Jonny Bowden's Blog, page 8

Half of Cancer Deaths Preventable with Four Behaviors

According to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, tens of thousands of cancer deaths every year could be prevented with the adoption of a few healthy behaviors or lifestyle choices.

Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School looked at the data on about 135,000 people who were enrolled in cohort studies and broke them into two groups. Those who “checked the box” of no current smoking, moderate or no alcohol consumption, a BMI between 18.5 and 27.5, and at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise (or 75 minutes of intense exercise) per week were labeled the “healthy lifestyle” group.

The researchers then compared cancer rates between the two groups, the “healthy lifestyle” group and everybody else.

The researchers concluded that 20-40% of common cancer cases—and about half of all cancer deaths—would be prevented by following those four simple mandates.

Interestingly, these are the same four behaviors that were found to significantly lower the likelihood of heart attacks in a different study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The authors of that study suggest that doing these four things could effectively prevent four out of five coronary events in men. There isn’t a drug in the world that can do that.

So when nutrition and lifestyle choices become overwhelming, and you’re not sure who to believe, here are four behaviors that just about everyone agrees on and that can make an enormous difference in your health:

Don’t smoke
Consume only moderate amounts of alcohol (or none at all)
Maintain a healthy weight
Exercise moderately for 150 minutes a week (or intensely for 75)

It’s not often that the evidence is so clear and unanimous about simple behaviors that can literally extend your life and increase the number of years you stay healthy.

How Supplement Companies Mislead Us

I’m a huge believer in nutritional supplements. I myself take close to 30-40 of them a day. And I’m constantly writing rebuttals to badly researched media articles that tell us how “useless” supplements are (they’re not).

So please understand that the critique I’m about to put forth is not about trashing supplements. It’s about trashing disinformation.

Supplements are a wonderful high-tech way to deliver nutrients that our bodies need in optimal, clinically meaningful doses that are difficult or impractical to get from food. But to get the value that supplements are capable of delivering, you’ve got to use the proper form of the nutrient you’re paying good money for.

Sadly, this isn’t always what happens.

Take vitamin E for example. There are eight different “fractions” of vitamin E, eight different compounds that make up what we collectively call “vitamin E”. They include alpha and gamma tocopherol and all four tocotrienols (alpha, gamma, beta and delta). Yet a tremendous number of commercial vitamin E supplements are 100% alpha tocopherol. Such a vitamin E supplement is incomplete. At the very least, it’s missing many of the most active and health giving components of vitamin E (such as gamma-tocopherol).

Worse, some really low-end companies still use a form called dl-alpha-tocopherol which is completely worthless and shouldn’t even be on the market. At least

d-alpha tocopherol has some theoretical benefits—dl-alpha tocopherol has none.

But most consumers don’t look this deeply under the hood.

Omega-3 is another category where there’s a lot of misdirection going on. There are three different omega-3 fats—alpha linolenic acid (ALA) , found in plant foods like flax and hemp, and EPA and DHA (eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid) found in fish and fish oil. They are not all the same. ALA has to be converted in the body to its more active, potent forms (EPA and DHA), which have been widely studied for their effect on heart health. Yet unscrupulous companies frequently add a few ineffective milligrams of the least potent omega-3 to their “energy bars” and then write on the label “Now With Heart Healthy Omega-3!”.

It’s not quite lying… but it’s definitely misleading.

And speaking of forms of nutrients…’

It’s downright depressing that some medical doctors still recommend TUMS for calcium, when, in fact, TUMS is pure calcium carbonate, the least effective form of calcium for anyone over 30. (TUMS as a calcium supplement is a terrible idea for many reasons, being 100% calcium carbonate is high on the list.)

Another really glaring example of supplement company deception is resveratrol. This health-giving flavonoid is found in red wine and the skin of dark grapes, and has a ton of research supporting its anti-aging properties. (Resveratrol turns on longevity genes and is a potent anti-inflammatory and antioxidant as well.)

But the companies selling the cheap stuff don’t want you to know that the powerful actions of resveratrol come from one compound—- a particular component of resveratrol called trans resveratrol. If you look at the back of the supplement label, it should tell you how much of the resveratrol you’re paying for is actually trans, which is the only part of resveratrol you care about.

