Tag Archives: diet

Eat Less, Get Hungry

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Telling an obese person simply to eat less rarely succeeds. Is it because they are weak-willed individuals or is there something more complex going on? New research indicates the latter. A new article in Cell Metabolism showed that during extreme calorie restriction, the levels of fatty acids begin to rapidly rise in the blood as the body begins breaking down stored fat for energy. These newly released fatty acids from the fat cells can then enter into the brain (the hypothalamus to be exact) and cause the self-digestion of cells in the hunger neurons (1). This self-digestion of the cells in the hunger neurons produces a rise in the very powerful hunger hormone (AgRP) from the same bundle of neurons. Not surprisingly, the urge to eat becomes almost overpowering. This begins to explain why very low calorie diets can cause rapid weight loss, but are rarely successful in keeping the weight off.

This is why very low calorie diets that promise quick weight loss invariably cause the rapid release of stored fatty acids that promotes constant hunger. This is clearly not a sustainable way to maintain long-term weight management.

Of course the question might be whether it is all fatty acids or just one that causes the problem of cellular death in the hunger neurons? I believe the answer comes back to the usual suspect, arachidonic acid (2). It has been known for 20 years that when you put obese individuals on a very low calorie diet there is a rapid increase in the levels of arachidonic acid levels in the blood (3). Arachidonic acid can easily cross the blood brain barrier and enter into the hypothalamus. Since arachidonic acid is a powerful promoter of cell death (4), increased concentrations inside the hypothalamus may be the primary accelerator of the death of the hunger neurons. Increased levels of arachidionic acid in the blood are also the underlying cause of insulin resistance because of its effect on the generation of cellular inflammation (2). So as you build up the levels of stored arachidonic acid in the fat cells, caused by the Perfect Nutritional Storm (2), you are almost ensuring constant hunger when you try to lose weight quickly by following very low calorie diets. To make matters even worse, as arachidonic acid levels also build up in the brain increasing the production of endocannabinoids (5). These are the hormones that give you the continual munchies (they are related to the active ingredient in marijuana).

So is there any good news in all of this research? Yes as long as you develop a lifetime dietary strategy for reducing arachidonic acid and the cellular inflammation it causes as well as following a reasonable low calorie diet that supplies adequate levels of fat to moderate the release of stored fatty acids from the fat cells. It means following an anti-inflammatory diet with adequate protein using low-glycemic load carbohydrates and fats very low in omega-6 fatty acids, but adequate in monounsaturated and omega-3 fats.

That’s why you never want to start any type of weight loss program without adding omega-3 fatty acids to counteract the released of stored arachidonic acid from the fat cells. Not only will these omega-3 fatty acids reduce the degradation of the hunger neurons thereby reducing the release of powerful hunger hormones during calorie restriction, but they will also inhibit the release of endocannabinoids in the brain (6). The combination of the two events will ensure weight loss without hunger and that’s sustainable.

References

  1. Kaushik S,Rodriguez-Navarro JA, Arias E, Kiffin R, Sahu S, Schwartz GJ, Cuervo AM, and Singh R. “Autophagy in hypothalamic AgRP neurons regulates food intake and energy balance.” Cell Metabolism 14: 173-183 (2011)
  2. Sears B. Toxic Fat. Thomas Nelson. Nashville, TN (2008)
  3. Phinney SD, Davis PG, Johnson SB, and Holman RT. “Obesity and weight loss alter serum polyunsaturated lipids in humans.” Amer J Clin Nutr 53: 831-838 (1991)
  4. Pompeia C, Lima T, and Curi R. “Arachidonic acid cytotoxicity: can arachidonic acid be a physiological mediator of cell death?” Cell Biochemistry and Function 21:97-104 (2003)
  5. Kim J, Li Y, and Watkins BA. “Endocannabinoid signaling and energy metabolism: A target for dietary intervention.” Nutrition 27: 624-632 (2011)
  6. Oda E. “n-3 Fatty acids and the endocannabinoid system.” Am J Clin Nutr 85: 919 (2007)

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.

Preventing obesity through prenatal nutrition

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It is obvious that pediatric obesity is a growing problem. However, compared to adult obesity, it is a relatively new problem. In a new article to be published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, it is pointed out that while childhood obesity has increased some 300 percent since 1960, most of that increase only began in the mid 1990s (1). This is well after the beginning of the climb of adult obesity, which started in the 1980s. Why the lag time? I believe it may have been caused by the amplification of any genetic predisposition to obesity by prenatal programming in the womb. That means you had to have obese mothers whose own hormonal changes and diet were altering the fetal programming of their children, thus amplifying their likelihood for obesity after birth.

This possibility makes sense based on results from another recent article that demonstrates that the lower the omega-3 fatty acid status in the mother, the more likely the child would be obese by the age of 3 (2). In this particular study, researchers found that by age 3 about 10 percent of the children were already obese. What they also analyzed was even though virtually all the women were consuming very low levels of omega-3 fatty acids during pregnancy, the higher the levels of the omega-3 fatty acids in mother’s diet, or her blood, and especially in the blood from the umbilical cord to the fetus, the lower the levels of obesity in the child three years later after birth.

