Tag Archives: aging

Blame weight gain on the brain

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Many people claim they are addicted to food. That may not be too far from the truth.

Over millions of years of evolution, our brains have adapted to provide us a reward for successfully ingesting food. The hormone dopamine appears to be the key link in this reward process. But to complete the circuit, dopamine has to interact with its receptor. It has been known for many years that the ability of dopamine to combine with one of its receptors (the D2 dopamine receptor) is compromised in obese individuals compared to normal-weight individuals (1). This led to the hypothesis that obese individuals overeat as a way to compensate for the reduction in the dopamine reward circuits just as individuals with addictive behaviors (drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc.) do when their dopamine levels are low. It is also known that food restriction up-regulates the number of D2 receptors (2). This likely completes the reward circuit.

This effect of increasing D2 receptors is confirmed in obese patients who have undergone gastric bypass surgery that results in calorie restriction (3). This may explain why gastric bypass surgery is currently the only proven long-term solution of obesity. More recent studies with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have indicated that unlike women with a stable weight where the mere visual image of palatable food increases the reward activity in the brain, that response is highly reduced in women who have gained weight in the past six months (4). This suggests that the dopamine reward circuits are compromised in women with recent weight gain, thus prompting a further increased risk for overeating in those individuals to increase dopamine output.

So does this mean that the obese patient with a disrupted dopamine reward system has no hope of overcoming these powerful neurological deficits? Not necessarily. There are a number of dietary interventions to increase the levels of dopamine and its receptors. The first is calorie restriction, which is only possible if you aren’t hungry. The usual culprit that triggers constant hunger is a disruption of hormonal communication of hunger and satiety signals in the brain. It has been shown that following a strict Zone diet can quickly restore the desired balance that leads to greater satiety (5-7). The probable mechanism is the reduction of cellular inflammation by an anti-inflammatory diet (8-10).

Another dietary intervention is high-dose fish oil that has been demonstrated to both increase dopamine and dopamine receptors in animals (11,12). This would explain why high-dose fish oil has been found useful in the treatment of ADHD, a condition characterized by low dopamine levels (13). Finally, high-dose fish oil can reduce the synthesis of endocannabinoids in the brain that are powerful stimulators of hunger (14).

I often say that if you are fat, it may not be your fault. The blame can be placed on your genes and recent changes in the human food supply that are changing their expression, especially in the dopamine reward system. However, once you know what causes the problem, you have the potential to correct it. If you are apparently addicted to food, the answer may very well lie in an anti-inflammatory diet coupled with high-dose fish oil.

References

  1. Wang GJ, Volkow ND, Logan J, Pappas NR, Wong CT, Zhu W, Netusil N, and Fowler JS. “Brain dopamine and obesity.” Lancet 357: 354-357 (2001)
  2. Thanos PK, Michaelides M, Piyis YK, Wang GJ, and Volkow ND. “Food restriction markedly increases dopamine D2 receptor (D2R) in a rat model of obesity as assessed with in-vivo muPET imaging and in-vitro autoradiography.” Synapse 62: 50-61 (2008)
  3. Steele KE, Prokopowicz GP, Schweitzer MA, Magunsuon TH, Lidor AO, Kuwabawa H, Kumar A, Brasic J, and Wong DF. “Alterations of central dopamine receptors before and after gastric bypass surgery.” Obes Surg 20: 369-374 (2010)
  4. Stice E, Yokum S, Blum K, and Bohon C. “Weight gain is associated with reduced striatal response to palatable food.” J Neurosci 30 :13105-13109 (2010)
  5. Ludwig DS, Majzoub JA, Al-Zahrani A, Dallal GE, Blanco I, and Roberts SB. “High glycemic-index foods, overeating, and obesity.” Pediatrics 103: E26 (1999)
  6. Agus MS, Swain JF, Larson CL, Eckert EA, and Ludwig DS. “Dietary composition and physiologic adaptations to energy restriction.” Am J Clin Nutr 71: 901-7 (2000)
  7. Jonsson T, Granfeldt Y, Erlanson-Albertsson C, Ahren B, and Lindeberg S. “A paleolithic diet is more satiating per calorie than a mediterranean-like diet in individuals with ischemic heart disease.” Nutr Metab 7:85 (2010)
  8. Pereira MA, Swain J, Goldfine AB, Rifai N, and Ludwig DS. “Effects of a low glycemic-load diet on resting energy expenditure and heart disease risk factors during weight loss.” JAMA 292: 2482-2490 (2004)
  9. Pittas AG, Roberts SB, Das SK, Gilhooly CH, Saltzman E, Golden J, Stark PC, and Greenberg AS. “The effects of the dietary glycemic load on type 2 diabetes risk factors during weight loss.” Obesity 14: 2200-2209 (2006)
  10. Johnston CS, Tjonn SL, Swan PD, White A, Hutchins H, and Sears B. “Ketogenic low-carbohydrate diets have no metabolic advantage over nonketogenic low-carbohydrate diets.” Am J Clin Nutr 83: 1055-1061 (2006)
  11. Chalon S, Delion-Vancassel S, Belzung C, Guilloteau D, Leguisquet AM, Besnard JC, and Durand G. “Dietary fish oil affects monoaminergic neurotransmission and behavior in rats.“ J Nutr 128: 2512-2519 (1998)
  12. Chalon S. “Omega-3 fatty acids and monoamine neurotransmission. Prostaglandins Leukot Essent Fatty Acids 75: 259-269 (2006)
  13. Sorgi PJ, Hallowell EM, Hutchins HL, and Sears B. “Effects of an open-label pilot study with high-dose EPA/DHA concentrates on plasma phospholipids and behavior in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.” Nutr J 6: 16 (2007)
  14. Watanabe S, Doshi M, and Hamazaki T. “n-3 Polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) deficiency elevates and n-3 PUFA enrichment reduces brain 2-arachidonylglycerol level in mice.” Prostaglandin Leukot Essent Fatty Acids 69:51–59 (2003)

