I ran across a new alternative health newsletter a couple of days ago, the New England Health Advisory. It appears to have started up last month. They've published a brochure entitled The Truth About Sugar that was interesting to read. I'd seen most of the information before, mainly from Dr. Mercola's website and his 76 Ways Sugar Can Ruin Your Health.
The most interesting bit is a discussion of the differences between Glucose (including plain old table sugar or sucrose) and Fructose. Fructose is the sugar found in most fruit and in it's natural form, when eaten as a fruit, it's pretty much harmless, due to the fiber that slows down the digestion of the sugar. But straight fructose, as a processed food (derived from good old industrial agricultural corn), is a whole other deal.
It turns out that from every 120 calories of glucose consumed, on average, 1 calorie is stored as fat. But for every 120 calories of fructose consumed, on average, 40 calories is stored as fat! And significantly more of the fat is inter-abdominal fat, the worst possible kind.
It seems that fructose is metabolized very differently than glucose. Glucose is broken down in the body's cells, whereas most of fructose is broken down in the liver, much like ethanol (alcohol). And the way it stores the fat can lead to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Now the liver isn't one of our bi-lateral redundant organs (like our kidneys), meaning we have only one, so we can't do without it. So processed fructose should be nowhere in our diets, yet its in most processed foods!
An interesting sidenote is that by all accounts the obesity epidemic in America started in the late seventies. Just coincidentally this is when processed fructose, which is cheaper than sugar, started entering our food supply in significant ways. In particular, this is when most soft drinks changed from formulas based on sucrose to ones based on fructose (as High Fructose Corn Syrup).
Talk about a smoking gun...
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Friday, April 9, 2010
Clogged Arteries, Part II
I just finished reading Real Food by Nina Planck, and learned a bit more about heart disease as a result. So I thought I'd share what I've learned, as it answers a few of the questions raised in my last post.
The most interesting thing I read was that a deficiency of B Vitamins and folic acid causes homocysteine levels to increase. It is excess levels of homocysteine that is believed to cause damage to arterial walls that begins the whole process of arteries clogging. Excessive sugar and white flour can cause B vitamin depletion.
Some other interesting stuff:
ADDED 4-15-10: I've been reading Healthy at 100 by John Robbins and came across a little tidbit that seems to be another piece of the heart health puzzle. His assertion is that the iron found in red meat can be problematic at high levels for two reasons. First, iron is an oxidant and tends in increase the aging process. Second, since it is in a form that is very easily assimilated it is fairly easy to get more than you need. The potential problem is that excess iron can oxidize chloresterol in your body. Oxidized chloresterol is stickier than regular chloresterol, so if you have arterial damage it is likely to block things up faster than would otherwise be the case. In my mind it makes more sense that the connection between meat consumption and heart disease has more to do with excess iron than with excess chloresterol or saturated fat. More to the point, it is excess meat consumption that is problematic. Not surprising when you see restaurants routinely serving 10 oz+ portions (even though your body can only process a few ounces of that amount).
The most interesting thing I read was that a deficiency of B Vitamins and folic acid causes homocysteine levels to increase. It is excess levels of homocysteine that is believed to cause damage to arterial walls that begins the whole process of arteries clogging. Excessive sugar and white flour can cause B vitamin depletion.
Some other interesting stuff:
- Conjugated Lineoleic Acid (CLA) is thought to reduce atherosclerosis. CLA is found in milk from grass-fed cows (mostly in butter and cream). Most cows are not grass-fed anymore, so you need to look hard to find grass-fed milk nowadays.
- The Physician's Health Study found that doctors eating fish as little as once per week were less than half as likely to have a fatal heart attach than those that at less than once per month. Fish are a great source of Omega 3 fatty acids.
- More than half of the fat found in arterial plaques is polyunsaturated. Polyunstaturated fats include corn, sunflower, saffola and other vegetable oils - those typically used in modern processed foods. Yet we're told by medical establishment to fear saturated fats...
- There are far too many sources of Omega 6 fatty acids in the typical western diet (thanks in no small part to the vegetable oils and other sources found in processed and restaurant foods). Omega 6 fatty acids are inflammatory and increase clotting, both of which are bad for heart health. While typically there is far too much Omega 6 fatty acids in most folks' diets, a deficiency in Omega 3 fatty acids can be just as problematic. Ideally your body is looking for a ratio of around 1 Omega 3 fatty acid for every 2 Omega 6 fatty acids.
