Longevity in Abkhasia

The following are excerpts from the book, "Healthy At 100", by John Robbins, 2006. I was struck by how long people from Abkhasia live, and by how vigorous and healthy they remain throughout their lives. And, of course, I wondered what they ate.________

"Certainly no area of the world," Leaf wrote, "has the reputation for long-lived people to match that of the Caucasus in southern Russia."
- Dr. Alexander Leaf, professor of clinical medicine at Harvard University, Chief of Medical Services at Massachusetts General Hospital. Writing for National Geographic in 1973.

"[Leaf] wrote of one elder, nearly 100, whose hearing was still good and whose vision was still superb.
"Have you ever been sick?" Leaf asked.
The elder thought for some time, then replied, "Yes, I recall once having a fever, a long time ago."
"Do you ever see a doctor?"
The old man was surprised by the question, and replied, "Why should I?"
Leaf examined him and found his blood pressure to be normal at 118/60 and his pulse to be regular at 70 beats per minute."

"The average cholesterol level among Abkhasian centenarians is 98."¹

The biologist and historian Zhores Medvedev published a series of articles in The Gerontologist after Leaf's articles appeared in National Geographic. They questioned the validity of the ages claimed by some Abkhasians, however:

"[Medvedev] recognized that unusual longevity in the region was a genuine reality, and that the area was indeed home to an inordinate number of extremely healthy elders."

One Factor Stands Out

Dr. Sula Benet, anthropologist and author of "Abkhasians: The Long-Living People of the Caucasus", lists a number of reasons for Abkhasians' remarkable health and longevity. One she highlighted:

"In Abkhasia, a person's status increases with age, and he or she receives ever more privileges with the passing years. ... Elders who are poor and known only to their families have greater social standing in Abkhasian society than someone who may have become rich and famous but is not yet an elder.

"When one US researcher explained to a group of Abkhasians that in the wealthy United States, old people are sometimes left homeless and hungry, he was met with total disbelief. Nothing he said could overcome their inability to grasp such a reality."

"In Abkhasia, people are esteemed and seen as beautiful in their old age. Silver hair and wrinkles are viewed as signs of wisdom, maturity, and long years of service. ... It would be considered an insult to be told you are "looking young" or that the years have barely changed you. ... When older people lie about their age, they do not give a younger age, as is common in the West. Instead, they exaggerate how old they are, for this gives them greater standing in their culture."

What Do Abkhasians Eat?

The following are quotations from "Healthy At 100":

• The traditional Abkhasian diet is essentially lacto-vegetarian, with a rare serving of meat.
  
• Abkhasians usually begin breakfast with vegetables [watercress, green onions, radishes in spring; tomatoes, cucumbers in summer and fall; pickled cucumber, tomatoes, radishes, cabbage, onion in winter]. No dressings are used.
  
• They drink one or two glasses a day of a fermented beverage called 'matzoni', made from the milk of goats, cows, or sheep.
  
• At all three meals, the people eat their "beloved abista", a cornmeal porridge, always freshly cooked and served warm.
  
• If they get hungry between meals, Abkhasians typically eat fruit in season from their own orchard or garden. ... Cherries and apricots in the spring. Throughout the summer there are pears, plums, peaches, figs, and many kinds of berries. In the fall there are grapes and persimmons, as well as apples and pears. Fruit that is not eaten fresh is stored or dried for winter use.
  
• With rare exception, vegetables are eaten raw.
  
• Freshness of food is considered paramount.
  
• Nuts [almonds, pecans, beechnuts, hazelnuts, chestnuts] play a major role in Abkhasian cuisine and are the primary source of fat in the Abkhasian diet. Virtually every meal contains nuts.
  
• Abkhasians eat relatively little meat. ... Even then, the fat of the meat or poultry is never used. ... The Abkhasians do not care at all for fatty dishes.
  
• Abkhasians also consume no sugar, little salt, and almost no butter.
  
• Most Abkhasians consume less than 2000 calories a day. ... Overeating is considered both socially inappropriate and dangerous.
  
• Abkhasians are universally very strong and slender people, with no excess fat on their bodies. They eat slowly and chew thoroughly.

________
I left out the part about their high level of physical activity, but according to Gary Taubes, increased activity does not help manage weight, it only results in increased intake. A controversial stand.

