'"
Dr. David Katz, director of the Yale University School of Medicine Prevention Research Center, said the study, "shows the upside to this ominous mix -- reducing screen time can help prevent childhood obesity by several mechanisms. Less screen time may be even more important to dietary pattern than to physical activity pattern. But by either means, the ends here are encouraging and highlight the importance of this strategy."
Investigations comparing caffeine with water or placebo seldom found a statistical difference in urine volume, the author wrote. “In the 10 studies reviewed, consumption of a caffeinated beverage resulted in 0 to 84 percent retention of the initial volume ingested, whereas consumption of water resulted in 0 to 81 percent retention.”
Another study, in the same journal in 2005, involved scientists following 59 active adults over 11 days while controlling their caffeine intake. They were given caffeine in capsule form on some days and on other days were given a placebo. Researchers found no significant differences in levels of excreted electrolytes or urine volume.
They're not the first; several other states have similar laws on the books, including Arkansas, which was the first in 2003.
Children will be weighed twice a year, in private. Their BMI will be tracked but kept confidential. "Sally, step into the office, step up on the scale, that's about as invasive as it gets," said Senator Joseph Carter, who sponsored the bill. "The presence of childhood obesity is staggering," he added.
Not everyone is a fan of the idea, however. Senator Preston Smith wants to keep the government out of the weight loss business and worries that pressure from schools will do more harm than good. "Come on, pick it up fat kid, we're not going to get money if you don't!" he said, mimicking what he thought school officials would say.
- Seat Belt Pillow: There are new and cool ways to go incorporate green and recycled materials into your house. These pillows are made of end-of-the line seat belt webbing otherwise destined for the landfill. A little expensive at $114, but very innovative.
- Recycled glass bowls and vase from Pier 1: You can take the green theme to other parts of your home. And one great way to do this is to decorate green. Pier 1 has a new line of hand-painted glass bowls and vases that are made from 100 percent recycled glass. They are beautiful and eco-conscious.
- Cork Bowls: This bowl is made 100 percent recycled cork (reclaimed waste material from the bottle-stopper industry). Cork is also a great choice for flooring, and made of tree bark, which is an eco-responsible alternative to petroleum-based vinyl flooring and slow-growing hardwoods such as oak.
The researchers cautioned that further studies were needed to consider factors such as diet, exercise, cholesterol levels and smoking habits that affect the risk of heart disease.
The study focused on more than 65,000 workers employed between 1946 and 2002 at four sites operated by British Nuclear Fuels plc and its predecessors. The team analyzed non-cancer death rates and cumulative radiation exposure using the workers' personal dosimeter badges.
Comparing the some 42,000 workers exposed to relatively high levels of radiation to office workers and other employees pointed to an increased heart disease risk, the researchers said.
Drinking alcohol, even moderate amounts, may boost blood pressure more than previously thought, British researchers said on Tuesday.
People with a genetic mutation that makes it difficult to consume alcohol had significantly lower blood pressure than regular or heavy drinkers, the researchers found.
People without the mutation who had about 3 drinks per day had "strikingly" higher blood pressure than people with the genetic change who tended to drink only small amounts or nothing at all.
The study involved 2,216 adolescents in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area of Minnesota whose eating patterns, weight and other lifestyle issues were tracked for five years. They were just under 15 years old when they entered the study, which was published in the journal Pediatrics.
The more regularly the teens ate breakfast, the lower their body mass index was, according to the study. BMI is a measure of body weight relative to height. Those who always skipped breakfast on average weighed about 5 pounds more than their peers who ate the meal every day.
Their study involved 77,721 people in Washington state ages 50 to 76, tracking their use over the prior decade of supplemental multivitamins, vitamin C, vitamin E and folate to see if this would offer protection from lung cancer.
None of the vitamins looked at in the study was tied to a reduced risk of lung cancer. In fact, people who took high doses of vitamin E, especially smokers, had a small but statistically significant elevated risk, the researchers said.
Originating in the Mediterranean and then spreading to the United States and Europe, rosemary was used for centuries to treat nervous system ailments, says Discovery Health. Healthwise, it's used today in aromatherapy to enhance senses and boost memory and it just happens to contain those magical antioxidants -- carnosol is its strongest -- which help prevent cancer and high cholesterol. It also helps stimulate the immune system, increase circulation, and improves digestion, according to The World's Healthiest Foods site. It contains anti-inflammatory compounds, increases blood flow to the head and brain, and improve concentration. Whew. That's some pretty good stuff.
- There is an ideal range of flexibility in each joint. People who are too flexible may be just as susceptible to injury as those who are too tight as they often lack adequate stability.
- Relative flexibility is a key factor: Often when we are tight in one joint, the adjacent joint is too flexible. The key is to try and stabilize what is too loose and release what is too tight.
- Asymmetry of flexibility is a more likely cause of injury than tightness (i.e. if one hamstring muscle is far tighter than the other).
Posted on February 28, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
A new study has determined that fad diets like Atkins, Ornish, Weight Watchers, and the Zone produced only modest weight-loss with limited sustainability. Ian Ayres of the
Freakonomics blog has more:
A randomized control year-long study looked at the impact of four different diets (Atkins, Ornish, Weight Watchers, and Zone Diets) on a group of overweight and obese subjects who were looking to lose weight. The diets produced only “modest” average weight loss of about 6.4 lbs (2.3 percent of original body weight) and found no statistically significant difference in weight loss for the four different diets.
People do a pretty good job of losing weight for about half a year, and then their weight tends to drift back toward their pre-diet number. The difficulty of sustaining weight loss can be seen in this figure taken from a 2-year randomized study of the Weight Watchers program:
Now, news like this is rather redundant. Diets programs like
Atkins and
Weight Watchers are nothing but hype—BIG wastes of time! According to Dr. Fuhrman diets like these are doomed to fail. He explains:
All those second rate diets fail, because without addressing adequate micronutrient density, people crave more food than their body requires for good health.
In spite of the more than $110 million consumers spend every day on diets and “reducing” programs (more than $40 billion per year), Americans are the most obese people in history. To be considered obese, more than one-third of a person’s body must be made up of fat. A whopping 34 percent of all Americans are obese, and the problem is getting worse, not better.
Unfortunately, most weight-loss plans either don’t work or offer only minor, usually temporary, benefits. There are plenty of “rules and counting” diets, diet drugs, high-protein programs, canned shakes, and other fads that might enable you to lose some weight for a period of time. The problem is that you can’t stay on these programs forever.
Here’s my UNEXPERT opinion. Ditch the “diet” and change your lifestyle. Hey, it worked for me—
Healthy, with a Vengeance!
Posted on February 26, 2008 by Joel Fuhrman
If you need to lose weight, grasp the concept that being overweight has mostly to do with what you eat, not how much you eat. This is because micronutrient fulfillment (getting your fill of vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, and fiber) blunts the drive to consume calories. Eating primarily high-nutrient foods is nothing like being on a “diet” (where you try to eat less). First of all, you will be eating hearty portions of (low-calorie) food. But most importantly, high-nutrient foods are so nutritionally satisfying that you simply will have less desire for the high-calorie, low-nutrient foods that put the weight on in the first place.
I hope it is clear that I am not advocating that you eat primarily high-nutrient foods for a period of time to lose weight and then go back to your old eating habits. I am advocating that you eat primarily high-nutrient foods from now on. The common practice of losing weight for a temporary period of time and then gaining it back is of no benefit to your health. Good health is dependent on maintaining a stable lighter weight for the rest of your life. The means you should not diet. What you should do is learn to eat a nutrient-rich diet, which automatically reset your weight to a lower point permanently.
Posted on February 22, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Poverty is more than a fiscal problem. It can also affect health.
Canadian researchers have determined that poor households end up eating nutritionally risky diets. Alan Mozes
HealthDay News reports:
The new study is the first to show that food insecurity directly translates into poor nutrition. It also suggests that in such homes, adults and teens, rather than very young children, are the most likely to be subsisting on diets low in vitamins, minerals, fruits, vegetables, grains and meat.
"Over the long term, [food insecurity] could be expected to precipitate and complicate diet-related chronic diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease," cautioned study co-author, Sharon Kirkpatrick, a doctoral candidate in the department of nutritional sciences at the University of Toronto…
…The study highlights similar estimates for 2006, suggesting that 12.6 million U.S. households experience food insecurity, while 4.6 million have one or more family members going without food. Recent Canadian research indicates that just over 9 percent of households are food-insecure.
Against such numbers, Kirkpatrick and Tarasuk set out to analyze eating habits, detailed in interviews conducted by Statistics Canada between 2004 and 2005. The survey included 35,000 Canadians between the ages of 1 and 70 drawn from all socioeconomic groups.
The poor—I hate using that term—do take quite the health hit. It comes up in the news all the time. Let’s look at some previous reports. First, from the
Associated Press,
Why are U.S. Kids Obese. Here’s a bit:
"The environment that they live in matters," said Lisa Powell of the University of Illinois at Chicago, who studied restaurant and food store options in the neighborhoods and food-related television advertising aimed at teens.
She said when people cannot get to supermarkets but instead must rely on the convenience stores that proliferate in many poor neighborhoods, families end up eating less healthy food.
Next up, Paige Parker of
The Oregonian tells us
why poor kids are at a high-risk of packing on extra summer vacation pounds. Take a look:
A new study highlighted the summer weight-gain phenomenon among young children. Researchers in the Midwest looked at the body mass index, which relates height to weight, of 5,380 students. They followed them for two years, from kindergarten through first grade, and found the average index grew more than twice as quickly over the summer than during the school year.
Children of the working poor may be especially at risk because they are left indoors while their parents are at jobs. While at home, kids eat and drink what they want, says Dr. Jennifer Bass, a pediatrician who chairs a national pediatricians special-interest group on obesity. Bass estimates as many as 30 percent of her patients are overweight.
Now Randy Dotinga of
HealthDay News explains that
low-income children face a heighten chance of being obese, even before they are out of diapers. Check it out:
"The message is that we're seeing overweight and obesity at younger ages than we thought possible," said study author Rachel Tolbert Kimbro, a health and society scholar at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. "It's a particular problem in lower-income communities, and it's something we need to keep an eye on and prevent as much as possible."
According to Kimbro, there's been little research into weight problems among very young children. But, studies have shown high rates of obesity among older children and teenagers.
In the new study, the researchers examined surveys of parents who had children from 1998 to 2000 in 20 large U.S. cities. The parents lived in urban areas and were poor.
Finally,
this report looks out way the poor and immigrants living in New York City are waist-deep in the diabetes epidemic. More from N.R. Kleinfield of
The New York Times:
New York, perhaps more than any other big city, harbors all the ingredients for a continued epidemic. It has large numbers of the poor and obese, who are at higher risk. It has a growing population of Latinos, who get the disease in disproportionate numbers, and of Asians, who can develop it at much lower weights than people of other races.
It is a city of immigrants, where newcomers eating American diets for the first time are especially vulnerable. It is also yielding to the same forces that have driven diabetes nationally: an aging population, a food supply spiked with sugars and fats, and a culture that promotes overeating and discourages exercise.
Frightening news, no doubt it compounds when you consider that most low-income families either have limited or no insurance. Makes you wonder how much better the state of American healthcare would be if everyone starting eating a nutrient-dense diet!
Posted on February 18, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Diet Blog serves up 5 Reasons Why Your Diet Is Failing. Here’s my favorite reason:
What Are You Drinking?
Did you know that calories from beverages make up a massive 22% of the average American diet (see more). I have a friend who eats small meals - thinking he's watching his weight - but then consumes hundreds of calories from beer.
Take time now to examine how many liquid calories you consume.
Think about it. How many chronic dieters do you know who literally go belly up at the bar?
Posted on February 14, 2008 by Joel Fuhrman
When you drop body fat, your cholesterol lowers somewhat. But when you reduce animal protein intake and increase vegetable protein intake, your cholesterol lowers dramatically. In fact, when a high-fiber, high-nutrient, vegetable-heavy diet was tested in a scientific investigation, it was found to lower cholesterol even more than most cholesterol-lowering drugs.1 As you eat more vegetables and fewer animal products, the nutrient density of your diet will go up automatically. Vegetables not only contain adequate protein, they have no saturated fat or cholesterol, and they are higher in nutrients per calorie than any other food. You can achieve your ideal weight and slow the aging process with a high phytochemical intake. So eat more vegetables!
The cholesterol-lowering effects of vegetables and beans (high-protein foods) are without question. However, they contain an assortment of additional heart disease-fighting nutrients independent of their ability to lower cholesterol.2 They fight cancer, too. Cancer incidence worldwide has an inverse relation with fruit and vegetable intake.3 If you increase your intake 80%, the risk of getting cancer drops 80%.
Continue Reading...
Posted on February 12, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Honestly, I hate using the word “carbs.” It’s a such a fad word, for fad diets, but carbs are in the news and this report caught my eye.
One nutritionist claims carbs can actually help promote weight-loss. Check out this video from
ABC News:
I don’t know about “resistant carbs.” Sounds like mumbo-jumbo to me, but fiber certainly isn’t and whole foods are loaded with fiber; like beans, bananas, green vegetables, and squash. And as Dr. Fuhrman explains, these foods/carbs do in fact encourage weight-loss:
When you eat high-carbohydrate foods, such as fresh fruits and beans, you eat more food and still keep your caloric intake relatively low. The high fiber content of (unrefined) carbohydrate-rich food is another crucial reason you will feel more satisfied and not crave more food when you make unrefined carbohydrates the main source of calories in your diet.
Don't fear eating foods rich in carbohydrates and don't be afraid of eating fruit because it contains sugar. Even the plant foods that are high in carbohydrate contain sufficient fiber and nutrients and are low enough in calories to be considered nutritious. As long as they are unrefined, they should not be excluded from your diet. In fact, it is impossible to glean all the nutrients needed for optimal health if your diet does no contain lots of carbohydrate-rich food.
Clearly, the taboo against carbohydrates is ill-informed. Refined junk—like white rice, bread, and sugar—are the “carbs” you want to avoid, but wholesome fiber-full foods like fruits and vegetables are the key to a healthy diet. More from Dr. Fuhrman’s
Food Scoring Guide:
I urge you to start eating a diet that contains more high-nutrient plant foods today. Eat fewer animal products and fewer processed foods, and replace these calories with more fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, and beans. At minimum, I recommend that you cut back on animal-product consumption from servings a day to one serving a day. Better yet, when you use animal products, add them to a dish in small amounts like condiments so that the total amount you consume each week will be even less. Eat vegetarian dinners frequently.
Make this dietary transition an exciting adventure where you learn new great-tasting recipes with high-nutrient plant foods. Design a food plan that uses large quantities of the most powerful anticancer, disease-fighting foods on the planet, make it taste, and then test it to see what kinds of results you get. I can tell you now that the results will astound you!
So, when you hear fad-terms like carbs, zone-diet, and south beach, just ignore them and focus on natural things like fruit, vegetables, beans, nuts, and seeds—phooey to the hype!
Posted on February 6, 2008 by Joel Fuhrman
Diets of all description flood the market, but fewer than 3 people out of a 100 are successful at losing weight and keeping it off permanently. The number of overweight and obese individuals is at an all-time high and still climbing. Although many people accept the notion that disease is the result of genetics or luck, the reality is that nutrition, exercise, and environment overwhelmingly overshadow genetic considerations. For example, those living in rural China have less than a 2% heart disease risk, but when these same individuals move to America, their children develop the same rates of heart disease as other Americans.
Obviously, the diseases that afflict today’s Americans are not the result of luck of genetics. They are a recent phenomenon in human history and directly parallel unhealthful changes in dietary patterns. The ten-fold increase in heart attacks in the last 100 years is because we are eating more low-nutrient foods—lots more. You cannot escape from the biological law of cause and effect. Health results from healthful living and eating. Disease and premature death result primarily from unhealthful food choices.
Posted on February 5, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
This is certainly a unique take on dieting. Blackmail yourself. “Dear self, if I don’t lose weight, I will donate money to the American Nazi Party or my car to Ku Klux Klan.” You’ve go see it, to believe it. Bill Toland of
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has more:
Dr. Bear wrote the farcical "Blackmail Diet" more than two decades ago -- if you want to shed those stubborn pounds, sign a legally binding contract mandating a certain weight loss. And if you don't satisfy the contract's requirements, you must fork over, say, $5,000 to the American Nazi Party, which happens to be the precise deal Dr. Bear struck with himself.
Wouldn't ya know it? Those 70 pounds melted right off. (Although one poor reader, having failed to lose the weight, reported that he'd be donating his car to the Ku Klux Klan.)
"We have known this since the earliest times," he said when contacted in his California home. "The bigger the incentive, either positive or negative, the more likely it is to work." Behavioral scientists know it. Prophets in the Bible knew it -- screw up, and you'll go to hell. The penalties don't get much bigger than that.
Dr. Bear's creepy vision has arrived, and not just in the form of "The Biggest Loser," NBC's grotesque of a hit, featuring obese men and women trying to get in shape for a cash prize. Clinical studies and economists are more or less on his side. In recent months, health insurers, city mayors, British politicians and university professors have all come up with their own versions of plans that dangle dollar bills in front of clients and customers, hoping the carrot -- or a stiff penalty -- will be enough incentive to shape up.
I don’t like this one bit. Here’s why. Just look at all the dollars Americans spend on weight-loss, I don’t want either one of these despicable “organizations” getting a single dime. From Dr. Fuhrman’s book
Eat to Live:
In spite of the more than $110 million consumers spend every day on diets and “reducing” programs (more than $40 billion per year), Americans are the most obese people in history. To be considered obese, more than one-third of a person’s body must be made up of fat. A whopping 34 percent of all Americans are obese, and the problem is getting worse, not better.
Here’s an idea, don’t blackmail yourself—love yourself! In my opinion—and mind you, I’m just a smart-aleck—I think this is a disgusting premise.
Posted on February 4, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Kudos to
Diet Blog for finding this one. Apparently
some researchers think all these low-fat health guidelines we have been force-fed for years are doing more harm than good. Here’s an excerpt from
ScienceDaily, take a look:
In 2000, the Dietary Guideline Advisory Committee suggested that the recommendation to lower fat, advised in the 1995 guidelines, had perhaps been ill-advised and might actually have some potential harm. The committee noted concern that "the previous priority given to a 'low-fat intake' may lead people to believe that, as long as fat intake is low, the diet will be entirely healthful. This belief could engender an overconsumption of total calories in the form of carbohydrates, resulting in the adverse metabolic consequences of high-carbohydrate diets," the committee wrote, while also noting that "an increasing prevalence of obesity in the United States has corresponded roughly with an absolute increase in carbohydrate consumption.
Okay, to better understand this quote, let’s talk about these age-old dietary recommendations. Perhaps nothing better illustrates them than the infamous United States food pyramid. Check it out via
The University of Pennsylvania Health System:
Yeah, cause eating that way makes sense—
tisk-tisk. Now, we all know that people eat too much refined and processed foods, but despite the
carbophobia, Americans are still eating way too much fat. Dr. Fuhrman explains:
The claim that Americans have dramatically cut their fat intake is incorrect. In fact, nationally recognized food surveys, such as the National Food Consumption Survey and the National Health and Nutrition Survey, indicate that Americans consume somewhere between 34 and 37 percent of their calories from fat.1 Americans are still eating a very high fat diet. The reason for the rise in obesity in America is no mystery: we eat a high-calorie, high-fat diet.
Now, in the
Food Scoring Guide Dr. Fuhrman’s describes what the typical American diet is made of—a lot junk! More from Dr. Fuhrman:
Americans have access to a greater abundance of affordable high-nutrient, low-calorie fruits and vegetables than any other people on the face of the earth. But a shocking 93% of the typical American diet consists of low-nutrient, high-calorie processed foods, animal foods, and dairy products, and only 7% of the calories we consume come from healthful fruits and vegetables. Sweet desserts, and soft drinks now comprise 25% of all calories consumed in America.
This chart should paint an even clearer picture for you. Have a look:
Neither of these graphics demonstrate that Americans understand the importance of eating mostly plant-foods. Okay, I’m no fan of idol worship, but here’s an image we can all get behind. It simply screams, “Eat your fruits and veggies!” Don’t you agree? Enjoy:
When you start eating as described in Dr. Fuhrman’s food pyramid you’ll avoid nasty fat and refined carbohydrates and that’s a good thing! Because as he explains, they are a deadly duo. Here’s why:
The combination of fat and refined carbohydrates has an extremely powerful effect on driving the signals that promote fat accumulation on the body. Refined foods cause a swift and excessive rise in blood sugar, which in turn triggers insulin surges to drive the sugar out of the blood and into our cells. Unfortunately, insulin also promotes the storage of fat on the body and encourages your fat cells to swell.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my fat cells to swell—EEK!
Continue Reading...
Posted on February 1, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Well, not exactly earth-shattering news, but
new research claims losing weight by either diet or exercise is good for the heart.
Reuters is on it:
Researchers found that among 25 healthy but overweight middle-aged adults, moderate weight loss appeared to restore some the heart's youthful elasticity -- making it easier for the heart to relax between contractions and refill with blood.
It did not appear to matter whether the weight loss was achieved through diet changes or exercise, the researchers report in the American Journal of Physiology.
"If individuals want to do something that's good for their heart, then my message to them is lose weight by the method they find most tolerable," Dr. Sandor J. Kovacs, the senior researcher on the study, said in a statement.
"They're virtually guaranteed that it will have a salutary effect on their cardiovascular system," said Kovacs, a professor of medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri.
This reminds me of a report that came out this fall. It’s about how
exercise can help prevent heart failure. Here’s a refresher from Amanda Gardner of
HealthDay News:
According to two studies that were to be presented Wednesday at the American Heart Association annual meeting in Orlando, Fla., that response can dramatically enhance patients' ability to move and work out.
"Both studies point to the beneficial effect of exercise on patients with heart failure," said Dr. Sidney Smith, past president of the American Heart Association and director of the Center for Cardiovascular Science and Medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.
"These observations provide some understanding into the mechanisms which [make exercise helpful]," Smith said.
More than 5 million people in the United States have heart failure, a condition that affects the heart's ability to pump blood throughout the body.
And listen, we all know that adhering to a healthful diet is extremely heart-healthy. Take avoiding saturated fat for example. Dr. Fuhrman explains:
Saturated fat is the element of the modern diet that shows the most powerful association in these medical research studies with high cholesterol and premature death from heart attacks.1
In light of all this, I figured now is a great time to interject this quote from, my hero,
Howard Stern. He dropped this on Wednesday’s show. Take a look:
I believe diet is the key for getting rid of a lot of illness.
Short, sweet, and to the point. Thanks Howard!
Continue Reading...
Posted on January 30, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
In Dr. Fuhrman’s new
Food Scoring Guide, he explains that most people have quit on their health. Check out this excerpt:
Most Americans have given up hope of ever achieving their optimal weight and health. They have failed with diets in the past. They think they can’t lose weight, and they don’t think they can change. So they just throw in the towel.
And maybe this report supports that indictment. From
The Washington Post, here’s
how to handle your weight at the doctor’s office. Look:
- If you're sensitive about your weight, ask that your doctor weigh you in a private area -- and enter your weight in your chart without comment.
- If clothing or equipment doesn't fit or is uncomfortable to use, ask if your doctor can change it. Larger exam gowns, blood pressure cuffs and other equipment are available from many medical suppliers.
- Be open to respectful discussions of body weight that don't assign blame. Your doctor or nurse may have helpful suggestions you haven't tried.
- Consider pre-screening physicians.
What about taking control of your health and weight? Back to the
Food Scoring Guide, Dr. Fuhrman suggests a positive approach to a healthy diet. Here’s more:
Make this dietary transition an exciting adventure where you learn new great-tasting recipes with high-nutrient plant foods. Design a food plan that uses large quantities of the most powerful anticancer, disease-fighting foods on the planet, make it taste great, and then test it to see what kind of results you get. I can tell you now that the results will astound you!
I guess the point to be made here, is don’t quit, don’t accept—take control!
Posted on January 25, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Uncontrolled diabetes wreaks havoc on the body, often leading to kidney failure, blindness and death. A new study shows that the nation's unchecked diabetes epidemic exacts a heavy financial toll as well: $174 billion a year.
That's about as much as the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and the global war on terrorism combined. It's more than the $150 billion in damage caused by Hurricane Katrina.
The incidence of diabetes has ballooned — there are 1 million new cases a year — as more Americans become overweight or obese, according to the study, released Wednesday by the American Diabetes Association. The cost of diabetes — both in direct medical care and lost productivity — has swelled 32% since 2002, the report shows.
Diabetes killed more than 284,000 Americans last year, according to the diabetes association.
- Much to my personal delight, Yoga is growing in popularity. Katie Zezima of The New York Times investigates a boot camp for Yoga teachers. Check it out:
In May 2006, Sue Jones started YogaHope, an organization that teaches yoga at eight Boston-area women’s homeless shelters, substance-abuse treatment programs and domestic-violence safe houses, as well as two programs in Seattle. The focus is on teaching restorative yoga, and though many teachers have completed at least 200 hours of training, it is not a requirement.
Driven by a sometimes missionary zeal and a sense that yoga has become an exclusive pursuit, a small but growing number of yoga practitioners are forming organizations that teach yoga in prisons and juvenile detention centers in Oakland, Calif.; Los Angeles, Seattle and Indianapolis. They are working with the addicted and the homeless in Portland, Ore., and with public-school students in New York City.
Though concern about the cost of yoga is an issue (studio classes can cost $20 for a drop-in session, though some offer free or low-cost classes taught by less experienced teachers), most of the practitioners are motived by a desire to introduce yoga to those who might need it most, but wouldn’t think to do it on their own.
Stop-and-go pushup
Assume a pushup position. Brace your core and lower your chest to the floor. When you’re halfway down, pause 2 seconds before continuing. Then, when your chest is 2 inches from the floor, pause again for 2 seconds before pushing halfway back up. Hold for 2 more seconds, then straighten your arms. Do eight reps.
Stop-and-go split squat
Stand with one foot 3 feet forward and hold a barbell across your shoulders. Rise on the ball of your back foot, then bend at the knees. When halfway down, pause for 2 seconds. Pause again when your back knee is just off the floor. Push halfway up, pause again, and return to the starting position. Do six reps with each leg.
The campaign, to be launched in the summer, will form part of a wider strategy including aspects like food labelling, urban design and the promotion of exercise.
Department of Health officials said it will use simple messages -- such as the "five pieces of fruit and veg a day" slogan -- and be based on research into what actually works to make people change from unhealthy lifestyles.
"Tackling obesity is the most significant public and personal health challenge facing our society," said Health Secretary Alan Johnson as he launched the 372 million pound cross-government strategy.
"A didgeri-what?" you ask. While aborigines in Australia have been playing this long wooden trumpet for centuries, it's just recently been redefined as a modern-day medical device. Researchers reporting in the British Medical Journal evaluated 25 people with sleep apnea--a breath-stealing condition caused by flabby throat muscles--and found that those who took 4 months of didgeridoo (DIH-jeh-ree-doo) lessons had about 31/2 times less daytime sleepiness than the folks who didn't blow their own horns. The newly minted musicians also snored significantly less. Credit this uncommon cure to vibrations that exercise tissue in the mouth and throat, says researcher Milo Puhan, Ph.D. "When these muscles are strengthened, the tongue has less tendency to obstruct the airway."
If huffing on a wooden tube to treat your sleep apnea sounds a tad too weird, then you probably aren't familiar with the alternatives. The most commonly prescribed option is continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), which involves spending every night hooked up to a machine that pumps air down your throat to keep it from collapsing. The other approach is surgery, and that's only 30 to 60 percent effective. Now are you ready to toot the didgeridoo? You can pick up a beginner-friendly model for about $80 at L.A. Outback (laoutback.com). And don't worry; it's intuitive to learn, says co-owner Barry Martin. You purse your lips and blow into it with the beat.
- Diet Blog hardly has a glowing endorsement for “Slim Coffee.” Jim Foster thinks it’s nothing but a big scam:
It must be so tempting for unscrupulous entrepreneurs:
Find an obscure weight loss product from somewhere overseas. Re-brand it. Hype it up. Create an infomercial. Make millions.
This time it's Slim Coffee. The claims are impressive: "Reduce appetite. Clinically tested. Lose 5 pounds per week". All from drinking coffee with a few supplements added (or so they say).
The makers of Slim Coffee have been pursued by the FTC - resulting in a $923,000 settlement.
Previous studies had suggested that people living in polluted areas are more at risk of heart disease. For example, a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine last year showed that women in 36 American cities were more likely to develop heart disease if the air they breathed was rich in particles measuring 2.5 micrometres or less in diameter - known as PM2.5s - which are present in car exhaust fumes.
It now seems that a greater hazard may be posed by so-called "ultrafine" particles, about a dozen times smaller at 0.18 micrometres wide. The latest study in mice has shown that they clog up arteries with fatty atherosclerotic deposits, and chemically alter "good" cholesterol, or high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, reducing its beneficial effects.
How does yoga help a professional athlete's game?
Yoga improves balance in the body and works the smaller muscles that normally wouldn't get worked. It also improves range of motion, whether that means swinging a golf club, throwing a baseball or shooting a basketball. It builds stamina through breath control and teaches techniques for relaxing in tense moments. Most important, yoga gives you confidence that your body will do what you want it to do when you need it to.
Posted on January 24, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
A guy walks into a fast-food restaurant, orders a double-cheeseburger, chicken nuggets, and, a diet soda. Why diet? Obviously he’s concerned about his health! Unfortunately for him,
meat and diet soda are being linked to heart disease.
Reuters reports:
People who eat two or more servings of red meat a day are much more likely to develop conditions leading to heart disease and diabetes, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.
Eating two or more servings of meat a day increases the risk of suffering from a cluster of risk factors known as metabolic syndrome by 25 percent compared to those who had only two servings of meat a week, the researchers reported in the journal Circulation.
The symptoms of metabolic syndrome include excessive fat around the waist, high cholesterol, high blood sugar and high blood pressure.
The study also found that diet soda consumption was linked to these elevated risk factors for heart disease and diabetes, echoing the findings of a study published in July.
"When we found that diet soda promoted risk we were surprised," said Dr. Lyn Steffen, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Minnesota.
No surprises here. Consuming too much animal products—like red meat—are consistently linked with increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Unlike plant foods that promote the opposite. Dr. Fuhrman explains:
There is a relationship between animal protein and heart disease. For example, plasma apolioprotein B is positively associated with animal-protein intake and inversely associated (lowered) with vegetable-protein intake (e.g., legumes and greens). Apolioprotein B levels correlate strongly with coronary heart disease.1 Unknown to many is that animal proteins have a significant effect on raising cholesterol levels as well, while plant protein lowers it.2
What’s amazing is in light of research like this. Tons of misinformation still kicks around the internet. Speaking of misinformation, let’s check in with the one of the leading sources. Here’s
the Atkins take on animal protein:
Protein also plays a role in weight loss or weight management. Compared to carbohydrate, consuming protein has less of an effect on insulin (which drives fat storage), a greater effect on glucagon (which drives fat release) and a considerably greater increase in metabolic rate. Several studies demonstrate greater body-fat loss on a high-protein diet than on a high-carb one. Increasing intake of protein relative to carbohydrates fills you up more, so you wind up eating less. A recent study showed that even eating snacks with a higher protein and lower carbohydrate composition can reduce the amount of food you eat at the next meal by 5 percent. And eating protein boosts your metabolic rate—the technical term is thermogenesis. In fact, one study showed that healthy young women experienced 100 percent higher thermogenesis after eating high-protein meals—even two and a half hours later than when they ate a “conventional” high-carbohydrate meal.
Now, as we know, when
Atkins says protein, they’re referring to animal products—i.e. meat—but as Dr. Fuhrman just explained, all this animal protein is not health-promoting. Here’s more from Dr. Fuhrman, take a look:
A recent study showed that after following almost 200,000 Americans for seven years, those who regularly consumed red meat had a double the occurrence of pancreatic cancer.3
Dairy is best kept to a minimum. There are many good reasons not to consume dairy. For example, there is a strong association between diary lactose and ischemic heart disease.4 There is also a clear association between high-growth-promoting foods such as dairy products and cancer. There is a clear association between milk consumption and testicular cancer.5
As for diet soda, honestly, who in their right mind trusts these laboratory-created abominations? Wait, I guess the guy ordering all the burgers and chicken nuggets does. Real quick, here’s Dr. Fuhrman on sweeteners:
Clearly this is a controversial subject because much of the research documenting the so-called safety of aspartame was financed by the aspartame industry, and a huge amount of political and monetary pressure led to eventual FDA approval. My opinion is that the possible dangers of aspartame are still unknown. Utilizing such artificial products is gambling with your health. Aspartame also exposes us to a methyl ester that may have toxic effects. I recommend playing it safe and sticking to natural foods.
Many health gurus recommend substituting Stevia in place of artificial sweeteners. Stevia is natural and its use is permitted in Japan and other countries. Despite its widespread use, there is a surprising lack of human clinical trials evaluating its safety. Unlike with saccharin, no evidence has been reported that stevioside and its metabolites are carcinogenic. However, animal reports of nephrotoxicity do exist, which suggest that Stevia is likely safer than the other sweeteners, but not entirely without risk.6 The extent of risk is unknown at this time.
How about not consuming them at all! Instead eat some sweet and delicious fruit. It’ll help satisfy you’re crazing for sweet, and, supply your body with the important nutrients and phytochemicals it needs. Dr. Fuhrman explains why fruit (and vegetables) are so great:
Increasing your consumption of high-nutrient fruits and vegetables is the key to disease resistance, disease reversal, and a long, healthy life. The potential reduction in disease rates shows no threshold effect in the scientific studies. That means that as high-nutrient vegetables and high-nutrient fruits increase as a major portion of caloric intake, disease rates fall in a dose-dependent manner—the more the diet is comprised of these foods, the better your health will be.7
So, I guess the point to make here is that it’s important to remember that eating lots of animal products is not going to do your health any favors and masking food addictions with diet soda or sweeteners is not a long term approach to good health.
