Jonny Bowden's Blog, page 19

What is the deal on e-cigarettes?

I can’t resist a teaching moment, and let me tell you, there’s a great teaching moment unfolding right under our noses: it’s the way the media is reporting on e-cigarettes. First let me be clear. I’m no fan of e cigarettes. I’m pretty sure that as more research comes out, we’re going to find all kinds of reasons why inhaling some dumb, colored, flavored chemicals is probably not a good idea. That said, the media reporting on this subject has been both hysterical and irresponsible.

So here’s the deal. Research recently came out in the New England Journal of Medicine that seemed to indicate that e-cigarettes could produce high levels of formaldehyde, which we know, is a complete poison. The media went to town! Here are a couple of the headlines: ‘High Levels of Formaldehyde Hidden in E-cigarettes’

‘E-cigarettes Not Safer than Ordinary Cigarettes’.  (You get the picture.)

 

That made a lot of people who were thinking about quitting cigarettes have second thoughts. “What the heck!”, they probably said to themselves. “If these e-cigarettes are just as bad, if not worse, why bother? I might as well stick with my Marlboros.”

So was that research accurately reported?

The study focused on a premium vaporizer that heats flavored liquid containing nicotine to turn it into a vapor, which the user then inhales. Almost all of these devices let you run them at either low or high voltage. The researchers ran the device at both temperatures; at the low temperature they detected exactly zero formaldehyde, at the high temperature they did in fact detect some formaldehyde.

But here’s the thing. No normal person would ever run these things at high voltage, because when you vaporize at high voltage it causes an absolutely disgusting taste!

There have been human studies of vaping that found that once you’re above a certain temperature—- which by the way was even lower than the high temperature that the researchers used in the study— nobody could even inhale, the taste was so unbearable!

So what you have here is the media reporting on a theoretical possibility that would never have happened in real life. It would be like testing the results of eating a food that had been seasoned with arsenic and then reporting that the food was unhealthy.

I see this with vitamin studies all the time. They test the wrong form, the wrong dose and the wrong length of time, and the media runs with a headline that has just about nothing to do with what the research actually said.

When The NY Times asked one of the authors of the study, David Peyton about the media coverage, he replied “What the media is reporting has nothing to do with our study. It is exceedingly frustrating to me that we are being associated with saying that e-cigarettes are more dangerous than cigarettes when, in fact, that is not in evidence.”

The Times even told Peyton about a tweet that the New England Journal of Medicine had put out, which said that the authors of the study projected a higher cancer risk with e-cigarettes than with regular cigarettes. Peyton looked crestfallen and said, “I regret that. That is not my opinion.”

By the way—if you’re wondering why this matters, here’s the answer. E-cigarettes suck, but they suck waaaay less than real cigarettes. And the fact that there are some dangers with them shouldn’t obscure the fact that moving from Camels to e-cigs is a huge step upward, a fact that’s getting completely lost here, thanks to the mainstream media’s utter inability to do nuance.

In general, the media does a poor job of reporting research, whether it’s on heart disease, cholesterol, diet or nutritional supplements. That’s because research is almost always more complicated than what can fit into a sound bite. To say that e-cigarettes run on two different voltages— one that e-smokers actually use, and one that no e-smoker would ever use— and that the one that nobody uses produces formaldehyde doesn’t make for an exciting or sexy story.

But to say e-cigarettes cause cancer, well, that’s a headline people will read!

It just happens not to be true.

Take what you read in the media about health research with a grain of salt. Read commentaries; go to the blogs of the people you trust, and dig a little deeper.

You’ll almost always find that the headline is a poor representation of what actually happened in the research.

 

 

A NEW MIRACLE FRUIT? NOT SO FAST…

By Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS aka “The Nutrition Myth Buster”™

OK, class, let’s start with the Cliff Notes: There are no magical, miracle fruits.

None.

And yes, that includes the latest wonder fruit from the rainforest, or some obscure berry from Brazil, or some ancient, recently re-discovered elixir from some special mountain in Nicaragua that nobody ever heard of. All of them.

It also includes the juices made from these supposedly magical fruits, juices that frequently sell for 40 bucks a pop and are only available from “distributors” who just happen to be uniquely qualified to tell you about the amazing health properties of the juice they’re selling while solemnly quoting you obscure research from Japan showing that their product cures cancer.