Typically, the label will say, (in very small print), “standardized to 10% trans” which means that only 10% of what’s in each capsule is the active ingredient that actually matters. So, for example, if a bottle of resveratrol in a big box store says 500 mg resveratrol, but is “standardized to 10% trans”, you’re only getting 50 mg of trans resveratrol per dose, which, sorry to say, is almost certainly clinically useless.

Very few companies make resveratrol supplements that are 100% trans resveratrol— if you can find one, that’s the one to buy. The only company* I know of that makes resveratrol supplements that are 100% trans resveratrol is Reserveage (and its sister brand ResVitale, sold exclusively at GNC). Their

250 mg resveratrol capsule actually contains 250 mg of pure trans resveratrol, something that’s true of very few other companies. If you’re taking resveratrol—which I happen to think is a really good idea—that’s the brand you should buy.

The moral of the story: Just because a company is making nutritional supplements doesn’t mean they always have your best interests at heart. You can make a pretty penny selling “high omega-3” energy bars that have 12 mg (useless) of alpha-linolenic acid in them, vitamin E supplements that are all d-alpha tocopherol (worse than useless), or “250 mg resveratrol supplements” that contain only 10% trans resveratrol in them .

Buyer beware.

In health—as in life—there’s really no substitute for good information.

*There are one or two other ethical companies that also make resveratrol supplements that are 100% trans, like Life Extension, but they’re harder to find. Reserveage and ResVitale are widely available.

Are starchy vegetables fattening?

Are starchy vegetables fattening?

Believe it or not, there’s a ton of confusion out there about vegetables, particularly the starchy ones. Are some of them more “fattening” than others? Should they be avoided? Let’s take a look.

Vegetables are usually classified as fibrous (broccoli, spinach) or starchy (potatoes, corn). There’s no question about the fibrous kind—they’re basically a “free food”, even on the strictest of low-carb plans like Atkins stage 1, or my own Metabolic Factor.

But what about the others? After all, corn is a vegetable, right? How bad can it be?

The short answer is this: If you’re a person for whom blood sugar management is a real issue—and there are plenty of us out there, believe me—then it might be a good idea to limit certain vegetables and legumes, like, for example, potatoes, beets and peas. (I never thought there was much to recommend potatoes anyway, so no big loss there, but sweet potatoes have a bunch of good things in them, yet suffer from the same “starch” problem as their anemic relatives.)

But over all, I think the argument about vegetables and sugar is a bit of a tempest in a teapot.

There are two real culprits in the obesity crisis: one, fast-acting carbs and sugars in breads, cereals, pastas, desserts, cakes, rolls, crackers and fast food. And two, the obscenely large portions of everything in general. (I recently attended my nephew’s 12th birthday party at a well-known Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles. I ordered a burrito. This is what came. Seriously.)

And this is the “new normal”.

So of course, you should watch your sugar intake and do your best to eat less sugar, starch and fake food. But with the exception of potatoes and corn and maybe beets, most vegetables don’t have much sugar, and even the sugar in corn and potatoes doesn’t amount to all that much when you compare it to, for example, this:

I wouldn’t make a big deal of avoiding any vegetable, although I try to eat as little corn as possible since (unless it’s labeled organic) it’s all GMO, and I think white potatoes are pretty much a nutritional wasteland (not that I won’t occasionally indulge in a nice baked potato).

But let’s choose our nutritional battles. As an old teacher of mine—the brilliant nutritionist and United States Department of Agriculture researcher C. Leigh Broadhurst, PhD– once said…

“No one ever got fat on peas and carrots”.

5 Great Tips for Making New Year’s Resolutions Work

Ever wonder why so many good intentions are forgotten by the second week in January? Here are five great tips for making sure your New Year’s resolutions actually wind up making a difference in your life.

1. Don’t start on Jan 1!

Beginning any set of resolutions on New Year’s Day is a prescription for failure. Why? Because it’s arbitrary and artificial and few people really own it.

Better: pick a day of your own choosing, further from the holidays and not symbolic like New Year’s Day is. That way it’s yours. You’re far more likely to make real lasting life changes if you start by owning them, and what better way to symbolize owning them than by choosing the start date rather than having it artificially imposed on you?

