New Study Delivers Surprising Results On Caloric Restriction

Bill Gifford at Slate did a great job of deconstructing this new monkey study in Nature, the one that found calorically-restricted monkeys didn't live any longer than their fully-fed counterparts:

Will Starving Yourself Help You Live Longer?
A major new study says what you eat may matter more than how much you eat.

They may not have lived longer, but they lived healthier than "ad libitum" monkeys.

The term "ad libitum" deserves consideration here, and that's just what Gifford gave it. This new study from the National Institute of Aging (NIA) is being compared to a parallel study out of Wisconsin (from whence the photo below was taken).

Rhesus monkeys: On the left is Canto, 27, on a calorie-restricted diet.  On the right is Owen, 29, on a control "ad libitum" diet.  From the Wisconsin National Primate Research Cener on May 28, 2009. Photograph by Jeff Miller.

The Wisconsin study found that CR extended life compared to "ad libitum." But...

"While the Wisconsin control-group monkeys were allowed to stuff themselves, with the equivalent of an all-you-can-eat buffet for several hours at feeding times, the NIA monkeys were given a fixed amount of food. “You could view it as the Wisconsin monkeys were overindulging, like the rest of the American population,” says Rozalyn Anderson, a member of the Wisconsin team. Compared with their Wisconsin brothers, then, the NIA monkeys in the non-calorie-restricted control group were arguably practicing a mild form of calorie restriction—and that, Anderson suggests, might have made a difference."

So, there is gorge-yourself "ad libitum," and there is rationed "ad libitum." Interestingly, the rationed "ad libitum" monkeys (who did not engage in CR), "seemed to be on track to live as long, or longer, than the Wisconsin calorie-restricted monkeys. Some of them were approaching 40 years old, previously the highest recorded age for Rhesus monkeys."

Not just the quantity, but the quality of the two groups' diets also differed:

"The NIA monkeys were fed a natural-ingredient diet, made from ground wheat, ground corn, and other whole foods; the Wisconsin animals ate a “purified” diet, a heavily refined type of food that allowed the researchers to control the nutritional content more precisely. Because the NIA monkeys were eating more natural ingredients, de Cabo realized, they were taking in more polyphenols, micronutrients, flavonoids, and other compounds that may have health-promoting effects."

Furthermore, the NIA diet consisted of 4 percent sucrose — while in the Wisconsin diet, sucrose accounted for some 28 percent of the total calories."

There's a lot more to know about the benefits of restricting calories. Indeed, "In both studies, the monkeys that ate less were healthier by a number of measures — and suffered far less from age-related disease." But even if CR is too demanding, there may be benefit in reducing sugar, and eating more whole foods.
________Thanks, Bill!

Additional Health Benefits From Adding Exercise To Diet

Read this post first: Dietary Restriction: Impact On Health And Longevity.

This is a continuation of the prior posts: Dietary Restriction: Impact On Health And Longevity, which summarized the benefits of caloric restriction (CR), Protein Restriction Increases Longevity, and Periodic Fasting Increases Health And Longevity. This post will deal with another alternative to CR, CR plus exercise.

Caloric Restriction Combined With Exercise (CE) In Animals¹

"Some studies have found that CE does not elicit health-promoting benefits beyond those elicited by CR." There were a few benefits, mostly muscle-related: "CE has been shown to attenuate age-related sarcopenia. ... CE reduces muscle fatigue and may increase the oxidative capacity of muscle fibers." And CE may reduce levels of C-reactive protein."

"The addition of exercise to a CR regimen does not appear to affect an animal's maximal life span."

Caloric Restriction Combined With Exercise (CE) In Humans

"Many human CE studies have incorporated a total caloric reduction of 25%, with 12.5% coming from exercise-induced expenditure and another 12.5% coming from reduced caloric intake (i.e. diet)."

"Many investigations have noted no significant difference between CE and CR regarding their respective effects on fasting insulin levels, DNA damage, muscle mitochondrial gene expression, triglyceride levels, and liver lipid content."

"Two investigations have noted a further reduction in both diastolic blood pressure and LDL cholesterol with CE when compared to CR alone [67,89]."

"Other work has noted that CE improved insulin sensitivity, while CR-alone failed to do so."

"CE has been shown to increase bone mineral density at the femoral neck."

"Collectively, although results are somewhat mixed, it appears that the addition of exercise to a CR plan may provide further health benefits."

So, there was little additional benefit gained by appropriating some caloric deficit to expenditure, except that seen in bone and muscle, two areas where the benefits of CR alone were lacking ("Unfortunately, CR does not appear to retard the age-related loss of bone and muscle mass."). Those are still mighty important areas when it comes to quality of life and living independently. Also, adding exercise might help achieve CR without extremely cutting caloric intake. Unfortunately, exercise has a profound effect on appetite.

To sum:

• Caloric restriction (CR) of at least 20% extends life and improves health.
• Protein restriction, but not carbohydrate or fat restriction, offers similar benefits to CR. The amino acid methionine, found primarily in animal food, is likely responsible for this.
• Periodic fasting offers some benefits and has been shown to extend life in animals, but research, especially in humans, is sparse.
• Adding exercise to a CR regimen offers little additional benefit save for improvements in bone and muscle.