Is it a case of good genes alone? Is their longevity owing singularly to long-living genes? I don't think so. If that were true, what would justify emulating any person's or group's behaviors?

The photographs are from the University of California at Irvine, School of Social Sciences: Abkhasians. The site offers additional commentary on Abkhasian culture, geography, history, and other characteristics. A good read!

One bit of trivia ... in the 1970s, the Dannon yogurt company, in an attempt to "connect the phenomenal longevity of people in the region to their consumption of yogurt", had a successful marketing campaign "showing a 110-year-old mother pinching the cheek of her 89-year-old son and telling him to eat his yogurt." Yogurt sales took off, and is one reason why today supermarket shelves are laden with it (even though Abkhasians drink something more akin to buttermilk).
________¹ Cholesterol levels should be interpreted relative to age. A low cholesterol in an 85-year-old may not signal the same level of health as a low-cholesterol in a 55-year-old.

Reacquainting Myself With My Glycogen

I wondered how much of the weight I lost when I reduced my carbohydrate intake this summer was a result of water loss. You may recall I was losing a pound a day without changing my caloric intake. I suspect that rate would have slowed.¹ Still, I wasn't happy with the goings-on in the mirror. So I ate an apple. Then 2 tablespoons of brown rice. And an entire 1.5 oz (31 g of carbs!) box of Sunmaid raisins. OK, 2 boxes. I was on a roll, not literally.

My weight loss stopped.

What happened?

I came across this little study that put things into numerical perspective for me:

Glycogen Storage: Illusions Of Easy Weight Loss, Excessive Weight Regain, And Distortions In Estimates Of Body Composition

Glycogen is animal starch, a storage form of carbohydrate in our bodies. It's very branched, very susceptible to enzymatic breakdown, and so, very available when we need quick energy. We carry about 1 or 2 pounds of glycogen in our bodies, depending on our genes, our gender, our fat-free mass (more muscle = more glycogen), our recent energy expenditure, and what we've eaten in the last few days. It's very variable.

The study above put 11 women on a ketogenic diet for 10 weeks.² A ketogenic diet is one that expends stored glycogen, requiring the body to mobilize fat for energy. When too much fat is mobilized at once, such that it cannot enter the Krebs cycle, the body holds these excess fat-mobilization products in the form of ketone bodies. Thus, ketogenic, or ketone-forming diet.

After 4 days on the diet, glycogen depletion was measured.³ There was an average loss of 400 g (0.88 pounds) of glycogen. One of the women was measured as losing 1 kg (2.2 pounds) of glycogen in those 4 days.

The water-binding capacity of glycogen is estimated to be between 3 to 5 times its own mass. Thus, a loss of 400 g of glycogen could be associated with up to 2000 g of water. So, 400 g glycogen plus an associated 1600 g water (1:4 ratio) would result in a loss of about 4.4 pounds in 4 days.

Below are the study participants' total weight losses after 4 days of dieting.

Blue bar = Total weight loss
Red bar = Portion of weight loss estimated to be glycogen loss
Yellow bar = Portion of weight loss estimated to be glycogen+water loss


Click for larger.
I can see that these methods of assessment aren't an exact science, and that individual variability is difficult to account for.

The women went on to lose more glycogen, and more water (and, of course, more fat and protein), during the remainder of the 10-week study. Most glycogen loss occurred at the beginning.

When carbohydrates are added back to the diet, the body preferentially replenishes glycogen stores, along with associated water. The authors of this study stated:

"It is necessary to account for these losses before comparing effectiveness of weight-loss methods."

So, maybe 8 to 10 pounds of weight lost on a ketogenic diet could very well be the result of water and glycogen loss, both of which will be restored when the diet is halted ... perhaps at even higher levels than when the diet was initiated:

"Bergstrom et al demonstrated that muscle glycogen can be depleted to about one-third normal with low-carbohydrate diet for 3 d. After a high-carbohydrate diet the glycogen stored rose sixfold higher, to more than twice normal. This excessive glycogen repletion, with associated water, could follow inappropriate refeeding after dieting, leading to rapid and excessive nonfat weight regain."

________¹ I have been admonished by some followers of low-carb diets that it would not have slowed.
² A very-low-calorie-diet (VLCD). Cambridge claims it is protein-sparing (405 calories: possibly 54 g carbohydrates, 40 g protein, 4 g fat).
³ This particular study measured glycogen depletion via total body potassium depletion, since there is a general assumption that 0.45 mmol of potassium are bound up with 1 g glycogen.

