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Most people who are sensitive to wheat are sensitive to a variety of other foods too. For example, two-thirds of people with wheat sensitivity have also been found to be sensitive to cow’s milk protein.
Eggs appear to be the next lead...
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recently.38 For the 98 percent of people who don’t have wheat issues, there is no evidence to suggest that following a gluten-free diet has any benefits.39 In fact, there is some evidence suggesting that a gluten-free
If you have celiac, then go on a strict gluten-free diet. If you don’t have the disease, the current recommendation is that you
first try a healthier diet that includes more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and beans, all the while avoiding processed foods.
because they’ve suddenly stopped eating so much fast food and other processed junk. In other words, if you eat a deep-fried Twinkie and your stomach aches, it may not be the gluten.
For convenience’s sake, there are a number of quick-cooking grains: amaranth, millet, regular oats, quinoa, and teff can all be prepared in less than twenty minutes. For grains that take longer, such as barley, farro, or steel-cut oats, consider cooking a big pot in advance on the weekend so you can simply reheat for your meals throughout the week. Or get a rice cooker—you can buy one for less than £13.
My favorite brand is Bionaturae because of its deliciously nutty taste—try it with my Eight Check-Mark Pesto.
When buying healthier, whole-grain products, look at the Nutrition
Facts label on the package and see if the ratio of grams of carbohydrates to grams of dietary fibre is five or less
For example, let’s see if 100 percent whole-wheat Wonder Bread passes the test: Per serving, the package lists 30 grams of carbohydrates and 3 grams of fibre. Thirty divided by 3 is 10. Well, 10 is more than 5, so the 100 percent whole-wheat Wonder Bread goes b...
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Apply the same Five-to-One Rule to breakfast cereals, another grocery category that can lull you into believing nearly everything is healthy.
That may be why you get an increase of nearly two ounces of stool for every one ounce of fibre you eat. That’s not just water weight—you’re feeding your good bacteria so they can be fruitful and multiply.
oatmeal extract can suppress inflammation62—so much that oatmeal now appears to be the treatment of choice for certain serious chemotherapy-induced skin rashes.
Oatmeal is my go-to breakfast when I travel. If there isn’t a nearby Starbucks where I can pick up some oatmeal, I prepare instant oatmeal with dried fruit in the coffeemaker in my hotel room. At home, if you want to spice up your oatmeal routine, Google “savory oatmeal” for all sorts of interesting dishes involving sautéed mushrooms, herbs, spinach, curry, roasted vegetables—you name it!
The eight-a-day recommendation can be traced back to a 1921 paper in which the author measured his own urine and sweat output and determined he lost about 3 percent of his body weight in water a day, which comes out to about eight glasses.6 Consequently, for the longest time, water requirement guidelines for humanity were based on just
Those who drank five or more glasses of water a day had about half the risk of dying from heart disease compared to those who drank two glasses or less daily.
Coffee,16 tea,17 and beer can leave you with more water than you started with, but wine actively dehydrates you.18 Note, though, in the cancer and heart disease studies mentioned earlier, the health benefits were almost exclusively associated with increased consumption of water, not other beverages.
condition like heart or kidney failure or your physician otherwise advises you to restrict your fluid intake, I recommend you drink five glasses of tap water a day. I prefer tap not only because it’s less economically and environmentally costly but because it may have less chemical and microbial contamination than bottled water.19
Your brain is 75 percent water.20 When you become dehydrated, your brain actually shrinks.21 How might this affect brain function?
In addition to making water more interesting, carbonation may also help relieve gastrointestinal symptoms. A randomized trial of the effects of sparkling versus still water found that drinking carbonated water may improve symptoms of constipation and dyspepsia, including bloating and nausea.28
Yes, drinking lots of coffee is associated with a longer life, but the effect is relatively modest. People who drank six or more cups per day had a 10–15 percent lower mortality rate due to fewer deaths from heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, injuries and accidents, diabetes, and infections.
29 However, when a study looked at people under the age of fifty-five, the opposite effect was found: Drinking more than six cups of coffee daily was found to increase the risk of death. “Hence,” the researchers concluded, “it may be appropriate to recommend that younger people, in particular, avoid heavy coffee consumption (less than 28 cups per week or less than 4 cups in a typical day).”