This was one in a series of 4 posts:

• Dietary Restriction: Impact On Health And Longevity
• Protein Restriction Increases Longevity
• Periodic Fasting Increases Health And Longevity
• Additional Health Benefits From Adding Exercise To Diet

________¹ Impact Of Caloric And Dietary Restriction Regimens On Markers Of Health And Longevity In Humans And Animals: A Summary Of Available Findings, Nutrition Journal, October 2011.

Photo of man walking in Segovia, Spain from Slight Chance Of Pixels.

Periodic Fasting Boosts Health And Longevity

Read this post first: Dietary Restriction: Impact On Health And Longevity.

This is a continuation of the prior posts: Dietary Restriction: Impact On Health And Longevity, which summarized the benefits of caloric restriction (CR), and Protein Restriction Increases Longevity. This post will deal with another alternative to CR, fasting.

Alternate-Day Fasting (ADF) In Animals¹

"ADF consists of alternating 24-hour periods of ad libitum intake and partial or complete restriction of caloric consumption. ... Unlike CR, ADF need not necessarily reduce overall caloric consumption or bodyweight, because subjects may compensate for the reduced caloric intake during fast periods by gorging themselves during feast periods."

"ADF has been found to extend lifespan in several animal trials."

"The ability of ADF to retard or prevent altogether the development of many morbidities, including cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, cancers, and diabetes, may also explain some of the observed increases in longevity."

"Many animal ADF studies have noted improvements in cardiovascular function. Both resting heart rate and blood pressure are reduced following a period of ADF. Heart rate variability, which is associated with improved cardiovascular function and a reduced probability of heart failure, has been noted to be favorably affected by ADF in rats."

"ADF can improve insulin sensitivity, which results in lower fasting glucose and insulin concentrations and improved glucose tolerance. Anson et al. noted that glucose and insulin concentrations were reduced by a similar extent (compared to a control group) in both an ADF group and a 40% CR group."

Alternate-Day Fasting In Humans

"In human ADF trials, subjects have been permitted to consume anywhere from 0% to 50% of the estimated daily energy required to maintain body mass during fast periods."

"Despite being able to consume food ad libitum during feast days, human subjects sometimes experience weight loss as a result of the ADF regimen."

"Johnson and colleagues have examined ADF regimens over the course of several years, including over 500 subjects as of 2006. The authors have noted improvements in the following: insulin sensitivity, asthma, seasonal allergies, autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, infectious disease of viral, bacterial, and fungal origin, inflammatory central nervous system lesions involved with Tourette's syndrome and Meniere's disease, cardiac arrhythmias, and menopause-related hot flashes."

Even though people ate more on the days they weren't fasting, they still experienced benefits. How about that.

Next up, caloric restriction combined with exercise.

This was one in a series of 4 posts:

• Dietary Restriction: Impact On Health And Longevity
• Protein Restriction And Longevity
• Periodic Fasting Boosts Health And Longevity
• Additional Health Benefits From Adding Exercise To Diet

________¹ Impact Of Caloric And Dietary Restriction Regimens On Markers Of Health And Longevity In Humans And Animals: A Summary Of Available Findings, Nutrition Journal, October 2011

Protein Restriction And Longevity

Read this post first: Dietary Restriction: Impact On Health And Longevity.  This is a continuation of that post which summarized the benefits of caloric restriction (CR). This post will deal with an alternative to CR, restriction of dietary components.

Dietary Restriction (DR): Reducing Carbs, Fat, Or Protein Instead Of Calories¹

"Neither carbohydrate restriction nor lipid restriction appear to be effective alternatives to CR. Lipid restriction has been shown to have no effect on longevity. Regarding carbohydrate, several studies have found that increasing intake either increases or has no effect on longevity, suggesting that restriction would not extend life. Moreover, both forms of macronutrient restriction fail to decrease reactive oxygen species production or oxidative DNA damage."

"Protein restriction appears to be a viable candidate for an alternative to CR. Sixteen out of 18 reviewed experiments found that protein restriction increased maximum lifespan in rodents). The average increase in maximum lifespan in the 16 positive studies was approximately 20%. When this is compared to the ~40% increase in lifespan found in many CR investigations, it suggests that protein restriction accounts for approximately half of this effect. Moreover, several of the reviewed studies compensated for the reduction in protein by increasing carbohydrate intake; this balanced total caloric intake and ensured that the prolongation of life was due to restriction of protein and not calories."

A wealth of evidence indicates that methionine restriction might account for most or all of the life-extending benefits of protein restriction:

• Methionine content has an inverse relationship with maximum life span in mammals.
• Of the amino acids, methionine is one of the most vulnerable to oxidation by reactive oxygen species.
• Methionine supplementation increases LDL cholesterol oxidation.
• Raising methionine intake increases plasma homocysteine concentrations, which in turn elevates the risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality.

So, low-carb and low-fat won't rival the insane benefits of caloric restriction. But low-protein will, specifically, low-methionine. What foods are good sources of methionine? A quick search in NutritionData says animal foods.

Next up, periodic fasting.