Continue Reading...
Posted on January 9, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
To get an extra 14 years of life, don't smoke, eat lots of fruits and vegetables, exercise regularly and drink alcohol in moderation.
That's the finding of a study that tracked about 20,000 people in the United Kingdom.
Kay-Tee Khaw of the University of Cambridge and colleagues calculated that people who adopted these four healthy habits lived an average of 14 years longer than those who didn't.
"We've known for a long time that these behaviors are good things to do, but we've never seen these additive benefits before," said Susan Jebb, head of Nutrition and Health at Britain's Medical Research Council, which helped pay for the study.
Those Type A go-getters aren't the only ones stressing their hearts. Nervous Nelsons seem to be, too. Researchers reported Monday that chronic anxiety can significantly increase the risk of a heart attack, at least in men. The findings add another trait to a growing list of psychological profiles linked to heart disease, including anger or hostility, Type A behavior, and depression.
"There's a connection between the heart and head," said Dr. Nieca Goldberg of the New York University School of Medicine, a spokeswoman for the American Heart Association who wasn't involved in the study.
"This is very important research because we really are focused very much on prescribing medicine for cholesterol and lowering blood pressure and treating diabetes, but we don't look at the psychological aspect of a patient's care," she added. Doctors "need to be aggressive about not only taking care of the traditional risk factors ... but also really getting into their patients' heads."
Low levels of vitamin D, a chronic problem for many people in northern latitudes areas such as Wisconsin and Washington, were associated with substantially higher rates of heart disease and stroke, according to a new study.
In one of the strongest studies to date linking the vitamin to cardiovascular disease, researchers followed 1,739 members of the Framingham Offspring Study for more than five years.
They found the rate of cardiovascular disease events such as heart attacks, strokes and heart failure were from 53 percent to 80 percent higher in people with low levels of vitamin D in their blood.
"This is a stunning study," said John Whitcomb, medical director of the Aurora Sinai Wellness Institute in Milwaukee. He was not involved in the study.
Young people who start smoking may be influenced to do so by movies they saw in early childhood, new research suggests.
What's more, the study found that almost 80 percent of the exposure to smoking scenes in movies came through films rated "G," "PG" and "PG-13."
"Movies seen at the youngest ages had as much influence over later smoking behavior as the movies that children had seen recently," said study author Linda Titus-Ernstoff, a pediatrics professor at Dartmouth Medical School.
"And I'm increasingly convinced that this association between movie-smoking exposure and smoking initiation is real," she added. "That's to say, causal. It is quite improbable that the association we see is due to some other influence, some other characteristic inherent in children or parental behavior. The relationship is clearly between movie-smoking and smoking initiation."
France, Japan and Australia rated best and the United States worst in new rankings focusing on preventable deaths due to treatable conditions in 19 leading industrialized nations, researchers said on Tuesday.
If the U.S. health care system performed as well as those of those top three countries, there would be 101,000 fewer deaths in the United States per year, according to researchers writing in the journal Health Affairs.
Researchers Ellen Nolte and Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine tracked deaths that they deemed could have been prevented by access to timely and effective health care, and ranked nations on how they did.
They called such deaths an important way to gauge the performance of a country's health care system.
China defended its fish farming industry on Tuesday and said it was making progress in curbing use of illegal additives, from pesticides to banned steroids, as the country's food safety record remains in the spotlight.
China has suffered a rash of scares over the safety of its food and manufactured products in the last year which highlighted shoddy oversight and prompted a wave of new regulations and clean-up campaigns from the central government.
Vice Minister of Agriculture Gao Hongbin said the country had made encouraging progress.
Those who perceived they had low subjective social status had a 69% increased odds of having a 2-unit increase in BMI (this is around 11 pound weight increase).
The results were adjusted for a large number of factors including age, race/ethnicity, baseline BMI, diet, television viewing, depression, global and social self-esteem, menarche, height growth, mother's BMI, and pretax household income.
The study highlights yet another piece in the very complex obesity puzzle.
A 2004 study in the journal Science raised concern among fish lovers with news that farm-raised salmon, the type found at most supermarkets, contained higher levels of cancer-causing pcbs than wild salmon. (Banned in the 1970s, PCBs still contaminate the environment. They are released by incinerators and toxic waste sites.) But two more recent studies, one on farm-raised salmon and the other on wild, found that both harbor similar levels of this pollutant. The first study, done with Chilean- and Canadian-farmed salmon, found an average of 11.5 parts per billion PCBs. The second, conducted by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, sampled 600 wild salmon from the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea, and found 8.2 to 10 parts per billion PCBs. It's important to realize that the amount of PCBs being talked about is very small, says Cornell University seafood specialist Ken Gall, who has studied fish safety issues for 22 years. "High doses of PCBs, like the kind of contamination that occurs with an industrial accident, can be dangerous," Gall says. "But it's uncertain whether the tiny amounts of PCBs found in many foods such as fish, meat, or milk can cause cancer."
Posted on January 7, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
When I think Coca-Cola, I think unhealthy beverage, liquid sugar, caffeine addiction, and most vividly—DON’T DRINK—but,
ExerciseTV thinks coke is an exercise ally.
Diet Blog is on it:
Exercise TV – a video on-demand network that produces workout videos and other training tools is partnering with Coca Cola. In the agreement, numerous brands from Coca-Cola’s portfolio of beverages will be featured through a variety of integration channels.
Coca-Cola continues to make great strides in educating the public about the importance of exercise, and how its broad range of products can benefit health-conscious consumer.
Said Jake Steinfeld, founder of ExerciseTV.
Try as I may, it is difficult for me not to be bothered by this marriage.
Coke’s recent introduction of “healthier” beverages to the market notwithstanding, you can never separate the pod from the mother ship. Coca Cola’s core product will always be… Coca Cola. It’s the same as if it were to be sponsored by a fast food chain. After all, fast food chains do sell salads.
I’m with
Diet Blog on this one. When I think about this marriage, I smell bull poop; especially when you consider soft drinks’ role in the obesity boom. Remember this from Soda Surcharge, Will it Work? Take a look:
Coca-Cola’s exercise advocacy sounds like the work of highly paid corporate spin doctors to me. What do you think?
Posted on January 7, 2008 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Well, this is certainly ambitious.
Oklahoma City's mayor wants the city to drop 1 million pounds as its New Year's resolution. Sean Murphy of the
Associated Press reports:
Prompted in part by his own struggle to lose weight, Cornett wants to end Oklahoma City's dubious distinction as one of America's fattest cities.
"The message of this obesity initiative is that we've got to watch what we eat," Cornett said Thursday. "Exercise is part of it and the city is trying to change into a city that is less sprawling, has more density and is more pedestrian friendly, but you're not really going to take on obesity unless you acknowledge that we eat too much and don't eat the right foods."
As part of the initiative, residents can sign up and track their weight loss on a new Web site, http://www.thiscityisgoingonadiet.com. More than 2,600 people had registered by Thursday. They've lost more than 300 pounds.
Besides a body mass index calculator, the site includes recipes and links to metro-area fitness centers. Plans call for expanding the site to include the opportunity to blog and network with other participants, Cornett said.
"It's always easier if you're doing something hard if you have other people to do it with," he said.
Can they do it? I don’t know. They’ve only got 359 days to go! Although, what might help is bulldozing all the fast food restaurants. I don’t know, just a thought.
Posted on December 28, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Yesterday it was reported that many parents don’t realize that their children are overweight. In case you missed it. This
Fox News video report will get you up to speed. Take a look:
Now, if you’ve actually caught yourself describing your child as “husky” or “big-boned,” you might want to ponder
this quote in the AP report from Dr. Matthew M. Davis. Here it is:
"When I see a child that is obese at these younger ages, I take that as a sign of ways nutrition can be improved, a child's activity level can be improved."
Me thinks the good doctor might be onto something. From one doctor to another, Dr. Fuhrman explains why it shouldn’t be a surprise that all Americans, including kids, are getting fatter. Check it out:
Weight has increased in America simply because total calorie consumption has risen and activity or exercise has fallen. Our diets are more nutrient-deficient than ever.
Isn't acknowledging the problem is the first step?
Posted on December 27, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Robert Preidt of
HealthDay News takes a look at
mixing exercise with childcare. Here’s an excerpt:
"Childhood obesity is an epidemic that threatens the future health of our nation. We know that about 57 percent of all 3- to 5-year-olds in the United States attend child-care centers, so it's important to understand what factors will encourage them to be more active, and, hopefully, less likely to become obese," study co-author Dianne Ward said in a statement. Ward is director of the intervention and policy division in the nutrition department at University of North Caroline at Chapel Hill School of Public Health.
In their study, Ward's team evaluated the physical activity levels of children at 20 child-care centers in North Carolina.
They found that children did more moderate and vigorous physical activity if the child-care center: had more portable play equipment, such as balls, jump ropes, hula hoops and riding toys; offered more opportunities for indoor and outdoor active play; and provided physical activity training and education for staff and students.
Clearly, the TV is not a good babysitter.
Posted on December 19, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
This
CBS video report claims that
stress can cause dangerous fat to build up around women’s internal organs. It’s pretty interesting. Check it out:
Scary! More reason for women to stay active and—for the sake of men everywhere—RELAX!
Posted on December 14, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Here’s a sneak-peak at upcoming research from Dr. Fuhrman. The study found that
Dr. Fuhrman’s high-nutrient diet may be the most health-favorable and effective way to lose weight for appropriately motivated patients. Its over at
Eat Right America, take a look:
The study tracked 56 patients who came to Dr. Fuhrman specifically to lose weight. In addition to weight, the study tracked their blood pressure, total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, triglycerides and their cardiac risk ratio over the two year period. In addition to their new diet prescription, the patients also received counseling sessions to help them stick with their new lifestyle. They received a sample daily meal plan, recipes, and verbal and written information about the rationale for the diet.
At the end of two years, 34% of the patients were still actively on the diet. This alone was a remarkable number as few diet exceed 20% compliance after two-years. Their results were unprecedented:
- Mean Weight Loss: 53 pounds
- Decrease in Mean Cholesterol: 13 points
- Decrease in LDL Cholesterol: 15 points
- Decrease in Triglycerides: 17 points
- Decrease in Cardiac Risk Ratio: 0.7
It’s scheduled for publication in the May/June 2008 issue of
Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine—pretty cool, right?
Posted on November 15, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
In California, 86% of the women who gave birth in 2006 nursed their newborns in the hospital, according to a report being released today by the UC Davis Human Lactation Center and the California WIC Assn., a federally funded nutrition program for women, infants and children.
Half of them -- 43% of the total -- fed their newborns only breast milk. The other half supplemented with formula.
The gap between breast-feeding a little and breast-feeding exclusively in the first 24 to 48 hours that mothers typically spend in the hospital matters because that's when a mother's milk supply is established. The act of nursing causes milk-producing hormones to be released. The more the baby nurses, the more milk the mother will produce, and vice versa.
- Lacks scientific evidence to support claims, instead relying on glowing testimonials (which may or may not be authentic)
- Claims you can lose weight without exercising or making dietary modifications.
- Claims to remove fat from certain areas of your body (can you say “thigh master?”)
- Uses terms such as “miracle”, “scientific breakthrough”, “secret formula” and “revolutionary” to describe their product.
“The answer is no, because the risky fat is inside the abdominal wall, in and around the organs,” said Dr. Louis Aronne, director of the comprehensive weight management program at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York.
A tummy tuck or liposuction “removes superficial, subcutaneous fat, which has little or no risk,” he said. “In such procedures, there is no change in what we call cardiometabolic risk factors, like insulin activity, blood sugar, triglycerides or any of the lipid parameters.”
Synthetic hormones have been used to improve milk production in cows for more than a decade. The chemical has not been detected in milk, so there is no way to test for its use, but more retailers have been selling and promoting hormone-free products in response to consumer demand.
State Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff said advertising one brand of milk as free from artificial hormones implies competitors' milk is not safe, and it often comes with what he said is an unjustified higher price.
"It's kind of like a nuclear-arms race," Wolff said. "One dairy does it, and the next tries to outdo them. It's absolutely crazy."
The CDC said about 20.8 percent of American adults are smokers, with 80 percent, or 36.3 million, of them smoking every day. That rate has been unchanged since 1984.
The county smoking rate was not available, but Health Director Dr. Bruce Dixon said he knows the problem of smoking and its effect on health remains a concern.
"We don't have really good numbers to say [how many county residents smoke], though we do look at high-risk groups, minorities, youth," he said, adding, "Sales to youth are off" but they still find ways to purchase.
"The marketing has not backed off ... I think we still have a disproportionate level of smoking among pregnant women and minority groups."
- Staphylococcus seems to be the countries newest boogieman. Julie’s Health Club discusses an interesting way to stop it—garlic. Read on:
Garlic, well known for its natural antibiotic properties, contains an ingredient that has been shown to effectively kill methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a virulent microbe that wreaks havoc in skin and soft-tissue wounds, several studies have shown.
The nasty superbacterium that now defies most drug treatments infected more than 90,000 Americans last year and killed 19,000, making it a significant public health problem, according to a new federal report. Though 85 percent of the staph infections were in hospitals or other health-care facilities, MRSA also is marching into schools, health clubs and other crowded places.
After hearing that contestants on the recent series of The Biggest Loser have been advised to chew gum in a bid to suppress their appetites, I decided to look around to see if I could find a study to back it up. I couldn't find the actual details of the study but here is a section of a press release:
"A separate study, carried out by researchers at Glasgow Caledonian University and the Wrigley Science Institute, found that chewing gum can be a good appetite suppressant. The study found that by chewing gum before an afternoon snack, one would consume 25 less snack calories. While that is not a high number, according to nutritionists, even a slight reduction in caloric intake can have significant effects in the long term. This study was comprised of 60 adults between the ages of 18 and 54. Each participant consumed a sweet and salty snack after either chewing sweet gum or not chewing gum at all. Hunger, appetite, and cravings were then monitored throughout the remainder of the day. Along with reducing caloric intake, participants reported feeling an improved mood due to reduced anxiety and stress, and increasing contentment and relaxation. "
About three-quarters of the people of Utah are Mormons, and many of them fast for a day every month. Benjamin Horne from the Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, asked 515 elderly people undergoing X-ray examinations for suspected heart disease about their lifestyle. Those who fasted were 39 per cent more likely than non-fasters to have a healthy heart. The results were presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions in Orlando, Florida, on Tuesday.
The report, called Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and the Prevention of Cancer: A Global Perspective, urges people to stay at a healthy weight, which means having a body mass index (or BMI, a ratio of weight to height) between 18.5 and 24.9. And it recommends regular physical activity as a way to control weight.
"The recommendation reflects what the science is telling us today," says W. Phillip T. James, MD, DSc, a member of the panel that wrote the report. "Even small amounts of excess fat, especially if carried at the waist, increase risk."
The report also makes recommendations for eating more healthfully to reduce cancer risk. It says people should eat mostly foods from plants, limit red meat and alcohol, and avoid processed meats like bacon, sausage, and lunchmeat.
Posted on November 12, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Emotional eating, I’ve been there. I used to pound chocolate cake like nobody’s business! Not anymore of course. Now, according to Dr. Fuhrman breaking the chains of your emotional attachments to food is a major step towards superior health. He explains:
Most overweight individuals are addicted to food. This means almost all Americans are food addicts. Addicted means that you feel ill or uncomfortable should you not continue your usual habits. Unlike tobacco and drug addiction, however, food addiction is socially acceptable.
Most people thrust into an environment with an unlimited supply of calorie-rich, nutrient-poor food will become compulsive overeaters. That is, the craving for food and the preoccupation with eating, and the resultant loss of control over food intake, are the natural consequences of nutrient paucity. The resulting stress on our system can be toxic.
Obviously, there are complicated emotional and psychological factors that make it more difficult for some to achieve success at overcoming food addiction. Additionally, some physical changes may initially discourage you. Stopping caffeine, reducing sodium, and dropping saturated fat from your diet while increasing fiber and nutrients may result in increased gas, headaches, fatigue, and other withdrawal symptoms. These withdrawal symptoms are temporary and rarely last longer than one week. Eventually the high volume of food and high nutrient content will help prevent long-term food cravings.
I got to agree with Dr. Fuhrman on all Americans being foods addicts on some level. Heck, just look at
the Atkins crowd, but get a load of this new report.
New research has determined that dieting is hardest for emotional eaters.
Reuters is on it:
The study included 286 overweight men and women who were participating in a behavioral weight loss program.
A second group consisted of more than 3,300 adults who have lost at least 30 pounds and kept it off for at least one year.
Niemeier and her team analyzed responses to an eating inventory questionnaire.
They focused on people who ate because of external influences, such as people who eat too much at parties, and people who ate because of internal influences, such as feeling lonely or as a reward.
What they found is that the more a person ate for internal reasons, the less weight they lost over time.
Lucky for us being addicted to fruits and veggies isn’t a bad thing!
Posted on November 2, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
So, how do you change your diet? A good question, with a simple answer. Dr. Fuhrman spills the beans in this post
Eat to Live: Knowledge Motivates Change. Here’s a bit:
When I began my medical practice as a specialist in nutrition, I focused my attention on individuals who were looking for nutritional intervention as a means of reversing their medical conditions to recover their health and avoid taking medication or having invasive surgery. The inevitable outcome was that when my patients were committed to superior health through nutritional excellence, they were able to reduce and eventually stop their dependency on medications for high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol and a host of other conditions. Spectacular disease reversals were the norm, not the exception…
…The traditional viewpoint is often stated that if you lose your weight too rapidly it won't stick and you will gain it all back. I have never advocated that people be in a race to lose their excess weight. I see no reason, however, to eat unhealthy foods or to eat when you are not hungry under some notion that losing weight slower would be better. The reality is that your body just drops its unhealthy weight relatively quickly and naturally when you eat so well under the Eat to Live program.
Jane E. Brody of
The New York Times has invented her own system. She calls it “
Controlled Indulgence.” What do you think? From the article:
So I adopted a philosophy that I call controlled indulgence. In the two years it took me to return to a reasonable weight for my 5-foot frame, I allowed myself one small treat each day — perhaps two cookies, a thin slice of cake or pie or a few tablespoons of ice cream. The strategy worked, and I continued to use it in the decades of weight maintenance that followed.
For as long as my twin sons lived at home, rather than buy commercial cakes and cookies, I baked quick breads and muffins that were relatively low in sugar and fat and loaded with healthful ingredients like whole wheat flour, bran, wheat germ, fruits and vegetables. They served as the family’s desserts and between-meal snacks. I took some to work with me every day to enjoy when the coffee cart appeared in midafternoon.
But back to the ice cream in the freezer. My approach starts with smart selection. I read the nutrition label; the only ice cream I buy provides a maximum of 150 calories a serving, and usually less, 100 to 130. Most are the slow-churned reduced-fat flavors, and some are frozen yogurt. But none are fat free or sugar free, which to me tastes ersatz.
Equally important, of course, is how much to eat at any one time. One serving. Do you know what a serving of ice cream is? It is half a cup. I bought some half-cup containers and measure out my daily indulgence. And I made a rule for myself. If I start eating more than that half cup, all the ice cream has to go. Because I would rather have it around when I want it, I stick to the half cup.
Posted on October 29, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Now, Dr. Fuhrman’s approach to diet is not necessarily vegan or vegetarian. Heck, just look at me. I’m an
Eat to Liver and I eat fish and I know others who eat eggs and chicken. However there are certainly some advantages to going veggie. From Dr. Fuhrman’s book
Eat to Live:
The China Project confirmed that there were virtually no heart attacks in populations that consume a lifelong vegetarian diet and almost no heart attacks in populations consuming a diet that is rich in natural plant foods and receives less than 10 percent of its calories from animal foods.
My observation of the worldwide data is supported by studies of American vegetarians and nonvegetarians.1 These studies show that the major risk factors associated with heart disease — smoking, physical inactivity, and animal-product consumption — are avoidable. Every heart attack death is even more of a tragedy because it likely could have been prevented.
Pretty cool—right? Well, the coolness train isn’t about to pull out of the station anytime soon. Get a load of this from
AlterNet, “
15 Reasons to Stop Hiding from Vegetarianism.” Personally, I could never go total vegetarian—I love sushi too much! But check it out anyway:
1. You'll ward off disease. Vegetarian diets are more healthful than the average American diet, particularly in preventing, treating or reversing heart disease and reducing the risk of cancer. A low-fat vegetarian diet is the single most effective way to stop the progression of coronary artery disease or prevent it entirely. Cardiovascular disease kills 1 million Americans annually and is the leading cause of death in the United States. But the mortality rate for cardiovascular disease is lower in vegetarians than in nonvegetarians, says Joel Fuhrman, MD, author of Eat to Live: The Revolutionary Formula for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss. A vegetarian diet is inherently healthful because vegetarians consume no animal fat and less cholesterol and instead consume more fiber and more antioxidant-rich produce -- another great reason to listen to Mom and eat your veggies!
2. You'll keep your weight down. The standard American diet -- high in saturated fats and processed foods and low in plant-based foods and complex carbohydrates -- is making us fat and killing us slowly. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and a division of the CDC, the National Center for Health Statistics, 64 percent of adults and 15 percent of children aged 6 to 19 are overweight and are at risk of weight-related ailments including heart disease, stroke and diabetes. A study conducted from 1986 to 1992 by Dean Ornish, MD, president and director of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, found that overweight people who followed a low-fat, vegetarian diet lost an average of 24 pounds in the first year and kept off that weight 5 years later. They lost the weight without counting calories or carbs and without measuring portions or feeling hungry.
And yes, it’s always cool to find Dr. Fuhrman quoted somewhere.
(via SoulVeggie)
Continue Reading...
Posted on October 22, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
I don’t watch reality television, so I couldn’t tell you the difference between
Big Brother,
Survivor, and
Amazing Race, but,
one show—The Biggest Loser—is making headlines, for all the wrong reasons; not good for weight-loss? Elizabeth Weil of
The New York Times reports:
AS if all the thin people on television weren’t bad enough, now dieters must contend with the jealously inspired by contestants on “The Biggest Loser,” the hit NBC reality series. The 18 obese Americans lucky enough to have been picked are sequestered on the show’s campus, work out with a trainer up to five hours a day, vote people off their teams and participate in challenges like who can run faster than a kindergartner…
…Rob Cooper, 39, from Edmonton, Alberta, who dropped to 187 pounds from 475 pounds on his own, said that the show can be counterproductive. According to his logic, if you’re losing two pounds a week and you’re watching “The Biggest Loser,” you probably think your diet is going horribly. If you lose two pounds a week and you’re not watching the show, you probably think your diet is going great…
…The television show “can actually depress a lot of people,” Mr. Cooper said, especially when their steady weight loss cannot compare to the double-digit zingers on the screen. “That’s the opposite of what you want,” he said…
…Most medical professionals say dieters should lose weight slowly. Not only are they more likely to keep it off that way, but shedding more than 10 pounds weekly, as some contestants routinely do, is dangerous.
Maybe I’m ox-minded, but, I don’t turn to television for diet advice. I’ll just stick with my green veggies. They are extra-weight killers. Here’s Dr. Fuhrman:
Green vegetables are so incredibly low in calories and rich in nutrients and fiber that the more you eat of them, the more weight you will lose. One of my secrets of nutritional excellence and superior healing is the one pound-one pound rule. That is, try to eat at least one pound of raw green vegetables a day and one pound of cooked/steamed or frozen green vegetables a day as well. One pound raw and one pound cooked--keep this goal in mind as you design and eat every meal. This may be too ambitious a goal for some of us to reach, but by working toward it, you will ensure the dietary balance and results you want. The more greens you eat, the more weight you will lose. The high volume of greens not only will be your secret to a thin waistline but will simultaneously protect you against life threatening illnesses.
This certainly worked for me. It’s a huge reason why I was able to lose…
to be continued, again.
Posted on October 15, 2007 by Joel Fuhrman
Be realistic and flexible; give your taste buds time to adjust to the new food choices. Changing your behavior is the key to success. Moderation, however, does not mean it’s okay to poison ourselves, abuse our body, and then feel guilty. Moderation means recovering quickly when you have slipped up. Some of us need to plan cheats, once a week or twice a month. Keep to those planned times. A cheat every once in a while is okay if it is moderate, and as long as you go right back to the program immediately and then don’t do it again for at least one week.
Many health authorities and diet advisers recommend only small changes; they are afraid that if the change is too radical, dieters will give the whole thing up and gain nothing. I strongly disagree. My work over the past ten years has shown that those who have jumped in with full effort the first six weeks have been the individuals most likely to stick with the plan and achieve results, month after month. Those who try to get into it gradually are the ones most likely to revert back to their former way of eating. Under the gradual approach, they “yo-yo” back and forth between their old bad behaviors and good ones. Change is hard. Why not do more and glean the results you have always been after quickly and permanently?
Posted on October 11, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
The pursuit of weight loss is a big deal. Millions of dollars and a whole-lot of effort are being expended in order drop a few pounds, and apparently, it’s all in vain. At least as far as kids are concerned. According to the
Associated Press,
kids just can’t keep the weight off. Here’s more:
A team led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that obese children who lost weight kept it off if they were in a maintenance program, but its effectiveness waned over time.
The research involving 150 overweight 7- to 12-year-olds is one of the first large-scale studies to evaluate the long-term effects of weight-loss maintenance strategies in children.
The study, which appeared in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, also is the first to look at whether heavy kids benefited from being encouraged to play with more physically active peers, cope with teasing, and develop an improved body image.
"We know from the adult field that the biggest challenge is not losing weight — it's keeping it off in the long term," said lead author Denise Wilfley, who heads the weight management program at Washington University.
Now, regarding kids, the answer is clear. It all starts with the parents. Dr. Fuhrman will tell you, you want your kids to eat healthfully and stay fit? It’s all up to you. He talks about it in great detail in his book
Disease-Proof Your Child. Take a look:
The number of children who are overweight in the United States has more than doubled during the past decade. Social forces, from the demise of cooking to the rise of fast food, as well as dramatic increases in snack food and soda consumption, have led to the most overweight population of children in human history. Added to this dietary disaster is television, computer, and video technology that entertains our youngsters while they are physically inactive. Unless parents take a proactive role in promoting and assuring adequate nutrition and an active lifestyle, you can be sure the children of American will continue this downward spiral into obesity and ill health. Obese children suffer physically and emotionally throughout childhood and then invariably suffer with adult heart disease, and a higher cancer incidence down the road…
…Parents must be responsible for our health and the health of our children. We parents have a huge responsibility and can help guide and shape our offspring into health and happy adults, or, through abuse, neglect, ignorance, and even convenience, we can damage their future. We know with certainty that the foods we feed our kids during childhood play a large role in dictating their future health…
…It is important to realize that it is never too late to teach your children the importance of eating healthy. As you learn, share enthusiastically with them. Work on improving your diets together. If your child is a teenager, let her read what you are reading. You may want to add that it will help their complexion and body shape. Even teenagers will make beneficial improvements in their diets when presented with compelling reasons. I have lectured to high school assemblies many times and am always impressed by how interested, enthusiastic, and willing to make changes teenagers can be. Research supports this willingness of adolescents to make significant dietary change when presented with accurate compelling information.1
If this seems hard or too much responsibility, consider these tips, they’ll help you out. Here’re Dr. Fuhrman’s secrets to getting your children to eat healthfully:
1. Keep only healthy food in the house. Every person in the household should have the same food choices available.
2. Offer and feed a wholesome diversity of natural foods, vegetables, beans, raw nuts, seeds, and fresh fruit, while giving each child as much latitude as possible to eat what they prefer.
3. Don't attempt to manage your children's caloric intake. They can do that on their own.
4. If you, as parents, do not demonstrate proper respect for your own bodies by eating healthy, exercising regularly, and engaging in other healthful lifestyle practices, don't expect your children to do any better than you, now or in the future.
5. Educate your children about their nutritional needs and the importance of eating healthfully. Start this when they are young and continue to reinforce their learning, as they will be exposed to more toxic food choices as they get older and spend more time out of their home.
Sure, it might be a little hard work and require some thought, but isn’t your children’s health worth it?
Continue Reading...
Posted on October 10, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Nicholas Bakalar of
The New York Times shows us that
economic hard times can actually be healthy times—or at least was the case for Cuba. Take a look:
Using national vital statistics and other sources, the researchers gathered data on energy intake, body weight and physical activity in Cuba from 1980 to 2005. In Cienfuegos, a large city on the southern coast, obesity rates decreased to less than 7 percent in 1995 from more than 14 percent in 1991. As more food became available, obesity increased to about 12 percent again by 2002.
Nationwide, coronary heart disease mortality declined 35 percent from 1997 to 2002. Diabetes mortality was down to less than 10 per 100,000 in 2003 from 19 per 100,000 in 1988. The death rate from all causes declined to 4.7 per thousand in 2002 from 5.9 per thousand in 1982.
I can see it now…The Poverty Diet!
Posted on September 27, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
I’m no daredevil, but you start offering cash and it’s a lot easier to get me to do things. Apparently same goes for weight-loss.
New research contends people will lose weight for even a little money. Elizabeth Dunbar of the
Associated Press has more:
The research published in the September issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine found that cash incentives can be a success even when the payout is as little as $7 for dropping just a few pounds in three months.
Unlike providing onsite fitness centers or improving offerings in the company cafeteria, cash rewards provide a company with a guaranteed return, the researchers said.
"They really can't be a bad investment because you don't pay people unless they lose weight," said Eric A. Finkelstein, the study's lead author and a health economist at RTI International, a research institute based in nearby Research Triangle Park.
You’d think a long-healthy life would be incentive enough! Here’s some more ridiculous weight-loss news:
Posted on September 25, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
The New York Times talks to
Dr. Walter Willett, a nutritional epidemiologist at Harvard University, about achieving the perfect waistline. Check it out:
What did you weigh at age 20? As it turns out, that’s when your body probably settled into its ideal weight. By 20, almost everyone has stopped growing, and the pounds gained in the years following are mostly fat, says Dr. Walter Willett, a nutritional epidemiologist at Harvard University.
For most of us, what you weighed at age 20 is a far better gauge for judging your ideal weight than the standard weight and body mass index charts. Most of those tables cover such a wide range of weights that they can be misleading. According to many of them, the perfect weight for a woman who is 5-foot-7 could range anywhere from 118 to 159 pounds.
But what if that same woman weighs 159 pounds today, at age 40, but weighed 120 pounds in her early 20’s? That means her body has packed on 39 pounds — a gain of more than 30 percent, or about two pounds a year. The charts may say she’s healthy, but studies show that even a modest weight gain in adulthood is associated with a higher mortality risk.
This sounded familiar. So I asked Dr. Fuhrman about it. Here’s what he had to say:
That is essentially what I have been telling patients in my practice for years and years.
Now, in
Eat to Live Dr. Fuhrman sums up how he determines if you’re thin or not. Have a look:
Most people lose weight and then stop losing when they have reached their ideal weight. You are not the judge of your ideal weight; your body is. As almost everyone is overweight, many people think they are too thin when they have reached their best weight. I have many patients who, after following my plan to reverse diabetes or heart disease, report, "Everyone tells me I look too thin now." I then measure their periumbilical fat and check their percentage of body fat, and usually show them they are still not thin enough.
I know a lot of you just pinched your tummy.
Posted on September 17, 2007 by Joel Fuhrman
If you consume sufficient nutrients and fiber, you will become biochemically filled (nutrients) and mechanically filled (fiber), and your desire to consume calories will be blunted or turned down. One key factor that determines whether you will be overweight is your failure to consume sufficient fiber and nutrients.
Posted on September 13, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Burger King Holdings Inc., the world's second largest hamburger chain, said it has set nutritional guidelines to follow when targeting children under 12 in advertising, including limiting ads to Kids Meals that contain no more than 560 calories, less than 30 percent of calories from fat and no more than 10 percent of calories from added sugars.
In that vein, Burger King is building a Kids Meal that will contain the flame-broiled Tenders, organic unsweetened applesauce and low-fat milk, for a total of 305 calories and 8.5 grams of fat. It will be available in restaurants sometime in 2008, the company said.
The fast-food chain is also developing what it calls BK Fresh Apple Fries. The red apples are cut to resemble french fries and are served in the same containers as fries, but they are not fried and are served skinless and cold.
The report, written by Charles Courtemanche for his doctoral dissertation in health economics, found that the 13 percent rise in obesity between 1979 and 2004 can be attributed to falling pump prices.
Gasoline hit a low of less than $1.50 per gallon in 2000 before moving back to a record high of $3.22 in May 2007.
Higher gasoline prices can reduce obesity by leading people to walk or cycle instead of drive and eat leaner at home instead of rich food at restaurants.
One study found that Avandia, made by GlaxoSmithKline, doubled the risks of heart failure and raised the risks of heart attack by 42 percent. A second study found that Actos, a similar drug made by Takeda, actually lowered the risks of heart attacks, strokes and death but, like Avandia, also raised risks of heart failure.
Taken together, some of the authors said, the two studies in The Journal of the American Medical Association confirm what doctors and patients using Avandia have already done in great numbers, that is, switch to another drug. Sales of Avandia have plunged.
GlaxoSmithKline said in a written statement that the studies were flawed and “offered no new information on the safety of Avandia.” The company “continues to support Avandia as safe and effective when used appropriately,” the statement said.
Obesity has more than doubled in Australia in the last 20 years and is placing an uncomfortable strain not only on waistlines but on health services, the Australian General Practice Network said.
To combat the spiralling problem, it wants the government to give the overweight a 170 dollar (141 dollar US) subsidy to do something about their expanding physique.
The network, which represents general practitioners, said effective weight-loss programmes were often too expensive, particularly for those with modest incomes.
Amid worries of an obesity epidemic and its related illnesses, including high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease, Los Angeles officials, among others around the country, are proposing to limit new fast-food restaurants -- a tactic that could be called health zoning.