Of course, lower levels of omega-3 fatty acids usually indicate higher levels of omega-6 fatty acids, giving rise to an unbalanced ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids. This is why the highest correlation with increased childhood obesity was found with an increasing ratio of arachidonic acid to EPA and DHA in the blood of the mother and also in the umbilical cord of the fetus. This makes perfect sense since it is known from animal studies that the higher the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio in the diet of the mother, the greater the obesity in the offspring (3-5).

So if you want to begin to decrease childhood obesity, it is probably best to start in the womb of the mother with appropriate prenatal nutrition using appropriate levels of omega-3 fatty acids. This would prevent the fetal programming of the unborn child that would lead to rapid accumulation of excess body fat after birth. I think this makes a lot more sense than telling obese children to “eat less and exercise more” after their genetic expression has been altered in the womb. And if this makes sense, then doesn’t it also strongly suggest that feeding children more omega-3 and less omega-6 fatty acids after birth will silence the activation of ancient genes that make them fat and keep them fat (6).

References

  1. Lee H, Lee D, Guo G, and Harris KM. “Trends in body mass index in adolescence and young adulthood in the United States: 1959-2002.” J Adolescent Heath DOI:10.1016/jadolheath2011.04.019 (2011)
  2. Donahue SMA, Rifas-Shiman SL, Gold DR, Jouni ZE, Gilman MW, and Oken E. “Prenatal fatty acid status and child adiposity at age 3.” Am J Clin Nutr 93: 780-788 (2011)
  3. Korotkova M, Gabrielsson BG, Holmang, A, Larrson BM, Hanson LA, and Strandvik B. “Gender-related long-term effects in adult rats by perinatal dietary ratio of n-6/n-3 fatty acids.” Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 288: R575-579 (2005)
  4. Ailhaud G, Guesnet P, and Cannane SC. “An emerging risk factor for obesity: does disequilibrium of polyunsaturated fatty acid metabolism contribute to excessive adipose tissue development?” Br J Nutr 100: 461-470 (2008)
  5. Massiera L, Barbry P, Guesnet P, Joly A, Luquet S, Moreihon-Brest C, Moshen-Kanson T, Amri E-Z, and Ailhaud G. “A western-like fat diet is sufficient to induce a gradual enhancement in fat mass over generations.” J Lipid Res 51: 2352-2361 (2010)
  6. Massiera Saint-Marc P, Seydoux J, Murata T, Kobayshi T, Narumiya S, Guesnet P, Amri E-Z, Negrel R, and Alhaud G. “Arachidonic acid and prostacyclin signaling promote adipose tissue development: a human health concern?’ J Lipid Res 44: 271-279 (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.

How to eliminate 50 percent of all coronary events

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The European Society of Cardiology estimates a 50 percent reduction of coronary events if you can stabilize soft, vulnerable plaques (1). We are often led to believe that plaques you can see on an angiogram are “killer” plaques. It’s true that if they are large enough to obstruct blood flow, they will decrease oxygen transfer to the heart muscle cells making them more tired with less effort.

This is the definition of stable angina. It simply means it takes less effort to over-exert the heart muscles before they fatigue. However, you need approximately a 90 percent total obstruction of the blood vessel to develop stable angina. These plaques account for most of the plaques you might find in an angiogram. This is why if you take an angiogram, you are often immediately wheeled into the operating room to have a stent put into the artery with the belief you are only seconds away from an immediate heart attack and death.

However, the same angiogram can’t see a few plaques (because they are so small), known as the soft, vulnerable ones. When soft, vulnerable plaques rupture (like a pimple), then you have the death and disability (i.e., damaged heart tissue) that truly characterize heart disease. Technically, this is called an acute coronary event, and it has very little to do with the stable plaques that can cause angina. It is this small number of “rogue” soft, vulnerable plaques that are the true killers in heart disease (2,3).

The ultimate cause of plaque rupture is cellular inflammation inside the plaque. Cellular inflammation degrades the fibrous external coating of the plaque. Usually inside these soft, vulnerable plaques are also a lot of macrophages engorged with lipids. This is called the “necrotic core”. When the plaque bursts, these lipid pools are released into the bloodstream causing platelet aggregation and the rapid blockage of the artery resulting in a complete restriction of blood flow (as opposed to a limited restriction of blood flow with a typical stable plaque that will never rupture). It is estimated that about 75 percent of all coronary events are caused by ruptures of the soft, vulnerable plaques (2).

As I mentioned above, the really scary part of this story is that there is no type of imaging technology that can detect dangerous soft, vulnerable plaques. In essence, you don’t know if you have them or not. This is why the prediction of impeding cardiovascular events remains a guessing game. Even more interesting is that these soft, vulnerable plaques seem to form rather quickly (in about 10 years) as opposed to growing slowly over a lifetime (4). Moreover, the rate of growth of these soft, vulnerable plaques is strongly correlated with increasing insulin levels in the blood (4).

So what does this mean for people who don’t want to die from a sudden rupture of soft, vulnerable plaques that can’t be detected? The first thing is to reduce the inflammation within the plaque. Surprisingly, there is only one clinical study that has ever been published that addressed this question, and it used fish oil (5). This study indicated that if you give patients relatively high doses of fish oil, you could see a definite remodeling of the soft, vulnerable plaques in about 40 days compared to subjects taking a placebo composed of safflower oil. The plaques in the subjects taking the fish oil became less inflamed, had higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids, fewer macrophages and more well-formed fibrous caps compared to those taking the placebo. So taking a therapeutic level of fish oil for a lifetime seems to be a good way to reduce the rupture of these plaques.