This was one in a series of 4 posts:

• Dietary Restriction: Impact On Health And Longevity
• Protein Restriction And Longevity
• Periodic Fasting Boosts Health And Longevity
• Additional Health Benefits From Adding Exercise To Diet

________ ¹ Impact Of Caloric And Dietary Restriction Regimens On Markers Of Health And Longevity In Humans And Animals: A Summary Of Available Findings, Nutrition Journal, October 2011

Dietary Restriction: Impact On Health And Longevity

Studies of food plans that show reductions in disease, or markers of disease, often see subjects decreasing their caloric intake, sometimes resulting in weight loss. That leads to murky results. Was it eating fewer carbohydrates that improved blood glucose? Or was it the weight loss? Or just eating less?

Results are statistically adjusted for these and other variables to better understand the independent effect of dietary components, because it's known that merely reducing calories, or reducing weight, however that's achieved, reduces disease risk.

Thus, I've been reading:

Impact Of Caloric And Dietary Restriction Regimens On Markers Of Health And Longevity In Humans And Animals: A Summary Of Available Findings, Nutrition Journal, October 2011

It looked at:

• Caloric restriction (CR) - cutting intake from 20% to 40% of ad libitum intake (an intake a person would engage in if they had no restrictions).

And alternatives to CR:

• Dietary restriction (DR) - restriction of one or more dietary components (typically carbs, protein, or fat) with minimal to no reduction in total caloric intake.
• Alternate-day fasting (ADF) - two interchanging days: one day food is consumed ad libitum (sometimes equaling twice the normal intake), the next day food is reduced or withheld altogether.
• Caloric restriction combined with exercise (CE)
• Religious fasting - focused on Islamic Ramadan, 3 fasting periods of Christianity (Nativity, Lent, and the Assumption), and the Biblical-based Daniel Fast.

Let's just look at that first item, CR, or cutting calories:

Caloric Restriction In Animals

"CR improves cardiovascular health. ... CR reduces levels of triglyceride, phospholipid, and total and low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. CR also increases HDL2b levels and reduces inflammatory markers such as TNF-α, IL-6, C-reactive protein, and NF-κB. ... Several studies have noted significant declines in both blood pressure and heart rate. Other work has noted cardioprotective alterations in gene expression."

"CR appears to improve glucoregulatory function and insulin sensitivity. ... Several studies have observed a decrease in fasting blood glucose and insulin."

"Reductions in markers of oxidative stress such as hydrogen peroxide, protein carbonyls, and nitrotyrosine have been noted."

"CR has been shown to lower brain-reactive antibodies and to reduce T-lymphocyte proliferation."

"CR has been reported to reduce tumor growth, decrease body weight, reduce sarcopenia, maintain neural/cognitive function, and improve immune function."

"Collectively, these changes have been associated with an increase in lifespan in many studies involving animals."

Caloric Restriction In Humans

"CR improves cardiovascular and glucoregulatory health. ... CR may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by lowering total cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure, and carotid intima-media thickness. CR also has been shown to attenuate the age-related decline in diastolic function."

"Regarding glucoregulatory health, circulating insulin and glucose levels decrease - while insulin sensitivity increases."

"CR has also been shown to attenuate oxidative stress, a condition thought to contribute to aging and disease."

"Enhanced verbal memory performance has been reported in elderly individuals."

I mean, this is a spectacular list of health variables. It's like listening to an infomercial for a new drug but without the rushed list of side effects at the end.

So, merely eating less, about 400 fewer calories a day (20% of 2000 calories is 400 calories) has enormous health benefits. But is it realistic? It doesn't appear so, given the prevalence of obesity. What about alternatives to CR? Can these same benefits be achieved by, say, restricting carbs or protein, but keeping calories unchanged? Or by incorporating just a few days where we eat less? Maybe exercise a little instead of going full-on CR? Yes, it looks like some of these alternatives work.

Let's look at dietary restriction (DR) first. I'll come right out and say it here too, restricting carbs and fat didn't work, but restricting protein did.

This was one in a series of 4 posts:

• Dietary Restriction: Impact On Health And Longevity
• Protein Restriction Increases Longevity
• Periodic Fasting Increases Health And Longevity
• Additional Health Benefits From Adding Exercise To Diet

________ Thanks again to healthy-longevity and his or her blog, where I found this study.

Morning Boil-Over

Every morning I cook a pot of beans. Every morning it foams up and boils over unless I catch it and turn the heat way down and stir, stir, stir. It only happens right in the beginning. After that I can turn it up and it doesn't foam.

Here are this morning's red lentils. Red lentils notoriously foam.


________

CRON-O-Meter: Free Diet Analysis Software

It's been years since I tried this software:


http://cronometer.com/

It wasn't online back then. You had to download the software and run it on your computer. It was always a decent program but I just re-tried it this morning and can report that it's much improved, very intuitive interface. It looks like they're keeping it free by placing ads.

In my experience:

• No diet analysis program is accurate. It's just a gage. Not every 3 inch apple has 8 mg vitamin C.
• Not every person digests, absorbs, and metabolizes nutrients in the same way, to the same degree.
• Nutrient absorption depends on other foods eaten.