The City Council will be asked this fall to consider an up to two-year moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in South L.A., a part of the city where fast food is at least as much a practicality as a preference.
"The people don't want them, but when they don't have any other options, they may gravitate to what's there," said Councilwoman Jan Perry, who proposed the ordinance in June, and whose district includes portions of South L.A. that would be affected by the plan.
"This is a major public-health problem," said Rebecca Din-Dzietham of the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, who led the study, which will be published in the Sept. 25 issue of the American Heart Association journal Circulation. "Unless this upward trend in high blood pressure is reversed, we could be facing an explosion of new cardiovascular-disease cases in young adults and adults."
With an adult form of diabetes already being diagnosed more frequently in children and more young people developing high cholesterol, the new finding is another indication that the obesity epidemic is spawning a generation at heightened risk for illnesses that struck their parents and grandparents only later in life, experts said.
"This is very worrisome," said Elizabeth Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. "This is another piece of evidence suggesting that the obesity epidemic will likely turn into a heart-disease epidemic."
A gaping hole exists between conventional medicine and diet. Conventional medicine claims that the cause of Type 2 diabetes is unknown. Medical doctors, as practitioners of conventional medicine, are not trained to explain how it happened. They treat symptoms with medicine. The business of medicine is medicine. The business of diabetes would be devasted if the cure was as simple as diet. The explanation Thomas Smith provides in his empirical studies is fascinating and I encourage anybody with competing or supporting evidence to open the debate.
"Women who have this disorder usually are interested in exercise to improve their appearance, but an instructor who emphasizes physique during a workout may deter such students from coming back," said Brian Focht, assistant professor of health behavior and health promotion at Ohio State, and a co-author of the study.
The study, which was published in the journal Psychology of Sport and Exercise, indicated women in the study reported that they enjoyed a step aerobics class more when the instructor focused on how the workout was making them more fit.
Even though most of the women studied took the class primarily because they were concerned about their body image, they enjoyed the class less and were less likely to take another if the instructor emphasized how a particular exercise would tone their legs, slim their waists, or otherwise improve their appearance, the researchers found.
A new study from Yale shows that 75 percent of physicians in training surveyed do not understand the statistics used in medical literature. The study surveyed internal medicine residents at 11 programs across the country.
The residents scored an average of 41% correct on the test and the senior residents scored worse than the junior residents, possibly reflecting a loss of knowledge over time.
Posted on September 11, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Four years ago, Arkansas became the first state in the nation to track the number of overweight students in its schools. School officials say it has helped improve the state's childhood obesity rate.
A new report released Monday shows that while obesity is still a problem, the obesity rate in Arkansas's school children isn't rising.
State health officials said last year's mandatory BMI — body mass index — screenings showed that 20.6 percent of tested schoolchildren were overweight, while 17.2 percent were risk for being overweight, about the same figures as the previous year.
- Here’s a cool veggie slideshow Dr. Fuhrman sent over the other day. Check it out, it’s over at MSN:
More and more consumers -- new mothers are leading the pack -- are expressing concern about potentially toxic chemicals in plastic products. Baby blogs are abuzz with warnings about chemicals in baby bottles and toys. Retailers say that demand for glass baby bottles is higher than it's been in decades and that shoppers are snatching up bottles and training cups made from plastics without bisphenol A. California lawmakers have taken notice: Last week, the state Legislature passed a bill to ban certain phthalates in plastic items meant for children younger than 3.
Recent widely publicized studies have shown that plastics are not only ubiquitous in the environment (marine researchers have shown that plastic debris outweighs zooplankton in remote parts of the Pacific), but are found in the bodies of nearly all Americans too. Scientists have hypothesized that chemicals in certain plastics may be linked to such conditions as asthma and even obesity. But most of the research, and the strongest evidence, points to effects that certain plastics chemicals appear to exert on the reproductive system. Findings are still considered preliminary (existing studies are small and few), but reports are enough to make consumers ask: Are plastics safe?
Researchers studying the enzyme that converts starch to simple sugars like glucose have found that people living in countries with a high-starch diet produce considerably more of the enzyme than people who eat a low-starch diet.
The reason is an evolutionary one. People in high-starch countries have many extra copies of the amylase gene which makes the starch-converting enzyme, a group led by George H. Perry of Arizona State University and Nathaniel J. Dominy of the University of California, Santa Cruz, reported yesterday in the journal Nature Genetics.
The production of the extra copies seems to have been favored by natural selection, according to a genetic test, the authors say. If so, the selective pressure could have occurred when people first started to grow cereals like wheat and barley at the beginning of the Neolithic revolution some 10,000 years ago, or even much earlier.
Jensen's Old Fashioned Smokehouse Inc. is recalling two smoked-salmon spread products because they may be contaminated with bacteria known as Listeria monocytogenes.
The recall includes 480 7-ounce plastic tubs of Jensen's Seattle Style Wild Smoked Salmon Spread Lemon Dill and Onion and 132 7-ounce plastic tubs of PCC brand Smoked Salmon Spread allnatural.
The products were distributed in Western Washington retail stores, the Seattle company said.
The Jensen's wild smoked-salmon spread in question is coded "sell By 10/14/07 and 10/15/07" and the PCC brand Smoked Salmon Spread all-natural is coded "sell By 9/29/07."
The company said no illnesses have been confirmed.
Some researchers have suspected that low levels of vitamin D contribute to the disorder, which is characterized by soaring blood pressure and swelling of the hands and feet, but the new study is the first to examine its role directly.
Pre-eclampsia affects as many as 7 percent of first pregnancies and can progress to eclampsia, which produces seizures and often-fatal complications of the liver, kidneys, lungs, blood and nervous system. Eclampsia causes 15 percent of maternal deaths during pregnancy and as many as 70 percent of such deaths in developing countries.
Epidemiologist Lisa M. Bodnar and her colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh School of Health Sciences studied blood samples taken from women and newborns early in pregnancy and just before delivery. They identified 15 women who suffered pre-eclampsia and compared them with 220 who did not.
The Food and Drug Administration opened a two-day meeting to collect comments from food companies, trade groups, watchdog organizations, medical experts and its overseas counterparts on the topic. Any action is likely years away.
Some food manufacturers and retailers already have begun labeling foods with symbols to indicate how nutritious they are. PepsiCo uses the “Smart Spot” symbol on diet Pepsi, baked Lay’s chips and other products. Hannaford Bros., a New England supermarket chain, uses a zero to three-star system to rate more than 25,000 food items it sells. And in Britain, the government has persuaded some food companies to use a “traffic light” symbol. That ranking system relies on green, yellow and red lights to characterize whether a food is low, medium or high in fat, salt and sugar.
Fairbank Farms, a U.S. ground beef producer, said on Wednesday it is voluntarily recalling beef patties sold to Shaw's Supermarkets in New England because of concerns about bacterial contamination.
Fairbank Farms said the patties could have been purchased by consumers in that area on Wednesday between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m.
Posted on September 7, 2007 by Joel Fuhrman
Your body weight may be affected slightly by genetics, but that effect is not strong. Furthermore, I am convinced that inheriting a slow metabolic rate with a tendency to gain weight is not a flaw or defect but rather a genetic gift that can be taken advantage of. How is this possible? A slower metabolism is associated with longer life span in all species of animals. It can be speculated that if one lived sixty thousand or just a few hundred years ago, a slower metabolic rate might have increased our survival opportunity, since getting sufficient calories was difficult. For example, the majority of Pilgrims that arrived on our shores on the Mayflower died that first winter.1 They could not make or find enough food to eat, so only those with the genetic gift of a slow metabolic rate survived.
As you can see, it is not always bad to have a slow metabolic rate. It can be good. Sure, it is bad in today’s environment of relentless eating and when consuming a high-calorie, low-nutrient diet. Sure, it will increase your risk of diabetes and heart disease and cancer, given today’s food consumption patterns. However, if correct food choices are made to maintain a normal weight, the individual with a slower metabolism may age more slowly.
Our body is like a machine. If we constantly run the machinery at high speed, it will wear out faster. Since animals with slower metabolic rates live longer, eating more calories, which drives up our metabolic rate, will cause us only to age faster. Contrary to what you may have heard and read in the past, our goal should be the opposite: to eat less, only as much as we need to maintain a slim and muscular weight, and no more, so as to keep our metabolic rate relatively slow. So stop worrying about your slower metabolic rate. A slower metabolic rate from dieting is not the primary cause of your weight problem. Keep these three important points in mind:
1. Resting metabolic rates do decline slightly during periods of lower caloric intake, but not enough to significantly inhibit weight loss.
2. Resting metabolic rates return to normal soon after caloric intake is no longer restricted. The lowered metabolic rate does not stay low permanently and make future dieting more difficult.
3. A sudden lowering of the metabolic rate from dieting does not explain the weight gain/loss cycles experienced by many overweight people. These fluctuations in weight are primarily from going on and getting off diets. It is especially difficult to stay with a reduced-calorie diet when it never truly satisfies the individual’s biochemical need for nutrients, fiber, and phytochemicals.2
Those with a genetic tendency to overweight may actually have the genetic potential to outlive the rest of us. The key to their successful longevity lies in their choosing a nutrient-rich, fiber-rich, lower-calorie diet, as well as getting adequate physical activity. By adjusting the nutrient-per calorie density of your diet to your metabolic rate, you can use your slow metabolism to your advantage. When you can maintain a normal weight in spite of a slow metabolism, you will be able to achieve significant longevity.
Continue Reading...
Posted on September 4, 2007 by Joel Fuhrman
According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), wound problems and complications from blood clots are common aftereffects of gastric bypass and gastroplasty surgery. The NIH has also reported that those undergoing surgical treatment for obesity have had substantial nutritional and metabolic complications, gastritis, esophagitis, outlet stenosis, and abdominal hernias. More than 10 percent required another operation to fix problems resulting from the first surgery.1
Another tempting solution is liposuction. Studies show that liposuction begets a plethora of side effects, the main one being death! A recent survey of all 1,200 actively practicing North American board-certified plastic surgeons confirmed that there are about 20 deaths for every 100,000 liposuctions, whereas the generally acceptable mortality rate for elective surgery is 1 in 100,000.3 Compared with the 16.4 per 100,000 mortality rate of U.S. motor vehicle accidents, liposuction is not a benign procedure. Liposuction is dangerous.
Continue Reading...
Posted on August 28, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
If you eat lots of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and legumes—you get a lot of fiber! And that’s a good thing. According to Dr. Fuhrman, not only is fiber vital for superior nutrition, but, it can also help you shed those unwanted pounds. More from
Eat to Live:
Because meats, dairy, and oils are so dense in calories, it is practically impossible for us to eat them without consuming an excess of calories. These calorie-rich foods can pile up a huge number of calories way before our stomachs are full and our hunger satisfied. However, eating foods higher in nutrients and fiber and lower in calories allows us to become satiated without consuming excess calories.
And Dr. Fuhrman isn’t the only one showing fiber some love.
The Cardio Blog offers up four good reasons to get your fiber. Check it out:
Cholesterol Reduction. By trapping bile acids that would otherwise be absorbed and converted into cholesterol, fiber can help reduce cholesterol and triglycerides.
Improved Protein Absorption. Eating foods high in fiber while eating foods high in protein will slow down the breakdown of that protein, thereby allowing for greater absorption.
Better Colon Function. This one you are likely aware of already. I'll leave it at that.
Prevents Body-Fat Storage. Soluble fiber helps the body use carbs for glycogen synthesis and energy production, rather than storing them as fats. Also, just as fiber slows down the body's processing of proteins, fiber can slow down how fast your body metabolizes carbs. For you, this means that your insulin levels will not spike as a result of eating a high-carb food, which is yet another way to help prevent body fat storage.
Now here’s something I bet you didn’t know. Nuts and seeds are loaded with fiber. Dr. Fuhrman talks about in this post,
Nuts & Seeds Protect Against Heart Disease:
Raw nuts and seeds are packed with nutrients. They contain lignans, bioflavonoids, minerals, and other antioxidants that protect the fragile freshness of the fats therein; they also contain plant proteins and plant sterols that naturally lower cholesterol. And because nuts and seeds supply certain fibers, phytochemicals, phytosterols, and bioactive nutrients not found in other foods (such as polyphenols and arginine), they have other beneficial effects that prevent blood vessel inflammation.
Posted on August 28, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
You have to see it, to believe it. Head on over to
Diet Blog for more.
Posted on August 27, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Over at
DrFuhrman.com this member is having a little trouble losing weight. Here’s the Q&A with Dr. Fuhrman. Have a look:
Member:
I am 53 year old female who is 5'3" and I have been in a 12-step program for compulsive overeating for a decade. I used to weigh 220 lbs, lost 100, and slowly gained back 40 and now weigh 160. I have eaten a no sugar, no flour plan during that decade, though obviously I relapsed which explains the weight gain. I had a heart catheterization in late March where they found a 44% blockage in my RCA and that is when I found out about you through a friend. I have followed your aggressive weight-loss vegan plan since April 3rd and have lost 3 lbs only. I have been pristine pure...no oils save for one teaspoon of fish oil daily. 1 cup legumes and less than a cup of starchy vegetable or grains every other day. The rest is salad, steamed veggies, and fruit. What am I doing wrong?
I also am feeling very low energy and not operating mentally at full function. Should I get bloodwork done to see if I have a deficiency and if so, what should I be looking for (B complex and D?).
Dr. Fuhrman:
You must have a really slow metabolic rate. In any case, since you did lose some weight and did not report on the amount of exercise you are doing, I would start there. One teaspoon of fish oil (5 grams) is a little overkill. Not that it will make much of a difference in your weight, but I still think that it is too much.
So the first thing is to look at your exercise mix and make sure you are doing both the caloric burn and the muscle building type because you likely need more muscle density to increase your metabolism and that can take some work in the gym for a few months.
Next, try to eat only when hungry and get in touch with your body's signals for food. You may be able to take in even less food while still feeling satiated.
Posted on August 13, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Weight loss would be a lot easier if someone kicked you a sawbuck every time you dropped a few pounds. Well, one Italian town likes the idea.
The mayor of Varallo Italy is paying residents who lose weight.
Reuters reports:
Men living in the northwestern Italian town of Varallo will receive 50 euros ($70) for losing 4 kg (9 pounds) in a month, Mayor Gianluca Buonanno said. Women will get the same amount for shedding 3 kg (7 pounds).
If they can keep the weight off for 5 months, they will get another 200 euros ($280), he told Reuters.
"Lots of people are saying, 'I really need to lose some weight but it's really tough.' So I thought, why don't we go on a group diet?" said Buonanno, who said he was about 6 kg (13 pounds) overweight.
Posted on August 9, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
I think all drug-makers should be held to this. If the toxins you peddle don’t work, give people their money back.
Julie’s Health Club talks about the
refunds being offered for the diet drug Xenadrine EFX. Take a look:
The FTC alleged that Xenadrine EFX was advertised with false and unsubstantiated weight-loss claims, and its settlement with the marketers of Xenadrine EFX included money for consumer refunds.
The refund is good through Sept. 15 and the amount will depend on the number of consumers who request refunds.
And while I like to see the FTC cracking down on false advertising, the "additional notes" on the company's Web site (below), should have been enough to discourage anyone from taking it in the first place. (Not surprisingly, the clickable categories "testimonials" and "clinical studies" are currently unavailable.)
Government mandated refunds, yet another reason to be leery of drug-makers. Dr. Fuhrman certainly casts them a suspicious eye. From
Eat to Live:
New drugs are continually introduced that attempt to lessen the effects our nation’s self-destructive eating behavior. Most often, our society treats disease after the degenerative illness has appeared, an illness that is the result of from forty to sixty years of nutritional self-abuse.
Drug companies and researchers attempt to develop and market medications to stem the obesity epidemic. This approach will always be doomed to fail. The body will always pay a price for consuming medicines, which usually have toxic effects. The “side” effects are not the only toxic effect of medications. Doctors learn in their introductory pharmacology course in medical school that all medications are toxic in varying degrees, whether side effects are experienced or not. Pharmacology professors stress never to forget that. You cannot escape the immutable biological laws of cause and effect through ingesting medicinal substances.
Posted on July 31, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
I’ve never been a milk drinker. To this day, the expression “cow juice” still haunts my mind. Now, I know it sounds silly, but, the concept of bovine nectar isn’t that farfetched. Here’s what I mean. Check out this excerpt from Dr. Fuhrman’s book
Disease-Proof Your Child:
Milk, which is designed by nature for the rapidly growing cow, has about half its calories supplied from fat. The fatty component is concentrated more to make cheese and butter. Milk and cheese are the foods Americans encourage their children to eat, believing them to be healthy foods. Fifty years of heavy advertising by an economically powerful industry has shaped the public's perception, illustrating the power of one-sided advertising, but the reality and true health effects on our children is a different story. Besides the link between high-saturated-fat foods (dairy fat) and cancer, there is a body of scientific literature linking the consumption of cow's milk to many other diseases. If we expect our children to resist many common illnesses, they simply must consume less milk, cheese, and butter. Dairy foods should be consumed in limited quantity or not at all.
Okay, granted there are some “big” people out there, but I doubt any of them match the physiology of a baby cow. So why do they drink milk? Or consume dairy? Who knows? Maybe they’re eager to bring about various diseases. Dr. Fuhrman explains in
Eat to Live:
Dairy is best kept to a minimum. There are many good reasons not to consume dairy. For example, there is a strong association between diary lactose and ischemic heart disease.1 There is also a clear association between high-growth-promoting foods such as dairy products and cancer. There is a clear association between milk consumption and testicular cancer.2 Dairy fat is also loaded various toxins and is the primary source of our nation’s high exposure to dioxin.3 Dioxin is a highly toxic chemical compound that even the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency admits is a prominent cause of many types of cancer in those consuming dairy fat, such as butter and cheese.4 Cheese is also a power inducer of acid load, which increases calcium loss further.5 Considering that cheese and butter are the foods with the highest saturated-fat content and the major source of our dioxin exposure, cheese is a particularly foolish choice for obtaining calcium.
Now, given all these health risks, why would anyone even entertain the notion that dairy can help you lose weight? Especially since
the dairy-weight loss claim was recently pummeled by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
The New York Times covered it:
The assertion that there is a link between weight loss and dairy consumption has long been contested by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine [PCRM], an advocacy and research group that promotes a diet free of animal products.
The group petitioned the F.T.C. in 2005 to argue that the advertisements were misleading. In a May 3 letter to the group, Lydia Parnes, director of the agency’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said Agriculture Department representatives and milk producers and processors had agreed to change the advertisements and related marketing materials “until further research provides stronger, more conclusive evidence of an association between dairy consumption and weight loss.”
As of Thursday, the National Dairy Council still had a section of its Web site devoted to the weight-loss claim. But the site, along with some of the advertisements, will be changed, said Greg Miller, who is executive vice president of the council and has a doctorate in nutrition.
But, I guess sometimes word doesn’t travel fast enough, because
Michael Hecht of The Philadelphia Inquirer still thinks dairy can help you drop those unwanted pounds. Take a look:
There are a few theories as to how calcium and dairy products might be "weight friendly." One theory is that calcium and Vitamin D help regulate fat metabolism by stimulating fatty acid caloric burn and suppressing the body's production of fat.
Calcium in supplement form or dairy might also help to decrease fat absorption in the digestive tract by forming calcium-fatty-acid complexes called "soaps" that accelerate the loss of fat in the stool. Another theory is that extra calcium prevents fat storage by sending a signal that the body no longer needs to store fat.
It appears that low-fat dairy products like yogurt, cottage cheese and low-fat milk do help facilitate weight loss as long as total caloric intake is observed.
Not to beat up on Mr. Hecht, but come on! Keep up with the times—no pun intended.
Continue Reading...
Posted on July 26, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Dr. Fuhrman will tell
low-carb diets are dangerous and ill-advised. And yet, scientists and researchers actually waste their time extolling the virtues—or more appropriately, the falsifications—of low-carb-high-protein diets. Take this study for example.
HealthDay News reports
low-carb diets combat metabolic syndrome:
The study participants didn't follow the diets strictly, study leader Matthew R. Hayes, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania found. "Phase one intake was 25 percent [carbohydrates], on average," he said, rather than the 10 percent recommended. "Phase two carb intake was 35 percent," he said, although 27 percent was recommended. But it was a reduction from the participants' pre-study diet, which included 47 percent of calories from carbohydrates, he said.
To find out why the weight declined, Hayes' team did hormone assays, measuring fasting and post-meal blood levels of hormones associated with appetite and food intake, such as insulin, leptin and cholecystokinin (CCK).
"We found some changes in hormone levels," he said. "We saw a decrease in insulin, a decrease in leptin levels by the end of phase one. It was fast."
"By the end of phase 2, the insulin levels had crept up toward baseline; the leptin levels also rose, but it did not come back to the levels at baseline," Hayes said.
"These alternations in hormone levels acting together help reduce the amount of food consumed," he said. "There's a synergy. Based on the literature already out there, we are speculating that this synergy of hormones may be the mechanism explaining why people are satisfied with less food and [the low-carb diet] results in weight loss."
Pardon me for a second—shenanigans, shenanigans! That’s right. I’m calling shenanigans on this study. Why? Because it’s bound to trick people into believing that low-carb is a safe way of restoring healthy metabolic function. Confused? I’ll let Dr. Fuhrman explain. I asked him about this junk science and here’s what he had to say:
Smoking cigarettes has beneficial effects on body weight. It can improve diabetes control and even has beneficial effects on ulcerative colitis. However, smoking cigarettes harms the body in other ways, so those benefits aren’t worth much. Pursuing studies on high protein, carbohydrate restricted diets, which have already been shown to increase all-cause long term mortality is ignorant and immoral. A high nutrient, vegetable-based diet is a more effective and has long-term health advantages, instead of long-term dangers. This shows the ignorance in the medical and research community that treat diets like drugs. When you have no comprehensive understanding of nutritional science, your implementation and interpretation of scientific studies is almost irrelevant and results in no useful information.
In the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition May 2007 a 10-year dietary assessment of 22,944 subjects was published. It was entitled, Low-Carbohydrate-High-Protein and long-term survival in a general population cohort. The conclusion reads, "Prolonged consumption of diets low in carbohydrate and high in protein is associated with and increase in total mortality." The bottom line is you do not have to smoke cigarettes or eat a dangerous diet to control obesity, diabetes, or metabolic syndrome. My Eat to Live diet-style offers a safe, highly effective option with more dramatic results and protection against cancer, heart disease and all cause mortality.
Yeah, I guess you could drive nails with your head, but using a hammer is a safer choice. In my humble opinion, low-carb only exists because it caters to people’s emotional attachments to food. And we all know there’s lots of money in people’s weaknesses. That should explain why many low-carb peddlers are multi-million dollar corporations.
For more dismantling of low-carb diets, don’t forget about our friends over at AtkinsExposed.org.
Posted on July 25, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
If you go to the gym, you’re bound to have seen them. Those guys with the pumped up arms and tight-fitting shirts; these guys actually think they’re in shape. Well, they would be, if it weren’t for the big bellies. Don’t get it? This
Reuters report should lift the fog. Ann Harding explains
fitness means less belly fat at any weight. Read on:
The higher a man's cardiorespiratory fitness, the less fat he has in his abdominal cavity, Dr. Jean-Pierre Despres of Hopital Laval Research Centre in Quebec and colleagues found. The relationship held true regardless of body mass index (BMI), a ratio of weight to height typically used to gauge overweight and obesity.
"This is why it's so, so important for the doctor to measure waist circumference," said Despres, who told Reuters Health he is on a "crusade" to get family doctors to check their patients' waist size and triglyceride levels.
High waist circumference combined with high triglyceride levels signal a substantially increased risk of heart disease and diabetes, he explained.
There is mounting evidence that fit people are at reduced risk of heart disease, even though they may be overweight or even obese based on their BMI, Despres and his team note in the Archives of Internal Medicine. At the same time, the researcher added, people of normal weight with bulging bellies can be "time bombs" for heart disease.
He and his colleagues hypothesized that fit individuals, regardless of BMI, would have less belly fat. To investigate, they looked at 169 healthy men, comparing their cardiorespiratory fitness with their amount of belly fat as measured by computed tomography (CT) scanning.
Dr. Fuhrman runs into the belly fat issue all the time. Check out this excerpt from
Eat to Live:
Most people lose weight and then stop losing when they have reached their ideal weight. You are not the judge of your ideal weight; your body is. As almost everyone is overweight, many people think they are too thin when they have reached their best weight. I have many patients who, after following my plan to reverse diabetes or heart disease, report, "Everyone tells me I look too thin now." I then measure their periumbilical fat and check their percentage of body fat, and usually show them they are still not thin enough.
Posted on July 19, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Nope. This post isn’t about the signs of a poor diet, rather,
Diet-Blog has listed the
7 Signs of a Dubious Diet; diet as in fad diets. Here’re few good ones:
2. Advocates centering the diet on one particular food
Eg. grapefruit, peanut butter, coconut diets. Whether or not you eat these foods has no bearing on your weight and health.
3. Doesn’t insist on exercise
Surprising how many of them don’t – this is the cornerstone of continued fat loss and maintenance of weight, period. Beware of even those that undermine the importance of exercise.
4. Offers a simplistic explanation to the complex problem of obesity
Again, many “gurus” try and convince us that we are fat for a singular reason – this gives them an “angle” at which to sell us with. Whether it is carbs, an absence or abundance of a certain hormone, toxins – obesity is multifaceted.
I know I’m biased, but I mentally ran
Eat to Live through these points and—it came out smelling like roses! Go on, try for yourself.
Posted on July 18, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
I’m no diet guru, but the concept of counting calories seems totally off the mark. Especially when the dietary equation sums up like this: fried chicken + milk shake = calorie allotment for the day. Dr. Fuhrman doesn’t think too highly of calorie counting either. From
The Problem with Weight Watchers and other Calorie Counting Diets:
With calorie-counting and point-counting and having to weigh, measure, and calculate amounts eaten, you are following a diet. Who wants to diet and measure portions forever? I enjoy eating. I eat the way I advise all my patients to do, yet I am not overweight. Why? I enjoy eating lots of great tasting stuff and not having to worry about my weight or my health. Intellectually, I know that I am doing the right thing to prevent heart disease and other medical problems from developing in my future. Dieting and measuring out thimble-sized portions of food for the rest of one's life is not something that fits in naturally and permanently into anyone's lifestyle. Besides, anything you do temporarily gives only temporary benefit.
One of Dr. Fuhrman’s most major points is the concept of nutrient density. In short, nutrition is not just about eating a certain amount of calories per day. Superior nutrition is achieved by eating lots of nutrient-dense low-calorie foods; like leafy
green cruciferous vegetables. He talks about it in
Eat to Live:
As long as you are eating so many low-nutrient foods, it is impossible to lose weight healthfully. In fact, this vicious combination of sedentary lifestyle and eating typical "American" food should make normal people overweight. It is perfectly normal to become a "food-addict," eating more calories when the body requires, when your intake of micronutrients is so low. This low nutrient intake leads to cellular toxicity creating an internal environment when cravings, and ill-feeling ensue if the body is not continually overfed. It is similar to the way a heroin or nicotine addict, who needs their regular fix, or withdrawal will begin and they will feel too uncomfortable. The standard (low phytonutient) diet leads to discomfort (headaches, weakness, abdominal spasm and fluttering, mental confusion and more) the minute your stomach empties for a few hours.
Now keep this in mind when you read this article in
The New York Times. Apparently
consumers are calling for calorie content labels on fast food; including McDonald’s, Chili’s, Outback Steakhouse, and others. Lots of people want the labels, but some are skeptical—so am I. Roni Caryn Rabin reports:
“Do you think people will stop eating McDonald’s French fries and Big Macs?” asked Rick Sampson of the New York State Restaurant Association, which is suing New York City over its law. “It doesn’t keep me from eating a candy bar even though the calories are listed on it right in front of me.” (A Big Mac has 540 calories; a medium order of fries, 380.)
But public opinion polls suggest that consumers are overwhelmingly in favor of menu labeling. And a 2005 survey of 5,297 adults by the food services company Aramark found that 83 percent of them wanted nutritional information in restaurants.
“Often, people are trying to do the right thing and make the healthier choice, but they’re just guessing at what the best choice is — it’s not always obvious,” said Margo Wootan, director of nutritional policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the advocacy group that is leading the movement for menu labeling. “Because there’s no nutritional information, they’re not getting what they think they’re getting.”
The chicken Caesar salad at Chili’s is one of those items that might appear to be a healthier choice, but brace yourself: it contains 1,010 calories and 76 grams of fat, while the sirloin has 540 calories and 42 grams of fat (not counting side dishes).
What do you think? Personally, I think people are going to eat junk food regardless of labels. Most snack foods and candy are labeled and people still eat them. I agree with Dr. Fuhrman on this one, the bigger issue here is most people’s inability to feel true hunger; which according to Dr. Fuhrman starts very early in life. Back to
Eat to Live:
Losing your ability to sense true hunger sets the foundation for obesity. By feeding kids so much calorie-rich food so frequently we have trained our children to disconnect eating from hunger. After enough time goes by continually consuming more calories than they need, they will feel discomfort when they do not have food constantly in their stomach. They must keep their digestive tract going all the time, because they become an overweight adult, they are true food addicts.
Over all, labels just seem like another standard American band aid approach to fixing the standard American diet woes—sigh. But again, I’m just a lowly blogger. What do you think?
Posted on July 17, 2007 by Joel Fuhrman
Adapted from Dr. Fuhrman’s book Eat to Live:
Positive Visualization and Other Relaxation Techniques: Progressive muscle relaxation and meditation are designed to reduce tension and provide a distraction for stressful events.1 For many, stress is a predictor of relapse and unhealthful eating. We need both exercise and sufficient rest and sleep to best deal with the stress in our lives. If you are not sleeping well, you can become overwhelmed more easily by stressful situations.
In-Patient Facilities or Health Retreats: If you do not succeed, or are not able to do so on your own, you are not a failure. Some individuals require a structured environment to get them started on the road to success. For others it is imperative for their health that they succeed at taking weight off relatively quickly. If you are committed to success, there is no reason why you should be satisfied with anything less than spectacular results in your health, wellness, and physique. Some individuals may require an initial period of supervision that offers a more disciplined and structured program whereby all the food is prepared.
These guests are soon reeducated to proper eating and learn to adjust to the changes that must be made. They can taste many different ways to prepare healthy food and learn healthy food preparation. There are live-in health spa facilities that adhere to these principles and cater to those who need guaranteed weight loss.
Continue Reading...
Posted on July 17, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Okay, imagine you’re overweight. Is it your fault or the food companies’ fault? Personally, I’d blame myself.
Diet-Blog asks the same question;
Personal Responsibility or Blame Food Companies? Take a look:
We are the ones who wear the robes and carry the gavel when it comes to what enters our mouths. Nobody is pointing a gun to our heads and demanding we down ½ pound burgers, a small bucket of fries and a pop big enough to dock a jet ski in…
…No individual should be able to sue a restaurant/food company because they got fat eating their food. It seems anything not right with us nowadays is somebody else’s fault.
Maybe it all boils down to this:
Knowledge Motivates Change.
Posted on July 16, 2007 by Joel Fuhrman
Adapted from Dr. Fuhrman’s book Eat to Live:
Self-Monitoring: Accept that this diet is a lifetime commitment. The individual most likely to succeed is one who has changed both his habits and mind-set. Food diaries, weekly weigh-ins, physical activity logs, and goal setting are all effective ways to stay on track. The primary purpose of self-monitoring is to become aware of behaviors and factors that either positively or negatively influence your food and activity choices. Research has consistently demonstrated that self-monitoring is a helpful tool that improves outcome.1
I suggest you make a list of goals that losing weight will help you accomplish and post it in a visible place where you will see it in your home. Add to it from time to time and check off those accomplishments as you achieve them. Make the goals very specific to you, such as the following:
- I will be confident about my ability to resist disease.
- I will succeed at losing pounds and regaining excellent health.
- I will be able to fit into fashionable clothes, including my favorite blue dress.
- My cholesterol will improve at least 50 points.
- I will look good in a bathing suit at the pool this summer.
- I will have more energy and be able to enjoy bike trips with my children.
- My husband/wife/other will find me more attractive.
- My job will be less tiring and I will perform better and make more money.
- I will save money on health care and will be able to save for my retirement.
- I will have a better social life and be in a position to attract John [or Jane].
- My knees and back will stop hurting.
- I will gain the respect of my peers.
- My allergies, constipation, indigestion, headaches, and acne will all resolve.
- My fears about a health crisis or death will subside.
Structured Coaching: Some individuals do better when another person tracks their results and provides encouragement. Some people maximize success with a variety of aids, including regular visits to a physician, dietitian, or psychologist. When patients see me each month, we review what has been achieved and what will be necessary to achieve the goal for the following month. Improvements in blood pressure, weight, lipid levels, liver function, and diabetic parameters are all helpful to keep people focused on achieving their goals. If you are on medication, it will be necessary to visit your physician regularly to adjust the dose and potentially discontinue those medications that you will no longer need as you lose weight. You can also ask your physician to read this book and work with you, supporting you as you earn your way back to total wellness.
Continue Reading...
Posted on July 11, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
News flash—MOST DIETS FAIL! And—YOU EVENTUALLY PUT THE WEIGHT BACK ON!
The New York Times reports that
even people who receive formal counseling for weight-loss, still get fat again. Nicholas Bakalar has more:
While it is known that such programs work only temporarily, the effect has been hard to quantify. The researchers used statistical techniques to combine data from 46 randomized controlled trials of counseling programs involving 6,386 overweight people who participated in programs and 5,467 who received the usual care. The study was published July 3 in The Annals of Internal Medicine.
Counseling-based weight-loss programs — those led by dietitians, nurses or doctors — produced an average weight loss of 6 percent of initial body weight, or about 11 pounds, at the end of one year. By the end of three years, participants had regained about half of that weight, and at the end of five years they had typically regained all of it.