- Chloresterol is not bad, but oxidized chloresterol is. Oxidized chloresterol is found in powdered eggs, powdered milk and fried foods. Powdered eggs and milks are used extensively in processed foods.
- Inflammation from infections is also a risk factor for heart disease.
ADDED 4-15-10: I've been reading Healthy at 100 by John Robbins and came across a little tidbit that seems to be another piece of the heart health puzzle. His assertion is that the iron found in red meat can be problematic at high levels for two reasons. First, iron is an oxidant and tends in increase the aging process. Second, since it is in a form that is very easily assimilated it is fairly easy to get more than you need. The potential problem is that excess iron can oxidize chloresterol in your body. Oxidized chloresterol is stickier than regular chloresterol, so if you have arterial damage it is likely to block things up faster than would otherwise be the case. In my mind it makes more sense that the connection between meat consumption and heart disease has more to do with excess iron than with excess chloresterol or saturated fat. More to the point, it is excess meat consumption that is problematic. Not surprising when you see restaurants routinely serving 10 oz+ portions (even though your body can only process a few ounces of that amount).
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Clogged Arteries
This is a bit off topic, but I felt a need to summarize some reading that I've been doing lately. My interest in clogged arteries started a little over a year ago when my oldest brother had a heart attack, quickly followed by a second heart attack. Luckily, he survived both. Then my other brother shares this information with his physician. After some tests it turns out that he, too, has had two heart attacks that went undiagnosed.
Our father died at age 57 of a variety of stress-related diseases. I'm 53. With that and my older brothers' recent experiences in mind I decided to see if there is much that I can do now to avoid a similar fate. Of course I'm not a health care professional and can't diagnose or recommend treatment for anyone, but I can share what I've learned thus far:
Why Arteries Clog
The way I understand it, the process starts with damage to the lining of the arteries, which is super slick so that things don't stick to it. I haven't come across any known reason for the lining breaking down, though there are various hints about possible causes, which I'll cover later. After this damage occurs your body deposits fat at the damage site. Once the fat is deposited chloresterol gets stuck to the site and a plaque begins forming. Now I may not have this 100% right, as I am a layperson. The important thing to remember here is that chloresterol is the THIRD symptom of heart disease. There are two other things that need to be addressed before worrying about chloresterol.
Cholesterol
If you watch TV nowadays, you'd think that lowering your chloresterol is absolutely imperative if you have clogged arteries. It seems that the argument is that chloresterol is part of the plaque building process that leads to the narrowing of arteries. The thing that the drug companies don't tell you is that chloresterol lowering drugs on their own do absolutely nothing to improve your chances of survival after a heart attack or stroke. They're simply instilling fear to generate profits - nothing new there...
Thyroid Gland
I recently read Solved: The Riddle of Illness by Langer and Scheer. If I remember correctly Langer is an MD that practiced for decades and had studied with a prominent endocrinologist. An interesting story is told about a medical fad decades ago where people's thyroids would be removed thinking it would solve various problems. There may have been some short term success, but by and large, within a few years these folks would die of clogged arteries, even though many showed no evidence of such a problem prior to the surgery. Eventually they learned to avoid this by giving folks dessicated thyroid extract (I think from pigs?). But the important message is that the thyroid seems to have an important role in maintaining the lining of arteries. Unfortunately, the endocrine glands are not well understood. We do know that the thyroid needs iodine and that a short latency deficiency will result in a neck goiter. There are some thoughts that bromide (or bromine?) in the environment may be playing havoc with our thyroids by clogging up the iodine receptors in the thyroid. Whether this contributes to clogged arteries is an interesting question.
Low Fat, Low Protein Diets
Their are a lot of physicians making a lot of money selling books about low fat heart healthy diets. I beleieve the phenomenon started with Dean Ornish, who documented that his diet resulted in a reversal of arterial clogging. A lot of these diets are vegetarian, and if you know that your arteries are already clogged, please don't ignore their advice.
However, they cite studies indicating health problems related to consuming milk protein, which they then extrapolate to infer that very probably all animal protein could be bad for you. I have difficulty with this on many, many levels. First, we are probably talking about pasteurized and homogenized dairy products. It has been shown that these processes alter the proteins. I suspect that the problem is more likely to be caused by the processing of the milk and not the milk itself, at least not for folks that are genetically endowed not to be lactose intolerant.