It's still worth trying one of these programs at least once. They give you an idea of what foods contain what nutrients. And how a diet you're eating stacks up to a standard - like the DRI's.

Many diet analysis programs, including this one, use the extensive and reliable USDA food database. When I was an undergrad, we had to look up nutrients in tables, giant books of tables that didn't differentiate between say, an apple with skin and without. It was a herculean feat to do an analysis of someone's diet. Good software back then cost about $600-$1000 and was always buggy.¹ And it was based on the same USDA values as these free programs. How things have changed.
________¹ I used a product of this caliber called Nutritionist IV from First Data Bank. Every time something went wrong with my computer and I had to reload the operating system or if I swapped a hard drive, I had to call the company and request a code to access my own software. Of course, since it resided on your pc there weren't any automatic food/nutrient updates. You had to pay a few $100 every year for updates - on floppy discs.

Did Kashi Lie?

When a grocer in Rhode Island pulled his boxes of Kashi cereal because they were advertised as "natural" which he thought was misleading, in that they contained genetically engineered ingredients or GMOs, Kashi responded:

"While it's likely that some of our foods contain GMOs, the main reason for that is because in North America, well over 80 percent of many crops, including soybeans, are grown using GMOs. Factors outside our control such as pollen drift from nearby crops, and current practices in agricultural storage, handling and shipping have led to an environment where GMOS are not sufficiently controlled."

However, Will Fantle, the Cornucopia Institute's Research Director, said:

"We purchased a readily available box of Kashi’s GoLean® cereal from a Whole Foods store. We then sent a sample to an accredited national lab for testing, finding that the soy in the natural cereal was 100% GMO."

Cornucopia said:

"The Kashi video suggested, disingenuously, that any genetically engineered contamination in their food was from incidental sources rather than crops intentionally grown from GMO seed.
...
"This is classic public relations spin and crisis communications work, where corporations use misinformation to try to cover their tracks,” said Rebekah Wilce, of the Center for Media and Democracy/PRWatch."

Kashi is owned by the Kellogg Company, "which has contributed $632,000 to defeat Proposition 37," a ballot initiative in California's upcoming election that seeks to have genetically engineered foods labeled.

Kashi should either have said nothing, or have proudly proclaimed that their products contain the modern marvel of biotechnology.
________

Dr. Weil Recommends Lard. Say It Isn't So.

Dr. Weil sent this out today:
Lard Making A Comeback

"It may seem crazy - lard, pure fat from a pig, is becoming popular again? But it turns out that conventional wisdom about the health effects of saturated fats, like those in lard, is being overturned. Could there be lard in your future?"

Lard is not in my future. A few reasons...

1. It is likely a good source of fat-soluble environmental pollutants that bioaccumulate (such as triclosan which I posted about yesterday, as well as other endocrine disruptors found in higher amounts in the fatty tissue of animals).
   
   
2. Diets high in saturated fat increase the risk of developing or exacerbating insulin resistance and diabetes. Here's one post: Blood Glucose And Insulin Higher After Meal High In Saturated Fat.
   
   
3. Lard is produced through a process of rendering that involves high heat, which oxidizes some of its fatty acids. Oxidized, or rancid, fat contains free radicals, peroxides, and other products demonstrated to initiate and promote tumors. In fact, lard sold in supermarkets usually contains an anti-oxidant preservative such as the controversial BHT to slow this process of oxidation, as well as bleaching and deodorizing agents, and emulsifiers. It can also contain trans-fat if it has been hydrogentated, which it undergoes to keep it uniformly solid at room temperature.

________ Photo of pig farmer Jeff Schmitt tending to his hogs at his farm in Holy Cross, Iowa, on April 29, 2009 from the Christian Science Monitor.

The Ubiquitous Antibacterial, Triclosan, Found To Weaken Muscle

A new study in PNAS finds that triclosan, an antibacterial agent, weakens cardiac and skeletal muscle in mice:

Triclosan Impairs Excitation–Contraction Coupling And Ca2+ Dynamics In Striated Muscle, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 13 August 2012

Triclosan is all over the place. It's been used since 1972, and is present in soaps, deodorants, toothpastes, shaving creams, mouthwashes, dish detergents, hand sanitizers, cleaning supplies. It's infused in products such as kitchen utensils, toys, bedding, socks, and trash bags. It's a component in pesticides, mattresses, insulation, underlayments, and carpeting.

Triclosan has been shown to act as an endocrine disruptor, blocking the metabolism of thyroid hormone.

Here's a summary from ScienceNews:
Antibacterial Agent Can Weaken Muscle, Triclosan impairs power of heart and other muscles, 14 August 2012

"Doses of the chemical, called triclosan, needed to diminish muscle strength and blood flow in mice roughly matched those already measured in people in some parts of the United States.

Although the agent was tested in mice and fish, the mechanism by which it impaired muscle activity also exists in people. U.S. surveys have found triclosan in fluid samples from about three-quarters of people tested. So the new data “provide strong evidence that the chemical is of concern to both human and environmental health."