Posted on July 11, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Barron H. Lerner of
The New York Times asks the question,
amidst the tidal wave of pop-diets, has willpower died? Look:
A study in The Journal of the American Medical Association in May suggested another way in which genetics might affect changes in weight. Researchers from Children’s Hospital in Boston reported that differences in how young adults secrete the hormone insulin determine how well they respond to various dietary interventions.
So maybe it is time for health professionals to stop reflexively assuming that personal sacrifice will lead to weight loss. But this will not be easy.
For one thing, there certainly are success stories of people who have dropped dozens of pounds by drastically altering their lifestyles. Moreover, watching one’s diet can have beneficial health effects beyond losing weight.
And I just cannot conceive of a session with an overweight patient that does not involve a discussion of being careful at holiday meals, controlling portion size, avoiding bedtime snacks and trying to exercise three times a week. Somehow it still seems to me that part of a doctor’s job is to push patients to try harder. Just call me old-fashioned.
Posted on July 10, 2007 by Joel Fuhrman
Adapted from Dr. Fuhrman’s book Eat to Live:
Social support: Include family and friends in your plan. Ask others to join you—not with the purpose of recruiting them to eating healthy, but so they will support and understand why you are changing your diet. If they are truly your friends, they will support you in your desire to improve your health and will try to have the right food choices available when you are around. Maybe they will even join you on your quest. It is extremely helpful to find at least one friend to join you or support you on your road back to superior health.
Stimulus control: Implement strategies to prevent temptation and exposure to sedentary activities or social eating. The most important stimulus-control technique is structuring your environment. This means removing temptation from your home and stocking your boards and refrigerators with the proper foods. Eat only at the kitchen table, not while watching television. When you finish dinner, clean up and leave the kitchen area, then brush your teeth, so you are not tempted to return and snack again. Lay out your exercise clothes for the morning so you are reminded to begin your day with your exercise program.
When going out to social situations, eat first or bring your own food if you cannot arrange in advance to have food that meets your needs. Volunteer to bring food for the other guests, too; then you have something you can eat with distress. Try not to make food the center of your life. Keep active with interests that keep you from thinking about eating.
Posted on July 5, 2007 by Joel Fuhrman
Adapted from Dr. Fuhrman’s book Eat to Live:
Eat beans or legumes everyday. Your goal should be to eat an entire cup (or more) of beans daily. Beans are a powerhouse of superior nutrition. They reduce cholesterol and blood sugar. They have a high nutrient-per-calorie profile and help prevent food cravings. They are digested slowly, which has a stabilizing effect on your blood sugar and a resultant high satiety index. Eggplant and beans, mushrooms and beans, greens and beans are all high-nutrient, high-fiber, low-calorie main dishes. Throw a cup of beans on your salad for lunch. Eat bean soup. Scientific studies show a linear relationship between soup consumption and successful weight-loss.1 As weight-loss strategy, eating soup helps by slowing your rate of intake and reducing your appetite by filling your stomach.
Eat lots of mushrooms all the time. Mushrooms make a great chewy replacement for meat. Exploring their varieties is a great way to add interesting flavors and texture to your diet. Store them in paper bags, not plastic, as too much moisture speeds spoilage. Try adding them to beans, seasoned with herbs and lemon juice. Even though they are fungus, and not a real vegetable, mushrooms contain a variety of powerful phytochemicals and have been linked to decreased risk of chronic diseases, especially cancer.
Continue Reading...
Posted on July 5, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Nothing too shocking here, but,
a new study has determined that diet counseling helps dieters lose more weight. Madeline Vann of
HealthDay News reports:
The team at the Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, analyzed 46 studies focused on weight loss. They compared data from almost 6,400 people whose programs included dietary counseling and almost 5,500 people who were not in these types of programs.
Programs with frequent meetings and calorie restrictions resulted in more successful weight loss over time, according to the study, which is published in he Annals of Internal Medicine.
Three years later, most people maintained half the overall weight loss. However, by the end of five years, all participants had regained the weight.
"We did not know how much weight people lost on average through weight loss programs or how long it took to gain it back. This study shows that lifestyle change needs to be for the long-term," study author Dr. Michael L. Dansinger, a physician at Tufts-New England Medical Centers Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, said in a prepared statement.
Posted on June 28, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
The director of "
Sicko" seems to have taken his own message to heart. The often scrutinized filmmaker has lost a bunch of weight.
Here are some of his weight-loss tips via Diet-Blog:
- Increase Your Physical Activity: Walk 30-40 minutes a day - "sweat a bit" says Moore.
- Start your breakfast each day with Oatmeal. "I eat at least 35 grams of fiber every day. Eat foods that are heavy in weight but low in calories."
- Diets? "Like every overweight person, I’ve tried everything. Weight Watchers, no white food, etc. None of them work, and they’re a huge waste of time."
- Get enough sleep. Moore believes that most overweight people do not sleep enough and now tries to sleep between 7-8 hours a night.
Love him or hate him, this is some pretty sound advice. Although, that’s a little too much oatmeal for my liking—I’d have fruit withdrawals!
Posted on June 27, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
New research claims that
diabetics can lose weight with portion control. Robert Preidt of
HealthDay News reports:
Over six months, about half of 122 patients (average age 56) used the portion-control plates and bowls, while the rest of the patients received usual care consisting of dietary assessments and teaching by dietitians.
The patients who used the portion-control plates and bowls lost an average of 1.8 percent of their body weight, compared to an average of 0.1 percent among those who received usual care.
The University of Calgary researchers also found that 16.9 percent of the patients who used the portion-control plates and bowls, which were donated by a U.K. company called The Diet Plate, lost at least 5 percent of their body weight, compared with 4.6 percent of patients who received usual care.
This is all well and good, but, Dr. Fuhrman doesn’t think portion control is a great idea. Actually, he finds it kind of futile. Here’s an example why, from
Bad News for Portion Control:
It is meaningless to compare foods by weight or portion size. Let me provide an example to explain why this is the case. Take one teaspoon of melted butter, which gets 100 percent of its calories from fat. If I take that teaspoon of butter and mix it in a glass of hot water, I can now say that it is 98 percent fat-free, by weight. One hundred percent of its calories are still from fat. It didn’t matter how much water or weight was added, did it?
Posted on June 26, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Well, the odd certainly gets an audience here on
DiseaseProof. Late last year we learned that
snail venom might actually work as a pain medication, and now,
gila monster spit for weight-loss—no, I’m not joking. Robert Preidt of
HealthDay News reports:
The Gila monster is a venomous lizard that lives in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico.
This study of 217 patients found that three years of treatment with the drug exenatide (brand name Byetta) resulted in sustained, progressive weight loss averaging 11 pounds. Many of the patients also showed sustained reductions in blood sugar levels and in blood biomarkers that indicate liver injury.
The findings were to be presented Monday at the annual scientific sessions of the American Diabetes Association, in Chicago.
"Overweight and weight gain is an almost universal problem for people with diabetes," lead researcher Dr. John Buse, chief of endocrinology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, said in a prepared statement. Buse is also the ADA's president-elect for medicine and science and will become president in September.
Posted on June 26, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
The NBA big man is whipping kids into shape on his new show:
(Via TrueHoop)
Posted on June 12, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Here’s more proof that humans might not be the most intelligent creatures on earth. Are you desperate to lose weight? Why bother doing the logical thing—eating right and exercising. Instead, take some magic pills.
Magic jelly pills that expand in our stomachs that is. Nicole Martinelli of
Wired explains:
Italian scientists are testing a new diet pill that turns into a clear, gelatinous blob the size of a tennis ball that may help shrink waistlines by giving dieters a sense of satiety.
The pill, currently undergoing clinical trials at Rome's Policlinico Gemelli hospital, would be downed with two glasses of water at the first sign of a stomach rumble.
"The effect is like eating a nice plate of pasta," said Luigi Ambrosio, lead researcher on the project at the National Research Council's Institute for Composite and Biomedical Materials in Naples. "If you sit down for a meal with a stomach that already feels full, you'll end up eating less."
The unnamed pill is made from a cellulose compound of hydrogel, a material that's powdery when dry but plumps up to a cousin of Jell-O when wet. The gel can soak up to 1,000 times its weight. A gram in capsule form quickly balloons from the size of a spit wad to a ball that holds nearly a liter of liquid.
Now, if just hearing about it isn’t gross enough, check out this photo. Prepared to gag:
I can literally see Dr. Fuhrman rolling his eyes in disgust. But permit me to be serious for a second. This just highlights how blindly obsessed people are with losing weight. I’m sure there’ll be a line of people waiting to give these jelly pills a whirl, which is sad because as Dr. Fuhrman explains magic pills just aren’t the answer. From
Eat to Live:
Don't be conned by diet pills, magic in a bottle, or fat absorbers. Anything really effective is not safe, and those that are safe are not effective. To deal with the real problem, you must make real changes.
Now, when you get serious and switch to a nutrient-dense health-promoting diet, then you’ll really start to see results. More from
Eat to Live:
My observations over the years have convinced me that eating healthfully makes you drop unwanted pounds efficiently. It’s as if the body wants to get rid of unhealthy tissue quickly. I have seen this happen time and time again. Eating the exact same diet, many patients drop weight quickly and easily and then automatically stop losing when they reach an ideal weight. Time and time again, I have see individuals who were not overweight nonetheless lose weigh after the switch. In a few months, however, they gravitated back to their former weight as their health improved. It is as if the body wanted to exchange unhealthy issue for healthy tissue.
(Via Diet-Blog)
Posted on June 11, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Late last month
Diet-Blog passed on some new research linking fruits and veggies to weight-loss. Now today, Robert Preidt of
HealthDay News reports on the study. Read on:
"Eating a diet that is low in calorie density allows people to eat satisfying portions of food, and this may decrease feelings of hunger and deprivation while reducing calories," study author Dr. Julia A. Ello-Martin said in a prepared statement.
She and her colleagues compared 71 obese women, ages 22 to 60, who ate either a reduced-fat diet or a reduced-fat diet that also included water-rich foods.
After one year, both groups showed significant weight loss and a decrease in the calorie density of their diets. But the women on the fat-reduced/water-rich diet lost more weight during the first six months of the study -- 19.6 lbs. vs. 14.7 lbs.
The researchers found that the women on the reduced-fat/water-rich diet ate 25 percent more food by weight and felt less hungry than the women on the reduced-fat diet.
Posted on May 31, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Dr. Fuhrman makes it very clear, you want to lose weight? Eat lots of fruits and veggies. They’re low in calories and heavy in bulk—meaning? You feel full, without consuming a lot of calories. Take green vegetables for example,
according to Dr. Fuhrman eating plenty of green veggies will actually make you thin:
Green vegetables are so incredibly low in calories and rich in nutrients and fiber that the more you eat of them, the more weight you will lose. One of my secrets of nutritional excellence and superior healing is the one pound-one pound rule. That is, try to eat at least one pound of raw green vegetables a day and one pound of cooked/steamed or frozen green vegetables a day as well. One pound raw and one pound cooked--keep this goal in mind as you design and eat every meal. This may be too ambitious a goal for some of us to reach, but by working toward it, you will ensure the dietary balance and results you want. The more greens you eat, the more weight you will lose. The high volume of greens not only will be your secret to a thin waistline but will simultaneously protect you against life threatening illnesses.
Now, this next item shouldn’t be all that surprising.
Researchers at Pennsylvania State University have determined fruits and vegetables are an essential part of weight-loss.
Diet-Blog is on it:
Their study included 658 healthy men and women divided into two groups.
- Group 1: Told to eat 9 to 12 daily servings of fruits and vegetables and 2 to 3 servings of low-fat dairy.
- Group 2: Told to reduce calorie intake, but were not given goals for fruit, vegetable and dairy intake.
Those who made the greatest reductions in the energy or calorie density of their diets lost an average of 13 pounds over 6 months. Those who made the smallest reduction in energy lost 5 pounds over the same period.
I try to include as many fruits and vegetables in my diet because I like the filling sensation. I also believe that consuming more more fresh foods will increase the intake of fiber, vitamins and minerals.
Posted on April 11, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
New research has determined
an encouraging phone call can be the key to weight-loss. “Hello. Health and fitness calling, may I speak to tubby please?”
Reuters reports:
In a review of 26 studies on telephone health counseling, Australian researchers found that most showed the tactic to be successful. In more than three-quarters of the studies, phone advice from nurses or other counselors helped men and women improve their eating and exercise habits.
The findings, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, are good news for people who can't or won't join a formal group activity, according to the study authors.
"It shows that support for physical activity and dietary change can come from a variety of mechanisms," lead author Dr. Elizabeth Eakin, a researcher at the University of Queensland, said in a statement. "This is great news for people who don't want to join a more structured group program or who don't have access."
Posted on February 13, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Okay readers. Let’s hear it, “Yes!” Just watch television for a few minutes and you’re bound to be bombarded with numerous ads for sugary breakfast cereals, reduced fat mini-cupcakes, or low-carb crackers. The industrial revolution never ended, it just shifted focus.
Diet-Blog ponders our obsession with processed junk food:
Go to any grocery store, and you'll see rows and rows of shelves filled with processed food. Many boast various health claims – less sugar, more fiber, low fat, heart healthy – you get the picture…
… In my opinion, it's time to get back to basics and consume foods that will nourish our bodies. Then we might actually see a decline in obesity rates and our next generation might not die before their parents.
Now Dr. Fuhrman also has a gripe with refined foods, centering on their lack of important dietary fiber and nutrients. He elaborates on this in
Eat to Live:
The reality is that healthy, nutritious foods are also very rich in fiber and that those foods associated with disease risk are generally fiber-deficient. Meat and dairy products do not contain any fiber, and foods made from refined grains (such as white bread, white rice, and pasta) have had their fiber removed. Clearly, we must substantially reduce our consumption of these fiber-deficient foods if we expect to lose weight and live a long, healthy life.
Fiber intake from food is a good marker of disease risk. The amount of fiber consumed may better predict weight gain, insulin levels, and other cardiovascular risk factors than does the amount of total fat consumed, according to recent studies reported in the October 27, 1999, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.1 Again, data show that removing the fiber from food is extremely dangerous.
For more on America’s obsession with industrialized food check out these recent posts:
Continue Reading...
Posted on February 7, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Dr. Fuhrman’s radio show Nutritional Wisdom airs live Wednesdays at 11am EST with an encore presentation Thursdays at 3pm EST on VoiceAmerica. Here’s a peek at this week’s episode:
Less than 3 out of 100 people are successful in losing weight and keeping it off. For those wondering why they can never find success in dieting this is the episode for you! Dr. Fuhrman discusses the four dimensions of hunger and how nutritional ignorance fuels overeating. Also, what are the pitfalls and myths of dieting and weight loss? Tune in, get a dose of Nutritional Wisdom, and take control of your health and weight.
Check out the Nutritional Wisdom category for previous episodes.
Posted on January 9, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
According to the report of the study published in the Journal of Pediatrics, overweight rates increased through adolescence from 7 to 10 percent in the Caucasian girls and from 17 to 24 percent in African American girls. Girls were 1.6 times more likely to become overweight between 9 and 12 years of age than in later adolescence.
She said she’d skip the wine but would take the cheese. Then she grabbed a handful of cheese cubes off the food platter and stuffed them into her mouth. After she swallowed, she looked at me, smiled, and said she wanted to die if she couldn't eat what she wanted. I called the doctor and my patient was treated for a sharp rise in her blood pressure.
The problem was the letter Karlind discovered, tucked inside her report card, saying that she had a body mass index in the 80th percentile. The first grader did not know what “index” or “percentile” meant, or that children scoring in the 5th through 85th percentiles are considered normal, while those scoring higher are at risk of being or already overweight.
My best advice is to keep the food that you want on hand and keep the types you don't out of the house. Start your children with healthy eating habits as soon as possible. Read labels and make informed choices.
The effects of the green-tea drinks go beyond those of caffeine-laden zero-calorie sodas, the manufacturers of Celsius and Enviga say. An antioxidant found in green tea — epigallocatechin gallate, or EGCG — significantly increases metabolism, they say, which boosts the body's ability to burn fat.
Soft drink consumption:
- All Americans: 6.4% of total caloric intake.
- Teenage boys: 10%
- Teenage girls: 9%
- Will an online fitness tracker help people get people exercising? The American Heart Association sure hopes so. More from Jamie Stengle of the Associated Press:
The group hopes its new free Start! program will inspire Americans to follow through on those resolutions to get in shape. With its online fitness and nutrition tracker, participants can enter what they eat each day and how much exercise they get, then get a summary of calories in and calories out.
- Ever heard of the Swine Flu? Sounds like something you order at a bar. Aetiology enlightens us:
The main swine viruses circulating are of serotypes H1N1, H3N2, and H1N2. (The news report doesn't identify the serotype this person was infected with). Some of these viruses are combinations of human, swine, and avian influenza viruses, and swine have previously been implicated in the generation of pandemic influenza viruses due to their ability to serve as a "mixing vessel" for avian and human-type influenza viruses. And since they're so closely related to humans (well, much more closely related than, say, birds, anyway), there is concern that a swine virus (or an avian virus that becomes adapted to mammals by infecting a pig) could enter the human population and wreak havoc. So, in a nutshell, that's one reason why we're so interested in swine influenza, even though "bird flu" has recently been so dominant in the news. And though this news report shows a fairly simple scenario so far, it raises a lot of unanswered questions.
Posted on January 5, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
What does 200 calories of food look like? Actually, that’s kind of a trick question because it depends on the food. According to Dr. Fuhrman small amounts of some foods like meat and diary are more calorie-dense than larger amounts of fruits and vegetables. Check out the chart in
Foods That Make You Thin for more
Of course, if you prefer pictures, take a look at what’s going on over at
WiseGeek. You’ll see that the portion size of 200 calories worth of celery, baby carrots, or broccoli, dwarf what you get from 200 calories of canola oil, uncooked pasta, or cheddar cheese. Gee, I wonder, which foods help you lose weight? Now that’s not a trick question!
WiseGeek: What Does 200 Calories Look Like?
Posted on January 4, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
The idea of preventing Alzheimer's and other forms of mental decline is immensely attractive -- and there is some early evidence that this may be possible. Recent research, including an article published two weeks ago in the Journal of the American Medical Association, shows that boosting mental skills with simple exercises can help slow the rate of decline as people age.
Dr. Lleras-Muney and others point to one plausible explanation — as a group, less educated people are less able to plan for the future and to delay gratification. If true, that may, for example, explain the differences in smoking rates between more educated people and less educated ones.
Smokers are at least twice as likely to die at any age as people who never smoked, says Samuel Preston, a demographer at the University of Pennsylvania. And not only are poorly educated people more likely to smoke but, he says, “everybody knows that smoking can be deadly,” and that includes the poorly educated.
In January 2006, a group of residents concerned about the town's health started a free program called "Get Lost in Jackson." Over the next year, participants checked in at monthly weigh-ins; attended classes on fitness, nutrition and health; and began exercising.
“In 19th Century China, being heavy was a sign of great wealth and success, both for men and for women. So this is really a change in the sense that . . . China has been a very poor country, and people are just very, very thin. Now, of course, China is doing very well, and many people have a very reasonable lifestyle and are not suffering at all, but it's not just something the eye is accustomed to seeing and the cultural norm is just that smaller is better.”
The legislation is part of a handful of sweeping bills that Kennedy and others will seek to pass as Democrats begin running Congress. Republicans like Tom DeLay , the former House majority leader who helped to thwart tobacco regulation, are no longer in office.
Low dietary calcium and vitamin D: Milk and other dairy products can provide a major source of bone-building calcium to most diets. Leafy green vegetables and soybeans are also high in calcium.
While some pundits rank radical feminism among the top threats to American manhood, James Rutz says we should shift some blame to tofu.
That's because tofu is made of soy. And soy consumption, writes the Megashift Ministries founder and religion columnist for conservative news site WorldNetDaily.com, "commonly leads to decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality."
Red tomatoes contain lycopene, which not only is good for your heart but also fights cancer and could boost prostate-gland health too.
Blue and purple fruits such as blackberries, black currants and plums promote urinary-tract health and memory function and could thwart the development of cancer. Cranberries have been shown to increase HDL, or good cholesterol, and they act as powerful antioxidants
Losing weight because you want to look good is an extrinsic motivation and one that usually won't take you very far. "Aesthetics can't drive it hard enough, like wanting to fit into your skinny jeans," Dixie Douville, a certified fitness trainer and co-founder of Active Weigh Health and Weight Loss Coaching in Flanders said. "The biggest reason it doesn't work is, a lot of people are unreasonable with the goals they set."
Posted on January 3, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
How’s that for sensationalism? Not good enough? Try these on for size: "Get the body you want" and "Hit your dream weight now!” Carla K. Johnson of the
Associated Press reports headlines like those might actually
influence unhealthy dieting behavior in young girls later in life. This according to a new study:
Teenage girls who frequently read magazine articles about dieting were more likely five years later to practice extreme weight-loss measures such as vomiting than girls who never read such articles, the University of Minnesota study found.
It didn't seem to matter whether the girls were overweight when they started reading about weight loss, nor whether they considered their weight important. After taking those factors into account, researchers still found reading articles about dieting predicted later unhealthy weight loss behavior.
Posted on January 2, 2007 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
This year, farmers planted about three-quarters of a million acres of low-linolenic soybeans, about a third to a half of what is needed to meet the demand, said Steven W. Poole, a spokesman for Qualisoy, an association that researches and promotes soybeans with enhanced traits.
Ultimately, Mr. Poole anticipates that as many as five million acres of low-linolenic soybeans could be planted in the United States as more partially hydrogenated oils are replaced.
I've always liked fresh corn and peas. Each brightly colored, with a crisp sweetness, and both best when cooked very gently. Sit those kernels on a plate, they make a nice visual statement as well. Slopped between loops of intestine, stuck above the liver, soiling the hidden spaces around the pancreas and duodenum, filling the pelvis, some of the sensual pleasure of what may have been a nice meal gets lost, and dealing with it puts me off the feed for a while. Doesn't smell all that great, either. If it's embarrassing to get a drop of soup on your tie, imagine how it'd feel to see your omentum harboring a whole salad. Hanging down from the transverse colon like a wet apron, it can hide lots of cranberries in its crannies; getting them loose requires individual plucking, and can take a while. The upside is that a person with a perforated ulcer is generally in a lot of pain, and sewing up the hole, cleaning out the food, and copiously irrigating away the acids means s/he is likely to wake up with a smile. I can put up with a little personal unpleasantness when it produces results like that.
One 45-year-old professional writer -- who asked not to be named in order to speak more candidly -- described how she lost nearly 100 pounds over three years after doing some heavy soul-searching. "I had to think, 'Why do I do things that aren't so healthy?' and think about what motivates me, not only to be healthy but also what motivates one to not be healthy. What was I getting out of that?"
It is when people fail to develop healthy coping mechanisms that they fall back on bad habits such as smoking, according to John Banzhaf, George Washington University law professor and executive director of the District-based anti-smoking group Action on Smoking and Health. "And then a cigarette is no longer enough, so you go to alcohol. And on and on."
At times like this, you need beauty. Doesn't matter if it's a sunset or Body Worlds or a good bottle of wine; you need beauty.
And getting next to it can be enough. Getting to hear fetal heart tones coming from the belly of a woman who's had successful emergency surgery can be enough. Seeing one person walk that you never thought would is enough. Having a patient who's well enough to eat the food his family brought in for Eid ul-Adha is enough.
New guidelines from the industry are due in April on how to prevent contamination throughout the food chain, from before greens are planted until they reach the dinner table.
Members of Congress are asking federal agencies to report on what went wrong and how to fix the problem. Some lawmakers want to replace the patchwork system of federal food regulation with a single agency in charge of what people eat.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now estimates that one in three children born in the U.S. five years ago is expected to become diabetic in their lifetime. The number of diabetics has grown by 80% in the past decade.
As 2007 dawns, there are no wildly popular weight loss fads sweeping the country on the scale of Atkins or South Beach a few years ago, or, to a lesser extent, the Sonoma and Shangri-la diets of last year.
Bah! You're hardly meat. But you are quite popular, and people aspire to taste like you. You're probably quite skinny and free of vices. Except letting people eat your eggs.
Posted on December 29, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
- Personally I don’t put much stake in the Body Mass Index, but in case you’re interested, Abby Ellin of The New York Times reports on its growing popularity:
“Our society is really fixated on numbers, and the problem is when it comes to weight distribution and the risk for heart disease, it’s not just one number — it’s the percentage of body fat, B.M.I. and waist size that matters,” said Dr. Nieca Goldberg, a cardiologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan.
Dieting will be with us for a long time to come, and so will a plethora of popular diets. My hope is that the popular diets today (many of which have useful nutritional advice) will not just be used as a brief attempt at a quick fix - but that the good principles of nutrition will be taken to heart.
A review of nearly 2,000 3-year-old, low-income children and their mothers found that one-third of white and black children were overweight or obese, while a stunning 44 percent of Latino children fell into those categories.
- Fast Weight Loss offers up some pretty basic diet tips. I’m not sure Dr. Fuhrman would agree with all of them, but here are a few that seem okay:
5. Give some time to exercise. It is not going to take hours to exercise. What you have to do is give 30 or 40 minute to exercise.
6. Avoid drinking soda as much as you can and replace that by water.
7. Avoid breads, cereals and pasta in your food.
- Next time you’ve got aches and pains you might want to reach for the spice-rack. At least that seems to be the message of this CNN report. More from Amy Paturel:
Turmeric: Because rates of Alzheimer's disease are lower in India, where the population eats a diet containing more turmeric than Western diets, scientists have suggested the spice may be linked to preserving mental function. "The compounds in turmeric have demonstrated antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and cholesterol-lowering properties -- all thought to be involved in the onset of Alzheimer's disease," says Sally Frautschy, Ph.D., associate professor of medicine and neurology at UCLA.
Lots of craziness and hilarity at work these last few nights. Christmas night wasn’t horrible, but it was busier than I expected. At least the holiday kept the violence down… until 0016, when there was a shooting two miles from the hospital and we got two really bad gunshot wounds in as traumas… It was sort of a nice, “well, it’s not Christmas anymore” moment… Not Norman Rockwell, exactly…
Inside a recent issue: an interview with pro volleyball player Kerri Walsh, stories on flag football and kids' cross-country running, and step-by-step photos that demonstrate how to do five morning exercises, such as squats and shoulder rotations. There are also articles on how to pick a healthy lunch at school, study smarter and snack right.
Researchers from George Washington University tested a vegan diet and the ADA-recommended diet to see which worked best in the management of diabetes, kidney function, cholesterol levels and weight loss. Around 100 adults diagnosed with type 2 diabetes participated, with half following a low-fat vegan diet and half following the ADA-recommended guidelines. Overweight ADA dieters were also advised to reduce their calorie intake by 500-1,000 calories. According to experts, one small risk associated with a vegan diet is a lack of vitamin B12, so the vegan participants’ meals were supplemented with B12 vitamins.
Posted on December 14, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
“I don’t think people who count calories eat at McDonald’s,” said Michelle Iadarola of Staten Island. Although she rarely eats at McDonald’s, she was about to order a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit (440 calories) because she was in a hurry. The calorie count made no difference.
The law is considered radical both by people who hold food companies partly responsible for the obesity crisis and by those who see the government’s regulation of food deemed unhealthy as an affront to freedom of choice.
This doesn’t mean that the road is not long and rough. I do feel disappointed when I end up caving to myself and eating food that I shouldn’t. Eating for comfort and stress relief is something that I do have to get a grip on, and will. Sometimes I do get feeling down about my progress, especially when I get into these places where I struggle to get the scale moving. Losing weight is tough, and I want to be as honest about my experience as possible. It’s not all good, but I do try to find the positive. I’m sorry if sometimes this doesn’t come through, I will be more vigilant about it in the future.
Dr. Teri Brentnall, an associate professor of gastroenterology at the University of Washington in Seattle, announced the discovery Tuesday during a news briefing in New York, saying the discovery marks one of the biggest advances in pancreatic cancer.
With the gene now in hand, scientists have a marker that can be spotted in blood tests. Brentnall has used such a test in her Seattle studies. By testing for the cancer, she said, doctors can mount an assault on the cancer before it starts.
- People thought that low-fat snacks were 20-25 percent lower in calories (confusing low-fat with low-calorie - in fact low-fat snacks tend to be about 15% less calories).
- Normal weight people would eat 30 more calories per session (i.e. when presented with a low-fat snack).
- Overweight people would eat an average of 90 more calories when presented with a low-fat option.
"We have identified several ingredients that may be associated with the outbreak. These include lettuce, ground beef and cheddar cheese," Dr. Christopher Braden, a medical epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a teleconference late Wednesday. "The most likely food vehicle is lettuce. But we are still looking at other food items."
Obesity cannot go unchecked and it is a threat to the health and welfare of children and adults alike, as obesity is linked to greater increased risks for a number of life-threatening diseases like heart disease, diabetes and cancer. But, it is uncomfortable to think that one of the solutions to childhood obesity is a scalpel.
In a study of older women, researchers found that a physically active smoker had a 35 percent lower risk of lung cancer than a sedentary smoker.
Even so, one expert called that reduction trivial because smoking itself is so risky. And Dr. Kathryn Schmitz, the study’s lead author, stressed that exercising does not give women a free pass to smoke.
Posted on December 6, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Dr. Fuhrman’s radio show Nutritional Wisdom airs live Wednesdays at 11am EST with an encore presentation Thursdays at 3pm EST on VoiceAmerica. Here’s a peek at this week’s episode:
There is a recipe for successful, permanent weight loss that is just as effective as gastric bypass – high nutrient eating. Thousands of Dr. Fuhrman’s clients have successfully lost hundreds of pounds and in this episode he shares his effective secrets to success. Listen in as Dr. Fuhrman explains how you can unlock the secret to permanent weight loss.
Check out the Nutritional Wisdom category for previous episodes.
Posted on December 5, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
- Did you hear about the E. coli outbreak in New Jersey? No? Well I live in Jersey, and I can tell you—it’s all over the news! So if you haven’t heard about it, Chris Newmarker of the Associated Press will fill you in:
Authorities were still trying to determine how and where the victims became infected over the past two weeks. At least 11 of them ate at a Taco Bell restaurant in South Plainfield, and authorities were expected to finish tests on restaurant workers Monday.
I shaped a slice of firm tofu into a tiger's head, then fried it in a bit of oil until it turned golden brown. The tiger stripes are bits of nori seaweed cut with scissors; the face is more nori cut out with a "happy face" paper punch. The tiger sits on a bed of rice, and up above you can see a plastic squirting fish filled with soy sauce.
Outdoor clothing company L.L. Bean, Inc. shuts down its manufacturing line three times a day for mandatory five-minute stretches, designed to prevent the most common injuries the workers suffer…
…After L.L. Bean increased the price for burgers and lowered the price for salads in its cafeteria fruit and salad bar purchases doubled while French fry and burger sales fell by half.
- Honestly, I thought a Kiwano was the type of robe people in Japan wear. Not so. FatFree Vegan Kitchen shares her take on this freakish looking fruit:
When you cut open a kiwano, you find that it's attractive even on the inside, a bright green color with lots of nicely formed seeds. But when you try to remove the "fruit" from the shell you discover that it's just a gelatinous mass and that those seeds are too tough to eat. Taste it and you find that it tastes decidedly "green"--not bad, really, but not good either. And the one I bought wasn't sweet at all.
- Do we have any readers from Minnesota? If so, take a bow because according to the Associated Press your state is the healthiest in the country. You’ve topped United Health Foundation rankings for the fourth straight year—congratulations! Frederic J. Frommer has more:
Minnesota, which has held the top spot in 11 of the 17 years of the survey, was cited for, among other things, its low rate of uninsured (8.4 percent), low percentage of children in poverty (10 percent), and low infant mortality rate (5.1 deaths per 1,000 live births).
- Something that really amazes me is fast food restaurants in hospitals. I don’t know. It just doesn’t put the vibe out there that Americans are serious about health. “Hey guys! Since my triple-bypass was a success, let’s celebrate with a cheeseburger and fries!” According Robert Preidt of HealthDay News some health researchers share this concern:
"At a time when obesity has become the most common, critical medical condition of childhood and consumption of fast food is widely considered to be a major contributor to this epidemic, the location of such restaurants in pediatric health care facilities promotes dietary choices that are contrary to the desired messages and established recommendations of our profession," lead researcher and pediatrician Dr. Hannah Sahud, of Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, said in a prepared statement.
- Ever wonder what doctors would be if they weren’t doctors? Well UroStream has decided that if she wasn’t taking care of people, she’d be a restaurant critic. Sounds like a good premise for a sitcom. Urologist by day, restaurant connoisseur by night—I just hope she washes her hands. Here’s her story:
But I've thought this over, and I've finally reached my dream alternative career choice: restaurant critic. I mean, I love food, I have an adventuresome yet discriminating palate, I like to write, and I eat out a lot. If I could get paid to do this, it would indeed be my ideal job.
Early results suggest some compounds in mangoes work by activating or inhibiting groups of receptors known as peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors, or PPARs. PPARs play a role in cellular metabolism. The findings of this study could present positive nutritional health benefits for diabetes and high cholesterol. Furthermore, preliminary findings also suggest that mango skin, often a component of mango juice, is particularly rich in these compounds.
Posted on December 4, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
You don’t need to be a master of observation to recognize this country’s obsession with weight; obesity is constantly in the news, diet pills and supplements are everywhere, and fad diets, like Atkins and South Beach, run amuck. But maybe all our concern is justified, because according to Dr. Fuhrman the number one health problem in the United States is obesity.
In
Eat to Live he points out that if this current trend continues by the year 2030 all adults in the United States will be obese. Well isn’t that a depressing glimpse into the future. Now, consider this recent article in
The New York Times and you’ll see it could be a whole lot worse—for each and every one of us.
