Healthy Bytes

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?

Weight loss surgery and brain decline

Weight loss surgery, such as gastric bypass surgery, can lead to a vitamin deficiency that can cause memory loss and confusion, inability to coordinate movement, and other problems, according to a study published in the March 13, 2007, issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
The syndrome, called Wernicke encephalopathy, affects the brain and nervous system when the body doesn’t get enough vitamin B-1, or thiamine. It can also cause vision problems, such as rapid eye movements.

Weight loss surgery and brain decline

Bariatric and lap band surgeries are getting rather popular.
Post surgery, folks consume a very limited amount of calories. Essentially, you’re shrinking your stomach size to that of a two year old. Of course you haven’t shrunk your nutritional needs to that of a two year old.

A study published this week in the Journal of the American Academy of Neurology points out numerous folks are experiencing memory loss and confusion as well as muscle coordination problems and vision problems.

They are tying the symptoms to lack of nutrition for the brain and nervous system – mostly B vitamins.

There have been other reports as well regarding brain functionality after weight loss surgery.

It’s basically mal-nourishment, whether you’re talking about a skin draped over bones person in a third world country, or a post-surgery “fluffy” person. The body still requires nourishment to function and rebuild itself.

Belly fat -> inflammation -> disease: cardiovascular, diabetes

read time: 417 words, about two minutes

In an apple versus pear comparison, the pear is by far the healthier option.
I’m not referring to fruit here, but rather to physical shape. Apple shape being wide through the belly. Pear shaped being wider through the hips.

What researchers have found is that not all fat is created equal. They’ve shown that ab fat has a high association with poor insulin response and inflammation.

In a study done back in 2004 at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, liposuction was used to remove about 20% of people’s total body fat mass. While that gave them different wardrobe options, there weren’t the expected metabolic benefits found with weight loss by diet and exercise.

Liposuction removes subcutaneous fat… fat right under the skin.
It does not remove visceral fat… fat that surrounds the organs. Those fat cells are more difficult (and dangerous) to get to.
Diet and exercise doesn’t remove fat cells – it shrinks them, with no apparent preference for subcutaneous versus visceral.

Back to the results… in a second phase, researchers studied the blood to determine if visceral fat was the problem, or a symptom. In this study, they took blood from obese patients going through gastric bypass surgery.

They showed visceral fat was secreting interleukin-6 (IL-6) - an inflammatory molecule – into portal vein blood. Portal vein blood had levels of IL-6 50% greater than blood at the periphery.

Increased levels of IL-6 correlated with C-reactive protein (CRP) which is an inflammatory substance.

Chronic inflammation is associated with insulin resistance, hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis and other diseases.

So let’s look at a few things…
Sucking out the fat doesn’t remove the health consequences.
Manufacturers of statin drugs keep telling you to lower your cholesterol – by taking their drugs for the rest of your life. And yet, folks with low and “normal” cholesterol have heart attacks and congestive heart failure. Why – inflammation.

Assistant professor of medicine Luigi Fontana, M.D., Ph.D.:

“Many years ago, atherosclerosis was thought to be related to lipids and to the excessive deposit of cholesterol in the arteries. Nowadays, it’s clear that atherosclerosis is an inflammatory disease. There also is evidence that inflammation plays a role in cancer, and there is even evidence that it plays a role in aging. Someday we may learn that visceral fat is involved in those things, too.”

A lifetime of poor nutrition and lack of exercise isn’t going to be sucked away in a simple outpatient procedure or blasted away with a daily pharmaceutical regimen.

It’s not butter, it’s ?!?

read time: 204 words, about a minute

Here’s something fun – well scary really – I picked up from Health Science Institute.

Butter versus margarine

Butter:
* Both have the same amount of calories.
* Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams compared to 5 grams.
* Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study.
* Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods.
* Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few only because they are added!
* For most people, butter tastes better than margarine and it can enhance the flavors of other foods. (The best flavor claim margarine can make in ads is that it tastes the same as butter.)
* Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years.

Margarine:
* Very high in trans fatty acids.
* Triple risk of coronary heart disease.
* Increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol)
* Lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol).
* Increases the risk of cancers by up to five fold.
* Lowers quality of breast milk.
* Decreases immune response.
* Decreases insulin response.