Another way to potentially reduce their formation in the first place is lower insulin levels. The reason insulin levels are elevated is because organs, such as the adipose tissue, the liver and the muscles, are also inflamed (6). The best way to reduce that systemic inflammation is to follow the anti-inflammatory diet and take therapeutic levels of fish oil for a lifetime. Your success is best measured by the AA/EPA ratio in the blood. Call me crazy, but I think that’s what I have been recommending for the past 16 years (7).

References

  1. Yia-Herttulala S, Bentzon JF, Daemen M, Falk E, Garcia-Garcia HM, Merrmann J, Hoefer IM, Juekma JW, Krams R, Kwak BR, Marx N, Maruszeqica M, Newby A, Pasterkamp G, Serruys PWJC, Waltenberger J, Weber C, and Tokgozoglu L. “Stabilization of atherosclerotic plaques.” Thomobosis and Haemostasis 106: 1-19 (2011)
  2. Schaar JA, Muller JE, Falk E, Virmani R, Fuster V, Serruys PW, Colombo A, Stefanadis C, Ward Casscells S, Moreno PR, Maseri A, and van der Steen AF. “Terminology for high-risk and vulnerable coronary artery plaques. Report of a meeting on the vulnerable plaque.” Eur Heart J 25: 1077-1082 (2004)
  3. Lloyd-Jones D, Adams R, Carnethon M, De Simone G, Ferguson TB, Flegal K, Ford E, Furie K, Go A, Greenlund K, Haase N, Hailpern S, Ho M, Howard V, Kissela B, Kittner S, Lackland D, Lisabeth L, Marelli A, McDermott M, Meigs J, Mozaffarian D, Nichol G, O’Donnell C, Roger V, Rosamond W, Sacco R, Sorlie P, Stafford R, Steinberger J, Thom T, Wasserthiel-Smoller S, Wong N, Wylie-Rosett J, and Hong Y. “Heart disease and stroke statistics–2009 update: a report from the American Heart Association Statistics Committee and Stroke Statistics Subcommittee.” Circulation 119:480-486 (2009)
  4. Hagg S, Salehpour M, Noori P, Lundstrom J, Possnert G, Takolander R, Konrad P, Rosfors S, Ruusalepp A, Skogsberg J, Tegner J, and Bjorkegren J. “Carotid plaque age is a feature of plaque stability inversely related to levels of plasma insulin.” PLoS One 6: e1824 (2011)
  5. Thies F, Garry JM, Yaqoob P, Rerkasem K, Williams J, Shearman CP, Gallagher PJ, Calder PC, and Grimble RF. “Association of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids with stability of atherosclerotic plaques: a randomized controlled trial.” Lancet 2003 361: 477-485 (2003)
  6. Sears, B. “Toxic Fat.” Thomas Nelson. Nashville, TN (2008)
  7. Sears B. “The Zone.” Regan Books. New York, NY (1995)

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 salt please?

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One of the great “truths” in cardiovascular medicine is that to prevent stroke and cardiovascular death you reduce your salt intake. But is it true? A new analysis of the existing literature from the Cochrane Library indicates this may not be the case (1). Analyzing a great number of published studies, researchers came to the conclusion that there is no strong evidence to support the idea that salt restriction reduces cardiovascular disease or all-cause mortality in people with either normal or increased blood pressure. Furthermore, they found that while reducing salt intake did decrease blood pressure, it also increased the risk of all-cause death in people with existing congestive heart failure.

If that wasn’t enough, an article in the May 4 issue of the Journal of the American Heart Association found that low salt increased the risk of death from heart attacks and stokes, while not reducing blood pressure (2). This study was done with middle-aged Europeans and followed them for nearly eight years. During this time, the less salt they consumed, the greater the number who died of heart disease.

Needless to say, the American Heart Association (the same people who recommend eating lots of omega-6 fats) was enraged, similar to the Wizard of Oz telling Dorothy to ignore the man behind the curtain.

So why might restriction of salt consumption cause increased heart attacks? The reason may be due to increased insulin resistance induced by salt restriction (3). Insulin resistance increases insulin levels, and if that is combined with increased consumption of omega-6 fatty acids (remember the American Heart Association), you now have a sure-fire prescription to produce more arachidonic acid. It’s the inflammatory eicosanoids derived from arachidionic acid that would cause inflammation in the arterial wall leading to a heart attack.

This is not to say that some people are not salt-sensitive (African-Americans are particularly so), but I believe the problem is more a matter of balance. You need some sodium, but you also need potassium to balance it. This is confirmed by a recent study from Harvard Medical School that demonstrates that the higher the sodium-to-potassium ratio in the blood, the greater the likelihood of cardiovascular mortality (4). The relationship for increased death was significantly greater for a high sodium-to-potassium level than simply the sodium level itself.

Getting sodium in your diet is easy (sprinkle salt on your food), but getting adequate levels of potassium means eating a lot of fruits and vegetables. So rather than restricting salt intake or taking drugs (i.e. diuretics) to reduce the levels of sodium in the body, think about eating more fruits and vegetables if your goal is to reduce the likelihood of a heart attack. Oh, yes, also ignore the advice of American Heart Association and take more omega-3 and less omega-6 fatty acids.