Research, incidentally, that no one ever heard of and that has never been duplicated or published in a serious journal. (I had some Kangan water salespeople run that Japanese research one on me, more than once.)

 

So listen up. I’ve heard every one of these claims. And guess what? They’re all nonsense.

Here’s the deal. Virtually every brightly colored fruit (or vegetable) in the universe contains antioxidants and anti-inflammatories. No argument there. Fruits and vegetables all contain a wide range of flavonoids, flavanols, polyphenols, catechins and all sorts of phytochemicals, and just about all of these wonderful compounds will support your health. But you don’t have to pay astronomical amounts of money for to get them. And there’s nothing special or unique about goji berries, acai berries, or any of the other overly hyped fruits. They’re terrific, sure. But so are blueberries.

It’s also worth noting that if you’re eating a crummy diet and barely exercising, drinking one to two ounces of expensive juice isn’t going to do much for you.

The folks that promote these juices seem never to understand how to prioritize their health battles. They’ll debate you endlessly on some esoteric and unproven “alkaline” water while scarfing down a Big Mac and apple pie.

Hey, these juices aren’t bad for you. (Full disclosure: I had some nice things to say about Noni juice in my book, “The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth”, and there is some promising science behind the fruit it’s made from.) But cure cancer? Grow hair? Change your life? Melt pounds from your middle?

Come on.

Bottom line- before signing up for some very expensive “juice cleanse”, or investing in some overhyped multi-marketed juice drink, go to Trader Joe’s and buy yourself a nice little assortment of some unsweetened, pure juices like blueberry, cranberry, pomegranate, and black cherry. Or better yet, make your own juice, or just eat a bunch of vegetables and berries. For about 1/10 the price (and no annoying talk of Diamond Distributorships and Up With People narratives) you’ll get all the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory power you need, and you won’t need to take out a second mortgage to do it.

 

 

 

Does Micronutrient Deficiency Cause Obesity?

Or   The Hidden Hunger Making You FAT!

 

If you are reading this right now, then the first thing you need to know about us is that we believe that micronutrient deficiency is the most widespread and dangerous health condition of the 21st century. This is because medical and nutritional science has shown that nearly 100% of the American and UK populations are micronutrient deficient to some degree, and that deficiencies in your essential micronutrients (i.e. vitamins, minerals, EFAs and amino acids) are at the root of nearly every health condition and disease plaguing the world today, including obesity. This is why we wrote Naked Calories and Rich Food, Poor Food, to alert you to this silent pandemic and show you how to create a state of micronutrient sufficiency through Rich Food, lifestyle changes and smart supplementation so that you can achieve optimal health. And why we are so excited about our new book The Micronutrient Miracle 28 Day Plan, showing you how to implement our three steps to micronutrient sufficiency with daily menu plans and delicious Rich Food recipes.

However, while we are the “micronutrient couple” and always tend to examine each health related problem from that perspective, the majority of medical and nutritional literature on obesity often focuses on factors other than micronutrients. So you can imagine how happy we were when we read a brand new 2015 study published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition that was looking at the connection between obesity and micronutrient deficiency. At the conclusion of the study the researchers stated, “We conclude that obese adults compared to normal weight adults have lower micronutrient intake and higher prevalence of micronutrient inadequacy.” And went on to say, “It has been hypothesized that the micronutrient deficiencies may be contributing to obesity and fat deposition and could lead to further weight gain or development of associated metabolic diseases.

When you pair this study’s findings with the many other studies on the connection between overweight/obesity and micronutrient deficiency including the 2007 study published in the journal Economics and Human Biology, where researchers revealed that micronutrient deficient women had an 80.8% higher chance of being overweight or obese than non-deficient women, you can start to see how important micronutrient sufficiency may really be in our fight against obesity.

The fact is obesity affects many of us as well as our loved ones. What we can learn from those suffering from this condition may help us all better understand what truly lies at the root of this global pandemic. Our goal is rethink obesity altogether and to join the growing number of nutritional theorists and scientists who are thinking outside the box and connecting the dots between micronutrient deficiency and obesity in completely new ways. One of those people is Bruce N. Ames, Ph.D. Senior Scientist at the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute Nutrition and Metabolism Center and Professor of the Graduate School, University of California–Berkeley, who in the quote below eloquently describes the biological strategy for micronutrient deficiency causing overeating and ultimately obesity.

