Healthy Bytes

The similarity between diet soda and an ADHD drug

read time: 289 words, just over a minute

I was watching CNN House Call this morning. One of the stories was about prescribing Adderall to overweight kids.
Adderall is an amphetamine approved for ADHD prescribing.

According to Wikipedia, the active ingredients are:
1/4 Dextroamphetamine Saccharate
1/4 Dextroamphetamine Sulfate
1/4 dl-amphetamine Aspartate (racemic amphetamine)
1/4 dl-amphetamin Sulfate (racemic amphetamine)

One of the side effects of Adderall is decreased appetite. Thus some docs are prescribing it for the “side effect” rather than the “effect”. This is what they call “off label” prescribing.
(other side effects include: sleep difficulty, headaches, aggression, abnormal thoughts/behaviors, mania, growth suppression).

So they featured one kid and his family – a “success story”. It was a dinner table scene and what was the kid drinking… diet Dr. Pepper.
Now, what’s in diet soda… primarily Aspartame (some brands are switching to Splenda).
What is Aspartame (Nutra Sweet)? L-aspartic acid and L-phenylalanine.
(Some of the side effects are: headaches, brain tumors, brain lesions, and lymphoma)

Aspartic acid – which is an amino acid – is also known as aspartate.
Now I’m not a chemistry whiz. And I haven’t dug deep. But I was tickled by the dl-amphetamine Aspartate ingredient in Adderall and the L-aspartic acid in aspartame.
I’m not sure if there is a functional difference between the two.

What I do know is that aspartame is an excitotoxin. To put it simply – it’s not good for your brain.
If you notice the side effects of both Aspartame and Adderall, you’ll see there are brain issues.

Additionally, artificial sweeteners tend to make you crave more sweet stuff and mess with your brains ability to signal satiety. (I’ve posted on this a few times).

Just a thought… rather than putting the overweight kid on a strong drug, clean up his diet.

Your tax dollars – fattening politicians… AND YOU

read time: 214 words, about a minute

Michael Pollan wrote an interesting article in Time about some research done by Adam Drewnowski from University of Washington.

His question – is wealth the most reliable predictor of obesity in America?
Throughout history peasants were always bone thin and the aristocrats a bit more “fluffy”

Off to the supermarket he went with his imaginary dollar.
He discovered he could get more calories for his dollar in the middle aisles as compared to the perimeter… 1,200 calories of potato chips compared to 250 calories of carrots. 875 calories of soda compared to 170 calories of OJ.

Hence, you will notice – and I don’t have the stats – lower income folks have a higher obesity rate than upper income folks.

And here’s something else about those foods in the middle aisles…
There are 5 crops that receive about $25 billion of subsidies a year:
Corn, soy, wheat, rice, cotton.
In addition to the unpronounceable ingredients, what you’ll find in those middle aisle products is a lot of sugar (derived from corn – high fructose corn syrup) and a lot of fat (derived from soy). And of course they generally strip the wheat leaving it nutrient lite.

So, how much would a bunch of carrots cost if they received subsidies?

Your tax dollars… cheapening your food and your health.

Made from sugar?!?

read time: 284 words, about a minute

Merisant, manufacturer of Equal (that would be the blue packet) is suing Splenda (that would be the yellow packet) manufacturer McNeil Nutritionals. They’re suing for $176 million or so.

Charging big decrease in their sales since Splenda entered the market. Ok, technically they’re charging that the Splenda slogan “made from sugar so it taste like sugar” is misleading. They’re only looking out for you

Symantics? Wellllll…
Splenda is sucralose.
They start with a sugar molocule and chlorinate and chemically alter it to produce “fructo-galactose”. Such a thing does not appear in nature and you cannot break it down and digest it.

Since it’s a “food” – well that’s how it’s technically classified, it does not go through that same kind of testing a drug would go through.

Chlorinated molecules are carcinogenic. They aren’t digested but instead accumulate in your fat cells.

There has been a swarm of “symptoms” associated with Splenda. There’s also quite a bit of politics with it.

Now McNeil claims that it does not say it is made WITH sugar so how can ANY consumer (I believe they don’t distinguish between literate or not, PhD in chemistry or not) interpret made FROM sugar so it tastes LIKE sugar as actually being in any way related to sugar.

Corporate jostling aside –
Sugar creates inflammation in your body which leads to nothing good.
Artificial sweeteners completely mess with your satiety brain signals… you’re not “satiated”, you keep eating…

Splenda controls nearly 60% of the sweetener market. Is it beeter or worse than the competitors? They’re all chemical toxins. I don’t see a point in arguing over which toxin is worse. Avoid them all.

Want to know more about Splenda…
Sucralose Toxicity Info Center

Chocolate – a divergent fork

read time: 127 words, under a minute

This seems crazy to me…
The Chocolate Manufacturers Association is petitioning the FDA to allow a couple of changes in chocolate.

They want to replace whole milk powder with whey, and cocoa butter with vegetable fat.
Why?
To reduce costs… by about 2/3rds on each ingredient.

But it WILL taste different (not as good).
For the most part, people are mighty picky about their chocolate.
I don’t think they’ll accept a “taste” difference.
It could be New Coke all over.

Meanwhile, heading in the other direction…
Hershey is adding two new products to its premium/”healthy” chocolate line of flavanol (antioxidant ) rich dark chocolate.

Chocolate – specifically, cocoa beans – have health benefits. It’s the added sugar and milk that wins candy a spot on the list of no-no’s.

Get out the vote

118 words, under a minute

I can’t believe we have 20 months until the presidential elections. With all the campaigning already you’d think it was at least next year.