Calcium channels drive the activity of many cells, including those in muscle. Since the heart is muscle, Pessah [study author] decided to test whether triclosan might be capable of perturbing cardiac activity in exposed animals. He initially selected a dose that was less than 1 percent of what should have been lethal to animals. The first mouse tested died of heart failure within a minute of being dosed.

Stunned, the researchers dramatically ratcheted down the dose and were then able to show that in mice the chemical could reduce both the heart’s ability to move blood and the strength of leg muscles."

The FDA, which regulates it, says:

"In light of questions raised by recent animal studies of triclosan, FDA is reviewing all of the available evidence on this ingredient’s safety in consumer products. FDA will communicate the findings of its review to the public in winter 2012."

________

Are We Feeding Our Brain Junk Food?

How we feed our brain is as important as how we feed our body, says Dr. Weil. Feeding it an overabundance of low-quality information can have "serious implications for mental health and emotional wellness." From his latest book:

Many scholarly articles are in print about information overload and its physical, psychological, and social consequences. Francis Heylighen ... in a 2002 article titled "Complexity and Information Overload in Society: Why Increasing Efficiency Leads to Decreasing Control," writes:

"We get much more information than we desire, as we are inundated by an ever growing amount of email messages, internal reports, faxes, phone calls, newspapers, magazine articles, webpages, TV broadcasts, and radio programs. ... The retrieval, production and distribution of information [are] infinitely easier than in earlier periods, practically eliminating the cost of production. This has reduced the natural selection processes, which would otherwise have kept all but the most important information from being transmitted. ... The result is an explosion in irrelevant, unclear, and simply erroneous data fragments. This overabundance of low quality information has been called data smog. ... The same applies to the ever growing amount of information that reaches us via the mass media. The problem is that people have clear limits in the amount of information they can process."

David Shenk, who apparently coined the term "data smog" in his 1997 book, says:

"Just as fat has replaced starvation as this nation’s number one dietary concern, information overload has replaced information scarcity as an important new emotional, social, and political problem."

Information overload is a physical problem too, affecting sleep, concentration, digestion, and the immune system.

How to cope with data smog:

• Turn off the television for at least an hour or two every evening.
• Spend some time each week without your pager or cell phone.
• Resist advertising - never buy a product based on unsolicited email (spam).
• Go on periodic "data fasts."
• Write clearly and succinctly. Verbose writing is wasteful and difficult to read.
• Skim newsletters and magazines and rip out a copy of an article or two that you really want to read and digest.
• Filter your email. Many email programs allow you to set "filters" which send unwanted email directly to the trash.
• Do not forward chain letters, urban legends, urgent messages about email viruses.
• Organize your Web bookmarks or favorites.

Shenk:

"In 1971 the average American was targeted by at least 560 daily advertising messages. Twenty years later, that number has risen six fold, to 3,000 messages per day."

It's a junk-food environment out there.
________

Small Amounts of Dietary Cholesterol Cause Arterial Lesions

Speaking of eggs possibly being as bad as cigarettes for the arteries, here's an older study from the American Heart Association:

Intimal Thickening in Normocholesterolemic Rhesus Monkeys Fed Low Supplements of Dietary Cholesterol, Circulation Research, 1974

Rhesus monkeys were fed a high-fat diet containing either 0, 43, or 129 micrograms/kcal of cholesterol for 18 months. There was a cholesterol-free control group:

• Control: No cholesterol
• Group 1: about 25.8 milligrams cholesterol (~86mg chol for a human eating 2000 kcal, about half a small egg)
• Group 2: about 77.4 milligrams cholesterol (~258 chol for a human, about 1 jumbo egg)
• Group 3: about 232.2 milligrams cholesterol (~774 chol for a human, about 3 extra large eggs)

After 18 months, addition of dietary cholesterol increased plasma cholesterol in all groups; increases were evident within the first 2 weeks:

• Group 1: Baseline cholesterol:115 mg/dl, After 18 months: 130mg/dl
• Group 2: Baseline cholesterol:117 mg/dl, After 18 months: 168mg/dl
• Group 3: Baseline cholesterol:115 mg/dl, After 18 months: 392mg/dl

Since Group 3's total cholesterol rose so high, they were excluded from further analysis.

Additional findings:

"A decrease in HDL and an increase in LDL cholesterol occurred after cholesterol feeding."

"Clearly elevated lesions [on the aorta] were positively identified only in the [cholesterol-fed] monkeys."

"The [cholesterol-fed] monkeys had more intimal thickening expressed as cross-sectional area than did the control group. ... The involved areas contained significant fibrous and lipid elements. Foam cells were seen to a variable and sometimes prominent degree."

"The monkeys fed the higher amount of dietary cholesterol showed an increase in hepatic [liver] cholesterol."

"The fact that lipid absorbed from the gut enters the arterial wall is well established." (They discussed this.)

This first photo, Figure 5, was from the group receiving the human equivalent of 86mg cholesterol, or what you get in about a half of a small egg. I was surprised there was this much narrowing in just 18 months:







This point was notable:

"The regimen for group 1 was originally designed to demonstrate a null point of the effect of dietary cholesterol on the arterial intima. However, such a point was not found; no threshold for dietary cholesterol was established with respect to a putatively adverse effect on arteries."