Nothing contained in this blog is intended to be instructional for medial diagnosis or treatment. If you have a medical concern or issue, please consult your personal physician immediately.

A short history of the human food supply

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The real goal of nutrition is the management of cellular inflammation. Increased cellular inflammation makes us fat, sick, and dumb (how about overweight, ill, and less intelligent). Strictly speaking, diets are defined by their macronutrient balance. This is because that balance determines the resulting hormonal responses. This doesn’t mean you can ignore the impact of various food ingredients on the generation of cellular inflammation.

This is why I categorize food ingredients into three major classes depending on when they were introduced into the human diet. The more ancient the food ingredients, the less damaging inflammatory impact they will have on turning genes off and on (i.e. gene expression). This is because the greater the period of time our genes have co-evolved with a given food ingredient, the more our body knows how to handle them. Unfortunately, human genes change slowly, but changes in our food supply can happen very rapidly.

With that as a background, let me describe the three major categories of food ingredients, especially in terms of their introduction to the human diet.

Paleolithic Ingredients

This category includes food ingredients that were available more than 10,000 years ago. Our best evidence is that humans first appeared as a new species in Southern Africa about 200,000 years ago (1). For the next 190,000 years, food ingredients of the human diet consisted of animal protein (grass-fed only), fish, animal and fish fats, fruits, vegetables, and nuts. I call these Paleolithic ingredients. This means for the first 95 percent of our existence as a species, these were the only food ingredients that genes were exposed to. As a result of 190,000 years of co-existence with our genes, these food ingredients have the least inflammatory potential on our genes.

Our best estimate of the macronutrient composition of the typical Paleolithic diet some 10-15,000 years ago was 25-28 percent protein, 40 percent carbohydrate, 32-35 percent fat with a very high intake of EPA and DHA (about 6 grams per day) and a 1:1 ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats (2). This is basically the composition of the anti inflammatory diet (3-5). If you use only Paleolithic ingredients, then you are almost forced to follow an anti inflammatory diet. The food ingredients are more restrictive, but the increased anti-inflammatory benefits are well worth it.

Mediterranean Ingredients

The second group of food ingredients represents those food choices that were available 2,000 years ago. We started playing Russian roulette with our genes 10,000 years ago as we started to introduce a wide variety of new food ingredients into the human diet. First and foremost was the introduction of grains, but not all at the same time. Wheat and barley were introduced about 10,000 years ago with rice and corn coming about 3,000 years later. Relative latecomers to the grain game were rye (about 5,000 years ago) and oats (about 3,000 years ago).