Dr. Gabe Mirkin posted an article on avoiding mammal protein that is probably a better recommendation than simply avoiding all animal protein. After all, we are omnivore's, so have evolved to eat some meat. And all those great essential fatty acids found in seafood are pretty difficult to adequately replace with a vegetarian diet.
Vitamin C
A number of years ago nobel laureate Linus Pauling proposed a theory that the damage to arterial linings was caused by a long latency Vitamin C deficiency - basically a chronic low level Scurvy. While this appears to have been extensively researched and dicredited, I have to tip my hat to him for his thinking. I suspect that very likely there are two things likely to work together to create heart disease - too much of something that is bad for you (i.e. too much mammal protein) and too little of things that are good for you (i.e. some sort of long latency nutritional deficency).
Vitamin D
Hopefully you've heard a lot about Vitamin D lately, though not nearly as much as you should be hearing. There are a number of folks that are suggesting that the President needs to declare a Vitamin D health emergency to get the word out about the implications of long latency Vitamin D deficiency for people's health (rickets and osteomalacia are well known short latency deficiencies of this vitamin).
First off, Vitamin D is not a true vitamin, but a hormone precursor. And there are about 2,000 Vitamin D receptors throughout our bodies, thus it is very important to our health. It actually turns 2,000 genes on or off based upon its presence or absence.
Second, Vitamin D is made by your skin, or at least is was before we all started working indoors and the suntan lotion business convinced us to fear the sun. These are both reasons why current Vitamin D levels are lower than those that we have evolved to need for optimal health.
There was a recent article posted at the New York Times about low Vitamin D levels and increased likelihood of death, stroke or heart attack for those that had recently had a cardiac event. Ironically, they show a picture of a milk carton as being representative of where to get your Vitamin D.
Inflammation
There has been a lot of buzz in the past decade about inflammation. Research is indicating that it is a root of most, if not all, chronic diseases. So what in our diet leads to inflammation? The Big Two are sugar and refined flour. And it seems that perhaps you can add mammal meat and make it the Big Three. Greatly reducing these in your diet will greatly lower most people's inflammation levels.
What in our diet decreases inflammation? Think fruits and vegetables and Omega 3 fatty acids. Which just happen to be Dr. Mirkin's basic nutritional recommendations.
Summary
It is likely to be years before anyone truly knows the solution to many chronic diseases, but there seems to be some commonality among many divergent views out there:
Our father died at age 57 of a variety of stress-related diseases. I'm 53. With that and my older brothers' recent experiences in mind I decided to see if there is much that I can do now to avoid a similar fate. Of course I'm not a health care professional and can't diagnose or recommend treatment for anyone, but I can share what I've learned thus far:
Why Arteries Clog
The way I understand it, the process starts with damage to the lining of the arteries, which is super slick so that things don't stick to it. I haven't come across any known reason for the lining breaking down, though there are various hints about possible causes, which I'll cover later. After this damage occurs your body deposits fat at the damage site. Once the fat is deposited chloresterol gets stuck to the site and a plaque begins forming. Now I may not have this 100% right, as I am a layperson. The important thing to remember here is that chloresterol is the THIRD symptom of heart disease. There are two other things that need to be addressed before worrying about chloresterol.
Cholesterol
If you watch TV nowadays, you'd think that lowering your chloresterol is absolutely imperative if you have clogged arteries. It seems that the argument is that chloresterol is part of the plaque building process that leads to the narrowing of arteries. The thing that the drug companies don't tell you is that chloresterol lowering drugs on their own do absolutely nothing to improve your chances of survival after a heart attack or stroke. They're simply instilling fear to generate profits - nothing new there...
Thyroid Gland
I recently read Solved: The Riddle of Illness by Langer and Scheer. If I remember correctly Langer is an MD that practiced for decades and had studied with a prominent endocrinologist. An interesting story is told about a medical fad decades ago where people's thyroids would be removed thinking it would solve various problems. There may have been some short term success, but by and large, within a few years these folks would die of clogged arteries, even though many showed no evidence of such a problem prior to the surgery. Eventually they learned to avoid this by giving folks dessicated thyroid extract (I think from pigs?). But the important message is that the thyroid seems to have an important role in maintaining the lining of arteries. Unfortunately, the endocrine glands are not well understood. We do know that the thyroid needs iodine and that a short latency deficiency will result in a neck goiter. There are some thoughts that bromide (or bromine?) in the environment may be playing havoc with our thyroids by clogging up the iodine receptors in the thyroid. Whether this contributes to clogged arteries is an interesting question.
