Public Service Announcement: Calling all Low-carb, Low-fat and Veg*n advocates.

Cont'd from The cause of America's rising obesity rate is irrelevant. The cure for it is what's important.

While you're rearranging the deckchairs by squabbling over which diet is best...

From http://www.britishtitanicsociety.com/titanic-story-gallery/tragedy/

People are getting fatter and sicker in increasing numbers around the world, due to increasing numbers of people eating a diet based on crap-in-a-bag/box/bottle. Would switching back to a diet based on whole, minimally-processed produce not be an improvement?

So, why don't you all agree to say the same thing, like:-

Base your diet on whole, minimally-processed produce, rather than products. Tweak it to suit.

While you're wasting time shouting each other down, the manufacturers of crap-in-a-bag/box/bottle are laughing all the way to the bank. :-/

Cont'd on Free will? It's just an illusion! How the Food Product Industry gets people to dance to their tune, part 1.

Diet and coronary thrombosis. Hypothesis and fact, by John Yudkin. The Lancet, 1957.

Twitter did it again. From http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/heartofthematter/download/Yudkinssugartheory.pdf

This looks like bad news for the fat-lovers.

There's good correlation between Coronary mortality and total fat intake, for countries 15 to 7. For countries 7 to 1, there's no correlation between Coronary mortality and total fat intake, suggesting that other differences (e.g. quality of health-care, social stress, antioxidant status etc) are significant factors.

This looks like bad news for the meat/fowl/fish/cheese/egg-lovers.

This looks like bad news for the sugar-lovers.

Of course, association ≠ causation.

This looks like bad news for rich people.

In conclusion, total fat intake, animal protein intake, sugar intake & annual income are all associated with increased Coronary mortality, over a certain range of values.

Why do some people have trouble doing things in moderation?

This is related to my previous post.

From http://www.kindredcommunity.com/2013/01/xtreme-eating-awards-2013-extremism-running-amok-at-americas-restaurant-chains/

Some people take low-carbing to an extreme, 'cos if reducing carbohydrate intake has benefits, reducing it to zero must be better. Oy!


We're told that eating 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day is good for us. One patient who was admitted to St George's with malnutrition, had been eating more than 50 portions of fruit and vegetables a day, 'cos if 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day is good for us, 50 portions of fruit and vegetables a day must be better. Oy!


People who are taking the anti-clotting medication Warfarin need to maintain an accurate balance between their warfarin dose and their Vitamin K intake to keep their INR between 2 and 3, as warfarin antagonizes vitamin K₁ recycling, depleting active vitamin K₁.
"Between 2003 and 2004, the UK Committee on Safety of Medicines received several reports of increased INR and risk of haemorrhage in people taking warfarin and cranberry juice. Data establishing a causal relationship is still lacking, and a 2006 review found no cases of this interaction reported to the FDA; nevertheless, several authors have recommended that both doctors and patients be made aware of its possibility. The mechanism behind the interaction is still unclear." Here's a clue...

From Possible interaction between warfarin and cranberry juice (emphasis, mine):-
"After a chest infection (treated with cefalexin), a man in his 70s had a poor appetite for two weeks and ate next to nothing, taking only cranberry juice as well as his regular drugs (digoxin, phenytoin, and Warfarin). Six weeks after starting cranberry juice he had been admitted to hospital with an INR (international normalised ratio) > 50. Before, his control of INR had been stable. He died of a gastrointestinal and pericardial haemorrhage. He had not taken any over the counter preparations or herbal medicines, and he had been taking his drugs correctly." Cranberry juice contains no Vitamin K. Oy!

"The Committee on Safety of Medicines has received seven other reports through the yellow card reporting scheme about a possible interaction between warfarin and cranberry juice leading to changes in INR or bleeding. In four cases, the increase in INR or bleeding after patients had drunk cranberry juice was less dramatic. In two cases, INR was generally unstable, and in another case INR decreased. Limited information is available about whether patients complied with their treatment in these cases.

Cranberry juice (Vaccinium macrocarpon) is popular and is also used to prevent cystitis. Interaction with warfarin is biologically plausible, because cranberry juice contains antioxidants, including flavonoids, which are known to inhibit cytochrome P450 enzymes, and warfarin is predominantly metabolised by P450 CYP2C9. The constituents of different brands of cranberry juice may vary, and this might affect their potential for interacting with drugs. Whether the constituents of cranberry juice inhibit CYP2C9 and therefore the metabolism of warfarin or interact in another way needs further investigation. Until then, patients taking warfarin would be prudent to limit their intake of this drink." Oy!

So, one man's inadvertent (his doctor should have warned him about eating next to nothing while taking warfarin) dietary extremism resulted in his own death and the restricted intake of cranberry juice for everybody else taking warfarin. Oy. :-(


P.S. It's about time an alternative to warfarin was found. It's difficult to maintain an accurate balance between warfarin dose and Vitamin K intake.

Chow on chow, Parkinson's Law, two ways of doing something, and love.