2. Don’t’ make the Arnold mistake.

Every gym in America signs up more than three times their capacity at the beginning of the year. They do that because they know full well that over 2/3 of the new members will drop out within a month.

Back when I was Dean of the Equinox Fitness Training Institute and working as a trainer in New York, guys would come in on January 1st with the Arnold Schwarzennegger Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding, all revved up for a two hour workout straight from the book, workouts that the Terminator used to do when he was training for the Mr. Olympia.

They’d last three days.

Don’t make the “Arnold mistake”. Set small, reasonable goals that you’re able to keep. Remember, your subconscious mind only knows success and failure; if you come in planning to do 2 hours and you “only” do an hour and a half, your brain logs that as a negative.

So set yourself up for success. Start with short, light workouts. That way you leave the gym feeling successful, and that guarantees that you’ll be back for more. You can always add more intensity later on.

3. Rehearse and visualize.

Studies have shown that mental rehearsal improves performance. Basketball players who go through their shots and strategy in their mind perform better on the field than those who don’t, and piano players who “practice” in their heads play as well as if they had spent 30 minutes at the keyboard.

Learn from them.

Rehearse the habits of your new lifestyle. When it comes to eating, for example, see yourself in a tempting situation with trigger foods and practice what you’re going to say, what you’re going to do, what you’re going to eat. Make it come alive. When you get to the real life situation, it’ll be that much easier to do what you’ve already “seen” yourself doing.

4. Act as if you’re already there.

So many people tell me that if they could only lose 10- or 100- pounds, they’d be so happy and their lives would change.

But they rarely realize that if they could snap their fingers and magically be the perfect weight, they’d still have to eat and live differently in order to maintain it, or they’d be back where they are right now in no time.

If you were 10- or 100- pounds lighter right now, you’d have to eat like a person 10 (or 100) pounds lighter– and exercise like one too. So why not start right now? Act as if you’re already there- you’d have to live differently then, so you might as well get in the habit.

5. Make a list of the habits you’d like to change- start with one.

Maybe there are ten- or twenty- different habits you’d like to develop and another couple of dozen you’d like to lose. Fine, that’s great. Make a list of all of them. Then pick one to work on first.

Remember, it takes 21 days to build (or lose) a habit. Honor that. Do one- two at the most- at a time, not all of them. When that one is strong, add another. If you went at that rate, you could add 17 new life-changing habits to your repertoire in a year.

Do these five tips and come next New Year’s you’ll have a whole new life. And a whole new- bigger- set of resolutions.

And you’ll know how to keep those as well.

Are Your Genes Making You Fat?

How many times have you heard someone complain that she’s overweight because she has “bad genes”? Or that heart disease “runs in his family”?

The truth is that genes account for a lot less of what happens in our life than most people believe. And the good news is that you may have a lot more control over what you’re genes “do” or “don’t do” than you might think.

Let’s say you’re a scientist and you want to know the effect of a certain gene—let’s call it Gene X . You have a hypothesis—Gene X has something to do with the feeling of fear. You suspect that those who have a copy of this gene are likely to be much more fearful than those without it, so you decide to test your theory using mice.

The first thing you do is you see what happens with mice that don’t have Gene X. Do they behave differently at baseline? Are they just as fearful when they see a cat? (If so, then there goes your hypothesis. If not, you might be on to something- you can go talk to CNN and say “more research is needed” and you’ll be right.)

But how do you find such mice, mice who don’t have a copy of this gene you want to study? Simple. You create them. Through some miraculous biochemical wizardry, you actually remove Gene X from a bunch of mice and you breed them with each other. This is done all the time—the resultant strain of mice are called the “Knockout” mice because you have literally “knocked out” the gene you’re trying to study.

Next, you take another group of mice who already have the “fear gene” (Gene X), but, just for good measure, you give them an extra copy of it. Now you have two strains of mice—the knockout mice (who have no “fear gene”) and the “enriched” mice (who have two copies of it).

Keeping everything else in their environment identical, you run your tests and see which mice are more fearful—and by how much.