At almost the same time came the first real use of biotechnology. This was the discovery that if you fermented grains, you could produce alcohol. Alcohol is definitely not a food ingredient that our genes were prepared for (and frankly our genes still aren’t). I think it only took mankind about 10 years to learn how to produce alcohol, which probably makes the first appearance of beer occurring some 9,990 years ago. Wine was a relatively late arrival appearing about 4,000 years ago. With the domestication of animals (some 8,000 years ago) came the production of milk and dairy products. About 5,000 years ago, legumes (beans) were also introduced. Legumes tend to be rich in many anti-nutrients (such as lectins) that must be inactivated by fermentation or boiling. Needless to say, these anti-nutrients are not the best food ingredients to be exposed to.

I call this second group of food ingredients Mediterranean ingredients since they are the hallmark of what is commonly referred to as a “Mediterranean diet” (even though the diets as determined by macronutrient balance in different parts of the Mediterranean region are dramatically different). Those cultures in the Mediterranean region have had the time to genetically adapt to many of these new ingredients since all of these ingredients existed about 2,000 years ago.

Unfortunately, many others on the planet aren’t quite as fortunate. That’s why we have lactose intolerance, alcohol-related pathologies, celiac disease, and many adverse reactions to legumes that have not been properly detoxified. As a result these Mediterranean ingredients would have greater potential to induce increased levels of cellular inflammation than Paleolithic ingredients. However, at least they were better than the most recent group, which I term as, the “Do-You-Feel-Genetically-Lucky” group.

Do-You-Feel-Genetically-Lucky Ingredients

Unfortunately, these are the food ingredients that are currently playing havoc with our genes, especially our inflammatory genes. You eat these ingredients only at your own genetic risk. The first of these was refined sugar. Although first made 1,400 years ago, it didn’t experience a widespread introduction until about 300 years ago. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution came the production of refined grains. Products made from refined grains had a much longer shelf life, were easier to eat (especially important if you had poor teeth), and could be mass-produced (like breakfast cereals).

However, in my opinion the most dangerous food ingredient introduced in the past 200,000 years has been the widespread introduction of refined vegetable oils rich in omega-6 fatty acids. These are now the cheapest source of calories in the world. They have become ubiquitous in the American diet and are spreading worldwide like a virus. The reason for my concern is that omega-6 fatty acids are the building blocks for powerful inflammatory hormones known as eicosanoids. When increasing levels of omega-6 fatty acids in the diet were combined with the increased insulin generated by sugar and other refined carbohydrates, it spawned a massive increase in cellular inflammation worldwide in the past 40 years starting first in America (6). It is this Perfect Nutritional Storm that is rapidly destroying the fabric of the American health- care system.

The bottom line is that the macronutrient balance of the diet will generate incredibly powerful hormonal responses that can be your greatest ally or enemy in controlling cellular inflammation. Unless you feel incredibly lucky, try to stick with the food ingredients that give your genes the best chance to express themselves.

References

  1. Wells S. “The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey.” Random House. New York, NY (2004)
  2. Kuipers RS, Luxwolda MF, Dijck-Brouwer DA, Eaton SB, Crawford MA, Cordain L, and Muskiet FA. “Estimated macronutrient and fatty acid intakes from an East African Paleolithic diet.” Br J Nutr 104: 1666-1687 (2010)
  3. Sears, B. “The Zone.” Regan Books. New York, NY (1995)
  4. Sears, B. “The OmegaRx Zone.” Regan Books. New York, NY (2002)
  5. Sears, B. “The Anti-Inflammation Zone.” Regan Books. New York, NY (2005)
  6. Sears B. “Toxic Fat.” Thomas Nelson. Nashville, TN (2008)

Nothing contained in this blog is intended to be instructional for medial diagnosis or treatment. If you have a medical concern or issue, please consult your personal physician immediately.

Pass the polyphenols

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Considering that virtually nothing was written about the health benefits of polyphenols before 1995, it continues to amaze me the amount of health benefits this group of nutrients generates. This is primarily due to our growing understanding of how these phytochemicals interact with the most primitive parts of our immune system that have been conserved through millions of years of evolution.

Three new studies add to this growing knowledge. In the January 2011 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, it was reported that eating one serving a week of blueberries could reduce the risk of developing hypertension by 10 percent (1). Since a serving size of fruit is defined as ½ cup, that serving size contains about 65 grams of blueberries. Put that into more precise molecular terms, this serving size would provide about 4,000 ORAC units or about the same amount of ORAC units as a glass of wine. The researchers speculated that there was a subclass of polyphenols (which includes delphinidins) that appear to be responsible for most of the effects. So if eating one serving of blueberries (½ cup) once a week is good for reducing the risk of hypertension, guess what the benefits of eating 1 cup of blueberries every day might be? The answer is probably a lot.