We only vote for presidents every four years. But you vote everyday – multiple times – with your fork.
Would people change their vote if they watched a debate between packaged food products and real food. Maybe we could have a square off between Chocolate Chip Cookie Crisp Cereal and Irish Steel Cut Oatmeal with cinnamon and fresh blueberries. Or perhaps a quarter pounder with super sized fries and soda versus grilled chicken, cous cous, salad and water with a slice of lemon.

We know how people are voting now. Would an open debate change that?

Sleep off the pounds

read time: 93 words, under a minute

Sounds like a late night sleezy commercial – eh?
But really there is a connection between sleep and weight.
That connection is hormones…

Hormones that toy with your appetite control system are affected by your level of rest.
Short change your sleep and you:
-> increase ghrelin which increases appetite
-> decrease leptin which signals satiety
-> increase cortisol which makes you fat

You crave those vending machine high calorie, high carb foods. That sends you on the sugar high, sugar crash cycle. And then of course you’re also likely to rely on caffeine.

What my dog and cats teach me about meal timing

read time: 175 words, just a minute

Most pets are like clockwork when it comes to meals… and mine are no different.

We got two kitties a couple months ago and they believed 4am was the best time for breakfast… with the human arousal process begining a half hour earlier.
Now I’m an early riser, but 3:30am is pushing it.
(Now that we’ve had that 1 hour daylight savings time adjustment, they don’t start jumping on my head until 4-4:30am).

Nevertheless, they instinctively understand a component of weight loss/weight control…
meal timing.

If you eat at approximately the same times daily, you’re telling your brain when more food is coming so turn up the metabolic rate.
When you eat haphazardly and skip meals, your brain isn’t sure when more food is coming so it instinctively conserves energy… i.e., doesn’t burn calories.

This is why it’s important to eat breakfast and try to eat your meals at approximately the same time everyday.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to adjust my sleep… so as not to gain weight – which we’ll talk about in the next post.

Just back from a delightful hour at the pharmacy, also known as…

read time: 210 words, just a minute

…dinner. That’s right dinner.
Hippocrates wisely said “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”

And we can add to that:
Eat a rainbow.
Half your plate should be veggies. The more colors the better.
Veggies are low in calories, high in fiber and flush with phytonutrients – such good stuff.

Your reds (tomatoes, peppers, watermelon) excel in lycopene which smacks down free radicals.

Your oranges (carrots, sweet potatoes, squashes) score high in alpha- and beta-carotene. Buddies that bring you Vitamin A… helps the eyes and skin.

Your orange/yellow group (papaya, orange, peach, pineapple) get stars for Vitamin C and beta cryptothanxin. Immune system support.

Your yellow/green group (greens, corn, avocado, peas) are leaders in lutein which protects against cataracts and macular degeneration

Your white/green group (leeks, scallions, onions, garlic, celery). The onion family scores with anti-tumor allicin. Others in the group are high in anti-oxidant flavonoids quercetin and kaempferol.

Your greens (cabbage, brussels sprouts, broccoli, bok choi, kale) are teeming with indoles, sulforaphane and isocyanate defenders against cancer

Your red/purple group (beets, eggplant, grapes, berries) are bursting with anti-oxidants defending the heart and slowing aging.

Combine that with relaxing conversation and sharing with people important in your life.
Blend in some laughter.

Beats purple pills in orange bottles.

Are you spending your tax dollars to GAIN weight?

read time: 436 words, about two minutes

Some of the worst ingredients we consume are sweeteners – the artificial ones, the processed ones and the chemically altered ones.

The similarities to heroin are frightening…
-> it’s addictive
-> we crave it
-> it pretty much has nothing but bad effects on our brain and our body
-> it crowds out good stuff

Corn is much in the news these days because of the whole ethanol thing.

I have no comment on that. What I do have comment on is HFCS – high fructose corn syrup.

2005 corn subsidies in the US were $9.4 BILLION.
There are 300 million people in the US (fewer in 2005)… so that pencils out to roughly $31.38/person.

Subsidies were changed in the 1970’s to heavily support corn and soybean agriculture.
Also in the early 1970’s HFCS was created… in a lab of course.
HFCS is a chemically altered sweetener way sweeter than regular ole sugar.

You say so what, you don’t have any in your cabinet.
Think again. HFCS is used in nearly every processed and prepackaged food product.
In the last 25 years consumption is up 1,000% and it currently is 40% of ALL sweeteners added to food products and beverages.

So what again. Ahh, here’s the big so what…
Regular sugar is 50% fructose, 50% glucose.
HFCS is 55% fructose, 45% glucose.

That seemingly small difference of 5% makes a huge difference when it passes your lips.
Fructose is a masterfully stealth robber. Unlike glucose, it DOES NOT trip the chemical reactions and hormones that get your brain to close your mouth and stop eating.

And fructose doesn’t reduce the stomach hormone ghrelin. Ghrelin in that “lion” in your stomach that roars to be fed.

And fructose doesn’t decrease the fat cell hormone adiponectin which makes you more insulin sensitive which in turn helps control appetite and weight.

But WAIT, there’s more…
Fructose is not digested and metabolized – it goes straight to fat production. (It’s used for cholesterol and triglyceride).

You know those “IV drips”… it’s a glucose solution. You can live on it.
If you replace it with a fructose solution – you’ll get fatty liver. That’s not something you will survive.

So all that HFCS you’re subsidizing with your tax dollars is contributing to increased caloric consumption (with less nutrition consumed), raised LDL, lowered HDL, increased triglycerides, decreased satiety sensitivity, increased insulin resistance and some other nasty odds and ends.

Read labels. You’ll be frightened how many products have HFCS.

Oh yea, that soybean subsidy. We get something for that as well… hydrogenated soybean oil, AKA trans-fat.

Makes ya want to buy an island and have your own country sometimes.