“We hypothesize that a micronutrient deficiency counteracts the normal feeling of satiety [feeling full] after sufficient calories are eaten. This may be a biological strategy for obtaining missing nutrients, which is important in fertility. Thus part of the reason for the obesity epidemic may be that energy-dense, micronutrient-poor diets leave the consumer deficient in key micronutrients, e.g., calcium, and constantly hungry.”

The biggest problem with our current method of dealing with obesity is that most people don’t know that there are two types of hunger your body can experience?

Most of us are familiar with the first type of hunger, which occurs when you have not eaten enough food or have not eaten for a long period of time. Your body usually lets you know that you are experiencing this form of obvious hunger with stomach grumbling and hunger pangs.

The second type of hunger, which is the type Dr. Ames was referring to, is not so obvious; it is known as “hidden hunger,” and it occurs when you have not ingested enough essential micronutrients to meet your body’s minimum requirements. In the past, eating more food would alleviate both forms of hunger. That’s because the food of our ancestors delivered both caloric value and abundant micronutrient value. However, in modern times, simply eating more food will not necessarily reverse hidden hunger because many of today’s foods have become increasingly devoid of their essential vitamins and minerals.

In the end it all comes down to…micronutrients. Are you deficient in your essential micronutrients? Are you unknowingly opening the door to obesity or other unwanted health conditions or diseases in your life? We want to leave you with one last quote, but this time from us. We wrote it several years ago now (2010), but we feel that its insight into overweight/obesity is as valid today as it was then.

“If these contemporary theoretical perspectives were to be combined with current scientific research concerning the link between micronutrient deficiency and obesity, being overweight or obese would be viewed in an entirely different light. Instead of being wrongfully perceived as lazy, undisciplined overeaters, overweight and obese people would be seen for what they most likely are—individuals who are simply biochemically more in tune with their body’s need for their required essential micronutrients and are trying to achieve micronutrient sufficiency the only way that their bodies know how—by eating more food.”

Last but not least, don’t be discouraged if you are battling with obesity, take some time and think about the micronutrient deficiency connection. Perhaps the 3-step plan to micronutrient sufficiency that we outline in our new book The Micronutrient Miracle is just what you have been searching for!

 

Guest blog by Jayson Calton, PhD and Mira Calton, CN

 

 

 

7 Reasons to love the libations!

With summer cookouts popping up on the weekends there are probably a lot of you out there who, like us, enjoy having a little something special to drink to beat the heat.

Many people feel a bit guilty that they are enjoying alcoholic beverages, and while excessive drinking is not good for the body, as it can wreak havoc on you micronutrient levels, a little bit now and again is incredibly health promoting.  You heard us right!  Like Olivia Pope on the TV show Scandal, we not only approve of your nightly Cabernet habit—but we have one ourselves!

Remember, you still have to drink responsibly, but let’s all raise our glasses together and toast these 7 health bonuses from booze. 

A Glass of Wine is equal to an hour in the gym! According to researchers at Canada’s University of Alberta, Resveratrol, a compound found in red wine, can offer your body some of the benefits of hitting the gym, a boosted heart rate and amped up muscle performance, without sweat-inducing exercise. This only holds true of red wine, so chardonnays and hard spirits don’t get this boozey benefit!


Red Wine fights cavities. We all know that a Merlot, Bordeaux, or Chianti can stain your teeth, but how many of you realized that it actually acts as a mouthwash? It’s true!  According to a study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, the flavan-3-ols in red wine can reduce “bad bacteria” found in your mouth. Researchers were able to kill different types of bacteria responsible for dental diseases dipping them in red wine.


Two drinks a day can make a man’s heart stronger. Harvard researchers looked at almost 2,000 American men who had a heart attack between 1986 and 2006. The researchers followed up with the men for up to 20 years following their first heart attack, and 468 men died during the study. Men who drank two alcoholic drinks each day over a long period of time were 42 percent less likely to die from heart disease. The effects remained after factoring out other risk factors including smoking, obesity, age and medical history.


Booze in all forms is great for the bones. A 2013 study in the journal Menopause found women who drank one or two drinks a day, several times a week, were less likely to experience bone loss.