Low Fat, Low Protein Diets
Their are a lot of physicians making a lot of money selling books about low fat heart healthy diets. I beleieve the phenomenon started with Dean Ornish, who documented that his diet resulted in a reversal of arterial clogging. A lot of these diets are vegetarian, and if you know that your arteries are already clogged, please don't ignore their advice.
However, they cite studies indicating health problems related to consuming milk protein, which they then extrapolate to infer that very probably all animal protein could be bad for you. I have difficulty with this on many, many levels. First, we are probably talking about pasteurized and homogenized dairy products. It has been shown that these processes alter the proteins. I suspect that the problem is more likely to be caused by the processing of the milk and not the milk itself, at least not for folks that are genetically endowed not to be lactose intolerant.
Dr. Gabe Mirkin posted an article on avoiding mammal protein that is probably a better recommendation than simply avoiding all animal protein. After all, we are omnivore's, so have evolved to eat some meat. And all those great essential fatty acids found in seafood are pretty difficult to adequately replace with a vegetarian diet.
Vitamin C
A number of years ago nobel laureate Linus Pauling proposed a theory that the damage to arterial linings was caused by a long latency Vitamin C deficiency - basically a chronic low level Scurvy. While this appears to have been extensively researched and dicredited, I have to tip my hat to him for his thinking. I suspect that very likely there are two things likely to work together to create heart disease - too much of something that is bad for you (i.e. too much mammal protein) and too little of things that are good for you (i.e. some sort of long latency nutritional deficency).
Vitamin D
Hopefully you've heard a lot about Vitamin D lately, though not nearly as much as you should be hearing. There are a number of folks that are suggesting that the President needs to declare a Vitamin D health emergency to get the word out about the implications of long latency Vitamin D deficiency for people's health (rickets and osteomalacia are well known short latency deficiencies of this vitamin).
First off, Vitamin D is not a true vitamin, but a hormone precursor. And there are about 2,000 Vitamin D receptors throughout our bodies, thus it is very important to our health. It actually turns 2,000 genes on or off based upon its presence or absence.
Second, Vitamin D is made by your skin, or at least is was before we all started working indoors and the suntan lotion business convinced us to fear the sun. These are both reasons why current Vitamin D levels are lower than those that we have evolved to need for optimal health.
There was a recent article posted at the New York Times about low Vitamin D levels and increased likelihood of death, stroke or heart attack for those that had recently had a cardiac event. Ironically, they show a picture of a milk carton as being representative of where to get your Vitamin D.
Inflammation
There has been a lot of buzz in the past decade about inflammation. Research is indicating that it is a root of most, if not all, chronic diseases. So what in our diet leads to inflammation? The Big Two are sugar and refined flour. And it seems that perhaps you can add mammal meat and make it the Big Three. Greatly reducing these in your diet will greatly lower most people's inflammation levels.
What in our diet decreases inflammation? Think fruits and vegetables and Omega 3 fatty acids. Which just happen to be Dr. Mirkin's basic nutritional recommendations.
Summary
It is likely to be years before anyone truly knows the solution to many chronic diseases, but there seems to be some commonality among many divergent views out there:
- Avoid sugar and refined flour.
- Limit meat consumption; avoid mammal meat and limit other meat portions to a serving roughly the size of your palm.
- Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, but go easy on those that are high in starch (bananas, peas, corn, etc) - chose a wide variety, not just a few of the usual suspects.
- Take at least 4,000 IUs of Vitamin D per day, especially if you have a desk job or live very far from the southern U.S. Avoid sunscreen except when you'll have prolonged exposure to sun and an increased risk of sunburn.
- Limit your intake of dairy products (don't worry, there's plenty of high quality calcium in most fruits and vegetables).