Speaking of red wine, in the second study in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications researchers found that giving high levels of isolated polyphenols from red wine demonstrated that exercise endurance in older rats could be significantly enhanced. Very good news for old folks like me. They hypothesized the effects may be directly related to “turning on” genes that increase the production of anti-oxidant enzymes (2). The only catch is that the amount of red wine polyphenols required to reach these benefits would equate to drinking about 20-30 glasses of red wine per day.

The final study in Medicine & Science in Sports and Exercise demonstrates that cherry juice rich in polyphenols reduces muscle damage induced by intensive exercise in trained athletes. This reduction in muscle damage was correlated with decreased levels of inflammatory cytokines (3). The reduction of cytokine expression is one of the known anti-inflammatory benefits of increased polyphenol intake.

Three pretty diverse studies, yet it makes perfect sense if you understand how polyphenols work. Polyphenols inhibit the overproduction of inflammatory compounds made by the most ancient part of the immune system that we share with plants. The only trick is taking enough of these polyphenols. To get about 8,000 ORAC units every day requires eating about a cup of blueberries (lots of carbohydrates) or two glasses of red wine (lots of alcohol), or half a bar of very dark chocolate (lots of fat) or 0.3 g of highly purified polyphenol powder in a small capsule (with no carbohydrates, no alcohol, and no saturated fat). And if you are taking extra high purity omega-3 oil, exercising harder, or have an inflammatory disease, you will probably need even more polyphenols. It doesn’t matter where the polyphenols come from as long as you get enough. That’s why you eat lots of colorful carbohydrates on an anti inflammatory diet.

References

  1. Cassidy A, O’Reilly EJ, Kay C, Sampson L, Franz M, Forman J, Curhan G, and Rimm EB. “Habitual intake of flavonoid subclasses and incident hypertension in adults.” Am J Clin Nutr 93: 338-347 (2011)
  2. Dal-Ros S, Zoll J, Lang AL, Auger C, Keller N, Bronner C, Geny B, Schini-Kerth VB. “Chronic intake of red wine polyphenols by young rats prevents aging-induced endothelial dysfunction and decline in physical performance: Role of NADPH oxidase.” Biochem Biophys Res Commun 404: 743-749 (2011)
  3. Bowtell JL, Sumners DP, Dyer A, Fox P, and Mileva KN. “Montmorency cherry juice reduces muscle damage caused by intensive strength exercise”. Med Sci Sports Exerc 43: online ahead of print doi: 10.1249/MSS.obo13e31820e5adc (2011)

Nothing contained in this blog is intended to be instructional for medial diagnosis or treatment. If you have a medical concern or issue, please consult your personal physician immediately.

Coffee and diabetes: What’s the connection?

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One of the great controversies in nutrition is the role of coffee and human health. On the one hand, coffee is the primary source of polyphenols in the American diet because of the lack of consumption of fruits and vegetables. On the other hand, coffee is rich in caffeine, an alkaloid that acts as a stimulant on the central nervous system and is known to be an addictive agent (1). In fact, Roland Griffiths, professor of Behavioral Biology at the John Hopkins School of Medicine (and my old college roommate), says, “Caffeine is the world’s most widely used mood-altering drug.” So the question remains is caffeine good for you?

No one knows for sure, but one interesting point has been made that it appears the more coffee you drink, the lower your risk for developing diabetes (2). In fact, if you drink more than four cups of coffee per day, you decrease your risk of diabetes by 50 percent. This new research demonstrates that coffee increases the levels of sex hormone-binding globlin (SHBG) in the blood. As I pointed out in my book “The Anti-Aging Zone,” SHBG plays an important role in sequestering the levels of estrogen and testosterone in the blood so that levels of these unbound sex hormones that can interact with their receptors are tightly regulated (3). Usually as insulin resistance increases, the levels of SHBG decrease in the blood (4). This can lead to an over-stimulation of the receptors by the unbound sex hormones resulting in increased risk for breast and prostate cancer development.

What in the coffee actually causes the increase in SHBG is unknown, but what is known is that once you decaffeinate the coffee, all its benefits on the elevation of SHBG levels and any reduction in risk for diabetes disappear.