Reporter Damon Darlin takes a look at the individual cost of being heavy—and he’s not referring to the toll it can take on your health—
Darlin is talking about the actual price tag for being overweight or obese. And the cost is a lot more than just a few bags of cookies. Take a look:
Heavy people do not spend more than normal-size people on food, but their life insurance premiums are two to four times as large. They can expect higher medical expenses, and they tend to make less money and accumulate less wealth in their shortened lifetimes. They can have a harder time being hired, and then a harder time winning plum assignments and promotions…
…Complications from obesity, particularly diabetes, which afflicts 21 million Americans, push up the bill: $44,000 for a heart attack, $40,200 for a stroke or $37,000 for end-state kidney disease, estimates Judith A. O’Brien, the director of cost research at the Caro Research Institute, a health costs consulting firm. Amputating just a toe, a not uncommon consequence of untreated diabetes, averages $15,000, she estimates.
You don’t usually get this kind of perspective in the obesity discussion. Usually the overall cost obesity inflicts on the society gets all the press. So I was surprised to read how being overweight can directly effect a person’s ability to accumulate wealth. Now here’s the scary part. Couple Dr. Fuhrman’s prediction with Darlin’s investigation; does this mean by 2030 all Americans will be fat and broke?
Posted on December 4, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
We spend a lot of time worrying about calories. “How many calories are in that? What’s the serving size? I burned 100 calories on the treadmill today!” But is it just all about calories? Not so according to Dr. Fuhrman. He’ll tell you, it’s also about nutrition. If it wasn’t, then calories from milk, meat, oil, vegetables, and fruit would all be the same. Guess what? They’re not!
Now we all know people like
Charles Stuart Platkin the “Diet Detective” don’t get it. He makes all his food determinations based solely on calorie content. But laypeople can be just as misguided. Candice Choi of the
Associated Press explains
more and more people love new low-calorie foods—loaded with dairy, Olestra, sugar alcohols, and fat and sugar substitutes:
According to ACNielsen, U.S. supermarket, drug-store and discount sales of products labeled low-, no- and reduced-fat reached $32.1.billion for a one-year period ending Oct. 7, up from $31.7.billion for the same time period in 2002…
… Many diet foods, however, rely on fat and sugar substitutes that have raised health concerns, he said. Olestra, the fat substitute used in Frito Lay's light potato chips, can cause cramps and diarrhea. Sugar alcohols, used in a variety of desserts and low-carb foods, including Snackwell's Sugar Free Shortbread Cookies, can have a laxative effect in high quantities.
In my opinion, you want a quick snack? Have a piece of fruit and don’t worry about the calories—that’s what I do. Personally, I don’t pay much attention to “health food.” To me, all those South Beach bars, Snackwells cookies, and low-carb treats are just junk. I don’t care if some ice-creams are low-fat, low-carb, reduced-calorie, trans-fat free, all natural, or with no chemical additives—I’m still not eating it.
Posted on November 29, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Last week Sally Squires of
The Washington Post explained that
eating lots of plant matter and less animal products is a good way to keep weight in check. She referred to the term “energy density” which is used to describe foods puffed up with air or filled with fiber and water that can help you feel full on fewer calories. Dr. Fuhrman calls this caloric density. In case you missed it, here’s his definition from
Eat to Live:
Because meats, dairy, and oils are so dense in calories, it is practically impossible for us to eat them without consuming an excess of calories. These calorie-rich foods can pile up a huge number of calories way before our stomachs are full and our hunger satisfied. However, eating foods higher in nutrients and fiber and lower in calories allows us to become satiated without consuming excess calories.
When subjects eating foods low in caloric density, such as fruits and vegetables, are compared with those consuming foods richer in calories, those on meal plans with higher calorie concentrations were found to consume twice as many calories per day in order to satisfy their hunger.1
Yesterday Squires talked a little more about the importance of dietary fiber. In her report, entitled
Building a Taste for Bulk, she examines studies that link increased consumption of fiber with weight-control and weight-loss. Take a look:
University of Rhode Island researchers reported recently that women who ate fiber-rich, whole-grain cereals did better in controlling their calories during a three-month study than did participants who ate less fiber-full fare. Plus, those who ate high-fiber cereal also wound up consuming more of other essential nutrients, especially vitamin B6 and magnesium, the team reported in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.
This isn't the first study to find weight benefits in eating high-fiber foods. In 2004, Harvard School of Medicine researchers reported high-fiber diets helped women maintain their weight during a 12-year study of 75,000 nurses.
All this makes sense to me. Even as a layman I get it—fiber-full foods like fruits and vegetables take up more space in our stomachs than do equal size portions of foods like steak and oil.
You might also want to check out this post
Nutrient Density of Green Vegetables. It’ll show you just how poorly an equal portion of sirloin matches up nutritionally against broccoli, Romaine lettuce, and kale. The data shouldn’t surprise you, especially in regard to fiber.
Now, reports like this usually fire up the low-carbers—“Eating all those things that grow on trees are full of carbs! Don’t do it!” But take a look at this post and you’ll see Dr. Fuhrman believes
the right kind of carbohydrates are essential to our bodies and actually encourage weight loss.
Continue Reading...
Posted on November 21, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
I once heard a chubby comedian say, “Men are like lasagna, we dress in layers.” And for a longtime this was my dress code; two layers of t-shirts, polo-shirt with t-shirt underneath, button-down shirt over t-shirt. Yup, I seldom left the house wearing only one layer. So you can imagine how much I dreaded the warmer summer months. How I’d yearn for winter!
But winter does have its drawbacks. Sure you can cover up those extra pounds with a little more clothing, but for many snuggling into a turtleneck and sweater, also means gobbling up more calorie-rich comfort food, especially around the holidays. Jane E. Brody of
The New York Times insists
this can be the beginning of a continuous weight-gaining cycle:
Then there’s the coming holiday season, replete with the stress of too much to do, high-calorie temptations at every turn and, it seems, not enough time to expend those extra calories.
The inevitable result for many of us? A few extra pounds that we must struggle to lose when the weather warms up and the days get longer next spring. Unfortunately, though, too often those pounds remain, only to increase further the next winter, and the next, until they undermine our health as well as our psyche.
For help preventing the cold weather weight-gain Brody enlists the aid of Dr. Michael D. Ozner, who as it turns out is a major advocate of the Mediterranean diet. Now, while
you won’t hear Dr. Fuhrman singing the praises of Mediterranean diet anytime soon, Ozner does make a couple useful suggestions that might help you avoid winter/holiday weight-gain.
For starters, Ozner is not big on red meat, claiming it contains too much saturated fat , which can lead to an
increased risk of cancer, heart attack, and stroke. He also encourages people to avoid
processed foods because many of them are loaded with
saturated fat,
sugar, salt,
trans fat, and
high-fructose corn syrup. Dr. Fuhrman would definitely agree. Dr. Ozner’s recommendation to get plenty of
exercise is another sound piece of advice. Although I can’t say the same for his tip about adding whey to food,
according to Dr. Fuhrman whey isn’t exactly a wonder-food.
Posted on November 8, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Nor do people crave foods that they have not already tasted. "Think of food cravings as a sensory memory," says psychologist Marcia Pelchat of the Monell Chemical Senses Center, a research organization in Philadelphia. "You remember how good it felt the last time you had that food. You have to have experienced eating it before."
Medicine has been too depressing for me lately. I just took care of a guy with life threatening, self-inflicted stab wounds to the neck and chest a few minutes ago. He was arrested during a meth lab bust. He yelled out to the police that he didn't want to go to jail, took a knife, cut his own neck and stabbed himself in the chest. He bagged his internal jugular and put a hole in his ventricle.
It was another appearance by Ingraham's mysterious underground candy salesman, a lanky, A- and B-average senior who has been defying the Seattle Public Schools' nutrition and solicitation policies for about a year. The Seattle Times agreed not to identify him, but around Ingraham, most teachers and administrators have looked the other way, anyway. Some buy from him.
When they were about halfway through their burgers they discovered marijuana on the meat and used a field test kit confirm it. They sought treatment at a hospital while their fellow officers arrested 3 Burger King employees and charged them with possession of marijuana and aggravated battery on an officer, a felony.
The number of alcohol-related deaths last year stood at 8,386, compared to 4,144 in 1991. Death rates among middle-aged men more than doubled to 30 per 100,000 of the population.
Lentils are high in protein, cholesterol-lowering soluble fiber, iron, most B vitamins, folate, molybdenum, manganese, phosphorous, copper, thiamin and potassium. The pigment in Beluga black lentils acts like an antioxidant and helps protect against heart disease, and cancer. Cooked lentils have only 230 calories per cup.
Many of the China's environmental disasters have been blamed on companies which, counting on lax enforcement of regulations, find it easier and cheaper to dump poisons into rivers and the ground instead of treating them.
You reach a "goal weight" - How did you come by this number? What is an ideal body weight and who decides what is normal?
You decided that you are happy with your appearance.
Yet what may seem like just another routine odd job around the house is really a vigorous aerobic workout that involves prolonged repetitive motion, twisting, bending, lifting and carrying. Due to the physically strenuous nature of the work, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons reminds those charged with the task to take proper safety measures to avoid injury.
A new study in mice suggests that sugary drinks contribute to liver damage. For the research, German scientists either gave mice sugar-sweetened water or water containing an artificial sweetner. They found that mice with the sugar water ate less but still gained more weight and also suffered from "fatty liver." The problem was worse when a specific type of sugar - fructose - was used. According to Reuters, the scientists concluded: "These data support the hypothesis that high fructose consumption may not only (damage) the liver through over-feeding, but may be" toxic to it.
Posted on November 2, 2006 by Joel Fuhrman
From Dr. Fuhrman’s book Eat to Live:
Don’t worry about it. Try to follow my rules for a longevity diet and just watch the weight fall off. If you were never able to lose weight in the past, be happy with about one to two pounds per week. If you are not losing weight as fast as you’d like, write down what you eat and how much, to see if you are really consuming a whole pound of raw vegetables a day and an entire pound of steamed green vegetables a day. If you are an overweight female following my guidelines and losing about one to two pounds per week, you are probably consuming about 1,100-1,400 calories a day. You can count calories if you want, but it is not necessary; you will feel sated and content on fewer calories than you were eating before.
My observations over the years have convinced me that eating healthfully makes you drop unwanted pounds efficiently, independent of caloric intake. It’s as if the body wants to get rid of unhealthy tissue quickly. I have seen this happen time and time again. Eating the exact same diet, many patients drop weight quickly and easily and then automatically stop losing when they reach an ideal weight. Time and time again, I have see individuals who were not overweight nonetheless lose weigh after the switch. In a few months, however, they gravitated back to their former weight as their health improved. It is as if the body wanted to exchange unhealthy issue for healthy tissue.
Posted on September 29, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
A study done by the doctors at Temple University in Philadelphia showed that music played during a colonoscopy procedure made some patients able to relax enough to require less sedation, without sacrificing comfort.
Researchers found that gaining weight during that interval — not during the pregnancy itself — raised the risk of such complications as diabetes and high blood pressure during the second pregnancy, and even stillbirth.
Believe it or not, it’s in her book, Confessions of an Heiress Paris Hilton her blonde girl teen diet advice. A die-hard fan of McDonald’s and Taco Bell, she recommends eating chocolate, fast food, lasagna, and Coca Cola.
The Culinary Institute [of America], which buys directly from about two dozen local farms, is among the many colleges providing healthier choices for their students while throwing a lifeline to farmers getting by on thin margins.
- Do you know what “learned helplessness” is? Neither did I. Retired Doc discusses its origin and how its affecting doctors in The United Kingdom. Could it become a problem in the United States? Maybe:
Are U.S. physicians far behind in the areas of learned helplessness and diminishing professionalism? To not speak out against the practices and structures of managed care that clearly are detrimental to patient care, and to go along to get along would be about as antithecal to medical professionalism as anything I can think of.
The mumps outbreak at Wheaton College has grown to 37 cases, with three more under investigation, DuPage County health officials said Thursday.
At a press conference yesterday, he said, "If you want to eat fries, nobody's taking away your ability to eat fries. I love McDonald's fries." It's just that restaurants should use fatty oils that just don't have trans fats! We expect McDonald's to be sending a truck of fries to City Hall shortly.
A Craftster competition to produce edible, miniature food inspired a wife-and-husband team to prepare an incredibly tiny fast food meal, complete with miniscule fries and a tiny soft drink -- they also made a miniature tray, cup, and fries-bag.
Posted on September 20, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
And it's not as predictable as you'd think. The survey of 2,500 people found, for example, that opera fans were as likely as other music lovers to try hallucinogenic drugs, and that many hip-hop fans had somewhat conservative views on a wide range of issues.
While other studies of musical taste have focused on broad demographics, "this research, as far as I am aware, is the first time that people have looked at these really specific aspects of people's day-to-day lives," said study author Adrian North, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Leicester.
Nearly 42 percent of the French population older than 15 years has a weight problem, an ObEpi-Roche survey showed on Tuesday. Almost a third is overweight and 12.4 percent is obese.
Despite a notion that the French shun overeating and junk food, obesity is still on the rise, according to the study, which has been conducted every three years since 1997.
The closely watched survey is sponsored by drugs group Roche, which makes weight loss products, but it also mirrors growing concern in France on obesity and reflects other surveys which have shown trends such as rising average clothes sizes.
- Cooking oil is no friend of this blog. But if you’ve ever wanted to know how many varieties of it there are, head over to Bitter Poison. Make note of differing fat contents.
Less than 10 percent of adults in the US has ever had some type of cosmetic surgery, yet almost twice as many hope to do so at some point in the future, a survey shows.
The results suggest that trends have changed significantly since the 1960s and 1970s when cosmetic surgery was "rarely talked about," Jeff Knezovich, executive vice president of the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery (AACS), which sponsored the survey, told Reuters Health. Today, the topic has become a "dinner table conversation," he said.
"People are becoming more aware of cosmetic surgery and its benefits," Knezovich said, noting that an individual's change in appearance may make them feel better, which can consequently lead to their increased performance.
The article’s strongest advocate for skipping breakfast is researcher Mark Mattson, a neuroscientist at the National Institute on Aging, whose work with rodents has shown it might be healthy to skip meals or occasionally fast.
Mattson’s main point is that skipping breakfast might be OK if you eat carefully the rest of the day.
But how many people do that? Studies show if you skip breakfast, you binge like mad at lunch. Or you stalk around the office, looking for food and eventually find chocolate or cake. Studies have also shown breakfast skippers have nutrient shortfalls and a greater risk of obesity.
Posted on September 19, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
You know how it is. Your day started off great. You did your morning exercise, ate a healthy breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but the sun is setting, you’re lounging around the house, and from the depths of your stomach, the snack monster stirs. And he craves cookies, cake, salty food, greasy food—the crappier the better! What do you do? How do you quell the beast?
Dr. Fuhrman acknowledges how difficult cravings can be, it’s easy to succumb, but with the right mindset and preparations you
can subdue the beast. In
Eat to Live Dr Fuhrman offers up some advice to help you show the monster who’s boss:
Implement strategies to prevent temptation and exposure to sedentary activities or social eating. The most important stimulus-control technique is structuring your environment. This means removing temptation from your home and stocking your cupboards and refrigerator with the proper foods. Eat only at the kitchen table, not while watching television. When you finish dinner, clean up and leave the kitchen area, then brush and floss your teeth, so you are not tempted to return and snack again. Try not to make food the center of your life. Keep active with interests that keep you from thinking about eating.
Now if Dr. Fuhrman’s advice doesn’t strike your fancy. Get a load of these from
The Wichita Eagle, they seem destined for success—insert tongue in cheek. I don’t know about
the lottery ticket idea, but brushing your teeth sure seems like a good move. Kathy Manweiler reports:
Just breathe: The munchies like to attack when I'm stressed out. Taking slow, deep breaths for five minutes works as a good stall tactic and helps calm me down.
This time-out gives me a chance to try to talk some sense back into my taste buds.
Give extra calories the brush-off: To reduce the risk of late-night snacking, I brush and floss my teeth and use Listerine as soon as I've hit my calorie limit for the day. It's rarely worth it to me to mess up my squeaky-clean teeth with a snack. Besides, no food on Earth tastes good with the aftertaste of Listerine.
Find a payoff: Every now and then, I buy myself a Powerball ticket when I win a battle against the munchies.
Who knows, maybe someday I'll become an instant millionaire just by passing up a plate of nachos.
My odds of hitting that jackpot are one in a gazillion, but even if I never win the lottery, I know that it still pays off to put up a fight against cravings.
Posted on September 12, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
More magic beans for sale! If you’re a fan of
the obesity-fighting Korean pine nut, then you’ll love Wakame. What the hell is Wakame? According to
Reuters,
brown seaweed that could promote weight-loss and have anti-diabetes effects:
At the 232nd American Chemical Society National Meeting in San Francisco today, Dr. Kazuo Miyashita from Hokkaido University reported seeing significant reductions in fat tissue in rats and obese mice fed the edible seaweed carotenoid fucoxanthin.
"The mechanism for this effect is a new one," Dr. Miyashita points out in a statement, explaining that fucoxanthin induces expression of the fat-burning protein UCP1 that accumulates in fat tissue around the internal organs. Mice fed fucoxanthin showed clear signs of UCP1 expression in fat tissue, whereas mice fed a control diet showed little expression of this protein.
Posted on September 12, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Do you exercise? Got a gym membership? If you do you’re not alone, millions of Americans workout everyday in hopes of losing weight and staying fit.
But exactly how effective is it? Jane E. Brody of
The New York Times reports on new research compiled to help answer this question:
In the August/September issue of ACE Certified News (published by the American Council on Exercise), Ralph La Forge, managing director of the Duke Lipid and Disease Management Preceptorship Program at Duke University Medical Center, compiled a detailed analysis of the various factors that influence the effect of exercise on weight loss.
Mr. La Forge started by refuting the prevailing belief that since a pound of fat (when burned) gives off 3,500 calories and since running or walking a mile burns 100 calories, a person should lose a pound for every 35 miles. In other words, if a previously inactive person starts running or walking five miles a day, that person should lose a pound a week, all other things being equal.
La Forge doesn’t appreciate this brushstroke explanation:
This estimate fails to subtract the number of calories that person’s body would have used had it just sat still for those hours. Rather, for a 154-pound person, the net caloric cost would be 54 calories per mile when walking up to 3.5 miles per hour, 97 calories speed-walking at 3.5 to 5 m.p.h., and 107 calories jogging or running.
In other words, running uses nearly twice the calories used when walking at a moderate pace over the same distance. Your starting weight is also a factor: if you weigh less than 154 pounds, the caloric burn is proportionately less; if you weigh more than 154, it is higher.
Furthermore, if you walk or run on a treadmill, the aid of the machine diminishes the number of calories your body uses by about 10 to 15 percent of what the machine says you are burning. But, Mr. La Forge noted, there is a positive side: “The mechanical advantage of some machines enhances exercise comfort and reduces impact and musculoskeletal stress.”
The article is worth a read, La Forge goes to explain other factors associated with how people lose weight through exercises, like bodyweight and gender. In
Eat to Live Dr. Fuhrman explains exercise’s role in weight-loss and superior health:
Exercise is important, but if your ability to be active and exercise is limited, do not despair. My more aggressive menu plan will still enable you to lose weight. Obviously, those unable to exercise require a stricter diet. Some people have health conditions that preclude them from exercising much. However, you should till try to devise an exercise prescription to fit your capabilities. Almost everyone can do something; even those who cannot walk can do arm exercises with light weights and use an arm cycle.
Exercise will facilitate your weight loss and make you healthier. Vigorous exercise has a powerful effect on promoting longevity. If you have the will to adopt this plan and take good care of yourself, you will find the will exercise. “No time to exercise” is not an excuse. If you have time to brush your teeth, take a shower, or go to the bathroom, you can make some time to exercise. Take frequent five-minute exercise breaks—walk stairs or stand up then sit down slowly in your chair twenty times. Lots of people with no time to exercise or join a health club can usually go up and down stairs in their home or place of work. Try doing as many flights as you can two or three times a day. Walking twenty or more flights a day is an effective way to achieve your goal. Most of my patients have a health in their house—that is, a stairway leading to the upstairs floor, and most have one going down to the basement as well. I ask them to walk up and down the two flights ten times in the morning before they shower and ten times at night. It takes only five minutes, but it really works.
I also encourage patients to join a real health club and use a variety of equipment to utilize many body parts for maximum results. The more muscle groups that are exercised, the more metabolically active players you have on your team to help you meet your goals. It is definitely helpful to have access to an assortment of exercise equipment, such as ellipse machines, treadmills, steppers, recumbent bicycles, and numerous resistance machines. When you tire of one machine, you can move on to a new one.
Posted on August 30, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
In yesterday’s post
"The Obesity-Disease Connection" The New York Times explained how obesity can make ovarian cancer even more dangerous and harder to survive. Nicholas Bakalar reported:
But among patients with Stage III or Stage IV disease, the most advanced stages, those with B.M.I.’s greater than 25 survived disease free for an average of 17 months, compared with 25 months for people with indexes lower than 25.
For each increase of one unit in the index, the researchers found a 4 percent increase in the risk of recurrence and a 5 percent increase in the risk of death.
In
Eat to Live you’ll see Dr. Fuhrman agrees; obesity increases a person’s risk of a whole host of medical conditions:
- Increased overall premature mortality
- Adult onset diabetes
- Hypertension
- Degenerative arthritis
- Coronary artery disease
- Cancer
- Lipid disorders
- Obstructive sleep apnea
- Gallstones
- Fatty infiltration of the liver
- Restrictive lung disease
- Gastrointestinal disease
Alright, so we know being obese doesn’t help your chances of living a long healthy life, but what about this whole BMI thing? As reported by
The New York Times the whole ovarian cancer study was based on these measurements. But is it really the be-all-end-all for determining if someone is obese, or even if they’re just overweight?
Linda Carroll of
MSNBC reports
some health experts definitely concerns about the Body Mass Index:
The real question, says Dr. Donald Cutlip, an associate professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School, is whether body mass index is a good measure to determine whether someone is overweight.
The conflicting studies, each based on BMI scores, point out flaws with the common measure, basically a comparison of height to weight.
New research shows that there’s a better, more informative way to figure out if you are overweight—the waist-to-hip ratio—and all it requires is a measuring tape.
A lot of the worry stems from the BMI’s inability to give an accurate measurement for elderly people or individuals with a lot of muscle:
Cutlip agrees that BMI can be way off, especially when it comes to assessing a particular individual. The commonly used measure can give a skewed result not only for fit body builders who come out with a high number because of the extra weight associated with muscle, but also for the elderly, who tend to have scores that underestimate obesity because they have so much less muscle.
A more favorable way of determining if someone has dangerous levels of body fat might be the Waist-To-Hip Ratio. Carroll explains:
The best way to predict heart attack risk and other obesity-related diseases is a measurement that divides the circumference of your waist by your hips.
If you’re a woman, the waist-to-hip ratio should come out as no more than 0.8. Men have a little more wiggle room: a healthy waist-to-hip ratio for them is 0.95.
This means, if your belly has bulged out enough to catch up to the size of your hips, you should start worrying about your heart, experts say.
(Be sure to try out the calculator accompanying the article.)
Now considering all this, how does Dr. Fuhrman determine if a person has an unhealthy bodyweight? The answer is right between his fingers:
I just take a pinch near the umbilicus and squeeze it lightly between two fingers and measure the distance between the fingers.
In a previous post he talks about his method:
A Life Plan for The New Year
Most people lose weight and then stop losing when they have reached their ideal weight. You are not the judge of your ideal weight; your body is. As almost everyone is overweight, many people think they are too thin when they have reached their best weight. I have many patients who, after following my plan to reverse diabetes or heart disease, report, “Everyone tells me I look too thin now.” I then measure their periumbilical fat and check their percentage of body fat, and usually show them they are still not thin enough.
Posted on August 29, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
In the opening pages of
Eat to Live Dr. Fuhrman makes a point that is often overlooked by the average American dieter:
Obesity is not just a cosmetic issue—extra weight leads to an earlier death, as many studies confirm.1 Overweight individuals are more likely to die from all causes, including heart disease and cancer.
Much of Dr. Fuhrman’s work strives to show people the strong correlation between diet and disease. You know the old adage, you are what you eat. Being overweight doesn’t just mean your favorite outfit is a little snug, it means you’re putting yourself at an increased risk of premature death. More from
Eat to Live:
Two-thirds of those with weight problems also have hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, or another obesity related condition.2 It is a major cause of early mortality in the United States.3
Health Complications of Obesity
- Increased overall premature mortality
- Adult onset diabetes
- Hypertension
- Degenerative arthritis
- Coronary artery disease
- Cancer
- Lipid disorders
- Obstructive sleep apnea
- Gallstones
- Fatty infiltration of the liver
- Restrictive lung disease
- Gastrointestinal disease
Considering all this, this recent report from
The New York Times shouldn’t be all that surprising.
New research reveals being obese can make ovarian cancer even deadlier and harder to survive. Nicholas Bakalar explains:
It is well known that obesity is associated with various malignancies, including kidney, throat, breast and colon cancers. Findings about obesity and ovarian cancer have been somewhat less clear, the researchers say, but evidence from previous studies suggests that obesity predicts a worse outcome for ovarian cancer patients as well.
The scientists wanted to know whether excess fat, apart from any other health problems it might cause, had direct effects on tumor growth. They reviewed the medical records of 216 patients at Cedars-Sinai who had surgery for epithelial ovarian cancer. The data included information on height, weight, age and any other diseases. The cause of death was presumed to be cancer related if the patient had advanced recurrent disease at the time of death.
Half the patients had ideal weight, with a body mass index from 18.5 to 24.9, and 8 percent had a B.M.I. of less than 18.5, considered underweight. Twenty-six percent were overweight, with indexes exceeding 25, and 16 percent were obese, with indexes higher than 30.
The overweight and obese differed little from normal and underweight people in age or in health status, except that they had more hypertension and diabetes.
But among patients with Stage III or Stage IV disease, the most advanced stages, those with B.M.I.’s greater than 25 survived disease free for an average of 17 months, compared with 25 months for people with indexes lower than 25.
For each increase of one unit in the index, the researchers found a 4 percent increase in the risk of recurrence and a 5 percent increase in the risk of death.
This “dose response” effect strongly suggests that obesity alone is responsible for the decreased survival time, Dr. Li said.
The results of this research are pretty jarring. It seems like being obese is like dragging around an old refrigerator; it slows you down, makes you uncomfortable, creates its own problems along the way, and makes many other problems worse. Time to ditch the fridge!
Or more importantly what’s in it. Dr. Fuhrman will tell you the typical American diet rich in processed foods, saturated fats, refined sugar, and salt is a one way ticket to obesity, disease, and early death. Back to
Eat to Live:
As long as you are eating fatty foods and refined carbohydrates, it is impossible to lose weight healthfully. In fact, this vicious combination of a sedentary lifestyle and eating typical “American” food (high-fat, low-fiber) is the primary reason we have such an incredibly overweight population.
On the other hand he believes the secret to healthy bodyweight, disease prevention, and increased longevity is just the opposite; a plant-based diet comprised of fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and seeds:
There is no longer any question about the importance of fruits and vegetables in our diet. The greater the quantity and assortment of fruits and vegetables consumed, the lower the incidence of heart attacks, strokes, and cancer.4
Continue Reading...
Posted on August 15, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Jim Hage of
The Washington Post tells the story of
marathon runner Casey Smith who, despite some early success, is currently out of racing and on the mend. Why? She found out the hard way that her sudden, dramatic weight-loss wasn’t as healthy as it seemed:
Shortly thereafter, Smith began to lose weight. "This shouldn't be happening," she told herself. But in the world of elite racing, particularly for women, fast times are often a function of body weight, and racers tread a fine line between competition and self-destruction. By the spring, Smith had shed 15 pounds from her 5-foot, 100-pound frame. At the St. Patrick's Day 10K, Smith dropped out of a race for the first time.
"At first, I was worried," said Smith, 27. "But then, I said I'm feeling good, my workouts were good, and I started running pretty well again. It's hard to describe what was happening. Lots of runners watch what they eat."
She decided to do something about it:
Smith began to work with a nutritionist and sought professional assistance. She didn't regain the lost weight, but she realized she had a problem and resolved to adopt "a healthy attitude."
"Eating disorders, that's crazy," she says now. "How does that ever happen? But keeping the weight off becomes a subconscious thing; you don't want to put it back on. It's like an addiction."
The issue of athletes not fueling their body with nutrient-rich longevity-promoting food is nothing new to DiseaseProof. Check out
Dr. Fuhrman’s critique of Detroit Pistons star Richard Hamilton’s diet.
Posted on August 14, 2006 by Joel Fuhrman
From Dr. Fuhrman's book Eat to Live:
It is meaningless to compare foods by weight or portion size. Let me provide and example why this is the case. Take one teaspoon of melted butter, which gets 100 percent of its calories from fat. If I take that teaspoon of butter and mix it in a glass of hot water, I can now say that it is 98 percent-fat-free, by weight. One hundred percent of its calories are still from fat. It didn’t matter how much water or weight was added, did it?
In fact, if a food’s weight were important, it would be easy to lose weight, we would just have to drink more water. The water would trigger the weight receptors in the digestive tract and our appetite would diminish. Unfortunately, this is not the way our body’s appestat—the brain center in the hypothalamus that controls food intake—is controlled. As I’ve explained in the past, bulk calories and nutrient fulfillment, not the weight of the food, turn off our appestat. Since the foods Americans consume are so calorie-rich, we have all been trying to diet by eating small portions of low-nutrient foods. We not only have to suffer hunger but also wind up with perverted cravings because we are nutrient-deficient to boot.
We must consume a certain level of calories daily to feel satisfied. So now I ask you to completely rethink what you consider a typical portion size. To achieve superior health and a permanently thin physique, you should eat large portions of green foods. When considering any green plant food, remember to make the portion size huge by conventional standards. Eating large portions of these super-healthy foods is the key to your success.
Posted on August 7, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Charles Stuart Platkin of
The Seattle Times examines the claim many distressed dieters make,
“I hardly eat anything, but I can’t lose weight!” Is there any truth in this? Dr. Fuhrman would likely contend if you’ve reached this impasse you’re probably eating the wrong foods and following a poorly constructed diet plan, but let’s see what Platkin turned up:
It's been reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that people attempting to lose weight tend to underestimate the amount they eat by as much as 47 percent and to overestimate their physical activity by as much as 51 percent. When scientists at the USDA's Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center in Maryland asked 98 men and women how much they ate in a 24-hour period, they found that 6 out of 7 women underreported by an average of 621 calories, and 6 out of 10 men underreported by an average of 581 calories.
When the American Cancer Institute did a study asking Americans to determine the portion sizes of eight specific foods, only 1 percent got them all right. Sixty-one percent couldn't get more than four correct.
So, clearly many dieters have good intentions, but limited or poor knowledge of nutrition (specifically that of certain foods) sabotages their weight-loss goals. Imagine if people knew better! Consider this excerpt from Dr. Fuhrman’s book
Eat to Live:
Green vegetables are so incredibly low in calories and rich in nutrients and fiber that the more you eat of them, the more weight you will lose. One of my secrets of nutritional excellence and superior healing is the one pound-one pound rule. That is, try to eat at least one pound of raw green vegetables a day and one pound of cooked/steamed or frozen green vegetables a day as well. One pound raw and one pound cooked—keep this goal in mind as you design and eat every meal. This may be too ambitious a goal for some of us to reach, but by working toward it, you will ensure the dietary balance and results you want. The more greens you eat, the more weight you will lose. The high volume of greens not only will be your secret to a thin waistline but will simultaneously protect you against life threatening illnesses.
This previous post has more: Foods That Make You Thin
In order to test caloric misconception Platkin pits a number of popular snack foods against each other. For example, did you know a Pringles potato chip actually has more calories than a McDonalds French fry? It’s true! Check it out:
One Pringles potato chip vs. one McDonald's french fry
Believe it or not, one french fry has only five calories, while a single Pringle is double at 10 calories.
One bite-size cube of cheddar cheese vs. one Famous Amos Chocolate Chip Cookie
Clearly the cheese is the better choice nutritionally, but cheese is not a health food you can consume without guilt — one bite-size (1/2") cube has 55 calories, whereas the cookie has only 37.5. Whenever possible, go with low-fat cheese. A great one is Cabot's Vermont 50% Light Cheddar — 35 calories per 1/2" cube.
One Fritos Original Corn Chip vs. one cashew nut
Here again, the cashew has health benefits that far outweigh those of the nutritionally bland corn chip; however, cashews have 8.5 calories per nut, whereas Fritos have five per chip. So just because nuts are healthful doesn't give you carte blanche to overindulge — you're supposed to eat nuts in place of something else in your diet that's high in calories and nutritionally inferior, not simply add them.
Posted on August 3, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
According to new research
low-calorie dieting can allow you to eat more food and ingest less calories. Now, if you read
Eat to Live you already know this to be true. The key is to consume large amounts of healthy nutrient-rich plant matter which fills you up, but doesn’t burden you with excess calories. The
Reuters report seems to agree:
Using dietary information from 7,500 U.S. adults, researchers found that those who reported eating plenty of fruits, vegetables, fiber-rich grains and other lower-calorie foods typically ate a larger amount of food than their peers who favored richer fare.
Yet they ate several hundred fewer calories a day, while consuming more calcium, iron, potassium and vitamins A, C, B6 and folate.
It all boils down to those fiber-full fruits and veggies:
In general, foods that have a high amount of water and/or fiber, such as fruits and vegetables, also have a low calorie density. Water and fiber add to a food's bulk, but contribute few or no calories.
Sugar, fat and flour, on the other hand, pack on the calories, and calorie-dense foods include chips and other snack foods, nuts, sweets and processed or fatty meats.
So while study participants who filled their diets with low-cal fare ate more food by weight, they ingested fewer calories — an average of 425 fewer among men, and 250 fewer among women.
Posted on August 1, 2006 by Joel Fuhrman
You’ve heard about so-called “miracle cleansing” and detox diets, now you can give your body a real cleanse with high-quality foods.