- Don't overdo caffeine or alcohol.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Celery and Blood Pressure
Having previously had borderline high blood pressure for years (it's now down to around 118/74) I've done a lot of searching for ways to naturally lower my blood pressure. So, when I was watching a show with Gillian McKeith on BBC America my ears pricked up when she noted that celery was great for this purpose. A quick Google on the topic confirms this fact, such as this article from http://www.highbloodpressureinfo.org/index.html. Also check out their page on other foods that can help manage your high blood pressure in a healthful range so that you can avoid taking medications.
With this newfound knowledge at hand I started looking for ways to incorporate more celery into my diet, since I know from past experience that I tire very quickly of eating raw celery (though adding some peanut butter and sprinkling with some coconut meat makes a very tasty snack).
Some of our favorite celery recipes include:
Blue Cheese Waldorf Salad
4 large apples, chopped
2 cups red or green grapes, halved
3 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 cup golden raisins
2 Tbsp lemon juice, divided
2/3 cup Miracle Whip or equivalent dressing
1/2 cup milk (add some cornstarch if not using whole milk)
1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
1 Tbsp sugar or honey
1/4 cup chopped walnuts, toasted
Add 1 Tbsp of lemon juice to the milk. Let stand for 5 minutes. NOTE: this is a substitute for using buttermilk in this recipe.
In a large bowl, combine apples, grapes, celery, raisins and lemon juice.
In a small bowl, combine Miracle Whip, milk, blue cheese and sugar or honey. Pour over apple mixture to coat. Cover and refrigerate for one hour. Sprinkle with walnuts before serving.
Cranberry Waldorf Salad
2 large apples, chopped
1 cup dried cranberries
2 celery stalks, chopped
1/4 cup Miracle Whip or equivalent dressing
2 Tbsp honey
1 Tbsp lemon juice
Toss everything in a bowl until fruit is evenly coated. Refrigerate for 1 hour before serving.
Soffritto
Soffritto is the Italian Holy Trinity technique for sauteing onion, carrots and celery as a base for some incredible one pot meals (the French call this Mirepoix). It's pretty simple - start with equal parts of these three vegetables, sauteing with olive oil over medium heat. From there add the cooked meat of your choice and/or some white beans, whatever spices you desire, some garlic and perhaps add a little wine or sherry. We use this technique a lot in the winter as a means of cleaning out the vegetable bin of our refrigerator, adding cabbage, peppers, zucchini or any other vegetables that sautes well.
To find more great celery recipes, check out Heathly Cooking Magazine.
With this newfound knowledge at hand I started looking for ways to incorporate more celery into my diet, since I know from past experience that I tire very quickly of eating raw celery (though adding some peanut butter and sprinkling with some coconut meat makes a very tasty snack).
Some of our favorite celery recipes include:
Blue Cheese Waldorf Salad
4 large apples, chopped
2 cups red or green grapes, halved
3 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 cup golden raisins
2 Tbsp lemon juice, divided
2/3 cup Miracle Whip or equivalent dressing
1/2 cup milk (add some cornstarch if not using whole milk)
1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
1 Tbsp sugar or honey
1/4 cup chopped walnuts, toasted
Add 1 Tbsp of lemon juice to the milk. Let stand for 5 minutes. NOTE: this is a substitute for using buttermilk in this recipe.
In a large bowl, combine apples, grapes, celery, raisins and lemon juice.
In a small bowl, combine Miracle Whip, milk, blue cheese and sugar or honey. Pour over apple mixture to coat. Cover and refrigerate for one hour. Sprinkle with walnuts before serving.
Cranberry Waldorf Salad
2 large apples, chopped
1 cup dried cranberries
2 celery stalks, chopped
1/4 cup Miracle Whip or equivalent dressing
2 Tbsp honey
1 Tbsp lemon juice
Toss everything in a bowl until fruit is evenly coated. Refrigerate for 1 hour before serving.
Soffritto
Soffritto is the Italian Holy Trinity technique for sauteing onion, carrots and celery as a base for some incredible one pot meals (the French call this Mirepoix). It's pretty simple - start with equal parts of these three vegetables, sauteing with olive oil over medium heat. From there add the cooked meat of your choice and/or some white beans, whatever spices you desire, some garlic and perhaps add a little wine or sherry. We use this technique a lot in the winter as a means of cleaning out the vegetable bin of our refrigerator, adding cabbage, peppers, zucchini or any other vegetables that sautes well.
To find more great celery recipes, check out Heathly Cooking Magazine.
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