Photo of gallon jug, from here :)
A gallon of water weighs 8.34 pounds, about the amount of fluid this study suggests you could lose by depleting glycogen on a ketogenic diet. And about the amount you may replace when glycogen is restored.

Chart generated by me on a quiet Sunday afternoon when I could have been doing a hundred other things but I put them on hold because, well, I like charts.

"Half-Empty Boxes Of Dead Food"

"Since World War II, the food industry in the U.S. has gone a long way toward ensuring that their customers (just about all of America's children, as well as a good proportion of the adults) do not have to chew breakfast. The bleached, gassed, and colored remnants of the life-giving grains are roasted, toasted, frosted with sugar, embalmed with chemical preservatives, and stuffed into a box much larger than its contents. Fantastic amounts of energy are wasted by sales and advertising departments to sell these half-empty boxes of dead food -- money-back coupons, whistles, and toy guns are needed to induce refined women to lift these half-empty boxes off supermarket shelves."
- William Dufty, 1975, Sugar Blues

Thirty-two years later, half-empty boxes of bleached, gassed, colored, frosted, and embalmed cereals continue to be lifted from supermarket shelves. Give those marketing folks a raise.________

Dr. Weil Weighs In On Gary Taubes' New Book

Gary Taubes wrote Good Calories, Bad Calories. Dr. Weil liked it.

CNN's Larry King Live presented an interview with Gary Taubes last Friday. Jimmy Moore posted Dr. Weil's portion of the interview on YouTube:

For this segment (about 7 minutes):
Guest Host: Joy Behar, co-host of the talk show "The View."
Guest: Gary Taubes
Guest: Mehmet Oz, MD
Guest: Andrew Weil, MD


CNN has a longer, 16-minute, excerpt on their site.

Below is the transcript of Weil's portion from the above video:

WEIL: I'm here to talk about Gary Taubes' book which I read in its entirety. And very carefully.

I think this is a very important book. I have been recommending it to my medical colleagues and students. He raises big questions and I think there are some very big ideas in this book.

One of them is that there is absolutely no scientific evidence for the belief that fat is the driver of obesity.

Secondly, the idea that it's carbohydrate that is central to this process and that obesity is mostly a hormonal disorder, genetically influenced, in which insulin is a central player.

That overeating and under-activity are not causes of obesity, but symptoms of that underlying disorder. That is, it's not that people eat too much and don't exercise because of some defect of will or some behavioral problem. It's that this is behavior that is controlled by a hormonal disturbance.

BEHAR: Really?

WEIL: Really. And I think he's done a meticulous job of showing that many of the assumptions that are held by the conventional medical community simply rest on nothing.

Now, I will also say I don't agree with all of his conclusions, but I think these are...

BEHAR: What don't you agree with?

WEIL: I don't agree that the way to process this is to eat a diet that's mostly meat and no carbohydrate. I think there are - it's very important for people to understand how carbohydrates affect them, and the differences in carbohydrate food. It's not a matter of simple versus complex. It's how carbohydrates are handled by the body, how they affect blood sugar. And not everybody is in this spectrum. There are some people who are not sensitive to carbohydrates and won't get fat no matter how much they eat.

But I think his basic ideas here are very important. And it's very important to get these out in the medical community because a lot of the ways we try to prevent and treat obesity are based on assumptions that have no scientific evidence.

TAUBES: His assessment of my book was exactly what I would want the medical research community to take out of it. All I say in the book about meat is -- and, again, everyone reacts to carbohydrates differently. You know, Atkins, who got crucified for writing his book 40 years ago, the one thing he said was give up carbs, get down to the weight you want and then find out what your body can tolerate.

BEHAR: Dr. Weil, what do you say to that? Somebody who says I can't live without carbs?

WEIL: Here's the problem. I think any time you tell people to follow a very restricted diet you set them up for failure because at some point you're going to get completely frustrated with that and you're going to go binge on the thing that you haven't been eating. So you've got to devise an eating plan that people can live with long-term that's going to satisfy them, and that also conforms to these principles that Gary Taubes has uncovered scientific evidence for.

I've tried to do that. In my book "Healthy Aging," I have what I call an anti-inflammatory diet, which is a modified Mediterranean diet which takes into account this information on carbohydrates and its effect of insulin on fat. And I think it's a way of eating that can be completely satisfying. It's not a diet, it's a way of eating.