Coffee is not for everyone. For example, be careful if you have gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GERD). While a population study found no link between coffee consumption and subjective symptoms of GERD, such as heartburn and regurgitation,33 scientists who actually stuck tubes down people’s throats to measure their pH found that coffee does seem to induce significant acid reflux, whereas tea does not.
Daily coffee consumption is also associated with a slightly increased risk of bone fractures among women, but, interestingly, a decreased fracture risk among men.35 However, no association was found between coffee and hip fracture risk. Conversely, tea may reduce hip fracture risk36 but appears to have no significant effect on fracture risk in general.37 This is an important distinction, because hip fractures are associated with a shortened life span more than other types of bone fractures.
The culprit compound, cafestol, is found in the oils of coffee beans that become trapped in the paper filter, so drip coffee doesn’t raise cholesterol as much as french press, boiled, or Turkish (“mud”-style) coffee.
Robusta beans have less cafestol than Arabica beans. If you don’t have optimal cholesterol levels, you should consider sticking to filtered coffee or using instant coffee, which also lacks these compounds.45 If these tweaks don’t help, consider eliminating coffee completely, as even paper-filtered coffee may raise cholesterol levels a small amount.46
Moderate caffeine consumption in healthy, nonpregnant adults is not only safe but has been found to increase energy and alertness and enhance physical, motor, and cognitive performance.51 Despite these benefits, one medical journal editorialized that doctors should “temper any message that suggests that caffeine is beneficial . . . given the proliferation of energy drinks that contain massive quantities of caffeine . . .”52 Indeed, drinking a dozen highly caffeinated energy drinks within a few hours could cause a lethal caffeine overdose.
Herbal tea, on the other hand, involves pouring hot water over any plant in the world other than the tea plant.
Within minutes of tea consumption, anyone may be able to attain that same relaxed but alert brain-wave pattern.73 That dramatic alteration in brain activity may explain why tea is the world’s single most popular beverage after water.
Both white and green teas are less processed than black tea and are probably preferable.
you drink your tea without lemon, green tea appears preferable to white tea. But if you add lemon, white tea jumps ahead.
The only two concentrated, green-light sweeteners may be blackstrap molasses and date sugar.
The World Health Organization considers up to 1.8 mg of stevia compounds per pound of body weight to be a safe amount.
But just drinking up to two stevia-sweetened beverages a day should be considered harmless.90
The sugar alcohols sorbitol and xylitol are harmless in themselves, but they aren’t absorbed by the body and end up in the colon, where they can draw in fluid and cause diarrhea. This is why they’re only used commercially in small quantities, such as in mints or chewing gum, as opposed to beverages.
Erythritol is found naturally in pears and grapes, but industrially, yeast is used to produce it.
In 2010, an antioxidant analysis of three hundred different beverages was published, examining everything from Red Bull to red wine.99 And the winner is . . . hibiscus tea! I documented its potent antihypertensive effects in chapter 7. I’ve always had “normal” blood pressure by U.S. standards, but I wanted to shoot for optimal,
Sitting for six or more hours a day appears to increase mortality rates even among people who run or swim for
drinking green tea every two hours can help keep your endothelium functional,29 as can eating meals with greens and other nitrate-rich vegetables. (See chapter 7.)
Eating 300 grams of watermelon prior to intense physical activity was also found to significantly reduce muscle soreness.
Yes. After just five minutes of moderate or intense cycling, you can get an uptick in DNA damage.41 Never ones to miss an opportunity, pharmaceutical and supplement companies have investigated ways to block exercise-induced oxidative damage with antioxidant pills, but, ironically, this may lead to a state of pro-oxidation.
After two months of eating a daily serving of watercress, no DNA damage resulted, no matter how much it seemed the subjects were punished on the treadmill.
The exercise authorities seem to have fallen into the same trap as the nutrition authorities, recommending what they think may be achievable, rather than simply informing you what the science says and letting you make up your own mind.
A meta-analysis of physical activity dose and longevity found that the equivalent of about an hour a day of brisk (4 mph) walking was good, but 90 minutes was even better.
A newly installed hot-water heater must not have been vented properly. It was an unbearable tragedy. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him.
The idea of preventive health is that you do something now so that nothing bad happens later.
Given our new understanding of the biological basis of food addiction, there have been calls to include obesity as an official mental disorder.
Eating a whole-food, plant-based diet and returning your brain’s dopamine sensitivity to its healthy, normal levels can help you live life to the fullest and allow you to experience greater joy, satisfaction, and pleasure from all the things you do—not just what you eat.
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