They thought that Group 1 monkeys, who received the smallest amount of dietary cholesterol (equivalent to about 86mg cholesterol/day for humans), would not experience adverse effects. They did.

So I'm thinking ... what's an occasional egg? From Spence's earlier paper:

"The effects of dietary cholesterol on serum cholesterol are, in part, dependent on the diet and the characteristics of the individual consuming the cholesterol. Dietary cholesterol has a much greater effect on people consuming a low-cholesterol diet, with a threshold effect as shown by Connor et al. In their 1961 study, Connor et al also showed that egg yolk, containing 240 mg of cholesterol, had a greater hyperlipidemic effect than pure crystalline cholesterol dissolved in oil. In people consuming a low-cholesterol diet, egg yolk intake increased fasting serum cholesterol level by 40 mg/dL."

________Thanks for this post go to a commenter on Don's Primal Wisdom blog, who went by the name of healthy-longevity.

First Scientific Conference On Animal Consciousness

A meeting, the Francis Crick Memorial Conference, was held last month in Cambridge, UK to discuss consciousness in human and non-human animals. The output of that meeting:

"On this day of July 7, 2012, a prominent international group of cognitive neuroscientists, neuropharmacologists, neurophysiologists, neuroanatomists and computational neuroscientists gathered at The University of Cambridge to reassess the neurobiological substrates of conscious experience and related behaviors in human and non-human animals.
...
We declare the following: “The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Nonhuman animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.” "
-The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness

Animals are aware of themselves? They feel emotion? How about that, Chuck.

I think I'll punctuate this news with a photo I saw yesterday of two silverback gorillas embracing after spending almost 3 years apart.



Their story:

Kesho and his younger brother Alf were separated after the elder sibling was sent to London Zoo as part of a breeding programme.

'We weren't entirely sure that the brothers would even know each other, but the moment they met you could just see the recognition in their eyes,' [head gorilla keeper Mark Tye] said.

'They were touching each other through the cage that temporarily separated them and there were no acts of aggression.

'We put them together 24 hours later and it was like they had never been apart.

'They were very animated and there was a lot of rough and tumble on the floor, but not in an aggressive way.

'It is quite unusual to see that sort of childlike behaviour in a silverback.'

________Photo and story of silverbacks from The Metro, UK.

Mental Nutrition

Here's another extract from Dr. Weil's latest book:

"We know a great deal about nutrition and health in regard to dietary choices and their influence on well-being and risks of disease. Most people, however, do not consider that what we allow into our minds is as important as what we feed our bodies and significantly influences our emotional well-being. It makes sense to be as careful about mental nutrition as about your diet."
...
"If you habitually and unconsciously listen to sad music, read sad stories, and watch sad movies, chances are you will be sadder than if you choose happier input. If you habitually tune in to news programs that make you angry and distraught, chances are you will spend less time in the zone of serenity and contentment. The challenge is to exercise control over what you pay attention to. The world is both wonderful and terrible, beautiful and ugly. At any moment one can choose to focus on the positive or negative aspects of reality."

He's not prescribing a particular mental diet, but says it's a good idea to pay attention to how our mood is affected by what we read, watch, and listen to.
________The photo is from an article about how to keep the brain healthy. It was on, of all places, The Business Insider. Some great ideas there.

Basil After Storm

________

Eating Egg Yolks Increases Arterial Plaque, Rivals Smoking

Dr. J. David Spence, professor of neurology at the University of Western Ontario, has returned to the topic of eggs. He and his colleagues had me Rethinking Eggs back in 2010. In his latest study...

Egg Yolk Consumption And Carotid Plaque, Atherosclerosis, August 2012

Here's a press release on the study:
Research Finds Egg Yolks Almost As Bad As Smoking

... Spence and his team looked at total plaque area in 1262 patients attending a vascular prevention clinic.

"Spence found regular consumption of egg yolks is about two-thirds as bad as smoking when it comes to increased build-up of carotid plaque, a risk factor for stroke and heart attack."

So, both smoking and eating eggs was associated with increased plaque. Smoking was worse, but eating three or more eggs a week came close.

People with diabetes who eat eggs have an even greater risk for heart attack than people without diabetes:

"In diabetics, an egg a day increases coronary risk by two to five-fold," said Spence.

In his paper from 2010, Spence said the problem with dietary cholesterol* was three-fold. It:

1. Increases the susceptibility of LDL to oxidation "by 37% in one study and by 39% in another." (Oxidized LDL contributes to the formation of plaque.)
2. Increases postprandial lipemia. (Increases triglycerides and other lipid particles after a meal.)
3. Potentiates the adverse effects of dietary saturated fat. (This is called the "bacon and egg effect" or the "egg and cheese effect." At high cholesterol intake, a high saturated fat diet leads to higher LDL than if you paired the same saturated fat diet to a lower cholesterol intake.)

* Egg yolks are high in cholesterol. Says Spence: "The yolk of a large egg provides more than the 210 mg. of cholesterol in a Hardee's Monster Thickburger, which contains two-thirds of a pound of beef, three slices of cheese and four strips of bacon."