It is highly unlikely that caffeine by itself is beneficial for reducing type 2 diabetes, since there were no benefits related to drinking tea or to total daily caffeine intake (2). Perhaps some other compound that was also extracted with the caffeine may play a role in the reduction of type 2 diabetes.

So what really happens when you decaffeinate coffee? First, you soak the beans in water to remove the caffeine and flavors as well as the polyphenols. Then you treat the water with organic solvents (methylene chloride or ethyl acetate) to remove the caffeine (as well as many of the polyphenols and much of the flavor). Then (assuming you have removed all of the organic solvent), you add back the treated water extract to the beans to hopefully reabsorb some of the flavors back into them. Obviously, not all the flavors or polyphenols return since the resulting taste is far less robust than the original coffee bean.

So it seems to me that exploring what else has been extracted in addition to the caffeine may lead to new dietary treatments for diabetes. Whether that will be done is highly unlikely. Instead of waiting for such experiments, you might as well follow the best treatment for preventing diabetes, which is following the anti inflammatory diet for a lifetime. That is how you control cellular inflammation, which is the driving force for development of type 2 diabetes (5,6).

References

1. Juliano LM and Griffiths RR. “A critical review of caffeine withdrawal: empirical validation of symptoms and signs, incidence, severity, and associated features.” Psychopharmacology 176: 1-29 (2004)

2. Goto A, Song Y, Chen BH, Manson JE, Buring JE, and Liu S. “Coffee and caffeine consumption in relation to sex hormone-binding globulin and risk of type 2 diabetes in postmenopausal women.” Diabetes 60: 269-275 (2011)

3. Sears B. “The Anti-Aging Zone.” Regan Books. New York, NY (1999)

4. Akin F, Bastemir M, and Alkis E. “Effect of insulin sensitivity on SHBG levels in premenopausal versus postmenopausal obese women.” Adv Ther 24: 1210-1220 (2007)

5. Sears B. “Anti-inflammatory diets for obesity and diabetes.” J Coll Amer Nutr 28: 482S-491S (2009)

6. Sears B. “The Anti-Inflammation Zone.” Regan Books. New York, NY (2005)

Nothing contained in this blog is intended to be instructional for medial diagnosis or treatment. If you have a medical concern or issue, please consult your personal physician immediately.

Does living longer mean living poorly?

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America has the highest health-care costs in the world. But are we really living better as a consequence of this massive cost? The January 2011 issue of the Journals of Gerontology says maybe not (1). There is no question that Americans are living longer, but our years of disease-free and functional living are declining faster. In particular, the chances of someone age 65 reaching age 85 have doubled from (from 20 percent to 40 percent), but a longer life is coming with more chronic disease and an increasing inability to function normally. In other words, the number of healthy years we can expect to have has actually decreased over the last decade.

So where are all our health-care dollars going? They appear to be keeping us alive. We are delaying death at the price of decreased quality of life as we age. As the lead author stated, “Longer life is what we want. But we’re going to have to pay for it with more treatment of diseases and accommodations for disability.” Since 40 percent of our health-care costs come after age 65, we can expect that Medicare costs will rise even faster than expected as an increasingly sicker baby-boomer population begins to enter Medicare starting this year.

But what about all the news we hear about “anti-aging” research where we can just inject “youth hormones,” like growth hormone, to reverse the aging process? It turns out that there may be trouble brewing in that area also. These hormones are growth factors. This means they turn on DNA synthesis that leads to a shortening of telomeres at the end of a DNA strand. When these telomeres become short enough, any future DNA turnover stops, and the cell dies. This has been demonstrated to occur in mice in which you can increase the levels of growth hormone. When you do so, the animals die prematurely, and there appears to be an acceleration of aging in many organs, including the brain (2).

This potential side effect of increased growth hormone is further confirmed in another recent study (3). This particular study demonstrated that giving mice inhibitors of the release of growth hormone increased their longevity. What was unique in this study was that they used specially bred mice that age prematurely. So if you want to speed up the aging process by taking growth hormone injections, you might look great in the process, but don’t count on an extended lifetime.