According to the Oregon State University researchers behind the study, consumption of 19 grams of alcohol—about two small glasses of wine—helped preserve bone strength just as well as bisphosphonates, a type of drug used by hundreds of thousands of women to combat thinning bones. Participants were asked to stop drinking for two weeks, and the researchers saw evidence of more bone turnover, which is a risk factor for osteoporosis. But the researchers were surprised to see that when the subjects resumed their normal drinking habits, the bone turnover rates returned to previous levels – within less than a day. Finnish researchers concur; in 2013 they determined that women drinking more than three alcoholic drinks a week had significantly higher bone density than abstainers

You’re may be less likely to get an autoimmune condition. Alcohol, regardless of which type you are drinking, has the ability to lower the body’s immune system response. And because autoimmune disorders are caused because the body mistakenly attacks itself this lowered immune response is actually a good thing for those with autoimmune disorders. Research published in the British Medical Journal, looked at more than 34,000 older Swedish women and collected data on the women’s drinking habits twice during the study. They found that the women who drank more than three glasses of alcohol per week were 52 percent less likely to develop rheumatoid arthritis (an autoimmune disease), compared to non-drinkers. The lowered autoimmune response seemed to have reduced the number of autoimmune disorders and while more research needs to be done here, the outlook is promising.  Cheers to that!


Wine may help you stay thin. Polyphenols in grape seeds are loaded with antioxidants that work to protect our bodies from free radicals that damage cells. In fact, grape seed extract has sixty times more potent antioxidant activity per milligram than vitamin E. In a 2009 study from France’s University of Montpellier, a group of “lucky” hamsters was fed a daily diet high in fat and grape seed extract from chardonnay grapes. A second group of hamsters was fed only the high-fat diet, while a third group was fed a standard diet. After twelve weeks the hamsters on the high-fat diet alone had gained significant weight and had increased their blood sugar levels, insulin levels, triglycerides, and abdominal fat. In contrast, the researchers found that animals given grape seed did not have increased abdominal weight. Researchers concluded that this is “the first time that chronic consumption of grape phenolics is shown to reduce obesity development.” In fact, the researchers concluded that the grape seed extract group showed limited oxidative stress, which led to an “antiobesity effect.”


You don’t only live a jollier life, but you live a longer life as well. Two Harvard studies revealed that, compared to abstainers, the risk of death from all causes was reduced by up to 28 percent among men and women who drank alcohol moderately. Additionally a recent study in the journal Alcoholism is offering good news for those who booze, by suggesting that people who drink alcohol regularly may actually live longer than teetotalers. According to the findings, those who abstain from drinking alcohol completely have a higher mortality rate than others while ‘moderate’ drinkers, who consume one to three drinks per day, have the lowest mortality. So, maybe the Jewish toast “l’chaim” which means “to-life” is spot on!

You can find more about the benefits of your favorite beverages in our new book The Micronutrient Miracle.

Guest blog by Jayson Calton, PhD and Mira Calton, CN

 

 

5 Reasons Your Body Isn’t Absorbing Your Vitamins.

“I’ve recently read that a multivitamin is a waste of money and that all it is giving me is expensive urine. Is this true?”

This is a question we have been asked thousands of times. And unfortunately the truth is that, more than likely, your multivitamin pill is probably not doing you much good at all. There, we said it. It may be difficult to accept at first, but you don’t have to stress out about it.  After all, there is a solution.

But, before revealing the solution, we should identify the problem – right? So, what makes a multivitamin pill a waste of money?

Is it due to poor absorption?
Are the beneficial quantities of each vitamin and mineral not included?
Do the poor formulations not take into consideration the numerous competitions between micronutrients for receptor sites in the body?

The answer is – all of the above. 

However, in this article we will focus only on 5 of most common absorption issues and how they hinder the delivery of the multivitamins benefits.

Here are the top 5 reasons your body isn’t absorbing your vitamins

#1 – Disintegration Downfalls

In order for your body to utilize vitamins and minerals they must be released into the body in a timely manner—meaning the pills must disintegrate quickly.  However, a recent study examined forty-nine well-known commercially available multivitamins that were in either tablet (pill) or capsule form to determine if they could release their contained micronutrients within a twenty-minute time period—the time necessary for potential absorption. The results showed that out of the forty-nine multivitamins studied, twenty-five (or 51 percent) did not disintegrate.

#2 – Bulking Bombs

Many supplements contain excipients, binders, fillers, and flow agents, that can be used to either make the ingredients stick together, bulk products up to a convenient size, or allow formulas to run smoothly through manufacturers’ machines. These can contribute to the poor disintegration rates for tablets (pills) and capsules.