References

  1. Taylor, RS, Ashton KE, Moxham T, Hooper L and Ebrahim S. “Reduced dietary salt for the prevention of cardiovascular disease.” Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD009217 (2011)
  2. Stolarz-Skrzypek K, Kuznetsova T, Thijs L, Tikhonoff V, Seidlerova J, Richart T, Jin Y, Olszanecka A, Malyutina S, Casiglia E, Filipovsky J, Kawecka-Jaszcz K, Nikitin Y, and Staessen JA. “Fatal and nonfatal outcomes, incidence of hypertension, and blood pressure changes in relation to urinary sodium excretion.” JAMA 305: 1777-1785 (2011)
  3. Alderman MH. “Evidence relating dietary sodium to cardiovascular disease.” J Am Coll Nutr 25: 256S-261S (2006)
  4. Yang Q, Liu T, Kuklina EV, Flanders WD, Hong Y, Gillespie C, Chang M-H, Gwinn M, Dowling N, Khoury MJ, and Hu FB. “Sodium and potassium intake and morality among US adults.” Arch Intern Med 171: 1183-1191 (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.

Obesity continues to climb

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Last week the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation reported that more than 12 states now have adult obesity rates greater than 30 percent, and that one in three children are either overweight or obese. However, 16 years ago, no state in the United States had an adult obesity rate greater than 20 percent. So in less than a generation, adult obesity has skyrocketed. Yet at the same time, according to the Centers for Disease Control, the percentage of overweight people has remained fairly constant since 1960, while the percentage of obese individuals has increased significantly since 1980. What this suggests is that there is a genetic component that can be activated in those individuals predisposed to gain weight. Once activated, accumulation of excess fat accelerates.

I feel the driving force between this activation of genetic factors is the increasing inflammatory nature of the American diet. We know that it is elevated insulin levels that make us fat and keep us fat. But what really causes insulin to become elevated in the first place? The simple explanation is that it comes from eating excess carbohydrates. However, that is too simplistic an explanation since one-third of adult Americans who are thin are also eating excess carbohydrates.

A more comprehensive answer is it’s insulin resistance that causes elevated insulin levels. Insulin resistance is a consequence of disturbances in the body’s insulin-signaling pathways in the cell caused by cellular inflammation. My most recent book, “Toxic Fat,” goes into great detail on this subject (1). But simply stated, the more cellular inflammation you have in your cells, the greater the likelihood of insulin resistance. And if you are genetically prone to gain weight, increasing insulin resistance will really pack on the extra fat. More insidious is that insulin resistance also creates a “fat trap” through which incoming dietary calories are trapped in your fat cells and can’t be released to provide the necessary energy the body needs. This means you are constantly hungry.

If you are surrounded by cheap processed foods (rich in omega-6 fatty acids and refined carbohydrates), then you are going to quench that hunger with those foods that increase cellular inflammation to even greater levels. The end result is an increasing rise of obesity.

But the fastest growing segment of the overweight and obese population is not adults, but children under the age of 5, with 20 percent now either overweight or obese before entering kindergarten (2). You can’t blame school lunches for this because they are not in school yet. What you can blame is epigenetics (3). This is how the metabolic future of the child can be greatly determined in the womb by the inflammatory nature of the mother’s diet. When these children are born, their altered genetics make them sitting targets for a world full of inflammatory food. Unless you change the foundation of the food supply to become more anti-inflammatory (less omega-6 fatty acids and a lower glycemic load), then the future for these children is incredibly bleak.

References

  1. Sears B. “Toxic Fat.” Thomas Nelson. Nashville, TN (2008)
  2. Kim J, Peterson KE, Scanlon KS, Fitzmaurice GM, Must A, Oken E, Rifas-Shiman SL, Rich-Edwards JW, and Gillman MW. “Trends in overweight from 1980 through 2001 among preschool-aged children enrolled in a health maintenance organization. Obesity 14: 1107-1112 (2006)
  3. Lustig RH editor. “Obesity Before Birth.” Springer. New York (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.

Zone diet validation studies

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Weight Loss

Any diet that restricts calories will result in equivalent weight loss. However, the same doesn’t hold true as to what the source of that weight loss is. Weight loss from either dehydration (such as ketogenic diets) or cannibalization of muscle and organ mass (such as low-protein diets) has no health benefits. Only when the weight loss source is from stored fat do you gain any health benefits. Here the Zone diet has been shown to be superior to all other diets in burning fat faster (1-4). It has been demonstrated that if a person has a high initial insulin response to a glucose challenge, then the Zone diet is also superior in weight loss (5,6). A recent study from the New England Journal of Medicine indicates that a diet composition similar to the Zone diet is superior to other compositions in preventing the regain of lost weight (7). This is probably caused by the increased satiety induced by the Zone diet compared to other diets (1,8,9).

Reduction of cellular inflammation

There is total agreement in the research literature that the Zone diet is superior in reducing cellular inflammation (10-12). Since cellular inflammation is the driving force for chronic disease, then this should be the ultimate goal of any diet. Call me crazy for thinking otherwise.