Where’s the fruit

read time: 119 words, just a minute

Leslie Mikkelsen, Prevention Institute dietitian presented a report sponsored by sponsored by the Strategic Alliance for Health Food and Activity Environments at the 2007 California Childhood Obesity Conference.

The report - “Where’s the Juice? Fruit Content of the Most Highly Advertised Children’s Food and Beverages” – revealed the findings of their study:

Product selection criteria –

• Identified by Kaiser Family Foundation as a top spending advertised food on kid’s TV shows
• Picture of fruit or the word fruit on the packaging
• Commonly available at the grocery store

37 products examined…

-> 19 contained NO fruit ingredients (51%)

-> 6 had 10% or less fruit juice (21%)

-> 2 had 100% fruit juice (6%)

-> 10 had real fruit (27%)

Yep, ya gotta read the label.

The hot sauce diet

read time: 176 words, about a minute

CNN House Call ran a story over the weekend about the “Hot Sauce Diet”.
Dr. Spiro Antoniades weighed 265 lbs. He wanted to punish himself for eating poorly. He decided he’d do a shot of hot sauce before meals.

He lost 70 lbs.

His theory is he attached pain to bad food, which made him avoid bad food.

Clifford Woolf of Harvard Medical School said:
“One of the major features of pain is to learn to avoid danger. And by taking a swig of Tabasco, you’re switching on that avoidance mechanism.”

I don’t agree with the theory.
If hot sauce = pain, then why do people like spicy food? Or are they all masochists?

The burning sensation is from capsaicin – a chemical in the hot sauce. It’s believed capsaicin increases calorie and fat burning.

Capsaicin is in numerous pain relief products.
Research also has shown it:

• Lowers blood pressure
• Lowers cholesterol
• Kills cancer cells without harming healthy cells
• Lowers insulin after a meal
• Has reversed diabetes in mice

Spice it up.

The economic demise of high fructose corn syrup?

read time: 60 words, under a minute

If you follow the commodities market, all the yap yap this week has been about corn - namely the escalating price of corn.

Demand for ethanol is projected to equal the entire corn crop. The price in the futures market has been taking the grain elevator up.

Perhaps corn will get too expensive to make high fructose corn syrup financially desirable.

(NOT) All Natural

read time: 504 words, about three minutes

Oopps, Kraft Foods is being sued AGAIN for a product label.
As reported in the Palm Beach Post, Linda Rex of Boyton Beach, Florida has filed a “deceptive packaging” lawsuit in Palm Beach County Circuit Court.

The Kraft legal department and hurry up and re-label it department must be much too busy for any time off these days.

The product in question:
Capri Sun juice drink

The deception:
“All Natural”

Capri Sun in fact contains the way too prevalent ingredient HFCS – High Fructose Corn Syrup.
We’ll concede corn is “natural”, but as for this concoction… home chemistry buffs aren’t well equipped enough to produce it. It’s strictly an industrial product.
I’ve assigned it to the worst food products team.

HFCS is a sweetener. Much cheaper than cane or beet sugar. But, by golly, it’s not actually a food… it’s a concoction. Not recognized by the body as food.

So? Well here’s some so… when you eat calories from real foods, they tickle your satiety center and turn off hunger signals in your brain.
HFCS isn’t recognized as food. No effect on satiety. So you keep eating past “full”. Which of course is over eating. Which of course translates into weight gain… you’ve seen the movie, probably even had a starring role more than once.

HFCS has become VERY prevalent in packaged foods since it hit the market in 1967, INCLUDING “low fat” foods. People tend to choose low fat foods for the single reason that they perceive they are consuming fewer calories.

***Once again, reading the label is wonderously illuminating***

side note: the word “natural” has no regulated definition. You’ve no doubt noticed how frequently the word graces the labels of food and cosmetic products. Terms such as “low fat” and “organic” do have regulated definitions. So don’t fall for the perception that natural on the label means healthy.

George Bray, professor of medicine at Louisiana State University is an authority on obesity. According to Bray, consumption of HFCS increased more than 1000% between 1970 and 1990, mirroring the upward trend in obesity statistics.
Americans now consume 36 pounds of HFCS a year… 128,000 calories.

HFCS has been associated with liver toxicity, specifically – non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. It’s also believed to decrease the effectiveness of insulin… leading to overeating and diabetes.