#3 – Wax Washouts

Have you noticed that some multivitamin tablets are shiny? That’s because some companies coat their multivitamins with shellac, wax, and hydroxypropylmethylcellulose, which keeps the moisture out so they will have a longer shelf life. While this may be good for the vitamin company’s bottom line, it is not good for you. These coatings can decrease the solubility of a multivitamin tablet or capsule, reducing its ability to readily disintegrate.

#4 – Problems taking Pills

According to a Harris poll, 40% of the population has a hard time swallowing pills. The study reported that these individuals find swallowing pills so difficult that many delay, skip, or discontinue taking the pills or capsules altogether. This means that even if the micronutrients in the pill or capsule could be absorbed, you can’t get benefit from something you stop taking.

Additionally, individuals with specific conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome, hiatal hernias, diverticulitis, and those who have undergone bariatric surgery also have particular difficulty when taking their supplements in a pill or capsule form.

In fact in a recent study published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, a journal of the American Heart Association, researchers surveyed 1,000 people on what they would be willing to give up to avoid taking a daily pill—one without any cost or side effects—to protect heart health.

Here’s what people were willing to trade:

More than 20 percent said they would pay $1,000 or more; around 3 percent said they’d pay up to $25,000.
Around 38 percent of respondents said they’d be willing to gamble some risk of immediate death; around 29 percent of the people surveyed said they’d accept a small (lower than 1 percent) risk, while 9 percent of them said they’d accept a one-in-10 chance of immediate death.
When the question changed from risk of death to certain death, around 30 percent said they would trade at least a week off their lives, and 8 percent were willing to give up a full two years. The Circulation study adds a little more nuance to what’s already been identified as a major problem: Not only do people dislike taking pills, but they’re also pretty bad at it.

#5 – Sugar and Corn Syrup Cause Stalemates

Would you believe that some manufacturers add sweeteners to pills to make them more appetizing? It’s true. And it is even worse in many chewable, gummy and liquid vitamins on the market. Not only are these commonly genetically modified sweeteners causing insulin spikes leading to weight gain, but they block micronutrients from being absorbed into the body as well. High fructose corn syrup contributes to deficiencies in chromium, magnesium, zinc, and copper, while sugar blocks the absorption of vitamin C, calcium and magnesium.

So, What is the Solution?

Step One: Toss the tablets and pick a powder

Taking a multivitamin delivered in a liquid form all but ensures micronutrient absorption. According to the American Pharmaceutical Association textbook, “A drug dissolved in an aqueous [liquid] solution is in the most bioavailable [absorbable] form. Since the drug is already in solution, no dissolution [disintegration] step is necessary before systemic absorption occurs.” However, some micronutrients can degrade others when kept in a liquid state, therefor a powdered formula is preferable.

Step Two: Investigate the Ingredients

Make sure to avoid products that contain sugar, corn syrup, binders, fillers, excipients, artificial colors and preservatives (BHA/BHT).

Step Three: Delve in Deeper.

We believe that taking a multivitamin is the best insurance policy to fill the gap from where your high–quality diet leaves off and micronutrient sufficiency is met. But, as you saw there are numerous absorption problems with the majority on the market…and the absorption is only the tip of the iceberg.

You can find more about the ABCs of Optimal Supplementation Guidelines in our new book The Micronutrient Miracle.

Guest blog by Jayson Calton, PhD and Mira Calton, CN

 

 

 

What Do Home-Cooked Meals Have To Do With Health, Energy And Vitality?

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Here’s a tip that can make a huge difference in your health and vitality, and it costs absolutely nothing to implement. It’s not a fancy Brazilian berry, it’s not an overpriced multi-marketing juice, and—(insert eye roll here) it’s definitely not Kangen alkaline water. Yet this simple change in your eating routine can help you boost your health, your energy, and your waistline.

Are you ready?

Eat at home. 

Home-cooked meals are guaranteed to have better ingredients than what’s routinely used in prepared or processed foods.  You’re not going to add a bunch of unpronounceable chemical fillers, extenders, preservatives, colorings and flavorings. You’re not going to fry in reused, damaged vegetable oils. You’re going to try to buy the freshest ingredients you can find. Those facts alone elevate home prepared meals way above the usual restaurant fare.