How do you measure fear in mice? Simple. Mice are nocturnal—they naturally

prefer the dark. Under normal circumstances, they’ll hang out in dark corners and

avoid the light. So you take some delicious mouse food—the mouse equivalent

of Crème brûlée—and you put it on a plate in the middle of a brightly lit cage.

Naturally fearful mice won’t venture out to touch it, no matter how good it looks or

smells. Less fearful mice will check left and right, then sprint for the food and

gobble it down.

So what do you think happens?

The knockout mice—no Gene X “fear gene”– run out into the light and grab the food while the mice with the double dose of Gene X nervously hide in the dark.

Sounds like an open and shut case for the power of genes, don’t you think?

Not so fast.

Let’s suppose—as Robert Sapolsky did in his brilliant analysis of the gene paradox in his Wall Street Journal column—that the lab down the street now wants to test the hypothesis. “This sounds great!”, they say, “we want to duplicate the results and add some tests of our own!”. So they get themselves a bunch of the knockout mice and a bunch of the “double fear gene” mice and they run the same experiment.

Except… they get a different result. This time there’s a difference between the “fear gene” mice and the “knockout” mice—but it’s insignificant.

Then another lab decides to try the experiment—and they get the opposite result—this time the “fear” mice actually seem more likely to run out and get the food!

A fourth lab does the experiment—and they get the same results as the original lab!

What’s going on here?

What’s happening can be explained by the emerging and fascinating science of epigenetics, and its close cousin, nutrigenomics.

See, genes, don’t just sit there making things happen. Most genes are “turned on”, or “turned off” by things in the environment, things you actually have control of. Maybe the lab down the street used different mouse chow, which could affect digestion, hormones, even neurotransmitter production. Maybe the temperature of the lab was different, which could affect thyroid levels. Maybe the people handling the mice in the lab down the street were a lot rougher and louder, scaring the mice and changing the levels of their stress hormones- which affect many aspects of behavior and metabolism. Maybe the lab down the street was darker—or lighter—or used a disinfectant which altered chemicals in the brain.

Epigentics is the science of how the environment acts on genes to change what they do (or tell them not to do it in the first place). Genes are like light switches, wired to turn on certain lamps. If you flick the switch, it will predictably turn on the associated lamps, but if you don’t flick the switch, you’ll be sitting in darkness.

When genes are “turned on” they’re said to be expressed. Epigenetics is the science that looks at how life and your environment turns on and off the genetic light switches, telling your genes to either express themselves or shut up.

And ”nutrigenomics” is the science of how nutrition does the exact same thing.

What’s most important to remember is that genes aren’t fixed quantities that determine behavior no matter what. What happens—what you eat, what you do, where you live, who you hang out with, what chemicals you’re exposed to, what exercises you do, just about everything you can think of— can have a profound effect on whether those genes get called up to get in the game, or whether they sit there warming the bench.

Genes may make it more (or less) likely that something will happen. But with very few exceptions, having a particular gene practically never guarantees that you will get a particular disease.

Take obesity, for example, or diabetes. There is no “gene” for obesity, but there are many genes that, taken together, increase the probability that in a certain food environment, you are going to be someone who gains a lot of weight.

But if you don’t go into that food environment, those genes may never be “expressed”, (or “turned on”, like the abovementioned light switch.) In the presence of certain conditions (like high sugar food) your genetic make-up can in fact make it much more likely that you will get fat than, say, your lean neighbor who has a different set of genes.

You may not be able to change the genetic hand you were dealt, at least not yet.

But you are able – in some small or large way— to change, control, or modify your environment and your behavior. YOU have that power.

And those things have a lot more to do with how things turn out for you than your genes ever did.

The Mighty Pumpkin

This is the perfect time of year to talk about pumpkin, ‘cause we pretty much ignore it every month but October, November and December. So while it’s fresh in our minds, how about a little reappraisal of this underappreciated gem of a vegetable?

Let’s start with potassium. A cup of mashed pumpkin gives you a whopping 564 mg of potassium (about 33 percent more than a medium banana), and that’s all for a measly 49 calories.

Potassium works with sodium to maintain the body’s water balance, and that, in turn, impacts blood pressure. High blood pressure—unlike high total cholesterol—is a real risk for heart disease.