BEHAR: What do you think about the Mediterranean diet, you guys?

OZ: I like the Mediterranean diet a lot. And I must say I actually eat a relatively low-carb diet.

BEHAR: Is that how you stay thin?

OZ: It is. I really think simple carbohydrates are a big problem.

WEIL: No, Mehmet stays thin because he is a thin person. He does not have the biochemical and hormonal disorder that Gary Taubes points out.

BEHAR: Yes, but what about childhood obesity. But not all those kids can be naturally fat! They're getting fatter!

WEIL: A lot of us have genes that predispose us to develop obesity if we are exposed to the kinds of foods that trigger these hormonal problems. And our diet is now flooded with those. It's all the sweetened drinks, high-fructose-corn-syrup, things made from flour of all kinds, from starch. All of that stuff which kids are eating in huge quantities are reacting with their genetics to produce this disorder.

CNN has the entire transcript here.
________
I enjoyed listening to Dr. Weil's, what I would call, more balanced perspective of Taubes' claims. I generally find Dr. Weil a reasoned and seasoned voice on nutritional matters. He has not, in the past, been a proponent of low-carb diets. (See below.) And I can see from the above interview that he maintains reservations about recommending "a diet that's mostly meat." But the message that carbohydrates, especially highly-refined starches and sugars, are playing a role in obesity seems to be gathering support from more in the medical community.

"Carbs are not bad, despite the claims of the late Dr. Robert C. Atkins and other proponents of low-carb diets. Rather, there are better and worse carbs."
- Dr. Weil, What Is The Glycemic Index?

"I'm also not a proponent of the Atkins diet, so I would suggest switching to another program that allows you to eat fresh fruits, a wider range of vegetables, and whole grains. This is a more realistic way to lose weight in the long-run since you're likely to get tired of low-carb living sooner or later and regain whatever weight you've lost."
- Dr. Weil, Do Low-Carb Diets Cause Bad Breath?

________

Sprouted Almonds

An almond is a seed.

So are Brazil nuts, cashews, walnuts, pecans, pistachios, and pine nuts.

Wheat berries, corn kernels, oat groats, rice, barley, quinoa, buckwheat, and amaranth are also seeds. Sesame, pumpkin, sunflower, flax, poppy, fenugreek ... seeds. Lentils are seeds. Peanuts are seeds. Beans ... kidney, pinto, soy, mung, adzuki ... more seeds. Fresh peas and green beans are seeds.

Seeds sprout. So I thought I'd soak some almonds in water. Yes, indeedy, they sprouted.

I soaked my sprouts with salt and spices and set them up on a rack in my dehydrator (shown) at about 140ºF for a day. Talk about crispy nuts.

Did man evolve to eat seeds?
________Photo: Homegrown

"Passive Obesity"

The UK Department of Health released its "Health Profile of England 2007". They noticed a trend:

The UK Government Office for Science projected that trend 40 years into the future and determined that a "bold whole system approach is critical":


Source: Tackling Obesities: Future Choices

"Although personal responsibility plays a crucial part in weight gain, human biology is being overwhelmed by the effects of today’s ‘obesogenic’ environment, with its abundance of energy dense food, motorised transport and sedentary lifestyles. As a result, the people of the UK are inexorably becoming heavier simply by living in the Britain of today. This process has been coined ‘passive obesity’. Some members of the population, including the most disadvantaged, are especially vulnerable to the conditions."

________

Safe Food Act 2007, Current Sponsors

In light of the "more than 28 million pounds" (see below for quote source) of possibly tainted food removed from circulation in 2007 alone, I was prompted to take a look at the current sponsors of the Safe Food Act 2007. Since my last look, two more House members have added their names.