Then there’s the intangibles. Dozens of studies have demonstrated that kids that eat meals with their families do better on nearly every metric studied. Food prepared at home with love and mindfulness creates a bond with those you eat with that simply can’t be duplicated with take-out. And the bonding that takes place at family meals can be great for relieving stress, as well as increasing the quality of the relationships.

Home prepared meals don’t have to be huge, time-consuming gourmet affairs. Just start making the shift to home eating one meal at a time. Even a few meals prepared at home and eaten together with family members may make a huge difference in your health, energy and longevity, not only for yourself, but for the entire family!

 

 

 

Carrots, Squash, Peas and Watermelon –Are They Misunderstood by the Low-Carb Crowd?

 

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

Do you fear eating bananas? It sounds silly, but how many low carb diets have told you that you have to stay away from certain foods, like bananas or starchy vegetables like squash? I’m going to tell you why that’s not necessarily true. We first have to understand the difference between the glycemic index and the glycemic load.

Both are measurements of a foods effect on your blood sugar. Here’s the fine print, glycemic index is based on a fifty gram portion of carbohydrate. By the way, that’s what we call net carbohydrates, or total carbs minus fiber, because fiber doesn’t have any impact on blood sugar. So, if it was twenty grams of carbs and ten of them were fiber, you’re looking at ten grams of carbohydrates. What’s left there, that carbohydrate content, is what actually impacts your blood sugar.

The glycemic index looks at what happens to your blood sugar when you eat a fifty gram portion of net carbs of any given food. The problem is it’s a very arbitrary amount. To get fifty grams of net carbs with a carrot, you’d have to eat a bushel. While fifty grams of net carbs might be a very high amount for carrots, it’s a tiny amount when you’re eating pasta at the Olive Garden, which is much more likely to have two hundred grams of net carbs per oversized portion. That’s where the glycemic load comes in; it takes into account how much of the carb food you’re actually going to be eating. That’s a critical difference. Here’s an example, let’s say East African Saffron is three hundred dollars a pound. Wow, that’s a lot of money, right? Except that your recipe only calls for a half teaspoon, which is going to cost you eighty cents. Glycemic index is like the three hundred dollar per pound price, but glycemic load is what you’re going to pay at the checkout line.

Now, go back to carrots. If you look at the real life portion of carrots, the actual glycemic load is tiny. Glycemic load is what we should be looking at, because it reflects real life portions. Knowing that, let’s look at some of the forbidden foods and see what they really do to blood sugar. Get ready to be surprised. For reference, glycemic load of zero to ten is considered low, ten to twenty is considered medium and anything over twenty is considered high. Let’s start with squash: four ounces, a nice size portion, is only a four. One cup of chopped summer squash has a glycemic load of two. How about bananas? A lot depends on their size and their ripeness. The larger bananas get up there in the eleven to twelve range, that’s still the low end of the medium range. Here’s one that’s going to kill you, watermelon. If you had a whole cup of watermelon balls that’s a glycemic load of three. Now, if you ate the whole fifteen inch melon, the glycemic load is off the charts, it’s ninety three. The moral of the story is, don’t eat the whole melon!

Peas are a really interesting case. We’re always told to, “Lay off the peas, lay off the carrots.” A whole cup of peas has a glycemic load of nine. It’s approaching middle territory, but it’s safely within the low zone and has nine grams of fiber. Compare that to bread. Like the great nutritionist, C. Leigh Broadhurst, once told me, “No one ever became diabetic by eating peas and carrots.” The point is not to stuff yourself with sweet foods. Some foods that have a really crummy reputation among the low carb crew, really don’t deserve that reputation. You can eat some of them, if you watch the portions, without knocking your blood sugar out of whack.

 

 

 

9 Surprising Heart Health Tips.

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Having written a book that essentially questions the entire cholesterol establishment and the notion that saturated fat and cholesterol cause heart disease (The Great Cholesterol Myth by Bowden and Sinatra), I’m frequently asked the following question:

If saturated fat and cholesterol aren’t the problem, what is? And, more importantly, what can I do to protect my heart?

I’ve put together my nine tips for protecting your heart and living happily to a seriously ripe old age.

1.      Reduce sugar and processed carbs. Sugar is a way bigger contributor to heart disease than fat ever was. Plus, it contributes to inflammation which is part of just about every degenerative disease on the planet.