Lots of studies show that people who consume high amounts of potassium have lower blood pressure than people who don’t. In primitive cultures, salt intake is about seven times lower than potassium intake, but in Western industrialized cultures, salt intake is about three times higher than potassium intake. I believe that the “problems” with sodium in our diet are at least as much problems caused by low potassium as they are by high sodium.

Can Pumpkins Decrease Your Risk of Stroke?

Several large epidemiological studies have suggested that increased potassium intake is associated with decreased risk of stroke. A study of more than 43,000 men followed for 87 years found that men in the top 20 percent of potassium intake (averaging 4,300 mg per day) were only 62 percent as likely to have a stroke than those in the lowest 20 percent of potassium intake (averaging 2,400 mg per day). This inverse association was especially high in men with high blood pressure.

The Choice of Champions

Athletes may need more potassium to replace what’s lost from muscle during exercise. Low potassium can cause muscle cramping (and cardiovascular irregularities). When people tell me they have muscle cramps, the first thing I think of is that they’re low on minerals, especially potassium and magnesium, (and sometimes calcium as well).

Acid-Alkaline Anyone?

Four large studies have reported significant positive associations between dietary potassium intake and bone mineral density. This isn’t really surprising if you think about it. When we eat a highly acid diet, the body has to buffer that acid, and it does this by mobilizing alkaline calcium salts from the bones in order to neutralize the acids consumed in the diet.

Increased consumption of high-potassium fruits and vegetables like pumpkin reduces the net acid content of the diet and may help preserve calcium in the bones, where it belongs.

Random note: This is why I tend to roll my eyes when I hear about expensive alkaline waters or alkalizing machines like Kangen. You want to “alkalize” your system, eat a cup of pumpkin or put some baking soda in your water and save the four grand. People, really!

Your Eyes Will Thank You

Pumpkin has more than 2,400 mcg of the carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin, star nutrients in eye health and vision protection formulas. Pumpkin also has more than 12,000 IUs of vitamin A, plus a little bit of calcium, iron, magnesium, and phosphorus just for good measure. And a cup of the stuff also provides more than 21/2 g of fiber.

Remember that the carotenoids need fat for absorption, which makes it all the easier to consume some pumpkin on a regular basis. Just cook it with some grass-fed butter or a healthy oil. If you like it sweet, try adding some stevia (I like Pyure brand, available everywhere).

Mashed pumpkin—with butter and salt—is a great substitute for mashed white potatoes; way healthier, and in my opinion, way more delicious.

The Fiber Connection

For decades, I’ve railed against the “conventional wisdom” that grains are an important source of fiber. (They’re not—just read the label on any cereal box). Pumpkin, however, is a whole different story.

An average slice of bread (or average portion of commercial cold cereal) has between 1-3 grams of fiber, and comes with a whole host of blood-sugar raising starch, not to mention gluten and (frequently) high-fructose corn syrup.

Pumpkin, on the other hand, has 49 calories per cup, and a whopping 7 grams of fiber. Bread is about 100 calories a slice, and—with few exceptions (like sourdough)– has virtually nothing of nutritional value to recommend it. And no bread on earth provides the amount of fiber that a cup of mashed pumpkin provides.

Every epidemiological dietary study ever done shows way better health outcomes for people who consume large amounts of fiber in their diet. Dr. Steven Masley and I presented a study at the annual conference of the American College of Nutrition showing that fiber intake was one of the best predictors of success on a weight loss program.

Fiber matters—it slows the entrance of sugar into the bloodstream (blunting its glycemic impact), helps with digestion, and provides “food” for bacteria in the gut. When bacteria in the gut dine on fiber, they produce critically important nutrients like butyric acid, which helps support the integrity of the gut wall and may have positive metabolic effects as well. Adding a cup of pumpkin to your daily intake is a great way to get about 20-25% of the fiber you should be getting daily.

Amazing (Vegan) Recipe for Mini Pumpkin Cheesecakes

On Thanksgiving, we had a vegan guest and Michelle wanted to make something special for her, so she made this amazing dessert—mini pumpkin cheesecakes— which ended up being my favorite!