Heart disease

It is ironic that the Ornish diet is still considered one of the best diets for heart disease, since the published data indicates that twice as many people had fatal heart attacks on the Ornish diet compared to a control diet (13). This is definitely the case of don’t confuse me with the facts. On the other hand, diets with the same balance of protein, carbohydrate and fat as the Zone diet has have been shown to be superior in reducing cardiovascular risk factors, such as cholesterol and fasting insulin (14,15).

Diabetes

The first publication validating the benefits of the Zone diet in treating diabetes appeared in 1998 (16). Since that time there have been several other studies indicating the superiority of the Zone diet composition for reducing blood glucose levels (17-20). In 2005, the Joslin Diabetes Research Center at Harvard Medical School announced its new dietary guidelines for treating obesity and diabetes. These dietary guidelines were essentially identical to the Zone diet. Studies done at the Joslin Diabetes Research Center following those dietary guidelines confirm the efficacy of the Zone diet to reduce diabetic risk factors (21). If the Zone diet isn’t recommended for individuals with diabetes, then someone should tell Harvard.

Ease of use

The Zone diet simply requires balancing one-third of your plate with low-fat protein with the other two-thirds coming from fruits and vegetables (i.e. colorful carbohydrates). Then you add a dash (that’s a small amount) of heart-healthy monounsaturated fats. The Zone diet is based on a bell-shaped curve balancing low-fat protein and low-glycemic-index carbohydrates, not a particular magic number. If you balance the plate as described above using your hand and your eye, it will approximate 40 percent of the calories as carbohydrates, 30 percent of calories as protein, and 30 percent of the calories as fat. Furthermore, it was found in a recent Stanford University study that the Zone diet provided greater amounts of micronutrients on a calorie-restricted program than any other diet (22).

Eventually all dietary theories have to be analyzed in the crucible of experimentation to determine their validity. So far in the past 13 years since I wrote my first book, my concepts of anti-inflammatory nutrition still seem to be at the cutting edge.

References

  1. Skov AR, Toubro S, Ronn B, Holm L, and Astrup A. “Randomized trial on protein vs carbohydrate in ad libitum fat reduced diet for the treatment of obesity.” Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord 23: 528-536 (1999)
  2. Layman DK, Boileau RA, Erickson DJ, Painter JE, Shiue H, Sather C, and Christou DD. “A reduced ratio of dietary carbohydrate to protein improves body composition and blood lipid profiles during weight loss in adult women.” J Nutr 133: 411-417 (2003)
  3. Fontani G, Corradeschi F, Felici A, Alfatti F, Bugarini R, Fiaschi AI, Cerretani D, Montorfano G, Rizzo AM, and Berra B. “Blood profiles, body fat and mood state in healthy subjects on different diets supplemented with omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids.” Eur J Clin Invest 35: 499-507 (2005)
  4. Layman DK, Evans EM, Erickson D, Seyler J, Weber J, Bagshaw D, Griel A, Psota T, and Kris-Etherton P. “A moderate-protein diet produces sustained weight loss and long-term changes in body composition and blood lipids in obese adults.” J Nutr 139: 514-521 (2009)
  5. Ebbeling CB, Leidig MM, Feldman HA, Lovesky MM, and Ludwig DS. “Effects of a low-glycemic-load vs low-fat diet in obese young adults: a randomized trial.” JAMA 297: 2092-2102 (2007)
  6. Pittas AG, Das SK, Hajduk CL, Golden J, Saltzman E, Stark PC, Greenberg AS, and Roberts SB. “A low-glycemic-load diet facilitates greater weight loss in overweight adults with high insulin secretion but not in overweight adults with low insulin secretion in the CALERIE Trial.” Diabetes Care 28: 2939-2941 (2005)
  7. Larsen TM, Dalskov SM, van Baak M, Jebb SA, Papadaki A, Pfeiffer AF, Martinez JA, Handjieva-Darlenska T, Kunesova M, Pihlsgard M, Stender S, Holst C, Saris WH, and Astrup A. “Diets with high or low protein content and glycemic index for weight-loss maintenance.” N Engl J Med 363: 2102-2113 (2010)
  8. Ludwig DS, Majzoub JA, Al-Zahrani A, Dallal GE, Blanco I, Roberts SB, Agus MS, Swain JF, Larson CL, and Eckert EA. “Dietary high-glycemic-index foods, overeating, and obesity.” Pediatrics 103: E26 (1999)
  9. Agus MS, Swain JF, Larson CL, Eckert EA, and Ludwig DS. “Dietary composition and physiologic adaptations to energy restriction.” Am J Clin Nutr 71: 901-907 (2000)
  10. 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)
  11. 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)
  12. 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)
  13. Ornish D, Scherwitz LW, Billings JH, Brown SE, Gould KL, Merritt TA, Sparler S, Armstrong WT, Ports TA, Kirkeeide RL, Hogeboom C, and Brand RJ, “Intensive lifestyle changes for reversal of coronary heart disease.” JAMA 280: 2001-2007 (1998)
  14. Wolfe BM and Piche LA. “Replacement of carbohydrate by protein in a conventional-fat diet reduces cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations in healthy normolipidemic subjects.” Clin Invest Med 22: 140-1488 (1999)
  15. Dumesnil JG, Turgeon J, Tremblay A, Poirier P, Gilbert M, Gagnon L, St-Pierre S, Garneau C, Lemieux I, Pascot A, Bergeron J, and Despres JP. “Effect of a low-glycaemic index, low-fat, high-protein diet on the atherogenic metabolic risk profile of abdominally obese men.” Br J Nutr 86:557-568 (2001)
  16. Markovic TP, Campbell LV, Balasubramanian S, Jenkins AB, Fleury AC, Simons LA, and Chisholm DJ. “Beneficial effect on average lipid levels from energy restriction and fat loss in obese individuals with or without type 2 diabetes.” Diabetes Care 21: 695-700 (1998)
  17. Layman DK, Shiue H, Sather C, Erickson DJ, and Baum J. “Increased dietary protein modifies glucose and insulin homeostasis in adult women during weight loss.” J Nutr 133: 405-410 (2003)
  18. Gannon MC, Nuttall FQ, Saeed A, Jordan K, and Hoover H. “An increase in dietary protein improves the blood glucose response in persons with type 2 diabetes.” Am J Clin Nutr 78: 734-741 (2003)
  19. Nuttall FQ, Gannon MC, Saeed A, Jordan K, and Hoover H. “The metabolic response of subjects with type 2 diabetes to a high-protein, weight-maintenance diet.” J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2003 88: 3577-3583 (2003)
  20. Gannon MC and Nuttall FQ. “Control of blood glucose in type 2 diabetes without weight loss by modification of diet composition.” Nutr Metab (Lond) 3: 16 (2006)
  21. Hamdy O and Carver C. “The Why WAIT program: improving clinical outcomes through weight management in type 2 diabetes.” Curr Diab Rep 8: 413-420 (2008)
  22. Gardner CD, Kim S, Bersamin A, Dopler-Nelson M, Otten J, Oelrich B, and Cherin R. “Micronutrient quality of weight-loss diets that focus on macronutrients: results from the A TO Z study.” Am J Clin Nutr 92: 304-312 (2010)