The complete list of sponsors of the Safe Food Act 2007 today is:

Along with the Senate sponsor of the bill, Senator Richard Durbin [IL], there are 3 Senate cosponsors:

Senator [State] - Date of Cosponsorship
Sen Schumer, Charles E. [NY] - 2/15/2007
Sen Casey, Robert P., Jr. [PA] - 3/21/2007
Sen Clinton, Hillary Rodham [NY] - 5/8/2007     2008 Presidential Candidate

Along with the House sponsor of the bill, Representative Rosa DeLauro [CT-3], there are 17 House cosponsors:

Representative [State - Congressional District] - Date of Cosponsorship
Rep Kaptur, Marcy [OH-9] - 2/16/2007
Rep McDermott, Jim [WA-7] - 2/16/2007
Rep Miller, George [CA-7] - 2/16/2007
Rep Matsui, Doris O. [CA-5] - 2/16/2007
Rep Berkley, Shelley [NV-1] - 2/16/2007
Rep Grijalva, Raul M. [AZ-7] - 2/16/2007
Rep Woolsey, Lynn C. [CA-6] - 2/16/2007
Rep McCollum, Betty [MN-4] - 2/16/2007
Rep Capuano, Michael E. [MA-8] - 3/7/2007
Rep McGovern, James P. [MA-3] - 3/19/2007
Rep Clay, Wm. Lacy [MO-1] - 3/19/2007
Rep Lofgren, Zoe [CA-16] - 4/20/2007
Rep Green, Gene [TX-29] - 4/23/2007
Rep Schakowsky, Janice D. [IL-9] - 4/25/2007
Rep Jackson, Jesse L., Jr. [IL-2] - 5/16/2007
Rep Frank, Barney [MA-4] - 9/24/2007     New
Rep Michaud, Michael [ME-2] - 10/15/2007     New

If your Senators or Representatives aren't listed, and you'd like to see more food inspections and more timely recalls, send them an email. (With elections a few weeks away, maybe they'll read their constituents' mail.)

If you haven't heard of the Safe Food Act 2007, I've written quite a few posts about it here.

________
The quote in the first sentence is from Senator Richard Durbin (Sponsor of the Safe Food Act), who on Wednesday sent a letter to the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), holding them to account for the recent spike in recalls and infections due to tainted food. He seemed especially ticked off about the Topps incident.

Man, was it a good letter:

"In the case of the Topps beef recall, it appears that an entire year’s worth of supply was contaminated, yet the USDA FSIS inspectors assigned to serve at that facility on a daily basis failed to detect the E. coli adulterant. In addition, once USDA FSIS became aware of cases of foodborne illnesses, it took more than 10 days for the agency to announce a recall."

The letter itemized 16 questions and requested a response from USDA FSIS in 20 days. Here was one question:

"Did USDA FSIS ever suggest to Topps that a recall wasn’t necessary? If so, why?"

Did I mention that the FDA doesn't even have recall authority? They never could mandate a recall of ConAgra's salmonella-tainted peanut butter. They could only ask ConAgra nicely.

Bill Marler's excellent food safety blog has the full letter. (Bill Marler is a Seattle attorney who specializes in food poisoning cases.)
________ Thanks to Food Law Prof Blog for the tip!

The Fat Pig Diet

Michael Winner is an English film director, producer, and food critic for the UK's Sunday Times. He just wrote a book, "The Fat Pig Diet."

Here's an excerpt (1 stone = 14 pounds):

The Fat Pig Diet: Michael Winner's Guide To Getting Thin

Some passages from above excerpt:

"I will now tell you in two words the secret of my weight loss. ... EAT LESS. I'll repeat that, because if you can manage this, it's all over - you're a thin, lovely person again. EAT LESS. End of story. Doesn't matter what you eat. Cake. Ice cream. Pasta. Who cares? Just eat less of it."

"You don't have to stuff yourself until you can hardly move, then get up from the table exhausted, burp and fart and go to bed. That was my pattern for years. I am reformed! I have seen the light!"

"After lunch recently at a movie star's house I was telling a group of people how to lose weight. "Eat less," I said, "and in particular eat very little in the evening. Also eat early." ... A fat lady present looked at me with scorn. She was hoping for some miracle weight-loss diet to be divulged. This lady said, rather contemptuously: "That's no good to me. I like to go out with my friends to dinner." ... That's why you look like a fat cow, I thought."

Oh!

One more:

"God, the truth hurts!"
- Michael Winner, when asked by a Daily Telegraph reporter how he would respond to Gordon Ramsay's comment that "Winner knows nothing about food."

________

Barley Rivals Blueberries for Antioxidants

Talking about barley make me recall this Table I posted a while ago. It came from a paper written by Dr. Vinson in 1999, entitled:

The Functional Food Properties of Figs

I like figs.