You’ll be amazed at what Mother Nature can do with real food and no magic formulas. The Five-Day Super-Diet Challenge is completely different from the all-too-common fake “bowel cleansing” and “liver detox” programs you’ve heard about-programs that are little more than typical alternative-medicine scams.
Mother Nature’s Cleanse
The most important thing to understand about detoxification is that it is an ongoing bodily process. It isn’t something you can buy in a package. The healthier you are, the easier it is for your body to keep its tissues clean.
In order to maintain excellent health and true internal cleanliness, you must avoid all harmful, irritating substances (such as salt, pepper, and hot spices) and eat a diet rich in phytochemicals and antioxidants. Fresh fruits and vegetables contain the most powerful healing agents. They nourish your body and help maximize its normal functions. The only way to effectively detoxify is to live and eat healthfully, and allow your body to do its thing at full throttle.
At the end of this article are delicious recipes that you can use to jump start your diet and detox program and lose weight at the same time. Let’s see how you feel after five days of eating Nature’s most powerful healing foods. Follow my cleansing diet for five days (or more) and send your results to me. I want to know how good you feel and how much weight you lose!
Toxic, Irritating Laxatives
Why am I so opposed to the “detox in a box” programs that have become so popular? The most important reason is they don’t work. Besides that, they also are harmful.
No special pills, powders, or herbs can detoxify you. The “health food” and supplement manufacturers combine a mix of herbal laxatives—such as senna and cascara—with some walnut hull, and they claim that these bowel irritants will detoxify you. Laxatives can no more detoxify you than washing your mouth out with soap can.
A false claim commonly made in “natural” laxative advertising is that you have years of hardened mucus and food stuck like glue on the wall on your colon. Well, guess what? You don’t, and thousands of sigmoidoscopies and colonoscopies done by me and other physicians prove it.
When you eat a nutritious, high fiber diet, the walls of your intestines and colon will be pristine. Long-term exposure to the right amount and balance of natural fibers and natural food containing nutrients is the only way to protect your bowel and your body against disease.
Another problem with laxatives is that they are habit-forming. The more you stimulate your bowels by irritating the nerves lining your gut, the less reactive your bowel will become to the normal nerve stimulation from food. Before too long, you will be dependent on laxatives for normal bowel movements.
You can’t transform a toxic substance into a healthful one by asking your marketing department to give it a catchy name like “Ultimate Cleanse” or “Super Detox Cleanser.” Below are two examples of popular, but toxic, bowel-irritating formulas (and the claims made for them), sold on the internet and in health food stores.
Bowel Clear—Each tablet contains: cascara cagrada 500mg, golden seal 150mg, black walnut 350mg, rhubarb 200mg, elecampane 100mg, wormwood 100mg, sage 500mg, rice bran 800mg, soya bran 667mg.
The label claims that these ingredients “work like an Intestinal Broom; scrubbing & sweeping the inner walls of your colon, allowing larger amounts of unwanted waste matter to pass easily & regularly through your bowel.”
Ultimate Cleanse—Each tablet contains: psyllium seed, aloe vera powder, senna leaf, cascara sagrada, barberry root, rhubarb, slippery elm bark, cayenne 40,000 H.U.
The label claims that this product features “29 powerful cleansing herbs that stimulate the cleansing and release of toxins and poisons trapped in the body from poor dietary habits and environmental pollutants.”
Detoxification is an ongoing process in a healthy body. No substance can pull toxins out of the body. The body can utilize nutrients to fuel its normal processes, and it acts to keep itself clean when given the chance. Your body does all the work.
Toxic substances stimulate; healthful substances nourish. Simulation is a form of irritation; it ages you. Avoiding stimulation is an important component of a health-building program.
Detoxify Naturally
Follow my Five-Day Super-Diet Challenge and you will be amazed at what happens! Use the recipes below periodically and enjoy a genuine internal cleanse. You will lose weight and feel better—and you might decide to change your diet forever.
Dr. Fuhrman’s Five-Day Diet-Cleanse Recipes
Breakfast
Fruit Plate
One whole grapefruit or two oranges
One box of blueberries
One box of strawberries
Lettuce (optional)
Arrange on a plate and serve.
Lunch
Blended Salad
8 oz. baby greens
One orange
Juice of ¼ lemon
Blend in a blender and serve.
Healthy Slaw
½ cup shredded raw cabbage
½ cup shredded raw beets
½ cup shredded raw carrots
1 cup shredded apple
¼ cup raisins
Toss together and serve.
Dinner
Spinach Salad
4-6 oz. baby raw spinach
¼ finely shredded red onion
2 Tbsp. unhulled sesame seeds
1 Tbsp. ground flax seeds
1 Tbsp. sunflower seeds
1 box (pint) blackberries
2 Tbsp. pear or fig vinegar, if desired
The Green Machine
4-8 oz. raw chopped kale
4-8 oz. raw chopped bok choy
4-8 oz. chopped broccoli rab
2 large tomatoes, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 cups chopped mushrooms
One medium onion, chopped
Add tomato, garlic, onion, and mushrooms to pan. Cover and simmer on low heat for 5 minutes. Add greens on top and continue to cook in covered pan on low heat for 5 more minutes.
Apple-Stuffed Peppers
One red pepper
One medium apple
½ tsp. cinnamon
Pinch of nutmeg
Chop apple. Mix with cinnamon and nutmeg. Cut top off of pepper and remove core and seeds. Stuff pepper with apple mixture and bake in oven at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.
Posted on July 27, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Dr. Fuhrman advocates a plant-based diet because it is the most optimal diet-style for
diabetes reversal,
weight-loss, and the
prevention of heart disease. Sally Squires of
The Washington Post explains
many scientists are beginning to acknowledge its superior advantages as well:
People with Type 2 diabetes are advised to limit carbohydrates because of worries that too many carbs could overtax the body's dwindling insulin production and lessen its ability to process glucose.
Now some scientists are asking if a very-low-fat diet rich in healthy carbohydrates—whole grains, beans, fruit and vegetables—might be another option.
This prompted scientists to conduct a study comparing the standard dietary advice from the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and the vegetable-based diet-style of Dr. Dean Ornish:
The four-month trial, funded by the National Institutes of Health, studied 99 people with Type 2 diabetes. Half were asked to follow the standard dietary advice from the American Diabetes Association (ADA). The other half were asked to adhere to a very strict, low-fat vegan diet devoid of meat, fish, eggs, dairy or any other animal products.
Both groups improved blood sugar control and LDL cholesterol levels. Both lost weight, but the vegan group shed an average of 15 pounds, compared with six for the ADA group. As in the Ornish study, the vegan group showed no harmful changes in either HDL or triglyceride levels.
The results of the study demonstrate the overall efficiency and effectiveness of a “vegan” or a plant-based diet. Additionally 20 percent of participants following the vegetable-based diet for a year were able to cut or eliminate their insulin and other glucose-lowering medication.
Squires concludes her report with these three recommendations for those trying to overcome diabetes through diet:
Eat more plant-based foods. The more variety, the better. Groups that recommend eating more beans, vegetables (without added fat), fruit (sans added sugar) and whole grains include the American Heart Association, the National Cancer Institute, the Institute of Medicine, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the American Diabetes Association, the American Cancer Society and the American Institute for Cancer Research.
Easy on the fat. Gram for gram, fat contains more than twice the calories of protein or carbs. Being overweight or obese is a major risk factor for diabetes, heart disease and some types of cancer. Whatever fat you eat, make it healthy. Skip saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol found in whole milk dairy products, fatty meat and poultry with the skin. Reach instead for fish, healthy oil such as canola or olive oil, healthy margarine, nuts, avocados and seeds.
Get plenty of exercise. The Diabetes Prevention Program—a large federally funded study of people who were just a step shy of developing diabetes—found that brisk daily exercise (yes, walking is fine) played an important part in preventing diabetes. The study found 30 minutes daily was required, but that can be broken into 10-minute increments.
Posted on July 11, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
In today’s
New York Times reporter Jane E. Brody takes a look at the United States’ obesity woes. Focusing her attention on
America’s portion sizes:
I'll start with what seems to be a mantra for most Americans: bigger is better. Bigger cars, bigger houses, bigger portions. About 30 years ago the restaurant industry tried to introduce Americans to a French dining style called cuisine minceur, small, elegant portions served on large, usually white plates (but priced as if the plates were heaped with food).
It was doomed from the get-go. Americans want more for their money, and more is what they got. Portions big enough to feed a horse.
It's not just McDonald's. Nearly every dish and beverage Americans now consume is supersized compared with what they used to eat (and, I might add, at a time when more energy was spent just getting through the demands of the day).
An average serving of pasta is now 480 percent greater than the one-cup recommended serving size, Lisa Young and Marion Nestle, nutritionists at New York University, reported in 2002 in The American Journal of Public Health. Some cookies, they found, are 700 percent larger.
A New York bagel, now sold nationwide, weighs five or six ounces. That is five or six bread portions, supplying about 500 calories, not counting cream cheese or butter. The muffin tins from my childhood produce muffins one-third the size of those at Starbucks.
Restaurants like fast-food and takeout establishments, as well as family-style businesses, pile on food with no regard for recommended portions.
To make matters worse research indicates portion size acts independently with another characteristic of meals, energy density:
The more energy-dense a food is — that is, the more calories per ounce or gram — the more calories people tend to consume.
In previous studies, Dr. Rolls found that, all other factors being equal, people eat about the same weight of food each day.
If those foods are in the moderate range of energy density like meat, cheese, pizza and French fries or at the high end of energy density like crackers, nuts and cookies, people consume more calories than they do if their meals contain lots of low-energy-density foods, like soup, green salad, nonstarchy vegetables and fruit.
Posted on July 10, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
According to
HealthDay new research shows a strong correlation between weight gain and insufficient sleep. Alan Mozes reports:
"We all need to be aware there is a relationship between sleep and obesity," says J. Catesby Ware, chief of the division of sleep medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, and director of the Sleep Disorder Center at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital in Norfolk, Va.
Ware and his colleagues found signs of this link in a recently completed study of more than 1,000 men and women that indicated those who reported sleeping less also weighed more.
He is now in the midst of new research focusing on another group of 1,000 individuals that is quantifying specific daily sleep habits, with preliminary data reinforcing his previous observation -- less sleep equals a bigger belly.
"There are a number of research studies that all support the thesis that too little sleep leads to weight gain," Ware said. "How that happens is still somewhat unclear, but there are hormonal secretions that are affected with sleep loss that apparently affect appetite and eating."
It seems hormones are responsible for this association:
Eve Van Cauter, a professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, recently found that when 12 healthy men in their 20s were instructed to sleep just four hours a night for two nights straight, they reported an increase in feelings of hunger by 24 percent.
What's more, Cauter and her colleagues noted that levels of the hormone leptin, which delivers feelings of satiation to the brain, decreased by 18 percent among the men.
Conversely, levels of the hormone ghrelin, which sparks hunger, shot up 28 percent -- prompting cravings for candy, cookies and cake.
Posted on June 21, 2006 by Joel Fuhrman
From Dr. Fuhrman's book Eat to Live:
Our bodies need carbohydrates more than any other substance. Our muscle cells and brains are designed to run on carbohydrates. Carbohydrate-rich foods, when consumed in their natural state, are low in calories and high in fiber compared with fatty foods, processed foods, or animal products.
Fat contains about nine calories per gram, but protein and carbohydrates contain approximately four calories per gram. So when you eat high-carbohydrate foods, such as fresh fruits and beans, you eat more food and still keep your caloric intake relatively low. The high fiber content of (unrefined) carbohydrate-rich food is another crucial reason you will feel more satisfied and not crave more food when you make unrefined carbohydrates the main source of calories in your diet.
It is usually the small amount of added refined fat or oils that makes natural carbohydrates so fattening. For example, one cup of mashed potatoes is only 130 calories. Put just one tablespoon of butter on top and you have added another 100 calories.
Protein, fat, and carbohydrates are called macronutrients. Vitamins and minerals are referred to as micronutrients. All plant foods are a mixture of protein, fat, and carbohydrate (the macronutrients). Even a banana contains about 3.5 percent protein, almost the same as mother's milk. Fruit and starchy vegetables, such as sweet potatoes, corn, carrots, and butternut squash, are predominantly carbohydrate but also contain some fat and protein. Green vegetables are about half protein, a quarter carbohydrate, and a quarter fat. Legumes and beans are about half carbohydrate, a quarter protein, and a quarter fat.
One of the principles behind the health and weight-loss formula in this book is not to be overly concerned about the macronutrient balance; if you eat healthful foods, you will automatically get enough of all three macronutrients as long as you do not consume too many calories from white flour, sugar, and oil. So don't fear eating foods rich in carbohydrates and don't be afraid of eating fruit because it contains sugar. Even the plant foods that are high in carbohydrate contain sufficient fiber and nutrients and are low enough in calories to be considered nutritious. As long as they are unrefined, they should not be excluded from your diet. In fact, it is impossible to glean all the nutrients needed for optimal health if your diet does no contain lots of carbohydrate-rich food.
Fresh fruits, beans and legumes, whole grains, and root vegetables are all examples of foods whose calories come mainly from carbohydrate. It is the nutrient-per-calorie ratio of these foods that determines their food value. There is nothing wrong with carbohydrates; it is the empty-calorie, or refined, carbohydrates that are responsible for the bad reputation of carbs.
Posted on June 16, 2006 by Joel Fuhrman
Dr. Fuhrman reacts to the recent buzz surrounding claims that low-carb meat-based diets cure diabetes:
Research on extremely low carbohydrate diets and diabetes illustrates that both the safety and effectiveness are poor. Just because the standard American diet (rich in processed foods) is so dangerous, does not make the small improvements in weight or glucose with low-carb or Aitkin's type diets favorable. We don't purchase a car by comparing it to a junk yard wreck.
Even the researchers, who studied these meat-based diets which demonstrate only modest benefits in glucose or weight loss, continually warn against the potential long term risks and that benefits of these diets are only moderate at best.1 Furthermore the lower amount of phytochemicals in a diet and receiving the majority of one's calories from animal products predisposes followers to higher inflammatory markers, which are associated with cardiovascular disease.2
I have reviewed over 60,000 research articles on nutrition and disease and reference more than a thousand in Eat to Live. Obviously, I only offer a few articles here but the point is that I come to my recommendations based on the vast preponderance of the evidence not on the basis of one or two studies. My recommendations are not designed to appeal to the many who are addicted to harmful foods, but rather are for those who want the most effective and most longevity-promoting diet-style.
It is accurate to say that vegetarian diets in the manner they are most typically designed (heavy in processed foods) are not ideal either. Nevertheless, the studies done on vegetarian diets and diabetes are at least as favorable as those done on very low carbohydrate, meat-based diets.3
The vegetarian diet contains a portfolio of natural substances that protect against inflammation and lipid abnormalities in diabetes and has various metabolic advantages for the prevention and treatment of diabetes and its complications. DiseaseProof has discussed this in the past (Vegetarian Diets are Not All Created Equal: An Example), my Eat to Live program differs from a vegetarian diet and because of some critical differences has been shown in the scientific literature (Metabolism, April 2001) to improve lipid parameters and reduce weight and blood glucose much more significantly. So the issue for diabetes is not whether one is a vegan or not, the issue is the nutrition per calorie and micronutrient quality of the diet.
Low-carb or meat-based diet advocates may be able to critique a grain/flour heavy vegan diet, but not Eat to Live. It contains the benefits of a vegetarian diet, without the risks from all the lower nutrient, higher glycemic potatoes and grains. And Eat to Live's profound benefits to blood vessel health does not require total exclusion of animal products. It simply keeps to safer, reduced levels.
Regular readers of DiseaseProof know it is not a question of the precise balance of the three macronutrients (fat, carbohydrate and protein) that enables the body to get well, but the ratio of micronutrients per total calorie. My Eat to Live diet-style is unique and simply the healthiest way one can eat. It is not a vegetarian diet in the conventional sense, so studies on vegetarian diets do not accurately speak to the effectiveness of Eat to Live.
In fact, a recent study conducted by Dr. Sarter of USC (pending publication) revealed 63 people following my Eat to Live diet-style showed more weight loss, cholesterol lowering, and diabetic reversal than any other study in medical history. The average patient lost 52 pounds and they were followed for two years. The fact that this diet style is profoundly more successful for weight loss than the meat-based diets, illustrates it is significantly more effective for diabetics too. In fact, most of my patients quickly get rid of their diabetes and are able to stop all their medications following my recommendations even before all their excess weight is lost. My recommendations are mathematically and scientifically calculated to maximize micronutrients and food volume per calorie and enable people to rid themselves of their food addictions and naturally desire fewer and fewer calories.
However, the fact that my high nutrient diet is unique and not broadly studied in no way lends support to the benefits of other better investigated diets, such as the recommendations of the American Heart Association and the American Diabetic Association. In my advocacy of nutritional excellence for diabetic patients I actually speak negatively about all types of diets, including the aforementioned traditional vegetarian diet. So when I discuss the dangers of Atkins type diets, in no way am I supporting or advocating diets high in refined carbs, flour or sweets, they are dangerous too.
Continue Reading...
Posted on June 2, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
According to Andrew Bridges of the Associated Press a new report suggests restaurants should monkey with menu offerings and portions sizes to help fight fat:
Today, 64 percent of Americans are overweight, including the 30 percent who are obese, according to the report. It pegs the annual medical cost of the problem at nearly $93 billion.
Consumer advocates increasingly have heaped some of the blame on restaurant chains like McDonald's, which bristles at the criticism while offering more salads and fruit. The report does not explicitly link dining out with the rising tide of obesity, but does cite numerous studies that suggest there is a connection.
The report encourages restaurants to shift the emphasis of their marketing to lower-calorie choices, and include more such options on menus. In addition, restaurants could jigger portion sizes and the variety of foods available in mixed dishes to reduce the overall number of calories taken in by diners.
Bundling meals with more fruits and vegetables also could improve nutrition. And letting consumers know how many calories are contained in a meal also could guide the choices they make, according to the report. Just over half of the nation's 287 largest restaurant chains now make at least some nutrition information available, said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy for the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Posted on June 1, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine contends that even slight weight gain can cause gastrointestinal problems. The research most directly points to the development of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). Amanda Gardner of Healthday News reports:
"This sheds some light that any excess weight over ideal body weight may have a detrimental effect," said study author Dr. Brian Jacobson, an assistant professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine.
"Even if you were of normal weight and experienced a gain, you are more prone to reflux," added Dr. Anthony A. Starpoli, a gastroenterologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
GERD occurs when the valve between the stomach and the esophagus fails to close properly. As a result, the contents in the stomach, including stomach acid, can spill up into the esophagus, leading to erosion of the esophagus and, in some cases, esophageal cancer.
Researchers have already established that overweight and obese people are at an increased risk for GERD, but there have been questions about the link between body-mass index (BMI) and GERD.
Posted on May 26, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports Eagles right guard Shawn Andrews is on a mission this off-season: beat the battle of the bulge. Staff writer Ashley Fox explains Andrews wouldn't let himself to hit the four hundreds despite some terrible news:
After the Eagles' season ended in January, Andrews gained 10 pounds, pushing perilously close to a weight that began with the number four. He made a decision. Enough was enough. He had to stop.
In April, weeks into a diet that was showing results, Andrews went to a park near his Arkansas home with a childhood buddy named Willie. The two had ridden the bus together to third grade, had pigged out in home economics class, had played hoops. Like Andrews, Willie was a big man, but unlike Andrews, he had stopped working out years ago.
That day, Andrews and Willie sat at the park watching the cars go by, talking about their lives and winking at girls. Afterward, Andrews went to Subway, ordering a chicken teriyaki sandwich on whole wheat bread, Sun chips, and a bottle of water. Two hours later, he got the call. Willie was dead, apparently of a heart attack brought on by high blood pressure. He was 23.
Posted on May 22, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
HealthDay News reports Wellness, Academics and You (WAY) a new program designed to help schoolchildren lose weight resulted in a two percent reduction in the number of overweight kids. Appearing in the Journal of Obesity Research the pilot study appears promising:
The study also found that students who took part in the Wellness, Academics and You (WAY) program for a semester ate more fruits and vegetables and increased their levels of physical activity--from an average of just under 12 minutes during the school day to 20.5 minutes, and from about 22 minutes a day outside of school to over 37 minutes.
Under the WAY program, students take 10-minute daily classroom breaks to exercise along with a video. Lessons on nutrition, calories, goal setting and stress management are also incorporated into core subjects--math, language arts, science, and social studies.
Check out the WAY homepage.
Posted on May 12, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
The other day I found this video clip of The Obesity Myth author Paul Campos (via ZestyPing) giving a speech at a conference in Massachusetts.
Campos contends that the obesity epidemic in this country is a media construct and not based in fact. Here are some more of his points:
- The correlations between obesity and illness/mortality are weak
- Weight cycling is bad
- Good diet and exercise = health at any size
- Weight loss programs don't inspire health or improved mortality
Intrigued by the video, I passed it along to Dr. Fuhrman. Here's what he had to say:
Since almost all typical diets fail and result in regain of the weight anyway, Mr. Campos is correct that weight cycling is bad and weight loss programs don't work. A truly good diet and exercise are the key points; the main problem with his reasoning is that he doesn't know what a good diet is. If he did he would find that people who follow a good diet stop being overweight and are no longer overweight. He is also wrong about the correlation between obesity and mortality.
So the difference is that Eat to Live was designed first as the healthiest way to eat. The side effect is that people gravitate pretty rapidly to their ideal weight and furthermore, it is a knowledge-based approach that makes the client the nutritional expert, so they gain back control of their health destiny and their weight. It is not a diet, if a diet means restricting calories, portions or trying to lose weight.
Your health and weight are governed by the law of cause and effect. Most people don't fail because of lack of effort. The most common mistake that prevents people from achieving their goals is that they do the same thing over and over expecting a different result. They get locked into a single way of looking at things. Taking a different approach requires us to think differently. The standard diet is so nutrient-poor that it leads to a tremendous drive to over eat calories and causes withdrawal symptoms leading to cravings and food addictions (toxic hunger).
| Eat to Live | Standard American Diet (SAD) |
| Vegetable-based | Grain-based |
| Lots of beans, nuts and seeds | Lots of dairy and meats |
| 5 - 10 fresh fruits daily | Lots of refined sweeteners |
| Oil used sparingly | Oils supply a major caloric load |
| Animal products 2 - 5 times a week | Animal products 2- 5 times a day |
| Focused on nutrient-dense calories | Focused on nutrient-poor calories |
The thought process behind the diet-style described in my book entitled, Eat to Live differs from conventional diets. When I first developed the Eat to Live approach, I started by asking: what is the healthiest way to eat? The fact that it is also the most effective way to lose weight is a great bonus. Other diets seem to be based on the premise: How can we make a popular diet and what type of gimmick or hook will sell books? My primary goal was not popularity or economic success. I have a duty to patients who rely on me for life saving advice. My goal was to be scientifically accurate and the most effective for both weight loss and disease reversal, bar none.
My book, Eat to Live has succeeded beyond my expectations. The people who have adopted this plan have achieved remarkable success, reversed their chronic diseases, and achieved a consistent healthy weight. The book has been translated into many foreign languages and has become a best seller. However, Eat to Live was written to speak to people who could not lose weight, no matter what they tried. It was not written for the masses and has limitations for wide acceptance by our society. Most people are looking for magic and are not interested in what the healthiest way to eat is, or the healthiest way to lose weight.
And lastly, taste is learned and food preferences can change and the myth that healthy eating has to take a second seat regarding taste or pleasure in life is simply incorrect. When people realize they can eat as much as they desire, not be hungry and uncomfortable, lose lots of weight and have the food taste as good or better than their prior diet, it is a no-brainer and they keep the weight off for life. But it takes time for food preferences to change, to learn the recipes and science that supports it.
Posted on May 11, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
On any given day you'll find hundreds of health-related news stories circulating throughout the web. Here are a few Associated Press stories that caught my eye:
Posted on May 10, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Eat to Live is a scientifically devised system. Dr. Fuhrman's claims about weight loss, nutritional excellence, and protection against disease, are stringently backed up by respected research and studies. But today's obesity epidemic isn't all about logic; there are also social and emotional complications to consider. Dr. Fuhrman explains:
It's not easy to change: eating has emotional and social overtones. It is especially difficult to break an addiction. Our American diet style is addicting, as you will learn, but not as addictive as smoking cigarettes. Stopping smoking is very hard, but many still succeed. I have heard many excuses over the years, from smokers aiming to quit and sometimes even from failed dieters. Making any change is not easy. Obviously, most people know if they change their diet enough and exercise, they can lose weight—but they still can't do it.
Surely someone who is overweight would prefer not to be, and for good reason. An article in The Washington Post explains negative attitudes about fatness can play a big part in inspiring people to lose weight. Sally Squires reports:
A number of studies have documented a pervasive bias against fat people, who often earn less income than their thinner counterparts. Research points to discrimination against corpulent men and women in a variety of places, including health care. Public opinion polls find that those who weigh too much are routinely stereotyped as lazy, slow and unmotivated compared with people at a healthier weight, who are more likely to be described as smart, competent and attractive.
The surprise? Overweight and obese people share many of the same negative views about their hefty counterparts. "It is another hurdle to weight loss," says Marlene B. Schwartz, associate director of Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity and co-author of a recent study examining the effect of one's own weight on fat bias.
The study, which involved 4,286 people, was one of the first to examine attitudes about obesity in people of all body weights. Like previous research, it found that a large proportion of lean people have negative views about the obese. The lower the body mass index of participants, the more likely they were to hold strong anti-fat opinions.
According to the study the anti-fat sentiment in this country is so strong that 4 percent of the participants would trade blindness for obesity and 5 percent would sacrifice a limb to be thin. In the Washington Post, Yale's Schwartz suggests that ingrained hatred of fat can actually sabotage weight-loss efforts:
"Hating yourself is not a good way to motivate yourself to engage in healthier behaviors," Schwartz says, noting that "if you have been so conditioned to see yourself as lazy, that has to get in your way when you are trying to go outside to take a walk or take the stairs instead of the elevator."
That's why Dr. Fuhrman is careful to describe Eat to Live as a long-term life change, not a quick fix diet (and you don't have to give up an arm and a leg):
Eat to Live will allow everyone who stays on the program to become slimmer, healthier, and younger looking. You will embark on an adventure that will transform your entire life. Not only will you lose weight, you will sleep better, feel better physically, have more energy, and feel better emotionally. And you will lower your chances of developing serious diseases in the future. You will learn why diets haven't worked for you in the past and why so many popular weight-loss plans simply do not meet the scientific criteria for effectiveness and safety.
Posted on May 9, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Last month The New York Times reported on survey results from PewResearch.org. Apparently 90% of Americans consider others fat, 70% consider acquaintances fat, and just 40% consider themselves overweight. Confused? Eric Nagourney reports:
The numbers may not seem to add up, but that is what a study from the Pew Research Center found in surveying more than 2,250 adults about the worsening obesity problem.
"People tend to see the weight problem of the nation as a whole as being greater than the weight problems of their friends and acquaintances," said the report, online at pewresearch.org.
The survey respondents are certainly right when it comes to the big picture. Federal studies, the report noted, estimate that about 31 percent of American adults are obese, and that an additional third are overweight.
"But when they think about weight," the researchers wrote of the people surveyed, "they appear to use different scales for different people."
I'm not a doctor, but a telephone survey seems to a horrible way of determining if a person is fat or not. Dr. Fuhrman determines healthy body weight by checking a person's percentage of body fat and measuring their periumbilical fat. What's that? He explains it's as simple as pinching near a person's umbilicus (navel) and measuring the distance between two fingers.
Dr. Fuhrman mentions that a lot of his patients on Eat to Live claim to be "so thin," but once he measures them, they realize they've still got work to do.
For more on this issue check out this previous post: I'm Not Fat
Posted on May 9, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
In March DiseaseProof learned about Steve Vaught--an obese man from San Diego--and his mission to walk across the country. Two months later Steve is more than 100 pounds lighter and nearing his destination the George Washington Bridge in New York. Matthew Verrinder of the Associated Press reports:
Vaught set out on his journey on April 10, 2005, hoping to complete the trip in six months. By early November, he had reached the halfway point after walking 1,400 miles. After taking a break for the holidays, he resumed walking in January.
He has kept a running log of his trek on his Web site, TheFatManWalking.com, which has gotten hundreds of thousands of hits, while others have watched him on Oprah Winfrey's TV show.
"People try to make this about calories and scales, but this is about living your life," he said Monday, walking briskly along Route 46—about 25 miles from his goal—as cars hummed past and beeped, a large paunch still part of his 305 pounds. "I spent 15 years either regretting the past or fearing the future. Now I'm living in the present."
He says he's gone through 15 pair of shoes, 12 pairs of pants, three shirts, 30 pairs of socks and his own sanity—twice.
Posted on May 8, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
The driving force behind permanent weight control is not eating less, it's eating more! No, not more chips, cookies, and cheeseburgers (staples of the standard American diet), but rather large quantities of nutrient-dense appetite-blunting foods like fruits and vegetables. Dr. Fuhrman elaborates in Eat to Live:
Eating large quantities of high-nutrient foods is the secret to optimal health and permanent weight control. In fact, eating much larger portions of food is one of the beauties of the Eat to Live diet. You eat more, which effectively blunts your appetite, and you lose weight—permanently.
Once you being to learn which foods make the grade—by having a high proportion of nutrients to calories—you are on your way to lifelong weight control and improved health.
A recent report on MSNBC.com discusses a new Penn State University study uncovering similar findings to Dr. Fuhrman's claim. Karen Collins, R.D. reports:
In the second half of the Penn State study, when portion sizes were kept the same and subtle changes were made to the foods so that they were 25 percent lower in calories, the women ate virtually the same portion as before. Since they did not eat more food to compensate for the lower calorie content, their calorie consumption dropped by 24 percent, or about 575 calories a day. The women's calorie intakes were slightly below what they needed to maintain their weight. If they continued eating this way for a longer period, they could expect to see weight loss of about one pound a week.
While the first round of research only decreased the amount of food eaten by participants (without focus on nutrient density), the next phase did the opposite; portion size remained the same, but the participants were supplied better nutrition. Collins' report closes with the following recommendations:
When you prepare your own meals and snacks, it's easy to make them less concentrated in calories by substituting ingredients with less fat or calories and increasing the proportion of vegetables and fruits. However, when you eat foods prepared by others, it's harder to judge the number of calories.
In these studies, despite dramatic differences in calorie content, the women thought the foods were equal in calories. Although they could usually tell when foods were lower in fat, lowfat foods are not always low-calorie. When you do eat foods prepared by others, watch your portions and choose plenty of vegetables and fruits.
Click here to read the skinny on nutrient density--and the thinking behind Dr. Fuhrman's approach. And a few parting words of inspiration from Dr. Fuhrman:
The Eat to Live diet does not require any deprivation. In fact, you do not have to give up any foods completely. However, as you consume larger and larger portions of health-supporting, high-nutrient foods, your appetite for low-nutrient foods decreases and you gradually lose your addiction to them. You will be able to make a complete commitment to this diet for the rest of your life.
Posted on May 4, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Yesterday children from all fifty states exercised in unison for fifteen minutes. The program called All Children Exercise Simultaneously (ACES) hopes to encourage kids to incorporate regular exercise into their lives and adopt healthy diets. Matthew Verrinder of the Associated Press reports:
Len Saunders, a grinning New Jersey elementary school gym teacher started Project ACES in 1989. Students in all 50 states and at least 50 other countries were urged to exercise en masse for 15 minutes Wednesday, all to curb alarming rates of childhood obesity. ACES stands for All Children Exercise Simultaneously.
"Now we just have to get them to do it every day, and we'll be fine," said Saunders, 45, who teaches at Valley View Elementary School, about 25 miles west of Manhattan. "The obesity epidemic is crazy in our country right now. This is not going to change their lives for the 15 minutes today, but it may motivate them to exercise in the future."
Posted on May 1, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
In this audio clip New York Times reporter Stephanie Saul discusses the drug industry's attempt to combat obesity—with pills. The report declares the desperately obese as "a large market going forward." I'm not sure if this is a pun, a marketing strategy, or both.
The report mentions two drugs, Xenical and Meridia. In Eat to Live Dr. Fuhrman explains why these drugs are poor alternatives to nutritional excellence:
Remember: for anything to be effective, you have to be on it forever. Even if the drugs were remarkably effective, you would have to be prepared to stay on them forever, the minute you stopped, the benefits would slowly be lost. In the long run, it is still your diet that determines your health and your weight. The amphetamine-related appetite suppressants have received much press, and they were quite popular until their dangers became more well known. They were never approved for long-term use, so it wasn't very wise for people to use them.
The two FDA-approved drugs for weight reduction are Meridia (sibutramine) and Xenical (orlistate). Meridia can cause headache, insomnia, constipation, dry mouth, and hypertension and is only slightly helpful.1 Xenical, the fat inhibitor, can cause abdominal pain and diarrhea, and reduces absorption of the fat-soluble vitamins such as D, E, and K. It may help those who consume an unhealthful, fatty diet, but even then it is hardly worth the side effects. Overall, drugs are drugs—they are a poor substitute for healthy living.
Continue Reading...
Posted on April 28, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
If you read yesterday's post about the steady stream of press coverage surrounding the obesity epidemic you'll see that so many of those stories focus on miracle cures and surgical shortcuts (instead of the old "eat right and exercise").
But not all obesity-related news fits that mold. Here's a couple:
News items like these show that there are signs of countering the obesity epidemic, just as long as the focus involves developing weight-loss systems through valid scientific research and not sweeping problems under the rug the with fads, drugs, and surgery. Dr. Fuhrman's approach in Eat to Live is exactly that—adopt a healthy diet for disease protection and sustained wellness. He explains:
Eat to Live gives you the information and the motivation you need to take advantage of this opportunity to improve your health and maximize your chances for disease-free life.