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.

Ease off the fats during pregnancy

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Obesity remains one of the primary headlines every day. But what you probably don’t know is the fastest growing segment of the obesity epidemic is children less than 4 years old. Approximately 20 percent are obese (1). Even more disturbing is the growth of obesity in children under the age of six months (2). You can’t blame school lunch programs for this youngest group, since they are too young to go to school, and you can’t blame lack of exercise since they can’t walk yet.

Frankly, no child wants to be obese. In fact, their quality of life is similar to that of a child undergoing chemotherapy (3). Yet we are constantly reminded that they are obese because they lack personal responsibility, and they only have to “eat less and exercise more”. The fact that such interventions don’t seem to work is simply a minor detail (4-6).

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, the culprit may be fetal programming in the womb that is causing epigenetic changes in the fetus before birth. This has already been demonstrated in pregnant rats that were fed a high-fat diet from the first day of pregnancy (7). These rats were genetically bred to be obesity resistant so that extra fat in their diet didn’t increase the body weight of the mothers during pregnancy. However, the offspring of those mothers fed the high-fat diet had blood sugar levels that were nearly twice as high as compared to offspring coming from the pregnant rats being fed a normal-fat diet. This is an indication that they were born with insulin resistance.

When researchers looked for epigenetic markers that might distinguish the two groups of offspring, sure enough they found chemical markers in the genes that regulate glucose metabolism. Since these epigenetic markers on the genes are not easily removed, the offspring with them would face a lifetime of dietary challenge to counteract their new genetic pre-disposition to obesity and diabetes.

So let’s come back to the growing childhood obesity problem in the very young. It may be due to fetal programming caused by high levels of both saturated and omega-6 fatty acids in the prenatal diet. Both types of fatty acids will cause increased cellular inflammation that can affect gene expression. If that occurs in the fetus, then that may be enough to genetically alter their future for a lifetime, including a far greater risk of obesity and diabetes.

References

  1. Anderson SE and Whitaker RC. “Prevalence of Obesity Among US Preschool Children in Different Racial and Ethnic Groups.” Arch Pediatric Adolescent Med 163: 344-348 (2009)
  2. Kim J, Peterson KE, Scanlon KS, Fitzmaurice GM, Must A, Oaken E, Rifas-Shiman SL, Rich-Edwards JW, and Gillman MW. “Trends in overweight from 1980 through 2001 among preschool-aged children enrolled in a health maintenance organization.” Obesity 14: 1107-1112 (2006)
  3. Schwimmer JB, Burwinkle TM, and Varni JW. “Health-related quality of life of severely obese children and adolescents.” JAMA 289: 1813-1819 (2003)
  4. McGovern L, Johnson JN, Paulo R, Hettinger A, Singhal V, Kamath C, Erwin PJ, and Montori VM. “Clinical review: treatment of pediatric obesity: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials.” J Clin Endocrinol Metab 93: 4600-4605 (2008)
  5. Kamath CC, Vickers KS, Ehrlich A, McGovern L, Johnson J, Singhal V, Paulo R, Hettinger A, Erwin PJ, and Montori VM. “Clinical review: behavioral interventions to prevent childhood obesity: a systematic review and meta-analyses of randomized trials.” J Clin Endocrinol Metab 93: 4606-4615 (2008)
  6. Shaw K, Gennat H, O’Rourke P, and Del Mar C. “Exercise for overweight or obesity.” Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2006: CD003817 (2006)
  7. Strakovsky RS, Zhang X, Zhou D, and Pan YX. “Gestational high-fat diet programs hepatic phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase gene expression and histone modification in neonatal offspring rats.” J Physiol 589: 2707-2717 (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.