Of course, there is another way of looking better and living a longer, healthier life: Calorie restriction without hunger or deprivation. This is the foundation of the anti inflammatory diet. By maintaining the appropriate balance of protein to carbohydrate at every meal and snack, you are able to maintain satiety (i.e. absence of hunger). If you aren’t hungry, then you don’t eat as many calories. This automatically slows down the aging process as long as you are getting adequate protein and supplying necessary micronutrients (4). Not surprisingly, this is also how you squeeze out more quality years as you age.

References
1. Crimmins EM and Beltran-Sanchez H. “Mortality and morbidity trends: Is there a compression of morbidity?” Journals of Gerontology Series B 66B: 75-86 (2011)
2. Bartke A. “Can growth hormone accelerate aging?” Neuroendocrinology 78: 210-216 (2003)
3. Banks WA, Morely JE, Farr SA, Price TO, Ercal N, Vidaurre I, and Schally AV. “Effect of a growth hormone-releasing hormone antagonist on teleomerase activity, oxidative, stress, longevity, and aging in mice.” Proc Nat Acad Sci USA 107: 22272-22277 (2010)
4. Sears B. “The Anti-Aging Zone.” Regan Books. New York, NY (1999)

Nothing contained in this blog is intended to be instructional for medial diagnosis or treatment. If you have a medical concern or issue, please consult your personal physician immediately.

Don’t let those treats play tricks on your body

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For those of you who celebrate Halloween, you know that the holiday isn’t contained to just one day. After the trick-or-treaters are gone and the costume parades are over, now you are have to deal with the leftover candy. Even though it’s tempting to just consume all of it and start fresh when it’s gone, this doesn’t fare well for your waist line. On the other hand, moderation may not work either. The thinking might be that it won’t hurt due to the treat’s small size and fewer calories. That sounds good until you consume four or five pieces in one sitting and feel the effects.

So what should you do? For those of you who know you can moderate your intake, try to limit your consumption to just a one or two pieces per day and after a few days or a week throw away the rest. I know this sounds wasteful, but your body will thank you. Try to have the candy at the end of a meal after you’ve consumed protein so that you can blunt the rise in blood sugar as much as possible and be less apt to go back for more.

To avoid temptation, put the candy in the freezer or on a very high shelf out of reach. The bigger issue is having to deal with your kids. Put a couple pieces in their healthful lunch and pack their lunch in the morning when you are less prone to start off your day with candy. If moderation is not your style, then simply throw it all away after Halloween passes or consider giving out healthy treats.

This is the time of year when people start the slippery slope of weight gain toward the New Year; so don’t let Halloween trick you into sabotaging your efforts before the holidays even begin.

Nothing contained in this blog is intended to be instructional for medial diagnosis or treatment. If you have a medical concern or issue, please consult your personal physician immediately.

Biomarker shown to predict Alzheimer risk

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The study of the human genome and the potential for routine genetic testing down the road has brought many hotly debated topics to the table. If your genetic make-up predisposed you for a certain disease whether it is cancer or Alzheimer’s, would you want to know? A study published in the August edition of the Archives of Neurology may bring us closer to having to ask ourselves these tough questions. The study measured a specific protein known to be present in those with Alzheimer’s and looked at the amounts of this protein in the cerebrospinal fluid of individuals with Alzheimer’s, those with mild cognitive impairment, and those having normal cognitive function. Without knowing the clinical diagnosis of the individuals being studied, the detection of this protein was accurately able to classify which individuals had Alzheimer’s or mild cognitive impairment and was able to show the presence of this protein even in those who had normal cognitive function, suggesting that it could be detected prior to showing symptoms (1). The question becomes if you had the option to know you might have a disease despite having no symptoms and despite the fact that treatment options may only slow the disease versus curing it, would you want to know? Tell us what you think.
1. De Meyer G, Shapiro F, Vanderstichele H, Vanmechelen E, Engelborghs S, De Deyn PP, Coart E, Hansson O, Minthon L, Zetterberg H, Blennow K, Shaw L, Trojanowski JQ; for the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. Diagnosis-Independent Alzheimer Disease Biomarker Signature in Cognitively Normal Elderly People. Arch Neurol. 2010 Aug;67(8):949-956.

Nothing contained in this blog is intended to be instructional for medial diagnosis or treatment. If you have a medical concern or issue, please consult your personal physician immediately.

Are you ready for some football?