Science and the development of modern refrigeration and transportation methods have give us access to high-quality, nutrient-dense food. In today's modern society, we have available to us the largest variety of fresh and frozen natural foods in human history. Using the foods available to us today, we can devise diets and menus with better nutrient density and nutrient diversity than ever before possible.
You have a clear choice. You can live longer and healthier than ever before, or you can do what most populations do: eat to create disease and premature death.
Posted on April 28, 2006 by Joel Fuhrman
It's pretty clear which foods will let you feel full with the least amount of calories--fruits and green vegetables. Green vegetables, fresh fruit, and legumes again take the gold, silver, and bronze medals. Nothing else in the field is even close.
Caloric Ratios of Common Foods| Foods | Calories Per Pound | Calories Per Liter | Fiber Grams Per Pound |
|---|
| Oils | 3,900 | 7,700 | 0 |
| Potato chips of French fries | 2,600 | 3,000 | 0 |
| Meat | 2,000 | 3,000 | 0 |
| Cheese | 1,600 | 3,400 | 0 |
| White Bread | 1,300 | 1,500 | 0 |
| Chicken and Turkey (white meat) | 900 | 1,600 | 0 |
| Fish | 800 | 1,400 | 0 |
| Eggs | 700 | 1,350 | 0 |
| Whole Grains (wheat and rice) | 600 | 1,000 | 3 |
| Starchy Vegetables (potatoes and corn) | 350 | 600 | 4 |
| Beans | 350 | 500 | 5 |
| Fruits | 250 | 300 | 9 |
| Green Vegetables | 100 | 200 | 5 |
Green vegetables are so incredibly low in calories and rich in nutrients and fiber that the more you eat of them, the more weight you will lose. One of my secrets of nutritional excellence and superior healing is the one pound-one pound rule. That is, try to eat at least one pound of raw green vegetables a day and one pound of cooked/steamed or frozen green vegetables a day as well. One pound raw and one pound cooked--keep this goal in mind as you design and eat every meal. This may be too ambitious a goal for some of us to reach, but by working toward it, you will ensure the dietary balance and results you want. The more greens you eat, the more weight you will lose. The high volume of greens not only will be your secret to a thin waistline but will simultaneously protect you against life threatening illnesses.
Posted on April 27, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
The obesity epidemic in this country has more twists and turns than a McDonald's drive-thru. Everyday the news media is blitzed with a different obesity-related headline. Here are two that caught my eye this morning...
According to Reuters, Medtronic Inc., the world's biggest maker of medical devices; is developing weight control implants to help the company tap into the $100 billion obesity market. Debra Sherman reports:
Doctors and companies across the United States are looking at various technologies to combat obesity, including brain stimulation. These methods, though not completely understood by doctors, may be preferable to bariatric surgery since device-based treatments are reversible and have fewer side effects.
Despite failures so far of some devices in clinical trials, companies are pushing ahead, convinced that medical devices hold the key to battling obesity.
Medtronic is trying to develop a battery-powered gastric pacemaker that causes the stomach to contract, sending signals of satiety to the appetite center in the brain, a small start-up also is working with the famed Mayo Clinic on a device that uses electricity to paralyze the stomach, reducing or stopping contractions that churn food as part of the digestion process.
If shocking your innards isn't disturbing enough, what if the obesity epidemic is actually worse then we think? I think this would surprise anyone, but according to AFP it's true. It's seems telephone interviews aren't satisfactory for fat data collection. A new study explains:
The main tool for measuring obesity in the United States is the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), which uses telephone interviews with a cross-section of the population to get its data.
But the researchers say that, in these phone interviews, women of all ages often under-report their weight, and young and middle-aged men often over-report their height.
As a result, the calculations for body mass index (BMI)—the yardstick of fat—are being skewed, and the true picture is that America is even chubbier than it thinks.
It seems to me that all these headlines do is make a clear solution murky. In his book Eat to Live Dr. Fuhrman explains that weight loss approaches like "gastric electrocution" are too risky and if you really want to slim down the population start eating to live:
The number one health problem in the United States is obesity, and if the current trend continues by the year 2030 all adults in the United States will be obese. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) estimate that obesity is associated with a twofold increase in mortality, costing society more than $100 billion per year.1
The NIH has reported that those undergoing surgical treatment for obesity have had substantial nutritional and metabolic complications, gastritis, esophagitis, outlet stenosis, and abdominal hernias. More than 10 percent required another operation to fix problems resulting from the first surgery.2
The Eat to Live promise is threefold: substantial, healthy weight reduction in a short period of time; prevention or reversal of many chronic and life-threatening medical conditions; and a new understanding of food and health that will continue to pay dividends for the rest of your life.
Continue Reading...
Posted on April 24, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Here's some health-related news making headlines:
- Candice Choi of the Associated Press reports many hospitals are turning to technology to ensure patients are eating right during hospital stays.
- According to Charnicia E. Huggins of Reuters a new study links television watching to obesity in some children.
- WTOP reports a new study claims teenagers using fad diets to slim down may end up gaining pounds in the long run.
Posted on April 24, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Dr. Fuhrman's colleague Dr. Steven Acocella, MS, D.C., DACBN, Board Certified Clinical Nutritionist, American College of Lifestyle Physicians, and a Diplomat of the American Clinical Board of Nutrition, discusses a popular supplement:
An herbal extract of the Hoodia gordonii cactus was found to be useful in quelling the thirst and hunger pangs of desert nomads during times of famine. The proposed mechanism, according to Dr. Richard Dixey, a spokesperson for Phytopharm Pharmaceuticals, who heads a research team efforting the synthesis of P57, the appetite suppressing component of the plant, explains how it works:
"There is a part of your brain, the hypothalamus. Within that mid-brain there are nerve cells that sense glucose sugar. When you eat, blood sugar goes up because of the food, these cells start firing and now you are full. What the Hoodia seems to contain is a molecule that is about 10,000 times as active as glucose. It goes to the mid-brain and actually makes those nerve cells fire as if you were full. But you have not eaten. Nor do you want to."
Pretty impressive sounding stuff, but does it work? That depends on whom you ask. Naturally, any advertisement is filled with glowing endorsements. But there is only one published, peer-reviewed scientific evaluation of P57 and that was preformed on rats. This study concluded that there was evidence of drug-induced anorexia using the extract from Hoodia1. But before you run out to the health food store consider a few facts of this study. The study was conducted on rats whereby researchers injected huge dosages of P57 directly into the brains (hypothamus) of the animals and then observed their eating behaviors for several days (apologies to PETA). To date there are no credible published human trials. Basing the use of any product on a single animal trial and purely anecdotal information is risky.
Remember, the well known Leptoprin commercial, the "when is a diet pill worth 153 dollars a bottle�when it works" people? In it they state the effectiveness of their product is "backed by two major scientific clinical trials," what they don't tell you (and don't have to tell you) is that its effectiveness has also been debunked, refuted and disproved by 50 other clinical trials! It's up to us, the consumer, to do our own research.
Taking any substance that has not been thoroughly evaluated, or in which studies yield inconsistent or irreproducible results is a poor choice. Professionally I could never recommend, and personally I would never use, anything for which the credible scientific community has not reached a positive consensus. I don't experiment on my patients and I don't rely on social proof.
Smoke and Mirrors Weight Loss
The use of this substance as a weight loss aid really comes down to how you view health. The larger question we need to ask here transcends assessing if Hoodia is safe and effective, if it really works or is it is a scam. If we are desirous of losing weight and improving our health consider this:
Many of the Hoodia manufacturers boast that their product is safe because it is not a drug. And according to the Food and Drug Administration they're right; but relative to what Hoodia actually does in the body (if it really works) they're wrong. Hoodia is not a drug by FDA standards simply because it has not been approved by them (the FDA) to be "safe and effective in the treatment of aliments or conditions." Any substance that has been isolated, concentrated and ingested for the intent of producing a physiological response is a drug. I don't think anyone could have a problem with my definition here. With that said, during my pharmacology clerkship the first thing that my professor said is that every drug, no matter how trivial or potentially lifesaving has damaging negative side effects on the body that always accompany its intended beneficial use. There is always a 'health-tax' to pay with taking any substance. It's the nature of biochemistry and all drugs have negative side effects, no exceptions.
Okay, so let's say a thousand years of Hoodia use by the San tribesmen in the Kalahari Desert have got to give this stuff credibility, their Shaman can't be wrong, and it actually works well. Consider some potential negative side effects specific to taking Hoodia. Hoodia is said to suppress thirst as well as hunger. People taking it run the risk of dehydration which can lead to the development of kidney stones and other fluid related problems. More importantly, specific to weight loss, taking it over time it will do nothing to increase metabolism so you won't burn more calories at rest; as a good aerobic training regime will do for you. So, as soon as you stop taking it the body will go into a highly efficient fat-storage mode and store even more fat at an accelerated rate, the old diet rebound "yo-yo" syndrome. This phenomenon has been seen with every magic diet pill ever used. You've not changed any metabolic set points by taking Hoodia and your brain wants those stored calories back, big time. And, if you just continue taking it, it's possible that you'll begin to lose lean body mass and weight loss at that point can become deceptive and dangerous.
Also, what about those reduced calories you do take in? If you're on a reduced calorie diet style and in caloric deficit (the only way to lose weight) then you'll have to pay very close attention to what you eat to maintain excellent nutrition. A diet that does not contain the full complement of antioxidants, phytochemicals and other micronutrients and the right macronutrients (fat, carbohydrates and proteins) is disease promoting. If you've reduced your caloric intake 40% by using this substance then you'll have to get all of your nutrition from 60% of the amount of food you normally eat.
The problem is that the vast majority of Americans are already not getting nearly enough of the life-extending, health maintaining food elements eating 100% of their present calories to begin with! More food, or rather more higher quality food, not less low quality food is a much better way to get the appetite centers in the hypothalamus to cooperate and to lose weight. "Turning off" hunger can be achieved by not only the caloric component of food, but the bulk volume and nutrients present in the food as well. So, you can "suppress" (or better yet satisfy) your appetite with lower calorie, higher nutrient-dense foods and at the end of the day you've not only controlled your appetite, reduced your calories (and therefore weight) but you've also improved your nutritional status. Now we're talking!
Gee, what foods have all the following attributes at the same time?
A. High bulk, like lots of healthy fiber
B. Are extremely rich in nutrients
C. Are also much lower in calories
If you don't know the answer to this food trivia question we have a lot to talk about!
When it comes to Hoodia or any other quick fix medical breakthrough�flavor of the month diet pill�we just don't get something for nothing and there's always a price to pay. The arsenal in the war against being over fat and against obesity has got to include more than just weight loss; weight loss by itself does not necessarily equate to improved health. I regularly consult with patients that have lost large amounts of weight and are very unhealthy. What's the point of losing a bunch of weight only to develop some other diet-related morbid condition? Any change in body weight, up or down, should always result in an elevation of health and clearly this is not always the outcome of change, the scientific journals are full of such cases. I have seen several patients that have resorted to bariatic surgery (stomach stapling) and lost nearly 100 pounds each and are enduring tremendous nutrition-related health problems. And the damage I seen in victims of the Atkins weight loss scheme could fill volumes, but that's another article. A diet rich in Phen-Phen and Red-Bull can pretty much guarantee you rapid weight loss but it can be a bit hard on the system. Using some gimmick to fool the body to lose weight can result in the perfect body�corpse-weight! Write that down.
The smoke and mirror weight loss results you get from taking herbs and other diet drugs might win the battle short term but because it doesn't result in elevated health we still lose the war. Clearly Hoodia will not improve our nutrition and can further compromise our health over time. The only possible way it might be useful is if we were to learn how to eat healthfully while taking it, but if you learned how to do that you wouldn't need Hoodia anyway. Trust me; I see real weight loss success every day.
Allow me to leave you with the words of that pop-culture icon and high profile celebrity promoter of Hoodia, Anna Nicole Smith: "Hoodia works; it's the new miracle diet pill that aids in weight loss by suppressing appetite!"
Sorry Anna, we're not buying and neither should you. Now, how about you get with the program and go get a copy of Eat to Live by Dr. Fuhrman.
Continue Reading...
Posted on April 13, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Dr. Fuhrman dedicates a lot of his book Eat to Live to explaining that diets really don't work--for a number of reasons. His main point is:
A weight-loss program can be considered successful only if the weight loss is permanent, safe, and promotes overall health. Temporary weight loss is of little or no benefit, especially if it compromises your health.
Alas (the blog) recently published a massive essay essentially saying that dieting is a massive waste of time. It touches on a number of studies. If you read it, don't ignore the dozens of comments. There are some important points in there, too.
The essay is summed up in the conclusion like this:
1. No weight-loss diet has ever been scientifically shown to produce substantial long-term weight loss in any but a tiny minority of dieters.
2. Whether or not a weight-loss diet "works," people who go on weight-loss diets are likely to die sooner than those who maintain a steady weight or who slowly gain weight.
3. For fat people (or anyone else) concerned with their health, the best option is probably moderate exercise and eating fruits and veggies, without concern for waistlines. In other words, Health At Every Size (HAES).
4. The model on which most weight-loss diets are based - in which fat people eat like fat people and must learn to eat like non-fat people - is probably a myth.
Dr. Fuhrman is a staunch believer in the importance of weight loss in the name of health. But that doesn't mean this isn't an interesting discussion worth having.
To me, the thing that's missing from most discussions of weight loss, including this one, is the idea of excellent nutrition, that actually improves your overall health as you lose weight. (It's not just about avoiding certain foods--but is rather about gravitating to others.) Many of the important studies showing these kinds of effects have been described previously on DiseaseProof, and are as relevant as ever in this discussion. I'm interested to hear what you think.
Posted on April 13, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
The Scotsman reports fad diets like Atkins and processed convenience foods are taking Scotland by storm. With more and more Scottish citizens adopting these diet-styles, health correspondent Lyndsay Moss says Scottish bones could be at risk.
A balanced diet including calcium, vitamin D and other minerals is vital for healthy bones, which are less at risk of fracture.
But the National Osteoporosis Society (NOS) warned that many Scots could be putting their bones at risk due to food fads and because they are eating more processed foods than before.
The charity said regimes such as the low-carbohydrate Atkins diet and the cabbage soup diet could mean people are not getting a nutritional balance.
Bone health is one of the less-discussed aspects of low-carbohydrate diets. A great place to find out more about it is at AtkinsExposed.org, which addresses bone health several times. Here are some highlights:
- "Some high-protein, very-low-carbohydrate, weight-loss diets are designed to induce ketosis. When carbohydrate intake or utilization is insufficient to provide glucose to the cells that rely on it as an energy source, ketone bodies are formed from fatty acids. An increase in circulating ketones can disturb the body's acid-base balance, causing metabolic acidosis. Evidence suggests that even mild acidosis can have potentially deleterious consequences over the long run, including low blood phosphate levels, resorption of calcium from bone, increased risk of osteoporosis, and an increased propensity to form kidney stones." Read more.
- "Urinary excretions of calcium and acids are correlated positively with intakes of animal and nondairy animal protein but are correlated negatively with plant-protein intake." Read more.
- "The concern with bone health arises from the fact that muscle protein has a high sulphur content. When people eat too much of this meat protein, sulfuric acid forms within our bodies which must somehow be neutralized to maintain proper internal pH balance. One way our bodies can buffer the sulphuric acid load caused by meat is with calcium borrowed from our bones." Read more.
- "Despite having some of the highest calcium intakes in the world, the Inuit also have some of the worst rates of osteoporosis." Read more.
Posted on April 5, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Denise Grady of The New York Times reports low-calorie diets may lead to longer life. Although due to the difficulty of conducting a large-scale/long-term study, there is no proof a low-calorie high-nutrient diet can prolong human life. But a new study hopes to change that:
A six-month study in 48 people directed by Dr. Ravussin, being published today in The Journal of the American Medical Association, is the first rigorous test of calorie restriction in people who are overweight but not obese. Most participants reduced calories by 25 percent, but some cut back more and ate only 890 calories a day for several months.
"There's never been a study like this one," said Dr. Evan Hadley, director of geriatrics and clinical gerontology at the National Institute on Aging, which paid for the study. He called the results "striking," even though the experiment was only a pilot study for a two-year trial of calorie restriction due to begin in the fall.
Among the main findings of Dr. Ravussin's study was that calorie restriction led to decreases in insulin levels and body temperature. Both are considered signs of longevity, partly because an earlier study by other researchers found both traits in long-lived people. The diet also led to a drop in thyroid hormones and declines in DNA damage.
But Dr. Ravussin and Dr. Hadley cautioned that the study was preliminary, and that it did not prove that calorie restriction could make people healthier or add years to their lives.
"It's an important step along the way," Dr. Hadley said.
Posted on March 17, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
According to Dr. Fuhrman's books, Americans consume about 40 percent of their calories from animal products, which has contributed to the increase of cancer and heart disease in the past fifty years. So how does this information impact high-protein weight-loss plans like the Atkins diet? Consider this passage from Eat to Live:
The Atkins diet (and other diets rich in animal products and low in fruits and unrefined carbohydrates) is likely to significantly increase a person's risk of colon cancer. Scientific studies show a clear and strong relationship between cancers of the digestive tract, bladder, and prostate with low fruit consumption. What good is a diet that lowers your weight but also dramatically increases your chances of developing cancer?
A meat-based, low-fiber diet, like the one Atkins advocates, includes little or no fruit, no starchy vegetables, and no whole grains. Following Atkin's recommendations could more than double your risk of certain cancers, especially meat-sensitive cancers, such as epithelial cancers of the respiratory tract.1 For example, a study conducted by the National Cancer Institute looked at lung cancer in nonsmoking women so that smoking would not be a major variable. Researchers found that the relative risk of lung cancer was six times greater in women in the highest fifth of saturated-fat consumption than those in the lowest fifth.
The March 18 issue of Lancet includes research suggesting that the Atkins diet can also cause some other major health complications. Steven Reinberg of Healthday News reports on a case from the study:
The patient had followed the Atkins diet, including Atkins supplements. She went to the hospital with difficulty breathing and was diagnosed with a condition called ketoacidosis.
Ketoacidosis results when dangerously high levels of acids called ketones build up in the blood. Ketones are produced in the liver during starvation. A low-carbohydrate diet such as Atkins can lead to ketone production, Lessnau's team notes.
"She had to be admitted to the intensive care unit," Lessnau said. "The diet actually caused her acidosis."
Lessnau is surprised that this problem with the Atkins diet has not been reported before. "This is something that is not well-diagnosed or may be underreported," he said.
"The Atkins diet is not a safe diet in everybody," Lessnau said. "It can cause potentially life-threatening problems."
Dr. Fuhrman says
most weight loss plans are a waste of your money.
For more about how Dr. Fuhrman does recommend losing weight, read this outline, and these thoughts on diets.
Continue Reading...
Posted on March 16, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
In Eat to Live Dr. Fuhrman warns against eating regular quantities of animal products, refined grains, and oils, urging you instead to get most of your calories from vegetables, fruits, legumes, seeds, and raw nuts:
Vegetable and fruits protect all types of cancers if consumed in large enough quantities. Hundreds of scientific studies document this. The most prevalent cancers in our country are mostly plant-food-deficiency disease. Raw vegetables have the most powerful anti-cancer properties of all foods.
Research shows that those who avoid meat and diary have lower rates heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity.1
Studies have confirmed that individuals consuming a vegetarian diet (one based on plant matter and not dairy or refined grains) live longer than non-vegetarians and almost never get heart attacks.
With this in mind, consider this recent weight loss study from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. The eating habits of 22,000 people, meat eaters and vegetarians, were tracked over five years. In the end results found that all participants gained a few pounds, but individuals who adopted a vegetarian or vegan diet gained the least. Reuters reports:
"The weight gain was less in the vegans than in the meat-eaters and somewhere in between in the other groups," said Tim Key, of Britain's Cancer Research UK charity and the University of Oxford, who conducted the study.
"The lowest weight gain was in people who changed their diet to eat fewer animal products," he told Reuters.
In addition to stressing the importance of physical activity for sustained health, the study also comments on the link between diet and cancer:
[The study] also showed that diet is second only to tobacco, as a leading cause of cancer, and, along with alcohol, is responsible for nearly a third of cancer cases in developed countries.
Continue Reading...
Posted on March 10, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
The global obesity epidemic is getting plenty of attention, and rightly so.
In Dr. Fuhrman's book Eat to Live he address the state of obesity and weight loss and many of the health complications of being overweight:
Obesity is not just a cosmetic issue—extra weight leads to an earlier death, as many studies confirm.1 Overweight individuals are more likely to die from causes, including heart disease and cancer. Two thirds of those with problems also have hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, or another obesity-related condition.2 It is a major cause of early mortality in the United States.3 Since dieting almost never works and the health risk of obesity are so life threatening, more and more people are desperately turning to drugs and surgical procedures to lose weight.
Health Complications of Obesity| Increase overall premature mortality | Lipid disorders |
| Adult onset diabetes | Obstructive sleep apnea |
| Hypertension | Gallstones |
| Degenerative arthritis | Fatty infiltration of liver |
| Coronary artery disease | Restrictive lung disease |
| Cancer | Gastrointestinal diseases |
(Rather than losing weight with a temporary diet, Dr. Fuhrman advocates permanently shifting the focus of eating to the healthiest and most nutritious foods.)
Recent news is full of new angles and thoughts on obesity. Reuters reports one such study links obesity to migraines:
As BMI increased, so did the frequency of migraine attacks. The [research] team notes that 4.4 percent of the normal weight group had 10 to 15 headache days per month. This increased to 5.8 percent in the overweight group, 13.6 percent in the obese group and 20.7 percent in the morbidly obese group.
The percentage of subjects who reported severe migraines also increased with BMI group, from 53 percent in subjects of normal weight to 57 percent in the overweight group, 59 percent in the obese group and 65 percent in the morbidly obese group.
According to Reuters another study claims that many parents can't admit their children are overweight:
Many parents do not identify their child as "overweight," but will select a sketch of a heavier model when asked to choose one representative of their child, new study findings show.
"Comparisons between images and sketches showed that parents' visual perceptions of their children more clearly reflect their child's physical appearance than words they might use to classify the child's weight," study author Dr. Helen J. Binns, of Northwestern University in Chicago.
The AFP is reporting that Sweden will begin screening four-year-olds for obesity:
In addition to registering Swedish four-year-olds' height and weight development, pediatricians will be asked to survey their BMI, which measures the relative percentages of fat and muscle mass in the body by dividing weight in kilos by height in meters and which is considered the best index for obesity.
"In most children, weight problems won't surface until later, but by checking four-year-olds we hope to find people who are especially at risk, who are genetically predisposed to become overweight," Carl-Erik Flodmark, head physician at the child obesity center in Skaane in southern Sweden.
Continue Reading...
Posted on March 6, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Marilynn Marchione of the Associated Press reports that new studies by two groups of researchers claim that consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks actually causes obesity. While it is widely agreed that soda contributes to weight gain, labeling soda as a standalone cause is a new idea that's ruffling some feathers. Epidemiologist Dr. Michael Thun says:
"Caloric imbalance causes obesity, so in the sense that any one part of the diet is contributing excess calories, it's contributing causally to the obesity," Thun said. "It doesn't mean that something is the only cause. It means that in the absence of that factor there would be less of that condition."
Does it merit a warning on soda cans?
"I think it would be a good candidate for a warning," Thun said. "It's something that should be seriously considered."
In Dr. Fuhrman's book Disease Proof Your Child he discusses soft drinks and rising obesity rates:
Obesity rates have risen in tandem with soda consumption in the United States, and in the last twenty years the consumption of soft drinks by teenagers had doubled.1 Twelve to nineteen-year-old boys consume thirty-four teaspoons of sugar a day in their diet, and about half of that comes from soft drinks. Children start drinking soft drinks at a very young age, and advertisements and promotions by the soft drink manufacturers are aggressively marketed to the young.
Source: Data from the National Soft Drink Association, Beverage World, published by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (www.cspinet.org)
Soft drinks and processed foods are full of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). HFCS is not only fattening, but this inexpensive and ultra-concentrated sugar has no resemblance to real food made by nature. It is another experiment thrust upon our unsuspecting children with unknown dangerous consequences. Besides sugar, corn syrup, and chemicals, these drinks often contain caffeine, an addictive stimulant. Children crave more and more as they get older. By adolescence most children have become soft-drink addicts. It is no surprise that six out of the seven most popular soft drinks contain caffeine. Contrast this high level of sugary "liquid candy" with the meager intake of fresh produce by children and teenagers, and it is no surprise that we have an obesity epidemic beyond all expectations.
Continue Reading...
Posted on February 21, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Over the past few months Disease Proof has posted numerous articles citing the benefits of eating raw nuts. Nuts protect against heart disease, provide a potent source of Vitamin E, and help to lower cholesterol.
Almonds Are In is dedicated to informing the public about almonds. The site boasts a lot of interesting facts about these "crunchy characters" and urges individuals to incorporate them into a healthy lifestyle. The site claims, "The tasty almond delivers not only flavor and texture to everything it's added to, but also more complete nutrition than you can imagine in just one handful."
One of the big knocks against nuts, including the almond, is high fat content. But that kind of fat is healthy. In his book Eat to Live, Dr. Fuhrman encourages consumption of nuts even for those trying to lose weight:
Nuts and seeds contain 150-200 calories per ounce. Eating a small amount—one ounce or less—each day, however, adds valuable nutrients and healthy unprocessed fats. Nuts and seeds are ideal in salad dressings, particularly when blended with an orange and spices or vegetable juice. Always eat nuts and seeds raw because the roasting process alters their beneficial fats. Commercially packaged nuts and seeds are often cooked in hydrogenated oils, adding trans fats and sodium to your diet, so these are absolutely off the list. If you find that you tire of eating nuts or seeds raw, try lightly toasting them at home—this does not deplete their beneficial properties and adds some variety for pleasure. Among the raw nuts and seeds you can add to your diet are almonds, cashews, walnuts, black walnuts, pecans, filberts, hickory nuts, macadamias, pignolis, pistachios, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, and flaxseed.
For other people (those who do not need to lose weight and athletes for instance) Dr. Fuhrman encourages eating even more nuts.
Posted on February 15, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
The Seattle Times reports on a new weight-loss plan, entitled "The Flavor Point Diet." The idea behind it is to outwit the chemicals, especially in processed foods, that make us want to eat more:
Fast food and packaged snacks push all kinds of flavor buttons, some of them almost secretly. Katz observes that we might reach for our favorite breakfast cereal because it's sweet, not realizing it's also loaded with salt. Ditto for the salty corn crisps that are nearly as sweet as the cereal. We might not detect it, but our brains do. As a result, we tend to eat more of these foods…
…He defuses this dietary bomb by narrowing each day's flavor options and providing variety over time, not all in one mouthful.
The menu for each day of a six-week program centers on a specific taste theme. For example, there is "peach day," with a fresh peach on whole-grain cereal for breakfast, a peach jam (all-fruit) and peanut butter (natural) sandwich on whole-grain bread for lunch and peach-coriander turkey with oven-roasted potatoes and turnips for dinner. (The recipes are in the book.) There is also walnut day, tomato day, lemon day, bell-pepper day, thyme day and other flavor-theme days.
Dr. Fuhrman addresses appetite satiety in a different way. As he explains in
Disease Proof Your Child:
All primates, including humans, are driven to consume food from a variety of categories. Contrary to popular belief, a monkey does not sit under a banana tree eating bananas all day. He eats bananas and then may travel half a mile away to find a different type of food. He has an innate drive to consume variety; just satisfying the caloric drive is not enough. Likewise, children [or humans] will not be satisfied with eating only one or two foods; they will want to eat a portion of one food and want another type of food. As a higher-order animal with a bigger brain, we search for a variety of nutrient sources, and this variety assures that we get the broad assortment of nutrients that increases our immune function and longevity potential. I call this desire for different foods our variety driver.
The sense of taste is very important factor triggering the release of digestive juices and initiating the process of proper digestion. Taste can also be a guide for the body to judge the correct amount of food to consume, providing one is eating natural food. To satisfy true hunger, natural food tastes great. As the appetite is satiated, the thrill of eating diminishes and we feel we have had enough. Yet when we are exposed to processed foods, the body's natural signals to stop eating are disturbed. We offer tasty treats and desserts to stimulate and already-full appetite further and entice all to eat more. Then the unhealthier the diet becomes, the more food addition plays a role in governing appetite. We feel the need to imbibe when we get accustomed to consuming unhealthful foods. Unhealthful foods are addicting; healthy foods are not, and do not induce overeating.
Posted on February 3, 2006 by Joel Fuhrman
What is wrong with every single commercial weight-loss program? They are all too high in fat and too low in fiber because they cater to the American love affair with rich, high fat food.
Weight Watchers' brand foods contain 24 percent of calories from fat. Lean Cuisine contains 25 percent of calories from fat. The Jenny program requires the purchase of packaged meals with entrees such as cheese soufflé and Salisbury steak, meals that are almost as bad as what most Americans eat at home. These commercial diet plans, since they are not very low in fat, must restrict portion sizes to offer "low calorie" meals. These "skimpy" portions represent an obsolete approach with a dismal track record.
It is merely a matter of time before those trying to keep their portions small increase the amount of food they are eating. The amount of fiber is insufficient and the nutrient density of the diet is poor. These diets restrict calories, but because the food choices and meal plans are so calorie-dense, the dieters must eat tiny portions in order to lose weight. These choices don't satisfy our desire to eat, and we wind up craving food and becoming frustrated. When dieters can't stand eating thimble-sized portions anymore and finally eat until satisfied, they put on weight on with a vengeance. You may be able to hold your breath under water for a short period, but when you resurface you will be hungry for air and will be forced to speed up your respiratory rate. In a similar manner, if you cannot eat small portions forever, it just isn't likely to work for long.
You can't eat out of boxes and consume powdered drinks forever, either. If you do lose weight, you will always gain it back. Instead, permanent changes in your eating habits must be made. Learning new recipes and adopting different ways of eating that you can live with will maintain your weight loss and protect your health for the rest of your life.
Posted on February 2, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
The New York Times reports that school districts in the Bronx and Manhattan won't be going the "whole" way with milk any more. New York education officials decided to eliminate whole milk as part of a larger movement to curb childhood obesity. Martin Oestreicher, executive director of school support services explains that this initiative is all about children's livelihoods:
"We got rid of white bread; you'll never see any white bread in our schools—it's all about whole-wheat bread, frankfurter buns, hamburger buns. We reformulated a lot of items. It all goes in the context of trying to cut down the obesity index in our kids."
The article mentions that New York City is not the first major district to stop serving whole milk. Los Angeles initiated the same ban in 2000. States such as Illinois, New Jersey and Connecticut have enacted or are considering similar decisions to bar or limited the serving of whole milk in public schools.
Federal guidelines still suggest three full servings of milk per day, but school officials feel their decision will help control the fat and calorie intake of children. Dr. Fuhrman has his own concerns about childhood consumption of milk. In Disease Proof Your Child he explains that mother's milk is the best choice for natural childhood development for kids until the age of two. After that it's better to get healthy fat and calcium from other sources:
The antibodies derived from mother's milk are necessary for maximizing immune system function, maximizing intelligence, and protecting against immune systems disorders, allergies, and even cancer. The child's immune system is still underdeveloped until age two, the same age when the digestive tract seals the leaks (spaces between cells) designed to allow the mother's antibodies access to the blood stream. So picking the age of two as the length of recommended breast-feeding is not just a haphazard guess, it matches the age at which the child is no longer absorbing the mother's immunoglobulins to supplement their own system. Nature designed it that way.
Breast-feeding for two years might be considered a prolonged time by today's standards, but this practice offers significant protection against childhood diseases, including allergies and asthma. One recent study showed that breast-feeding for less than 9 months was found to be a risk factor for asthma and after that period of time, the longer a child was breast-fed, the lower the risk of asthma.1 Avoiding cow's milk proteins, even those found in infant formulas, has also been shown to reduce asthma occurrence.2
After weaning from the breast, the same qualities that make a healthy adult diet, a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, and seeds, makes the best diet for children. The bottom line is to have your children develop a taste for other wholesome drinks besides cow's milk. Try soy milk or almond milk, or a mix of soy and almond. Many options are available fortified with vitamin D, vitamin B12, and calcium. If using dairy products or milk, stick to the fat-free variety. The fat in our children's diet should mostly come from avocadoes, nuts, and seeds, not cows.
Incidentally
The New York Times article mentions that switching to soy milk would have jeopardized federal school food reimbursements.
For more of Dr. Fuhrman's thoughts on children's consumption of milk read this post entitled Cow's Milk and Kids Aren't Made for Each Other.
Continue Reading...
Posted on February 1, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
In his book Eat to Live Dr. Fuhrman cites studies that show fewer calories can mean an increased life span. Recently The Wall Street Journal printed an article supporting calorie-restricting diets. Health Journal writer Tara Parker-Pope reports:
New research shows that calorie-restriction diets -- which cut calories by as much as 40% of your normal intake -- may help you live a longer life. Earlier this month, one of the first human studies of calorie restriction showed that people on the strict diet had younger hearts than normal-weight people on a typical Western diet.
While calorie restriction may not be practical or possible for everyone, there are still lessons to be learned. What is so surprising is that people who follow calorie-restriction diets in hopes of living longer are still eating a lot of food. They indulge in huge breakfasts and big dinners, but eat few or no snacks in between. The main difference in their diets compared with most people typically is in the nutritional quality of food they eat -- whole grains, fruits and vegetables and less animal protein and saturated fat. They avoid refined foods, sugary desserts, soft drinks and other sources of "empty" calories.
Researcher Luigi Fontana makes the key point about reducing calories in your diet: it's not about less food, it's about which food:
"It's not eating half a hamburger, half a bag of french fries and half a sugared beverage," notes Dr. Fontana.