What are we really entitled to?

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For the past year the future of the American economy has centered on the word “entitlement,” especially in terms of health care. But no one is quite certain about what the word means. Social Security is not really an entitlement because it is a forced savings program that promises you the money you put into an old-age fund will be given back to you when you need it, some time in your 60s. The fact that the government has been using that account as a piggy bank to fund itself without raising taxes and leaving behind government I.O.U.s in place of the funds is another matter. But you are definitely entitled to at least get back the money you put into it.

Medicare is a completely different matter. In this case, you put very little money into a fund (which is also heavily borrowed from by the government), and you expect to get a lot more back. In my view, you are entitled to get back the money you paid into Medicare, and anything more should be considered a gift from a rich uncle (Sam), who is no longer very rich.

In an attempt to resolve this problem, Congressman Paul Ryan came up with a plan that went nowhere but had at least some intellectual merit: You pay into the medical fund for old age, and you get back what you paid in (and a little more) at age 67. The most notable feature of this plan was getting an annual voucher for about $6,000 based on 2012 dollars to be applied for private health insurance premiums after age 67.

At the current Medicare tax rate, the only way to pay in more than $6,000 into proposed trust fund on an annual basis is if you make more than $200,000 per year. Since there aren’t too many Americans making that type of salary, it’s your rich uncle who must make up the difference. Even if you were making $200,000 per year for 40 years and only planned to live another 15 years after retirement, it is still a pretty good deal, as it is forced savings for health-care insurance in the future. Any overpayment on your part will only help those who are not lucky enough to make $200,000 a year for 40 years. Unfortunately, this proposal was politically dead on arrival

The real problem with any health-care entitlement program was pointed out in a well-reasoned article in the May 19th issue of The New Republic — you can’t cure chronic disease, you can only manage it (1). In addition, new research analyses of the current state of Americans in old age indicates that we aren’t doing a very good job of managing chronic diseases (2). Although Americans are living longer, the length of life with chronic disease and loss of functional mobility (i.e. independent living) have rapidly increased since 1998. We are living longer because the elderly are essentially on life support generated by increasingly more expensive drugs that only marginally extend the lives of the very sick. We are not going to cure heart disease, cancer, stroke, and definitely not Alzheimer’s. The best we can do is to help manage their outcomes. Unfortunately, these are also diseases of the elderly, and the cost of increasing each year of life after 65 has risen from about $50,000 in the 1970s to nearly $150,000 in the 1990s. This could possibly be justified if the rich uncle were still rich.

The solution according to the authors of the New Republic article is redirecting the money that we can spend to maximize expenditures on public health care (prevention and elongation of independent living) as opposed to “curing” elderly with chronic disease that usually results in the decreased quality of life (1). The primary beneficiaries of this shift in medical thinking should be children followed by working adults, with the lowest health-care priority going to those over age 80. It sounds harsh, but that is exactly how socialized medicine works in Europe.

So what do you do to protect yourself in the future, especially if you are nearing 65? My suggestion is to start aggressively reducing cellular inflammation by following an anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle. That’s the only thing you are really entitled to and that will also be the only thing your “rich” uncle can realistically pay for in the future.

References

  1. Callahan D and Nuland S. “The quagmire: how American medicine is destroying itself.” The New Republic. May 19, 2011
  2. Crimmins EM and Beltran-Sanchez H. “Mortality and morbidity trends: is there compression of morbidity?” J Gerontol B Physchol Soc Sci 66: 75-86 (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.

Getting closer to the Zone all the time

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Last week the USDA announced its newest version of how Americans should eat. For the first time in more than 20 years, the USDA apparently stopped acting as the marketing arm of agribusiness by using a food pyramid (presented in 1992) and worse yet some abstract concept of an “eat-more, exercise-more” idea (presented in 2005). Now the USDA has turned to a plate format, which I have used for years. For comparison, you can see that the Zone diet recommendations are still a lot easier to understand than even the new and improved USDA recommendations as shown below:

The USDA proposes that half your plate (I’ll assume at every meal that you want to control the glycemic load of the meal) should be composed of vegetables and fruits. This is much closer to my Zone recommendation of filling 2/3 of the plate at each meal with vegetables and fruits. Both plates give a volume size to protein (and I’ll assume it is a low-fat protein source). The Zone plate appears to have a higher amount of low-fat protein consisting of 1/3 the plate instead of a quarter as found in the USDA plate. Of course if you add in the strange circle outside the plate that represents milk or cheese (both protein sources) back onto the plate, then you would probably get to about 1/3 the plate volume as low-fat protein.