Enjoy!

Ingredients

Pumpkin Filling

1 cup raw cashews, soaked in water 4-8 hours and drained

1 cup canned pumpkin puree

1 very ripe banana

2 tbsp. lemon juice

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 tsp. salt

(Stevia to taste: Optional)

Crust

1/2 cup Gingersnap Granola (by Oh My Goodness Granola)

1/2 cup raw pecans

1/3 cup packed organic brown sugar

1/4 cup Earths Balance vegan butter, melted (for non-vegan, feel free to use grass-fed butter like Kerrygold)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. For the crust, pulse the granola, pecans, and brown sugar in a food processor until it has a course sand texture. Add butter, and mix until well blended. Press into the bottom of muffin pan cups to form crust.

Place cashews in food processor bowl. Blend until smooth, stopping to scrape down sides of bowl as needed. Add pumpkin, banana, lemon juice, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt to food processor bowl. Blend again until smooth, stopping to scrape down sides of bowl as needed.

Divide batter among muffin cups, placing a scant 1/4 cup full in each.

Bake 20 minutes. Cheesecakes will still be a bit soft when finished baking. Transfer to cooling rack. Allow to cool completely and then refrigerate several hours, until fully set.

Serve with coconut whipped cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

Holiday Gift Guide: Healthy Gifts for the Holidays

If you’re stuck for a gift idea for someone on your list who’s really into health, I’ve got a few last minute ideas for you. Any one of these would be a really cool gift, and they’re priced from under 10 bucks to over 500, so you’re sure to find something that’ll work.

Here are some of my top choices:

Bulletproof Coffee Starter Kit: There are all kinds of cool sets at Bulletproof Coffee, but the one I like for people who are new to the whole concept is the Coffee Starter Kit- Brain Octane edition. It’s the original coffee that made Bulletproof famous together with a 16 oz bottle of Dave Aspery’s special Brain Octane Oil, which is 100% caprylic acid, arguably the most useful and versatile of the three MCT fats. This kit is a great way to get started with Bulletproof and see almost immediate results in energy and mental focus. You can get the kit with either ground coffee or whole bean.

Vital Choice Gift Packs: Forget all the usual food pack gifts that come with all those crackers and processed cheeses—how about a gift pack from Vital Choice, the premiere supplier of clean, pure fish from the pristine waters of Alaska? They make all kinds of terrific gift sets, and ship all the frozen filets in dry ice. They also make great non-fish gift packages, like with dark chocolate, organic dried fruits, and all kinds of other goodies. If you’re stuck for which one to go with, try the Dr. Jonny Healthiest Foods Starter Pack.

Trevor Gates Spa Skin Care Travel Kit: Dr. Trevor Gates is one of my favorite people in the industry, and one of the most knowledgeable when it comes to skin care. Her “Spa” line is legendary. It’s a five-day supply of all the essentials in one beautifully designed gift box. This is Michelle’s favorite line, and I actually got her a couple of these travel kits as stocking stuffers.

One—or both—of these books:

1. The New Health Rules: This little masterpiece by Dr. Frank Lipman– an icon of integrative medicine– is hard to find but it’s worth looking for. Last I looked it was on the Amazon Marketplace for under 10 bucks. It’s the book you give people who are confused about nutrition and health and just want to know the basics. It’s absolutely accurate and the best book I’ve ever seen for explaining stuff quickly and fast.

2. A Short Guide to a Happy Life: I try to read this book every few years.. it’s a great manual for living, beautifully written, and you can read it in an hour. Last year I packaged this book together with The New Health Rules and gave it to ten of my favorite people.

Ann Marie Skin Care: This is the skin care line I use. I’ve written about it before—it’s natural, completely non-toxic, cruelty-free, non-GMO, feels amazing going on, and really—really—works. They call it “wildcrafted, organic skin care” and when you try it you’ll understand why. I absolutely love this stuff. Any one of her products or gift sets would make a terrific gift!

Hurom Juicer: It’s pricey but worth it. This is slow juicing at its best. I own the HZ Slow Juicer and I use it virtually every day. If you want to get someone a knockout gift that will keep on giving every single day, you really can’t go wrong with this ultimate slow juicer.