Eat to Live explains all about low-calorie, nutrient-rich food like fruits, vegetables, legumes, seeds, and nuts is the key. Here are some of Dr. Fuhrman's findings from the book:
Reduced caloric intake is the only experimental technique to consistently extend maximum life span. This has been shown in all species tested, from insects and fish to rats and cats. There are so many hundreds of studies.
Scientists have long known that mice that eat fewer calories live longer. Recent research has demonstrated the same effect in primates (i.e., you). A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that restricting calories by 30 percent significantly increased life span in monkeys. The experimental diet, while still providing adequate nourishment, slowed monkeys' metabolism and reduced their body temperatures, changes similar to those in the long-lived thin mice. Decreased levels of triglycerides and increased HDL (the good) cholesterol were also observed.1 Studies over the years, on many different species of animals, have confirmed that those animals that we fed less lived longest. In fact, allowing an animal to eat as much food as it desires can reduce its life span buy as much as half.
In the wide field of longevity of research there is only one finding that has held up over the years: eating less prolongs life, as long as nutrient intake is adequate. We all must recognize that if we are to reach the limit of human life span, we must not overeat high-calorie food. Eating empty-calorie food makes it impossible to achieve optimal health and maximize our genetic potential.
Continue Reading...
Posted on January 27, 2006 by Joel Fuhrman
Most people never experience the healthy sensation of feeling hungry. In fact, most people desire to avoid feeling hungry. I think feeling hunger is good to experience periodically. Hunger is important to aid in our enjoyment of food and get the precise signals from our body to know the amount of calories we need to maintain our lean body mass. When we eat when we are hungry food tastes much better and we are physiologically primed for proper digestion. Hunger, in the true sense of the word, indicates to us that it is time to eat again.
Consider that real hunger is not often experienced in our modern, overfed population. Most people no longer even remember or are aware what hunger even feels like. Most people are surprised to find that true hunger is felt in the throat and not in the head or stomach.
Instead of true hunger, people get detoxification or withdrawal symptoms that they mistakenly consider hunger. They feel shaky, head-achy, weak, get abdominal cramps or spasms, which are believed to be hunger symptoms because they are relieved by eating. I call this "stress hunger." Stress hunger is the symptoms a person experiences that are due to toxic wastes being mobilized for elimination. It occurs after a meal is digested and the digestive track is empty, and it could make us feel very uncomfortable.
Generally, we eat to get rid of these withdrawal symptoms and it works. In fact, this is one of the most important contributors to our population's overweight condition. We eat the wrong foods and just a few hours later we feel ill, stressed out, shaky, weak, mentally dull, and we are driven to eat again to relieve the discomfort. Did you ever hear someone saying they needed to eat because they feel so shaky? The question is, are these symptoms "true hunger," "hypoglycemia" or something else? I claim that these symptoms occur simultaneous to our blood sugar decreasing but they are not caused "hypoglycemia." Rather, they result from tissue sensitivity to mobilization of waste products which occurs when most active digestion is finished.
Let me reassure you here that I do not want you to go hungry and deny yourself food to achieve an ideal weight. However, there is another answer. When we eat a nutrient-dense diet, rich with lots of colorful vegetables we will better meet the nutrient needs of our body and the better nutritional quality of the diet will reduce and eliminate the uncomfortable "withdrawal" symptoms. High nutrient eating enables us to deal better with all types of stress, but in this case I am claiming that eating more high-nutrient foods will enable us to avoid "stress hunger" and not have the cravings and drive to overeat.
When our diet is low in nutrients, we build up intra-cellular waste products. So when digestion stops, our body goes through a period of "cleaning," meaning that our tissues release toxic substances into circulation for removal. Our cells can harbor toxic products that build up in the body when our diet is relatively nutrient-poor. Phytonutrients are required for the body to properly detoxify metabolic waste products, they enable cellular detoxification machinery. When we don't eat sufficient phytochemical-rich-vegetation and consume excess animal proteins (creating excess nitrogenous wastes) we often exacerbate the build up of metabolic waste products in our body.
The confusion is compounded because when we eat the same heavy foods that are causing the problem to begin with, we feel so much better. This makes becoming overweight inevitable, because if we stop digesting food, even for a short time, our bodies will begin to experience symptoms of detoxification or withdrawal from our unhealthful diet. To counter this we eat heavy meals, eat too often and keep our digestive track overfed to lessen the discomfort from our stressful diet-style.
When our bodies have acclimated to noxious agents it is called addiction. Try to stop taking the heroin and we will feel ill. In fact, we must have it or we will become terribly sick. This is called withdrawal. When we stop doing something harmful to ourselves we feel ill as the body mobilizes cellular wastes and attempts to repair the damage caused by the exposure.
If we drank 3 cups of coffee or caffeinated soda a day, we would get a withdrawal headache when our caffeine level dipped too low. We could take more caffeine again (or other drugs) or we could eat food more frequently which can make us feel a little better as it retards detoxification or withdrawal. In other words, the caffeine withdrawal symptoms can contribute to our drinking more caffeine products or eating more frequently as a means of managing the symptoms from caffeine withdrawal.
Likewise, a few hours after eating the standard low-nutrient diet most people begin to feel "hungry". They feel weak, headachy, tired, mentally dull, and have stomach spasms. I call it "stress or toxic hunger" because these symptoms only occur in those who have been eating a toxic diet. True hunger would not have occurred so early after the meal.
True hunger signals when our body needs calories to maintain our lean body mass. If we ate food demanded by true hunger and true hunger only, people would not become overweight to begin with. In our present toxic food environment, we have lost the ability to connect with the body signals that tell us how much food we actually need. We have become slaves to withdrawal symptoms and eat all day long, even when there is no biological need for calories.
Fortunately, this cycle of eating, and then avoiding the symptoms of detoxification by eating again, does not have to continue. There is a way out. When you restore the nutritional integrity and relative cleanliness to your tissues, you simply will not have the desire to eat to get rid of the toxin-induced symptoms.
In an environment of healthy food choices, we would not feel any symptoms after a meal until the hormonal and neurological messengers indicated the glycogen reserves in the liver were running low. Nature has made it so that our body has the beautifully orchestrated ability to give us the precise signals to tell us exactly how much to eat to maintain an ideal weight for our long term health. This signal I call "true hunger" to differentiate it from the "stress hunger" or "toxic hunger" everyone else calls hunger.
Feeding ourselves to satisfy true hunger does not cause weight gain and if people were better connected with these normal signals it would be almost impossible for anyone to become overweight. True hunger is felt in the throat, neck and mouth, not in the stomach or head. It is a drawing sensation. It is not very uncomfortable to feel real hunger, it makes food taste much better when you eat, and it makes eating an intense pleasure.
True hunger requires no special food to satisfy it. It is relieved by eating almost anything. We can't crave some particular food and call it hunger; a craving by definition is an addictive drive, not something felt by a person who is not an addict. Remember almost all Americans are addicted to their toxic habits. A disease-causing diet is addicting. A health-supporting diet is not.
In order to achieve an ideal weight and consume the exact amount of calories to maintain a lean body mass we do not have to carry around a calculator and a scale to figure out how much to eat. A healthy body will give us the correct signals. So in order to achieve superior health, maximize our longevity potential, and achieve our ideal weight, we have to eat healthy enough to get back in touch with true hunger and rid ourselves of this "stress hunger".
Every cell is like a little factory, it makes products, produces waste and then must compact, detoxify and remove waste. If we don't ingest sufficient antioxidants and phytonutrients from our food choices, our cells are unable to effectively remove self-produced waste. If we let waste metabolites build up, the body will attempt to mobilize them (discomfort) when it can; but it only can do that effectively if not actively digesting food. Eating makes one feel better because it halts or delays the detoxification process.
My book, Eat To Live explains how eating for health is the most effective way to reach our ideal weight and stay there permanently when you get there. There are lots of ways to lose weight, but only by eating lots of nutrient-rich foods as a method of choice for weight loss will we not have to fight off cravings and ill feelings.
In a portion controlled (calorie counting) diet it is likely that the body will not get adequate fiber or nutrients. The body will have a compounded sensation of hunger and craving which for most is simply overwhelming. It invariably results in people losing weight then gaining back their weight. Calorie counting simply doesn't work in the long run. Diets based on portion control and calorie counting generally permit the eating of highly toxic, low nutrient foods and then requires us to fight our addictive drives and attempt to eat less. This combination under nourishes the body resulting in uncontrollable and frequent food cravings.
Without an adequate education in superior nutrition and solid principles to stick to; these individuals are forced to flounder and fail bouncing from one diet to another, always losing a little and regaining. Frequently regaining more than they lost.
We must prioritize our food intake around nutrient dense, high fiber, high water content foods, which means fruits, vegetables and beans. For superior health and our ideal weight we must have the knowledge to know how to seek nutritional excellence in spite of our misinformed and confused population.
This is all about knowledge, not willpower. With the right knowledge base, we can get more pleasure from eating, not be on some diet, and protect ourselves.
Posted on January 27, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
As a result of the childhood obesity epidemic different strategies have been enacted to promote good nutrition and exercise in children:
The New York Times reports that some Los Angeles parents are turning to gyms instead of playgrounds to help keep their kids fit and healthy.
Unless of course you live in West Virginia where certain kinds of video game play are encouraged. The Associated Press reports that West Virginia boasts the United States worst obesity problems, so school officials are having all 157 of the state's public schools outfitted with the physically challenging arcade game "Dance Dance Revolution." A move designed to promote physical activity.
Over the pond the European Union (EU) has decided it's better to remove things from schools. Reuters reports that UNESDA, which represents a large part of Europe's non-alcoholic beverage industry, is complying with the EU's drive against obesity and will remove refreshment vending machines from primary schools and drop advertising aimed at children under twelve.
Posted on January 23, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Vegetables and salads are very low in calories. However, if you cover these healthy, low calorie foods with tablespoons of a high-fat, high-calorie, oil-based dressing, you turn vegetables and salad into weight-promoting foods. (Remember Dr. Fuhrman's equation health = nutrition / calories.)
Here's what Dr. Fuhrman says about this in the upcoming revised version of Cholesterol Protection for Life:
I know you were told that olive oil is health food. It is not. Keep in mind, oil is processed food, it is not a natural whole food. Oils, even if they are monounsaturated, should not be health food because they are low in nutrients and contain 120 calories per tablespoon, promoting weight gain.
Sure, olive oil and almond oil are improvements over animal fats and margarine, but they still are a contributor to our overweight modern world. Overweight Americans consume and average of three tablespoons of oil in their daily diet, adding and extra 360 calories to their food each day. You need to reach a thinner, ideal weight to achieve maximum protection against heart disease and to reverse heart disease. Use oil, even olive oil sparingly or not at all; certainly, do not have more than one teaspoon per day.
As an alternative to oil, you can make great tasting salad dressings from raw nuts and seeds, such as walnuts, pecans, cashews, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, pistachios and avocados.
Here are a few recipes to experiment with:
Hot Russian Dressing
1 small (4-ounce) can tomato paste
4 tbsp. raw almond butter
1/4 tsp. chili powder
1/4 cup soy milk
3 tbsp. ketchup
Blend all ingredients together. Works well as a sauce for steamed leafy greans; as a condiment spread for lettuce, tomato, and avocado pita pocket sandwiches; and as a salad dressing (serves 4-6).
Orange Cashew Dressing
2 peeled navel oranges
1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup raw cashews
2 tbsp. of blood orange vinegar or pear vinegar
Blend ingredients until silkly smooth. Use liberally on salad or as vegetable dip (serves 4-6).
Pistachio Mustard Salad Dressing
1/3 cup raw shelled pistachio nuts
1 tbsp. dijon mustard
2 tbsp. Vegi-Zest or low salt vegetable seasoning
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 cup unsweetened soy milk
Blend all ingredients until smooth in a high powered blender (serves 4-6).
Posted on January 20, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Earlier this month DiseaseProof.com spotlighted The New York Times coverage of how NYC is facing increased diabetes, but New York isn't the only city concerned with expanding waistlines. Consider these other recent reports from around the nation:
Posted on January 18, 2006 by Henry Abbott
On April 5, 2003, The Economist reviewed Dr. Fuhrman's book Eat to Live. Here's an excerpt of the review:
The pitfall of most diets, Dr Fuhrman argues, is that they tend to regulate macronutrients--proteins, fats and carbohydrates. The focus of "Eat to Live" is on micronutrients--vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and phytochemicals that promote health. The goal of a healthy diet, he says, is to get the most micronutrients from the fewest calories.
Dr Fuhrman suggests almost eliminating fats and starches in favour of greens, beans and fruit. His regime even works if you don't do a lot of exercise. This reviewer, who has become something of an expert on diets over the years, lost ten pounds (4.5 kilos) in one month; the norm, Dr Fuhrman claims, is 15. Empty calories from soft drinks, dairy products, meat and starches or processed foods with little to no micronutrition are easily converted to fat and extra poundage. So-called "2 percent" milk claims to be a diet food, but 35% of its calories come from fat. On the other hand, green vegetables are an excellent source of protein as well as antioxidants that reduce risk of cancer and heart disease. By weight, the amount of protein they contain is insignificant, but in terms of calories broccoli is 45% protein, while a cheeseburger contains only 21%.
Sit up, George Bush senior, scourge of broccoli. Without the protein in greens, how else could your Texan cattle develop all that tasty muscle?
Posted on January 18, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Stephanie Saul of The New York Times reports that two new approaches to the nation's obesity epidemic are coming up for review by the Food and Drug Administration. Sanofi-Aventis will launch a prescription appetite blocker called Acomplia and GlaxoSmithKline is proposing an over-the-counter version of the weight loss drug Xenical, which will be renamed Alli. As Saul reports, overweight individuals are excited about the drugs despite the health risks of previous weight loss medications:
"I think if we could get obesity treatments to a situation like cholesterol where there are several different products, where one or two in combination might be successful, at least that would arm physicians with more than they have now," said Morgan Downey, executive director of the American Obesity Association, a patients' advocacy group in Washington.
The Food and Drug Administration has scheduled an advisory panel hearing for Jan. 23 to review Alli. And the F.D.A. could make its decision on Acomplia as soon as next month.
Both drug companies are seeking approval in a difficult regulatory environment, as the F.D.A. is moving cautiously in the wake of the Vioxx debacle. Any diet drug is up against a backdrop of safety issues from the past - most notably problems with the diet drug combination fen-phen. Fenfluramine, the "fen" half of the combination, was withdrawn from the market in 1997 after it was found to cause heart damage.
Xenical has shown itself to be moderately effective and has a long safety record. But Alli - a name the company has proposed because the drug must be allied with a weight-loss program - faces the higher hurdle required when prescription drugs are proposed for sale without a doctor's oversight. "You have to not only provide data that shows it's safe, you have to show that it's safe when it's misused," said Gerald Meyer, a former F.D.A. associate commissioner.
Can't wait for the FDA to rule? Consider this excerpt taken from Dr. Fuhrman's book
Eat to Live:
New drugs are continually introduced that attempt to lessen the effects our nation's self-destructive eating behavior. Most often, our society treats disease after the degenerative illness has appeared, an illness that is the result of from forty to sixty years of nutritional self-abuse.
Drug companies and researchers attempt to develop and market medications to stem the obesity epidemic. This approach will always be doomed to fail. The body will always pay a price for consuming medicines, which usually have toxic effects. The "side" effects are not the only toxic effect of medications. Doctors learn in their introductory pharmacology course in medical school that all medications are toxic in varying degrees, whether side effects are experienced or not. Pharmacology professors stress never to forget that. You cannot escape the immutable biological laws of cause and effect through ingesting medicinal substances.
If we don't make significant changes in the foods we choose to consumer, taking drugs prescribed by physicians will not improve our health or extend our lives. If we wish true health protection, we need to remove the cause. We must stop abusing ourselves with disease-causing foods.
Posted on January 4, 2006 by Joel Fuhrman
I know you were told that if your blood pressure is below 140/90, it is normal. Unfortunately, this is not true, either. It is average - not normal. This number is used because it is the midpoint of adult Americans older than sixty. The risk for strokes and heart attacks starts climbing at 115/70.
In societies where we do not see high rates of heart disease and strokes, we don't see blood pressure increase with age. In rural China the healthy elderly had the same low blood pressure readings as they did when they were kids. Almost all Americans have blood pressure that is unhealthfully high. At a minimum, we should consider blood pressure higher than 125/80 abnormal.
Numerous scientific investigations have shown that the following interventions have some degree of effectiveness in lowering blood pressure.1
- Weight loss
- Sodium restriction
- Increased potassium intake
- Increased calcium and magnesium intake
- Alcohol restriction
- Caffeine restriction
- Increased fiber intake
- Increased consumption of fruits and vegetables
- Increased physical activity or exercise
Studies have shown controlling sodium intake and weight loss to be effective in reducing blood pressure, even in the elderly.2 How can you implement these interventions into your lifestyle? It's simple. Eat many more fruits, vegetables, and legumes; eat less of everything else; and engage in a moderate amount of exercise. High blood pressure is relatively simple to control.
I encourage my patients to do what it takes to normalize their blood pressure so they do not require medication. Prescribing medications for high blood pressure has the effect of a permission slip. Medication has a minimal effect in reducing heart attack occurrence in patients with high blood pressure because it does not remove the underlying problem (atherosclerosis), it just treats the symptom. Patients given medication now falsely believe they are protected, and they continue to follow the same disease-causing lifestyle that caused the problem to begin with, until the inevitable occurs -- their first heart attack or stroke. Maybe, if high blood pressure medications were never invented, doctors would have been forced to teach healthful living and nutritional disease causation to their patients. It is possible that many more lives could have been saved.
Continue Reading...
Posted on January 3, 2006 by Henry Abbott
Posted on January 2, 2006 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Expanding waistlines prompted Europe's health chief to issue a public invitation for suggestions to help tackle obesity, especially among children.
A European Commission survey acknowledges this bulging problem:
Obesity levels are increasing at an alarming rate, with up to 27% of men and 38% of women now considered to be obese in some parts of the European Union (EU). The number of overweight children is also growing rapidly, currently rising by 400,000 a year. Obesity is a risk factor for many serious illnesses including heart disease, type-2 diabetes, hypertension, stroke, and certain types of cancer. Poor nutrition and insufficient exercise are among the leading causes of avoidable death in Europe, and obesity related illnesses are estimated to account for as much as 7% of total healthcare costs in the EU.
Reuters reports that the problem of tackling obesity widens in Mediterranean or southern Europe:
The problem is worst in southern countries, as traditionally healthy Mediterranean diets give way to processed foods rich in fat, sugar and salt--although Poland and Britain have also seen steep rises in child obesity in recent years.
Spain, Portugal and Italy report obesity levels above 30 percent in children aged between 7 and 11, the Commission says.
Dr. Fuhrman's book
Eat to Live offers insight on the devolution of the Mediterranean Diet:
In the 1950s people living in the Mediterranean, especially on the island of Crete, were lean and virtually free of heart disease. Yet over 40 percent of their caloric intake come from fat, primarily olive oil. If we look at the diet they consumed back then, we note that Cretans ate mostly fruits, vegetables, beans and some fish. Saturated fat was less than 6 percent of their total fat intake. True, they ate lots of olive oil, but the rest of their diet was exceptionally healthy. They also worked hard in the fields, walking about nine miles a day, often pushing a plow or working other manual farm equipment.
Today the people of Crete are fat, just like us. They're still eating alot of olive oil, but their consumption of fruits, vegetables, and beans is down. Meat, cheese, and fish are their new staples, and their physical activity level has plummeted. Today, heart disease has skyrocketed and more than half the population of both adults and children in Crete is overweight.1
Continue Reading...
Posted on December 30, 2005 by Joel Fuhrman
Typically, those individuals promoting the myth that low cholesterol levels are dangerous and the topsy-turvey "science" that saturated fat and high cholesterol are not bad, but good, are those individuals and health advisors advocating diets high in animal products, such as the Atkins devotees. Unfortunately, this advice is not merely incorrect; it is dead wrong for hundreds of individuals who heed such dangerous advice and die of heart attacks every day.
When it comes to coronary artery disease, there may be no such thing as lowering total blood cholesterol levels too far. Another recent study, published in the journal Circulation, found that the arteries in male patients with a total cholesterol level as low as 155 mg/dl benefited significantly from cholesterol-lowering medication as well.1 Both regression of atherosclerosis and a dramatic reduction in heart attacks were seen in the group treated.
While some research in the past has raised questions about the safety of very low cholesterol levels, no danger has been proven in larger, more dependable investigations. The new reports, documenting the effectiveness in saving lives with more substantial cholesterol lowering, fuels an ongoing debate about how aggressively to treat heart disease patients whose cholesterol levels are better than average and whether aggressive cholesterol lowering is valuable even in young healthy adults without signs of heart disease.
In the past, it was thought to be good enough to have a cholesterol level better than average. Until recently, doctors advised their patients to strive for a total cholesterol lower than 200 mg/dl. Eventually, this advice was found to be lacking and now we know that it is not very good to be average in a population that ubiquitously develops atherosclerosis. On autopsy, almost all American adults demonstrate significant coronary artery disease (2) and even 78% of young trauma victims who died before the age of 35 demonstrated significant atherosclerosis on autopsy.3 If you eat American food, you will inevitably develop American diseases. It is rare that someone can escape from the biological laws of cause and effect.
Clearly, if we attempt to rival the low cholesterol of populations that eat mostly natural plant foods and do not have heart disease, we are always looking at total cholesterols below 150 mg/dl. The average cholesterol level in rural China, as documented in the massive China Cornell Project, was 127 mg/dl. Heart attacks were rare, and both cancer and heart disease rates plummeted as cholesterol levels fell, which reflected very low animal product consumption. The lowest occurrence of heart disease and cancer occurred in the group that consumed plant-based diets with less than two servings of animal products per week.
There was some controversy years ago about striving for lower, protective cholesterol levels after some studies in the eighties noted that depression, suicide, hemorrhagic stroke, cancer, and death from other causes, were higher in some groups with very low cholesterol groups. Larger, recent investigations studying larger populations did not confirm these questionable findings.
When investigators looked more carefully at the individual characteristics of the studied populations they were able to explain the earlier findings. This issue is complicated because these studies evaluated individuals who were eating the modern American diet, rich in saturated fat and other components of animal products that raise cholesterol, and low in plant derived anti-oxidants, phytochemicals, and essential fatty acids that improve cholesterol ratios. Those who demonstrated very low (ideal) cholesterol levels, while following the traditional, modern, cholesterol-promoting diet, may actually have a compromised health status or undetected chronic disease.
For instance, we know cancer causes less cholesterol production in the liver. Low cholesterol may be associated with cancer, but does not cause it. Researchers showed that cholesterol starts to fall up to 8 years prior to a person dying of cancer, and that those with the greatest drop in cholesterol in a 4 year period without dietary improvements to lower cholesterol were those most likely to develop cancer.4 The low cholesterol did not cause the cancer; the cancer caused the low cholesterol. Those who work to lower cholesterol by avoiding saturated fats, eating a high nutrient diet with lots of raw vegetables, cooked green vegetables, and beans do not have a pathological condition causing their low cholesterol. They earned it.
This is why in rural China where the diets are nearly vegetarian, the average cholesterol levels are low and you see lower cancer rates, not higher. Those with the lowest cholesterol in the China study actually had the lowest cancer rates as well. Obviously, there is a difference between one who has a low cholesterol because his dietary style earns it, and one whose cholesterol seems unjustifiably low on a modern heart-disease-promoting diet that almost everyone in the west eats.
Continue Reading...
Posted on December 29, 2005 by Joel Fuhrman
In spite of the more than $110 million consumers spend every day on diets and "reducing" programs (more than $40 billion per year), Americans are the most obese people in history. To be considered obese, more than one-third of a person's body must be made up of fat. A whopping 34 percent of all Americans are obese, and the problem is getting worse, not better.
Unfortunately, most weight-loss plans either don't work or offer minor, usually temporary, benefits. There are plenty of "rules and counting" diets, diet drugs, high-protein programs, canned shakes, and other fads that might enable you to lose some weight for a period of time. The problem is that you can't stay on these programs forever. What's worse, many are dangerous.
To achieve the results in preventing and reversing disease, and attaining permanent body weight, we must be concerned with the nutritional quality of our diet.
Based on an exhaustive look at research data from around the world over the past fifteen years, my recommendation is that your diet should contain over 90 percent of calories from unrefined plant foods. This high percentage of nutrient-dense plant foods in the diet allows us to predict freedom from cancer, heart attacks, diabetes, and excess body weight. Fruits, vegetables, and beans must be the base of your food pyramid; otherwise you will be in a heap of trouble down the road.
Most people lose weight and then stop losing when they have reached their ideal weight. You are not the judge of your ideal weight; your body is. As almost everyone is overweight, many people think they are too thin when they have reached their best weight. I have many patients who, after following my plan to reverse diabetes or heart disease, report, "Everyone tells me I look too thin now." I then measure their periumbilical fat and check their percentage of body fat, and usually show them they are still not thin enough.
Many health authorities and diet advisors recommend only small changes; they are afraid that if the change is too radical, dieters will give the whole thing up and gain nothing. I strongly disagree. My work over the past ten years has shown that those who have jumped in with full effort the first six weeks have been the individuals most likely to stick with the plan and achieve results, month after month. Those who try to get into it gradually are the ones most likely to revert back their former way of eating. Under the gradual approach, they "yo-yo" back and forth between their old bad behaviors and good ones. Change is hard. Why not do more and glean the results you have always been after quickly and permanently? Be realistic and flexible; changing your behavior is the key to success.
When you adopt the Eat to Live program as a longevity plan, a slim weight will be a by-product of your new commitment to excellent health.
Posted on December 28, 2005 by Henry Abbott
DiseaseProof recently sent out e-mail requests for success stories. (E-mail us yours!) One of the first to respond was Michael from the Bahamas:
Started reading your book (Eat to Live), 12 November 2005. Strarted the diet (new way of eating - 6 week plan) 2 December 2005. Weighed 266lbs. To date, 28th December, down to 248lbs (lost 18 lbs). Two more weeks to go. Energy through the roof. Asthma gone.
Posted on December 14, 2005 by Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Restless over your inability to lose weight? Laurie Barclay, MD and Désirée Lie, MD, MSEd report that getting sufficient sleep may help reduce weight gain. A study published in the Dec. 7 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine explains:
Short sleep duration in young, healthy men is associated with decreased leptin levels, increased ghrelin levels, and increased hunger and appetite. Additional studies should examine the possible role of chronic sleep curtailment as a previously unrecognized risk factor for obesity.
If the findings prove to be reproducible and generalizable, and the hormonal changes of leptin and ghrelin due to sleep curtailment cause changes in food intake over time, we might add sleep duration to the environmental factors that are prevalent in our society and that contribute to weight gain and obesity.
Posted on December 8, 2005 by Henry Abbott
The AP's Mike Stobbe passes along some good news: the government just announced that life expectancy in the U.S. has hit an all-time high of 77.6 years. But, he writes, there are some worrying trends on the horizon:
Half of Americans in the 55-to-64 age group — including the oldest of the baby boomers — have high blood pressure, and two in five are obese. That means they are in worse shape in some respects than Americans born a decade earlier were when they were that age.
In his book Eat to Live Dr. Fuhrman has this to say about high blood pressure.
Studies have shown controlling sodium intake and weight loss to be effective in reducing blood pressure, even in the elderly.1 How can you implement these interventions into you lifestyle? It's simple. Eat many more fruits, vegetables, and legumes; eat less of everything else; and engage in a moderate amount of exercise. High blood pressure is relatively simple to control.
I encourage my patients to do what it takes to normalize their blood pressure so they do not require medication. Prescribing medications for high blood pressure has the effect of a permission slip. Medication has a minimal effect in reducing heart attack occurrence in patients with high blood pressure because it does not remove the underlying problem (atherosclerosis), it just treats the symptom. Patients given medication now falsely believe they are protected, and they continue to follow the same disease-causing lifestyle that caused the problem to begin with, until the inevitable occurs--their first heart attack or stroke. Maybe, if high blood pressure medications were never invented, doctors would have been forced to teach healthful living and nutritional disease causation to their patients. It is possible that many more lives could have been saved.
Dr. Fuhrman tells the story of a patient who followed his advice.
Though it took a full two years, Rhonda Wilson dropped her weight from 194 to a slim 119. She was able to come off blood pressure medication as a result of her newfound commitment to a healthful lifestyle. When she first came to me, she was on two medications to control her high blood pressure. These two medications were not sufficient, as her blood pressure was still excessively high. Rhonda did not see normal blood pressure readings for a long time and was not able to stop her blood pressure medication until she became relatively thin. Her story illustrates a common dilemma. It is not unusual for some people to lose some weight, yet still have high blood pressure. Some individuals develop high blood pressure and diabetes even from a small amount of excess body fat. For these individuals, it is even more important to maintain an ideal weight.
UPDATE: You can read the whole government report here.
Continue Reading...
Posted on December 7, 2005 by Joel Fuhrman
Adapted from Dr. Fuhrman's book Eat to Live.
You may already know that the conventional "solution" to being overweight--low-calorie dieting--doesn't work. But you may not know why. It is for this simple yet much overlooked reason: for the vast majority of people, being overweight is not caused by how much they eat but what they eat. The idea that people get heavy because they consume a high volume of food is a myth. Eating large amounts of the right food is your key to success and is what makes this plan workable for the rest of your life. What makes many people overweight is not that they eat so much more but that they get a higher percentage of their calories from refined fat and refined carbohydrates, or mostly low-nutrient foods. Plus, this low-nutrient diet establishes a favorable cellular environment for disease (like cancer, heart disease, and dementia) to flourish.
As long as you are eating so many low-nutrient foods, it is impossible to lose weight healthfully. In fact, this vicious combination of sedentary lifestyle and eating typical "American" food should make normal people overweight. It is perfectly normal to become a "food-addict," eating more calories when the body requires, when your intake of micronutrients is so low. This low nutrient intake leads to cellular toxicity creating an internal environment when cravings, and ill-feeling ensue if the body is not continually overfed. It is similar to the way a heroin or nicotine addict, who needs their regular fix, or withdrawal will begin and they will feel too uncomfortable. The standard (low phytonutient) diet leads to discomfort (headaches, weakness, abdominal spasm and fluttering, mental confusion and more) the minute your stomach empties for a few hours.
Eat To Live is the only dietary style that recognizes "toxic hunger" as the cause of obesity and that the nutrient-per-calorie density of foods must be considered when trying to fuel the body for health. Because eating more high-nutrient foods and recipes end toxic hunger, they put an end to dieting forever.
Posted on November 23, 2005 by Henry Abbott
In his books and in his practice, Dr. Fuhrman repeatedly describes the idea that we should learn to listen to our bodies and respond to "true hunger," as opposed to "toxic hunger." Toxic hunger, as he writes in Disease-Proof Your Child, is not the product of your body saying it needs nourishment, but rather "withdrawal symptoms from an unhealthful diet."
The notion that our bodies know, on some level, how to eat healthily, is supported somewhat by some new research. Dr. Steven R. Hawks of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah has been instructing people in what he calls "intuitive eating," and in a pilot study they have reportedly been losing weight and feeling good.
Reuters Health News desbribes the approach:
To become an intuitive eater, a person also needs to adopt two key behaviors. They must learn how not to eat for emotional, environmental or social reasons and they must listen to their body and eat only when hungry and stop when full. They must also learn how to interpret body signals, cravings, and hunger and respond in a healthy way.
Of course, the day before Thanksgiving--our national salute to overeating--could be just about the worst time to bring this up, right? Something to keep in mind, anyway.
Posted on October 20, 2005 by Joel Fuhrman
Research suggests a little less meat on the plate could mean less bulk on your frame. In a study, women who consumed few or no animal products were less likely to be overweight or obese than self-identified meat eaters.
In their American Journal of Clinical Nutrition article, researchers PK Newby, Katherine L Tucker and Alicja Wolk conclude:
Even if vegetarians consume some animal products, our results suggest that self-identified semivegetarian, lactovegetarian, and vegan women have a lower risk of overweight and obesity than do omnivorous women. The advice to consume more plant foods and less animal products may help individuals control their weight.
Make fresh fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes your diet staples. For a protein fix, opt for low- or non-fat dairy, skinless chicken, nuts, or fish to control saturated fat.
Plant-based diets consisting of fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains are high in fiber and nutrients and low in fat and calories, all of which may help you lose weight. This study suggests that people who classify themselves as vegetarian, semivegetarian, or vegan are much less likely to be overweight or obese than meat eaters.
However, you don't need to go completely meatless if that doesn't suit your lifestyle. Just choose appropriate portion sizes and low-fat cooking methods. A serving of meat is equal to three ounces, about the size of a deck of playing cards. If you eat red meat, limit consumption to no more than one serving per week. Also, limit intake of meats high in saturated fat, such as bacon, sausage, and fatty cuts of beef.
Posted on October 4, 2005 by Henry Abbott
According to this Reuters story, researchers had two groups of women. One group was instructed to eat a low-carbohydrate diet. The other was intructed to eat a diet free of animal products including, meat, eggs, and milk. Even though the vegan group had no portion restrictions, they ended up losing significantly more weight.
Researchers found that of 64 postmenopausal, overweight women, those assigned to follow a low-fat vegan diet for 14 weeks lost an average of 13 pounds, compared with a weight loss of about 8 pounds among women who followed a standard low-cholesterol diet.
The weight loss came despite the fact that the women were given no limits on their portion sizes or daily calories -- and despite the fact that the vegan diet boosted their carbohydrate intake.
Please note, Dr. Fuhrman's diet, as described in his books, isn't vegan, and isn't even necessarily vegetarian. But his diet does involve a lot of the same healthy foods that the women in the vegan group of this study reported eating, including vegetables, beans, fruit, and nuts.
CORRECTION: In the first paragraph, I should have said low-cholesterol. My mistake, and thanks for the comment catching it. (The confusion came from the the line saying the vegan diet "boosted their carbohydrate intake.")
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg){kind=spacer}
(1).jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
(1).jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.gif)
.gif)
.jpg)