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Next to Thanksgiving, Superbowl Sunday is the second most popular day to consume an abundance of food. Americans consume about 15,000 tons of chips and 4,000 tons of popcorn on this day. No wonder only one-third make it to the end of January sticking to their resolutions! Whether you have religiously stuck to your News Year’s goals or were waiting for Feb. 1 to start anew, the Superbowl doesn’t have to be an excuse to blow everything you’ve been working toward. Here are some tips to navigate this eating event without sabotaging your efforts.

Food

1) Bring something: If you’re not sure what type of foods will be at the party, bring something you know you can eat, whether it’s veggies and a low-calorie dip, guacamole, chicken chili (recipe below) or your favorite Zone-friendly dessert.

2) Don’t go hungry: Some people try to avoid eating breakfast and lunch in an effort to bank their calories when they know they are going to a party. This usually doesn’t work because you may override your hunger signals and end up eating way too much. Instead, eat a lighter breakfast and lunch and have a small snack with a little protein prior to leaving (one-half a piece of fruit and string cheese). This will help to stabilize your blood sugar levels and give you more will power to avoid tempting foods you might have otherwise over-indulged on.

3) Fill up on volume: Since you may be at the party for four to six hours, space out what you are going to have. I find that the best stuff tends to appear on the table around half-time so try not to fill up too quickly. If you didn’t have a chance to bring something like veggies and dip or a healthier option to complement the guacamole, don’t worry. Grab a small plate of one or two things so at least you can be mindful of what you are eating rather than eating while standing or continuing to go back and forth to a dish without thinking about it.

4) Pick your favorites: How many times have you been at a party and finished an appetizer or hors d’oeuvre that you didn’t even like. Instead of grabbing a little bit of everything, try to pick a smaller portion of the top two or three things you would like to have and stick with it. Look for things that have protein as they’ll have more sticking power instead of making you go back for more. People tend to consume more foods when they take a little of everything versus having a select few.

5) Don’t beat yourself up: If you find that you didn’t do as well as you could have, don’t beat yourself up. Congratulate yourself on what you did right, whether it was bringing something with you, not showing up hungry or filling up on lower-calorie alternatives first. Remember, tomorrow is a new day and just start fresh at your next meal.

Alcoholic Beverages

1) Switch from regular beer to light beer.

2) Have a glass of water or a calorie-free beverage in between every alcoholic beverage to reduce your alcohol intake.

3) Try to avoid mixed drinks, but if it’s your pleasure, have diet coke instead of regular coke, use club soda, seltzer water or diet tonic in place of regular tonic water and try substituting four fluid ounces of tomato juice or 100 percent juice in place of syrup. Be careful because mixed drinks can easily be 200-400 calories.

Exercise

Since this may be a day you’ll indulge a bit more than usual, try to get some pre-game energy expenditure into the mix whether it’s hitting the gym, going for a walk, or even playing your own game of touch football with your friends!

Here is one recipe sure to keep you in the Zone. Not only is it packed with protein and fiber, but it provides 25 percent of your daily value for vitamin C, calcium and iron. You can’t beat that!

Chicken Sausage Chili

Ingredients:
20 ounces (about eight) chicken sausages, spicy, smoked or regular, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 cups chopped yellow onions
1 tablespoon minced garlic
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 (12-ounce) bottle dark beer
1 (28-ounce) can whole tomatoes, crushed, and their juices
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon sugar
6 cups cooked red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup low-fat grated cheddar cheese, garnish

Directions:

In a large pot, brown sausage stirring continuously for about five minutes. Add the onions, garlic, chili powder, and cumin and cook, stirring often, until soft, about four minutes. Add beer to remove any cooked-on residue, cooking until foam subsides, about one minute.

Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, sugar, and kidney beans to the pot. Stir well and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent the chili from sticking to the bottom of the pot. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

Sprinkle each serving with grated cheese and serve hot.

Makes 8 servings

Per serving: 400 calories, 11 grams fat, 3.5 gram saturated fat, 80mg cholesterol, 880mg sodium, 32g carbohydrate and 29g of protein.

*To lower the sodium content further consider substituting fresh chicken or ground turkey in place of sausage and limit the salt to taste.

1) Super Bowl Sunday Partying, Eating and Consumption Statistics. Available at: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/19089/super_bowl_sunday_partying_eating_and_pg2.html?cat=19. Accessed: January 13, 2010.

Nothing contained in this blog is intend to be instructional for medial diagnosis or treatment. If you have a medical concern or issue, please consult your personal physician immediately.