Happy holidays to everyone, and let’s all have a spectacular 2017!

The Myth of Lowering Cholesterol

As I’ve said many times, lowering cholesterol is easy.

Lowering the risk of heart disease, on the other hand, is quite a different matter.

Cholesterol just might be the most misunderstood molecule in the whole world. Dr. John Abramson, professor of medicine at Harvard University and the author of Overdosed America, says this: “It’s important to keep in mind that cholesterol is not a health risk in and of itself. In fact, cholesterol is vital to many of the body’s essential functions.”

Cholesterol is the parent molecule of some of the body’s most important compounds, including the sex hormones and vitamin D. It’s also an integral part of the cell membrane.

What a lot of people don’t realize is that the vast majority of cholesterol is made in your body by the liver. If you take in more from your diet, the liver will make less. If you take in less from your diet, the liver will make more.

The liver knows exactly what it’s doing. You need cholesterol. Without it, you’d die.

But lowering cholesterol is big business. The cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor, while under patent protection, was the highest-selling drug of all time. Crestor– another cholesterol lowering medication in the same category as Lipitor—was, with 21.4 million scripts, the second most prescribed medicine in 2015.

It’s worth noting that many researchers believe that whatever good statin drugs may do has much less to do with their ability to lower cholesterol than their ability to lower inflammation, which is indeed a definite risk for heart disease (as well as a component of Alzheimer’s, obesity, diabetes and cancer).

But we can lower inflammation quite effectively with naturally anti-inflammatory foods (apples, onions, wild salmon) and supplements (fish oil, quercetin,

omega-7, curcumin), not one of which has the side effect profile of statin drugs.

In the famous Lyon Diet Heart Study, which I talk about at length in The Great Cholesterol Myth. 605 people who had previously had a heart attack were either counseled to eat a Mediterranean-type diet (fish, fruits, vegetables, olive oil, nuts) or given the routine post-heart attack bullshit advice (eat a ‘prudent’ diet, and stay away from saturated fat and cholesterol).

The people on the Mediterranean diet experienced 70% less heart disease than those getting the standard avdice”, about three times the reduction in the risk of further heart disease achieved with statin drugs! Their overall risk of death was 45% lower than that of the group getting the conventional advice.

So what do you think happened to the folks in the Mediterranean diet group?

My gosh, their cholesterol must’ve dropped like a rock, right?

Actually no, and that’s the greatest part of this study: Their cholesterol levels didn’t budge!

They just stopped dying.

Let’s repeat that because it’s worth repeating: Though these folks had significantly less heart disease, and significantly less risk of dying, their cholesterol levels didn’t change.

Sure, there’ve been some industry-funded studies showing a reduction in heart disease with cholesterol-lowering medications, but the amount of reduction pales when compared to what’s possible with lifestyle changes.

High-risk men in the WOSCOP study (a statin drug study) achieved about a 30% reduction in heart disease, but the women in the Nurses’ Health Study out of Harvard showed 31% reduction in heart disease just by eating fish once a week, for goodness sake!

As Dr. Abramson puts it, “Most of our health is determined by how we live our lives”.

That’s a powerful—and empowering—message, way more important than lowering cholesterol.

The US News and World Report Diet Ratings: And Why You Should Ignore Them

US News and World Report just published its annual rankings of popular diets.

There is a huge problem with these rankings, and anyone who has a GPS will understand why immediately.

What has a GPS got to do with diet rankings?

Simple. See, a GPS is a dumb, inanimate bunch of electric circuits and it’s only as good as the information you program into it. If you tell the GPS where you want to go, it can do an excellent job of getting you there. What it can’t tell you is whether going there is a good idea in the first place.

The US News and World Report rankings are like a GPS that’s been programmed with the wrong destination. The goal of diets, according to their criteria, is to have low calories, low fat, plenty of carbs, and not much saturated fat or cholesterol. Then, like the GPS, they plug each diet into those criteria and determine which diet is “best”. If it meets those criteria—as well as a few other boilerplate notions like being “balanced”—it will get high marks.

The US News and World Report diet rankings are useless because the criteria they use to evaluate diets are hopelessly, painfully out of date.