Related: Small Amounts of Dietary Cholesterol Cause Arterial Lesions
________

Jean Claude Van Damme Eats A Plant-Based Diet

Some photos of Jean Claude Van Damme promoting his new movie, The Expendables 2. He's 51 here:





Curious about his diet, I found this on a site called MuscleProdigy.com, from May 2012:

"Jean Claude Van Damme's diet routine consists of rice, bread, vegetables, and beans. Van Damme doesn't believe in eating anything "with a soul" in it. He will only eat meat on certain occasions, and if he does, he makes sure that it has absolutely no fat on it."

That link also discusses his frenetic workout routine.

And from LiveStrong in 2011:

"Today Van Damme eats a lot of vegetables, stating that "plant-based foods are the best things for you.""

I've been in this business long enough to know that what people say they eat is not the same as what they do eat. Even if someone is being up front with you, they often don't pay attention to amounts, or to how, and with what, something was prepared. Also, with someone whose career and ego depend on his looks, I'm going to guess Van Damme samples the supplements, and possibly the surgery.

Still, he's a good advertisement for a plant-based diet.
________Photos from my guilty pleasure, The Daily Mail.

Popcorn Has About Double The Antioxidants Of Fruits and Vegetables

Popcorn: The Snack With Even Higher Antioxidants Levels Than Fruits And Vegetables, Presented at a meeting of the American Chemical Society, March 2012

"The amount of polyphenols found in popcorn was up to 300 mg a serving compared to 114 mg for a serving of sweet corn and 160 mg for all fruits per serving. In addition, one serving of popcorn would provide 13 percent of an average intake of polyphenols a day per person in the U.S. Fruits provide 255 mg per day of polyphenols and vegetables provide 218 mg per day to the average U.S. diet."

"The levels of polyphenols rivaled those in nuts and were up to 15 times greater than whole-grain tortilla chips."

"The hulls of the popcorn -- the part that everyone hates for its tendency to get caught in the teeth -- actually has the highest concentration of polyphenols and fiber."

"Popcorn may be the perfect snack food. It’s the only snack that is 100 percent unprocessed whole grain."

How about that.
________ Thanks to Dr. Weil.

Low-Carb Diets Detrimental to Colon

This was a clinical intervention study, not an observational study. It was small, but telling:

High-protein, Reduced-Carbohydrate Weight-loss Diets Promote Metabolite Profiles Likely To Be Detrimental To Colonic Health, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, May 2011

There were three diets tested. Food was dispensed and consumption measured:

• 85g protein, 116g fat, 360g carb (Maintenance diet)
• 139g protein, 82g fat, 181g carb (High-protein Moderate-carb)
• 137g protein, 143g fat, 22g carb (High-protein Low-carb)

It found:

"After 4 wk, weight-loss diets that were high in protein but reduced in total carbohydrates and fiber resulted in a significant decrease in fecal cancer-protective metabolites and increased concentrations of hazardous metabolites. Long-term adherence to such diets may increase risk of colonic disease."

Both of the high-protein reduced-carb diets increased hazardous compounds in the colon in just 4 weeks, compared to the lower-protein higher-carb diet.

From their literature review:

"When dietary protein is consumed in high amounts, more dietary protein may reach the colon and result in increased fermentation to products that include harmful nitrogenous metabolites. (This occurred in this study.)"

"Nitrosamine and heterocyclic amine concentrations in fecal samples are increased by high red-meat consumption, and these concentrations have been implicated in increased colon-cancer risk."

"Overall, high intakes of protein, in particular of red meat, may increase risk of developing colorectal cancer."

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Rich Roll's Refrigerator

Rich Roll is an athlete who competes in long-distance triathlons. He eats a 100% plant-based diet. Both of these changes he made shortly after turning 40. Here's some background on him, including before-and-after photos.

And here's his refrigerator. Do you think he gave it a wipe-up before the photo?



The ultimate question:

Q. You have maybe the most veggies I’ve ever seen in a fridge. Do you always eat them all before they go bad?
Rich Roll: Well, I’m one member in a family of six. I’m married and I have 4 children, so this is a family refrigerator. And a lot of the fruits and vegetables get juiced in the Vitamix, so I go through them fast.

________ Source: Refrigerator Look Book: Rich Roll, WellandGoodNYC, August 5, 2012

Too Much Tofu

Someone sent me this link over the weekend:
A New View Of Tofu, New York Times - Well Blog, August 3, 2012

There are some great ideas here, like the peanut ginger sauce, and the technique for baking marinated tofu in the oven on parchment. I'll be trying both of those. I have to say though, these may be beautiful photos but they show too much tofu as a serving:







If you're going to eat tofu, 3 ounces per day is probably a good amount. For tempeh, half that. Just a half cup of soy milk. And edamame, which are green boiled soy beans, no more than half a cup. These amounts provide ~16 mg of phytoestrogens, plant-derived compounds with estrogenic activity. Recall from this study:

"There is a 3-fold increased risk of developing overt hypothyroidism with dietary supplementation of 16 mg soy phytoestrogens with subclinical hypothyroidism."

Or at least make sure you're getting enough iodine.
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The FDA Makes Sure Food Labels Are True?