Well, I just ran some numbers. According to the data in this Table, 2 tablespoons of dry barley has 37% more polyphenols than 1/2 cup blueberries ... and 3650% more polyphenols than an equal amount of wheat.¹

How about that.
________I used the upper end of the range.

Playing With Grains

I've been working my way backwards along the processing line in hopes of finding grains that won't spike my postprandial (after-meal) blood glucose. I found some, and I can say without doubt, at least when it comes to my constitution, all whole grains are not created equal.


On the left, my whole grain barley. On the right, my whole grain oats. The barley is hulled, that is, an outer fibrous hull has been removed but some bran is still intact. Pearl or pearled barley has the bran removed. The oats are also hulled, the outer husk has been removed but oat bran is still intact.

No More Kashi

The last few months for me have given new meaning to the phrase "whole grains".

I used to enjoy a bowl of "Whole Grain" Kashi Flakes in the morning. I thought I was doing my body good. My blood glucose could push 140 mg/dl after that.¹ Not goodness. But a bowl of oat or barley porridge (I think I should really call what I eat gruel ... it's very soupy!) leaves my BG comfortably in the 90s. A girl can't ask for more.

Kashi Flakes are advertised as containing "7 Whole Grains and Sesame." Here's their ingredient list:

Kashi Seven Whole Grains and Sesame® Blend - (Whole: Hard Red Winter Wheat, Oats, Long Grain Brown Rice, Triticale, Rye, Barley, Buckwheat, Sesame Seeds), Long Grain White Rice, Evaporated Cane Juice, Barley Malt Syrup, Wheat Bran, Oat Fiber, Brown Rice Syrup, Salt.

Impressive.

It says "whole" a number of times (14, I think) on their page.

But did they take the whole grain and pulverize it to within an inch of its life? That would make it easily digestible, and could be why it spiked my BG. I also note that white rice (flour?) is the 2nd ingredient. Are we talking 51% whole grain (flour?) and 49% white rice (flour?)? I don't know. Even if it's not made into a flour, how is it processed that it results in flakes? Then there's the added sugar ... "cane juice", "barley malt", "rice syrup". Nice names, but sugars nonetheless, which are also broken down by the body, my body, in haste.

Back To My Barley And Oats

To the right is a close-up of the uncooked grains, barley on the left, oats on the right.

They look similar, but ...

• They taste strikingly different. The oats are sweeter; the barley, even though I don't roast it (I could), has a toasted or savory tinge.
  
• The oats cook up creamier; the barley chewier.
  
• The oats stay a light ecru color; the barley, surprisingly, taints its cooking liquid a deep reddish-brown.
  
• The oats take less time to cook than the barley.

Cooking Is Easier Than I Thought

1   Toss a handful of rinsed grains into a bowl, cover with water, soak for a day. Soaking cuts down on cooking time and promotes beneficial fermentation.

2   Rinse the grains, add water (about 1 part grains to 2 or 3 parts water), and simmer, partially covered, at the absolutely lowest setting. I've eaten them after about 30 minutes, but they're still a little chewy for my taste, especially the barley. A full hour is better. You can go longer for an even creamier consistency.

Note: I've learned the hard way to monitor the water level and add more when they start to foam, before they, for-crying-out-loud, stick to the bottom in a burned mess.

3   Serve with a splash of honey or maple syrup, cinnamon or other spice, nut milk, buttermilk or other dairy derivative, ground flax or sesame seeds, and salt. I even like them in a savory, non-sweetened way, with miso or tamari (soy sauce). Once, I mixed them into an egg omelette. There's a lot of potential here for recipes!

Note: Shown is barley, with no accoutrements. I simmered it in water for about an hour, until the grains popped open. For this photo, I made the cereal a little drier than how I like to eat it, but I thought it showed grain texture better.
________
Benefits of eating true whole grains:

• They keep my blood sugar low, and my insulin response tempered. (My primary reason for this change.)
  
• They're less expensive than more processed "whole grains".
  
• I like they way they taste!
  
• They provide, for me, a sustained source of energy, with no subsequent carb-cravings.
  
• I don't have to eat artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives along with my cereal.
  
• I'm not feeding the conglomerate middlemen like Quaker Oats (owned by PepsiCo) who care not a whit about my health compared to their bottom line.
  
• I'm not paying for advertising and marketing. No Harley McBarley here.
  
• Less packaging = less manufacturing of plastic and cardboard containers = less use of carbon-based fuels = less trash in a landfill.