2.      Stop worrying about fat, including saturated fat. Two major meta-analyses in the last few years have established that saturated fat does not cause heart disease, and isn’t even related to it. However, the combination of sugar and fat is a particularly bad one.

3.      Do an oil change! Reduce your intake of vegetable oils and increase your intake of omega-3s, especially fish oil. The balance between omega-6 (vegetable oil) and omega-3 (fish oil) is one of the most important metrics for human health, and the ideal ratio of these two types of fat in the diet is 1:1. Research shows we consume over than 16 times more (pro-inflammatory) omega-6s than (anti-inflammatory) omega-3s.

4.      Learn some techniques for managing stress. Stress contributes to every disease known to man (including heart disease) and is a tremendous risk factor for cardiovascular disease.

5.      Get some sun and spend some time outdoors. Most people are too low in vitamin D and could use more reasonable sun. And research shows that being around greenery improves health in a number of measurable ways.

6.      Eat an anti-inflammatory diet. Cholesterol doesn’t cause heart disease, but inflammation sure does promote it. Foods rich in anti-inflammatories include virtually all vegetables, low-sugar fruits like apples and berries, avocados, nuts—all the usual suspects. And new research shows that citrus Bergamot—available now as a supplement by Reserveage—is a powerful balancing agent for the critical Triglyceride: HDL radio.

7.      Supplement wisely. My top recommendations include fish oil, magnesium, vitamin D, CoQ-10, resveratrol (trans-resveratrol), curcumin, probiotics, and for those with existing heart issues, D-ribose and L-carnitine. Reserveage makes an all-trans-resveratrol product that I take every day, as well as an exciting new product from the citrus bergamot plant called Bergamot Cholesterol Support which lowers triglycerides and blood sugar and boosts HDL cholesterol.

8.      Do some kind of exercise every day. For basic heart health and protection, it’s hard to beat a daily walk.

9.      Cultivate nourishing relationships. And I’m not just talking about Facebook friends. Friendships, connections and social usefulness have enormously beneficial effects on both the heart and on health in general.

Will doing all these things eliminate all risk? Of course not. These actions will improve your health and cut your risk

Is this common activity making you fat and sick?

 

          What if I told you that there was an activity that you probably spend seven or eight hours a day doing and that same activity was robbing you of your health, doubling your risk for diabetes and raising your levels of chronic inflammation?

Well, there is such an activity, you do spend at least seven hours a day doing it, and it is robbing you of your health.. And guess what. It isn’t smoking. It isn’t drinking. It isn’t taking recreational drugs.

Nope. It’s plain, old, garden-variety sitting.

That’s right, sitting. And I’m not using “sitting” as a shorthand for “sedentary life”. Sitting for long periods of time is a health risk all its own. And even if you exercise every day you don’t get a free pass.

See, it’s not the one hour day you put in at the gym—it’s the eight hours a day you put in on your butt. We used to think that the problem with sitting around all day had to do with the fact that people who sit all day aren’t exercising and are generally leading sedentary lives. But it turns out it’s not just the absence of exercise, but the very act of sitting for extended periods of time that actually produces specific metabolic changes.

When you sit in a chair all day, you start to feel lethargic. Why is that? Because red blood cells in your legs start clumping together, thickening inside your blood vessels and slowing your circulation. (This is why people on long airplane flights are advised to periodically get up and walk around.)

Sitting around actually elevates your blood sugar, which as most of us know, is the beginning of a prescription for metabolic disaster. What’s more, there’s an enzyme responsible for fat breakdown called lipase that basically stops working when you sit around for long periods of time. Between the elevation of blood sugar and the impairment of lipase activity (fat burning) you’re basically a metabolic mess. And that may be why it’s so hard for people to lose weight, even when they exercise an hour a day and eat really well. Eight hours a day of doing something that creates a really bad metabolic situation can overpower even your best weight loss efforts.

Let’s review—sitting doubles your risk for diabetes, lowers insulin sensitivity, and increases insulin and resistance. It lowers good HDL cholesterol by up to twenty percent. It slows blood flow, raises blood sugar and increases inflammation.

What can you do?

Number one: Plan your hours. Cornell’s Allen Hedges recommends twenty minutes of sitting, eight minutes of standing, two minutes of walking—repeat and rinse. Even if you can approximate this, it’ll be beneficial. Taking a five to ten minute break every hour just to walk around or even standing at your desk are ways around the metabolic mess that comes with prolonged sitting.