Another issue with high fructose corn syrup - by continually upping the sweetness in products, your tastebuds become less sensitive to small amounts of sweetness. You come to “demand” more sweetness. Same with salt. Folks that eat heavily salted foods don’t detect mild saltings.

Marc Firestone, Kraft’s executive vice president for corporate and legal affairs, said well shucks, we’ve been reformulating that line and packaging for about a year. By golly, the new Capri Sun will be going into production in two weeks.

Firestone said:

“The new packaging … will say that Capri Sun contains ‘no artificial colors, flavors or preservatives’ …With this action, the phrase ‘All Natural’ is being removed from the package”

Hmmm, Kraft folded pretty quickly on this lawsuit. I guess the stars were (almost) aligned for them being just two weeks from label makeover.

You’ve seen it with trans-fats. I predict you’ll next see a big push against HFCS.

A banana a day?

read time: 436 words,about 2 minutes

Have you ever noticed how endurance athletes such as marathoners eat a lot of bananas?
Research has shown what athletes know - two bananas provide enough energy for a 90 minute workout.

Bananas are a great energy food with three natural sugars (sucrose, fructose, glucose) combined with fiber. They even come in their own package.
Compared to the venerable apple, bananas have:
- 4 times the protein
- 2 times the carbohydrates
- 3 times the phosphorus
- 5 times the Vitamin A
- 5 times the iron
- 3 times the potassium

Bananas are good for…

Blood Pressure: high in potassium, low in salt. The US Food and Drug Administration allows the banana industry to make official claims about the ability of bananas to reduce the risk of stroke and blood pressure.

Strokes: research published in The New England Journal of Medicine found that eating bananas regularly can reduce the risk of death by strokes by as much as 40%.

Anemia: high in iron which stimulates blood hemoglobin.

Brain Power: high in potassium which can make you more alert.

Constipation: high in fiber… better than taking laxatives.

Depression: good source of tryptophan - a protein that’s converted to serotonin which is know to help you relax, improve your mood and increase feelings of happiness.

Hangovers: banana shake with honey and protein powder. the sugars in the banana and honey replace depleted blood sugar, the banana calms the stomach, protein powder, vitamins and minerals nourish the cells, fluid re-hydrates.

Heartburn: bananas have a natural antacid effect.

Morning Sickness: keeps blood sugar levels up, decreases morning sickness.

Nerves: high in B vitamins that help calm the nervous system.

PMS: Vitamin B6 contains regulates blood glucose levels which can affect your mood.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD): tryptophan - natural mood enhancer.

Quit Smoking: Vitamins B6 & B12, potassium and magnesium help the body recover from the effects of nicotine withdrawal.

Stress: potassium helps normalize the heartbeat, sends oxygen to the brain and regulates your body’s water balance.

Temperature Control: bananas are “cooling” fruit that can lower both your physical and emotional temperature.

Ulcers: neutralize over-acidity and reduce irritation by coating the lining of the stomach.

Weight Control: Instead of grabbing a high calorie sugary snack, go for a banana - you’ll avoid the blood sugar (and energy) highs and lows from high carb snacks.

Mosquito Bites: Reduce swelling and irritation by rubbing the affected area with the inside of a banana peel.

Warts: Tape on a piece of banana peel (inside down) over the wart.

Shoe shine: Rub the inside of the banana peel on your leather shoes and polish with a dry cloth.

Source for this wonderful banana compilation

Overweight and canine

read time: 129 words, about a minute

Lovely. The FDA has now approved a prescription drug by Pfizer that suppresses a dog’s appetite. After all, dog obesity is increasing right along there with human obesity. And the same diseases are cropping up… diabetes, heart disease, arthritis.

But soon, you’ll be able to give your dog Slentrol - a selective microsomal triglyceride transfer protein inhibitor. It suppresses appetite and blocks fat absorption.

Oh and this drug will have a “strong” warning that it is for dogs, not people.

I don’t know. I’m betting the warning won’t quite be enough in which case a human may experience abdominal pain, diarrhea, flatulence, headaches, nausea and vomiting. Hmm, that could suppress their appetite and then, they’ll LOSE WEIGHT.

Or, stop giving the dog crappy food, too much food and exercise with him!