The report doesn’t consider GMO, because they “believe” there’s absolutely no difference between GMO food and non-GMO. They don’t consider potentially inflammatory ingredients like gluten. They certainly don’t look at whether food is organic or not, nor do they seem to care about the ridiculous number of chemicals and processing agents found in the frozen food programs of top-ranking diets like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig.

The ratings downgrade the Atkins Diet “health” score because—you guessed it—the diet’s higher in saturated fat and lower in carbohydrates. Those two facts—which I consider positives— get low marks on the US News and World Report rating system. Atkins low ranking for “health” says more about the rating system than it does about the diet.

In short, the diet ratings are silly. They tell us nothing we didn’t know before, which is that the dietary establishment continues to push foods that make us sick, fat, tired and depressed, and when a diet doesn’t embrace that philosophy, it doesn’t get high rankings in surveys like this.

I strongly suggest you ignore the ratings of diets from magazines like US News and World Report or Consumer Reports, and continue to get your information on these diets from experts you respect.

At least get your info from people who aren’t judging diets by outdated metrics.

The Best Workout in the World

I started my career in health as a trainer at Equinox Fitness Clubs, in New York City back in the 1990’s. It was a great time to be a personal trainer. Interest in fitness was exploding, there was tremendous competition among gyms, and everyone was looking for the best way to get fit.

We trainers would passionately debate the pros and cons of high reps, low reps, split routines, heavy weights, light weights, Nautilus, free weights, rock climbing, spinning, circuit training, step aerobics, kickboxing… you name it.

All in the name of finding the perfect workout.

One day, the fittest women any one of us had ever seen walked into Equinox.

All of us were just dying to know what the heck this woman did to get into such awesome shape. We wanted to steal her routine so we could use it with our own clients.

Finally, one of the trainers got the nerve to go up to her.

“Excuse me”, he said, “would you mind telling us…. How did you get in this kind of shape?”

The woman smiled graciously, and said, with a Texas twang….

“Ropin’ cattle”.

Which leads me to the punchline of this story: There is no perfect workout.

The perfect workout is the one you will actually do. The perfect gym is the one you will actually go to. The perfect diet is the one you can actually stick with.

And it’s different for everyone.

It’s even different at different times in your life.

Take me, for example. When I first got bitten with the fitness bug and started to change my life, I lifted the heaviest weights I could manage and followed the super-intense routines I read about in Muscle and Fitness and Flex magazines. I spent at least an hour in the gym five days a week, alternating between “leg day” and “upper body day”, and typically doing several exercises per body part.

And I jogged in Central Park (which, by the way, I hated).

Now, 32 years later, I don’t jog at all. I play tennis about 12 hours a week. I lift weights twice a week (a basic circuit of seven exercises, 2 sets each—total time per session about 20 minutes). And I take moderate paced walks in the hills around my home.

And here’s what I’ve learned.

We spend way too much time worrying about the “perfect” workout, just as we do worrying about the “perfect” diet. And with all the information out there, we often succumb to paralysis by analysis… should we do aerobics before weight training? Will weight training make me too muscular? Should I do high intensity bursts? What about this Crossfit stuff? Can I lose weight doing Pilates?

We basically make ourselves nuts with all this stuff.

So here are three suggestions. Number one: Stop thinking so much. Number two: Find something you can do regularly and then do it. Number three: Relax.

Remember, our goals change, our bodies change, our hormones change, and our needs change. What worked for you at 20 may not be so great for you at 40 (or eighty). Most of the 20 year old guys I used to train just wanted bigger pecs so they could look good at the beach. Most of the 70 year olds I used to train just wanted to be fit enough to play with their grandkids.

So here’s the bottom line. Accept that “the perfect workout”—much like “the perfect diet”— doesn’t exist.

The human body was meant to move. Whether you’re dancing like no one’s looking, gardening, climbing hills, tending sheep, roping cattle, square dancing, Crossfitting or doing the Macarena, find something you can stick with and then do it.

The best advice you can follow actually doesn’t come from trainers or nutritionists, it comes from Shakespeare: Know thyself.

You don’t need to find “perfect”.

You just need to find what works for you.