Number two: Take a walk. When you’re drawing a blank, and Angry Birds is calling you, just take a five minute walk. Research actually suggests that you’ll improve your creativity by up to sixty percent after doing so.

Number three: Stand when you’re tired. Standing up focuses your attention. It gives your circulation a boost. There’s a structure in your brain called the ascending reticular activating system—a network of neurons in your cerebral cortex that actually enhance alertness—and standing fires that structure up.

Number four: Get a standing desk. Or try sitting on a stability ball. Either is going to be a big improvement over sitting on a conventional desk chair because you’re using stabilizing muscles that you wouldn’t normally use.

The only goal of sitting should be to give your body a break from moving. So don’t make sitting your default activity.

The more you can stand, stretch, and move around, the better off you will be.

 

 

Let’s Talk About Bacon.

By Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS aka “The Nutrition Myth Buster”™  

I’m frequently asked what I eat for breakfast.

OK, are you sitting down? Because I’m going to be completely transparent here and I promise it’s going to shock you.

My favorite breakfast food is……bacon.

I know, right? How can Dr. Jonny eat—let alone, advocate—the consumption of a food that has been the poster child for everything that’s wrong with the western diet? 

Well, your honor, I’ll tell you how. And hopefully counter some of the bad press that has surrounded this much maligned and slandered food for decades.

You see, it all comes down to cholesterol. Bacon has two strikes against it—one, that it’s an animal food and two that it’s high in saturated fat. Which, you’ve been told to avoid for one reason only—because it raises cholesterol.

But if cholesterol turns out to be just as much a threat as Y2K turned out to be—which is how it’s starting to look—than all the prohibitions against saturated fat and animal products starts to collapse like a house of cards.

And that’s starting– thankfully– to happen. Actually, the dietary dogma that damned saturated fat and cholesterol while exalting “complex” carbohydrates that send blood sugar into the stratosphere (and with it obesity, diabetes, and heart disease) is finally starting to be seen as a highly flawed—and decidedly unscientific—philosophy 

Let’s not mourn it. That low-fat philosophy made us sick, fat, tired and depressed, and is probably partly responsible for the fact that our children now have a lower life expectancy than we do.

Back to bacon.

Bacon is a great mix of protein and fat—2 slices of a popular commercial bacon have 6 grams of fat– great for energy, balancing hormones and satiety—and 4 grams of protein, all for a measly 70 calories. Contrary to popular misconception, only 1/3 of the fat in bacon (2g) is saturated. (These numbers may vary slightly from brand to brand, but you get the idea). And even if it were saturated fat—which it’s not—who cares? Saturated fat does not and never did cause heart disease, a fact roundly demonstrated in two major meta-analyses in the last five years, including one published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

But I digress.

With bacon, however, there is the issue of nitrates.

Full disclosure: I was a believer in the notion that nitrates were the devil and should be avoided at all costs. I myself always recommended nitrate-free everything. But I was wrong.

The number one source of nitrates in the human diet is not processed meats. It’s vegetables. There are far more nitrates in butter lettuce, arugala or celery than there are in hot dogs, and there are more in your saliva than in any of them. And who cares? The “study” that made us all afraid of nitrates in the 70’s has long been debunked (although you never hear about that). And the nitrates in luncheon meats actually boost nitric oxide in the body, which improves everything from energy to heart health. (Beet juice supplements work for energy because they help increase nitric oxide!) And to top it off, recent research has shown that dietary nitrates may actually be helpful for some conditions like angina.

So does that mean processed luncheon meats like bacon are good to eat?

Not so fast.

As Dr. Steven Masley and I point out in our upcoming book “Smart Fat: Eat More Fat, Lose More Weight, Get More Healthy” (Harper Collins, Jan 2016), what makes a fat “bad” or “dumb” is not whether it’s saturated or unsaturated but whether it’s toxic or non-toxic. That’s where organic and pasteurized come in. I would not recommend bacon—or any meat for that matter- that comes from factory farmed animals. Fat is where animals (including us) store all our toxins. So animals that are fed hormones, antibiotics and steroids, and are not raised on their natural diet of pasture are a toxic waste dump, and those toxins wind up—guess where?—in the fat of the animals that eat them.

But bacon from healthy, happy, pasteured pork? That’s a whole different story.

In my opinion, grass-fed meat is a health food. And so is bacon that comes from humanely raised, organic, pastured pork.