Finally, what about whole grains on the USDA plate? From a glycemic-load viewpoint, whole grains have nearly the same impact on insulin response as refined grains, so you really don’t gain anything hormonally from having them in your diet. However, if you are at your ideal percentage of body fat, have no chronic disease, perform at peak levels, and are always happy and even-keeled emotionally, only then should you think about adding some whole grains to your diet. (Keep in mind that real whole grains are usually only found in storage bins or in the frozen product section of the supermarket, not in the processed food aisles.) But if you begin to gain weight, develop indications of a chronic disease, or don’t perform physically, mentally, and emotionally on a consistent basis, then take the whole grains out of your diet and go back to my classic Zone plate.

The one thing not mentioned in the USDA guidelines is the role of fat. On the Zone plate, I always say add a dash (that’s a small amount), but that dash of fat should be very low in omega-6 and saturated fats as both can accelerate cellular inflammation. I guess the USDA hasn’t had time to grapple with that more complex dietary concept. Perhaps they will another five years from now. But you don’t have to wait for their next guideline revision. Just follow the dietary guidelines on the Zone plate the best you can at every meal and snack. If you do, then you have done everything possible to maintain your wellness (as measured by your ability to manage cellular inflammation) for as long as possible. I guarantee you that will be the only real health-care reform program that you can count on in the future.

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.

Another new wrinkle in the cholesterol story

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One of the great marketing successes of the pharmaceutical industry has been the linkage between LDL cholesterol levels and heart disease. In essence, the message, “if your LDL cholesterol is high, you are going to die,” is powerful. Unfortunately, the data state otherwise.

It was known in the mid 1990s that oxidized LDL was the primary suspect in the development of atherosclerotic lesions; not natural, non-oxidized LDL. But it was also at this time that the first statin studies began to appear, and that gave the pharmaceutical industry a patented drug to “prevent” heart disease (2). It was such a good story to tell and an even better one to sell. Unfortunately, as I pointed out in an earlier blog, it has never held up well against unbiased scrutiny, especially in patients with high cholesterol levels but without any heart disease.

Part of the reason lies in the data. Shown below is the correlation of LDL cholesterol to heart disease

You can see from this data that there is a higher percentage of cardiovascular disease patients with high LDL cholesterol levels compared with very low levels, but not that much. This explains why about half the people who die from heart disease have normal LDL cholesterol levels (less than 130 mg/dl). It also means that high LDL cholesterol is not a very good predictor of heart disease.

On the other hand, a very different picture emerges if you look at the levels of oxidized LDL levels as shown below.

Even without a background in statistics you can see a very striking relationship in the prediction of heart disease with increasing levels of oxidized LDL levels.

So why don’t physicians use oxidized LDL levels as an indicator of heart disease risk? First, the test is much more difficult to do than a simple cholesterol test. Second, it ruins a great story that is easy to communicate to the patient. Third, the best way of reducing oxidized LDL levels is natural anti-oxidants, such as polyphenols, that have no patent protection (3,4). Reducing LDL cholesterol is simple. Just take a statin drug for the rest of your life. Reducing oxidized LDL cholesterol requires having plenty of antioxidants in your diet with polyphenols the most powerful.

Now there is another new entry into the LDL story. This is “super-sticky” LDL. In an online pre-publication, it was demonstrated that this new type of LDL particle may be even worse than oxidized cholesterol in promoting the development of heart disease (5). This “super-sticky” LDL comes from the formation of advanced glycosylation end products (AGEs). I described this formation of protein-carbohydrate linkages as an integral part of the aging process in my book, “The Anti-Aging Zone,” published more than a decade ago (6).

The best way to reduce the production of “super-sticky” LDL is to reduce blood sugar levels. This helps explain why individuals with diabetes are two to three times more likely to develop heart disease. The best way to reduce elevated blood sugar is the Zone diet. That’s why the latest dietary recommendations for the treatment of diabetes by the Joslin Diabetes Research Center at Harvard Medical School are essentially identical to the Zone diet.

Heart disease remains the number-one cause of death in America. Unfortunately, it is more complex than “taking a statin a day to keep death away”.

References

  1. Maor I and Aviram M. “Oxidized low-density lipoprotein leads to macrophage accumulation of unesterified cholesterol as a result of lysosomal trapping of the lipoprotein hydrolyzed cholesterol ester.” J Lipid Res 35: 803-819 (1994)
  2. Simvastatin Study Group. “Randomized trial of cholesterol lowering in 4,444 patients with coronary heart disease: the Scandinavian Simvastatin Survival Study (4S).” Lancet 344: 1383-1389 (1994)
  3. Shafiee M, Carbonneau MA, Urban N, Descomps B, and Leger CL. “Grape and grape seed extract capacities at protecting LDL against oxidation generated by Cu2+, AAPH or SIN-1 and at decreasing superoxide THP-1 cell production.” Free Radic Res 37: 573-584 (2003) (ISSN: 1071-5762)
  4. Chen CY, Yi L, Jin X, Mi MT, Zhang T, Ling WH, and Yu B. “Delphinidin attenuates stress injury induced by oxidized low-density lipoprotein in human umbilical vein endothelial cells.” Chem Biol Interact 183: 105-112 (2010)
  5. Rabbani N, Godfrey L, Xue M, Shaheen F, Geoffrion M, Milne R, and Thornalley PJ. “Glycation of LDL by methylglyoxal increases arterial atherogenicity.” Diabetes 60 doi:10.2337/db09-1455 (2011)
  6. Sears B. “The Anti-Aging Zone.” Regan Press. 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.