I was reading through the USDA's pages on Nutrition for Older Adults and came across this brochure:
Eating Well As We Age

It was put out by the FDA. This was interesting:

Read Food Labels

Look for words that say something healthy about the food. Examples are: “Low Fat,” “Cholesterol Free,” and “Good Source of Fiber.”

Also look for words that tell about the relation of food to a disease. A low-fat food may say:

“While many factors affect heart disease, diets low in saturated fat and cholesterol may reduce the risk of this disease.”

The words may be on the front or side of the food package. The FDA makes sure these words are true.

Labels on food products are a real bag of tricks. A cereal, such as Froot Loops, can say it's high in fiber but if it's also high in sugar, which won't be boldly advertised, it's not a good choice. Cheerios got away with saying for years that their puffed and processed oats lowered cholesterol, which they don't.

I don't fault the FDA. They would be more effective if they were properly funded. After all, it was the FDA who finally called Cheerios on their cholesterol claim. But I would probably leave this entire section out of the pamphlet, unless it was referring to the Nutrition Facts label (which for many seniors is impossible to read). There's too much controversy here.

By the way, that top image is from the FDA's brochure. At the lower left, they're depicting the choice of canned fruits and vegetables when fresh are no longer an option, which is a great idea. It's better than not choosing them at all. Some people depend on canned food, which is why it would behoove us as a society to get the Bisphenol A (BPA) and other nefarious chemicals out of can linings and make sure the food that's in them is as healthful as possible.
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Dr. Weil On Integrative Medicine

One thing I like about Dr. Weil, he has an integrative approach. He blends conventional therapies with alternative ones. (Diet and exercise have become so much a part of mainstream health practice, many don't realize they are, or at least were, alternative therapies. Fish oil, flax seed, vegetarian and paleo diets, yoga, meditation, even walking are all alternative therapies.) And he talks about the mind-body connection which I think is brave in our body-centric culture. His approach makes him vulnerable. Yet he persists.

The mind, the body, and some would add the spirit, are inextricably linked. You cannot achieve real health without addressing them all.

Here's an excerpt from an interview Dr. Weil conducted with Dr. Steven Gurgevich, a licensed psychologist and professor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. Dr. Gurgevich:

"Modern research on stress has shown that anything which influences our minds also influences our bodies. Expose someone to enough stress and sooner or later you will see their body showing signs of strain as a result of that stress.

The strain of stress does not have to be as dramatic as a heart attack. The body can express strain by more subtle or chronic symptoms, such as irritable bowel, headache, rash, hypertension, or simply making other conditions worsen.

One of the principles behind mind-body healing is that the same mechanism that can make you sick can also be used to make you well. That is, your thoughts, emotions, responses to the environment, lifestyle, and inner conflicts can be experienced as stressful, or they may be used in a positive manner to create healing responses."

What Is Integrative Medicine?


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Do Scientists Pray?

Albert Einstein gave this reply. He was 57 years old. It's from Letters of Note:

In January of 1936, a young girl named Phyllis wrote to Albert Einstein on behalf of her Sunday school class, and asked, "Do scientists pray?" Her letter, and Einstein's reply, can be read below.
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The Riverside Church
January 19, 1936

My dear Dr. Einstein,

We have brought up the question: Do scientists pray? in our Sunday school class. It began by asking whether we could believe in both science and religion. We are writing to scientists and other important men, to try and have our own question answered.

We will feel greatly honored if you will answer our question: Do scientists pray, and what do they pray for?

We are in the sixth grade, Miss Ellis's class.

Respectfully yours,
Phyllis
__________

January 24, 1936

Dear Phyllis,

I will attempt to reply to your question as simply as I can. Here is my answer:

Scientists believe that every occurrence, including the affairs of human beings, is due to the laws of nature. Therefore a scientist cannot be inclined to believe that the course of events can be influenced by prayer, that is, by a supernaturally manifested wish.

However, we must concede that our actual knowledge of these forces is imperfect, so that in the end the belief in the existence of a final, ultimate spirit rests on a kind of faith. Such belief remains widespread even with the current achievements in science.

But also, everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that some spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe, one that is vastly superior to that of man. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is surely quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.

With cordial greetings,
your A. Einstein

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Dr. Weil: "Whole Soy Foods, In Moderation, Are Very Beneficial"

Dr. Weil posted this video on his blog yesterday. It's everything I believe about soy in less than 5 minutes. This is something Weil does well - condense, consolidate, and communicate in a conversational way.



Some highlights:

• Reduce the amount of animal food you eat, that doesn't mean becoming a vegetarian.
• Increase the amount of vegetable protein you eat.
• Soy is a good source of vegetable protein, so are other beans.
• Populations that eat soy regularly have better health, better longevity, and lower rates of hormonally-driven cancers.
• Don't eat fractionated soy, soy isolates, soy supplements, soy isoflavones, refined soy oil, and fake meats (soy meat analogues).
• Whole soys foods are edamame, soy nuts, soy milk, tofu, tempeh.

I think he could have stressed the moderation part a little more. If you eat a lot of soy you should probably take an iodine supplement, or eat some kelp:
If You're Eating Soy, Make Sure You're Getting Enough Iodine
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