Another mixed bag of subjects. First, here is Mr Carson C. Chow.

From A Mathematical Challenge to Obesity

According to Mr. Chow, Americans are getting increasingly fat because they're eating increasingly large amounts of "chow", because there's increasingly large amounts of it being produced. That's classic Parkinson's law (consumption expands to absorb the available supply).

According to Armi Legge, over-fat people need to . . . . Eat Less (& Move More).

There are two ways to "Eat Less".

1) Measure everything that goes into your mouth, calculate the calories in it and stick to an average daily calorie limit. Weigh yourself daily and adjust your intake to achieve a certain rate of rolling-averaged weight loss i.e. you consciously create a caloric deficit.

2) Tweak your diet until you find one that you can live with, that results in your belt and/or clothes getting looser i.e. you unconsciously create a caloric deficit. If you can't unconsciously create a caloric deficit, there will have to be some conscious restriction.

1) suits athletes & body-builders, as they are highly-motivated people who have a specific target in mind, whether it be athletic performance or a specific body-fat percentage/muscle mass/appearance.

2) suits the general public, as they aren't generally highly-motivated and won't tolerate hunger pangs.

Unfortunately, "Move More" has to be done consciously. Unconscious "Move More" i.e. Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) a.k.a. Spontaneous Physical Activity (SPA) is genetically-determined.

Finally, I read Stretching out. I've been spending too much time on a blog full of fallacies & hate and it's been making me tetchy. I've now disengaged from that blog permanently. Breathe in. Breathe out. That's better!

Continued on Completing the trine: vive la différence!

Diet, Nutrition & Fitness: Whatever the question, the right answer is "It all depends".

The carbohydrate pendulum keeps on swinging! Bloggers keep on fighting!

Carbohydrates are good. No, they're bad. Wait, they're good again. Nope, bad again. Good again. Aargh!

See also http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/more-thoughts-on-macronutrient-trends.html
 
So, are carbohydrates good or bad? See the title. Gluten? See the title.

As Everyone is Different, whether "X" is good, bad or indifferent all depends on genes (including gender), the expression of those genes, environment (i.e. birth weight, exposure to pollutants in the womb & after birth), general diet (i.e. nutrients, anutrients & anti-nutrients), lifestyle (i.e. sunlight exposure, stress, sleep etc) and type, level & volume of activity.

Rigid diets & taking loadsa supplements to compensate for them.

I do not believe you want to be doing that!

This post was inspired by a recently-published study by Alan Aragon & Brad Schoenfeld, as bodybuilders are a group of people who often eat a rigid diet (some eat skinless chicken breasts, broccoli & brown rice for several meals each day).

See Nutrient timing revisited: is there a post-exercise anabolic window?
"Collectively, these data indicate an increased potential for dietary flexibility while maintaining the pursuit of optimal timing."

This post is also aimed at people who eat severely restricted diets in the (often mistaken) belief that something's making them ill.

People with type 1 diabetes who struggle to keep their blood glucose within reasonable limits (3 to 8mmol/L, or 24 to 144mg/dL) benefit from restricting their intake of high-GL carbohydrates, so this post is not aimed at them. See The problem with Diabetes.

People with type 2 diabetes who severely restrict their intake of carbohydrates must be in caloric deficit, otherwise the physiological insulin resistance caused by high serum NEFAs will mess up just about everything in their body if they are in caloric balance or caloric excess. I've read (so it could be false) that a certain non-skinny blogger who I'm in conflict with (who has type 2 diabetes and who eats a VLC diet) has heart problems and is taking medication(s) for high blood pressure. Hmmm.

People who suffer from gastrointestinal problems after eating gluten-containing foods, or mucus after eating casein-containing foods may have impaired gut integrity. See Gluten - more than just a pain in the guts?

Supplements that I consider of positive value are:-

Fish oils: If the diet is low in oily fish (tinned tuna is not an oily fish), there may be insufficient EPA & DHA (especially in men, children & post-menopausal women). Women of reproductive age can get away with taking flaxseed oil.

Magnesium: If the diet is low in veg/high in dairy, there may be too much Calcium relative to Magnesium.

Vitamin D3: If the lifestyle results in sun-avoidance, insufficiency in Vitamin D is highly likely.

Vitamin K2: If the diet is low in animal fats and/or fermented foods, insufficiency in Vitamin K2 is highly likely.

Supplements that I consider of negative value are:-

Vitamin A: If there's an insufficiency in Vitamin D, supplementing with Vitamin A/β-carotene may exacerbate it. As Vitamin D + Calcium may reduce cancer risk, supplementing with Vitamin A absent Vitamin D3 may increase cancer risk.

Vitamin E: If there's an insufficiency in γ-tocopherol, supplementing with α-tocopherol may exacerbate it. As γ-tocopherol may reduce CHD mortality risk, supplementing with α-tocopherol absent γ-tocopherol may increase CHD mortality risk. Most Vitamin E supplements contain α-tocopherol only. Some Vitamin E supplements contain mixed tocopherols and these are O.K.