Drawbacks:

• Whole grains take time to prepare and cook. But I've found a few ways around this. I simmer a batch when I'm home, then refrigerate it. It keeps for several days and I can easily spoon some out and reheat it with a little liquid. It's faster than instant oatmeal!
  
• Gruel is not easily portable.
  
• I'm contributing to the obsolescence of some processing, manufacturing, packaging, and marketing jobs.
  
• I'm taking the food out of the mouths of ... cows, chickens, pigs, horses ... fish?

________¹ I check my blood glucose with a BG meter, LifeScan's OneTouch Ultra.
Photos: Homegrown, except for Kashi cereal box.

4 Pounds of Muscle = 1 Bite of Cookie

Oh no, another myth bites the dust ?

Gina Kolata is a health reporter for the New York Times and author of the recent book (May, 2007) Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss - and the Myths and Realities of Dieting. She recently reviewed Gary Taubes' new book, Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control and Disease for the New York Times. She concluded, "I’m sorry, but I’m not convinced."

Maybe Ms. Kolata and Mr. Taubes have disagreements when it comes to diet, but it seems they've arrived at similar conclusions regarding exercise - at least the very specific topic of exercise and its relationship to weight loss.

Gina Kolata had this to say about exercise in an interview she did with WebMD in 2003, after the release of her book Ultimate Fitness: The Quest for Truth about Health and Exercise:

Moderator: What are some of the biggest "core beliefs" held by the general public about exercise that you found to be incorrect?

Kolata: I'll give you two beliefs, one that I think is a misconception by the general public; the other that I think is wishful thinking, too good to be true.

The misperception is actually confusion over exercise goals. We're told over and over again that all you need to do is to walk for 20 minutes a day five days a week. That's absolutely true, if your goal is to be healthier and to live longer. But many people think that walking that amount will make them lose weight, will tone their bodies, will make them look different. That advice was never meant to be advice on how to change your weight or the way your body looks. Changing the way your body looks usually requires much more intense exercise and it takes a long time.

The too-good-to-be-true myth is one that I had believed. I had thought, and so did many people, that if you build muscle that muscle will burn more calories and fat and therefore throughout the day, even if you do nothing, even if you just sit still, you will automatically be burning more calories, your metabolism will be higher. Unfortunately, that's not true. I asked an exercise physiologist to do a calculation for me. If a man goes to a gym and lifts weights seriously for four months he might build about four pounds of muscle, which is a lot; a woman would build much less. That four pounds of muscle would burn an extra 24 calories a day. That's like a bite of a cookie..

I want to come right out and say that neither this post nor my previous one has put a wrench in my efforts to keep moving. I do love a good move.
________Thank you, Dave Lull, for bringing Kolata's interview to my attention.

Will Increased Activity Lead To Weight Loss?

"No," says Gary Taubes.

Ruby, RB, Melinda, and others commented about exercise and its role in weight loss. Gary Taubes, author of the recent book, Good Calories, Bad Calories, addressed this in his interview with New York Public Radio a few weeks ago:

"Exercise makes you hungry. It does not make you lean."
- Gary Taubes, WNCY, The Brian Lehrer Show, September 17, 2007

I was aware of a compensatory mechanism for physical activity ... the more we exercise, the hungrier we become, the more we eat. But I was not aware that, as Taubes argues, increased activity would not contribute to weight loss.

RB, in that interview you mentioned, where Taubes, Ornish, and a representative of the American Heart Association (AHA) were discussing variables that lead to obesity, you noted that only the AHA rep., Dr. Howard, brought up physical activity. I noted that too. Since exercise is a part of every weight loss program I've ever come across, I wondered where exactly Ornish, Atkins, and others stood.

(I'm only going to focus on exercise as it relates to weight loss. There are many aspects of health that exercise has been shown to impact.)

Ornish

Although Dr. Dean Ornish advocates a low-fat diet, that's not the only aspect of his program. His heart studies implemented the "Intensive Lifestyle Changes" program, which included exercise, for heart disease reversal. But here is what he said would constitute a good approach for everyone:

"The diet for preventing illness, losing weight, and just feeling good is much less restrictive. ... I recommend moderate exercise. The more you exercise, the more fit you become, but not necessarily the healthier you become. Just walking 20 or 30 minutes a day and not even all that fast can reduce premature death by 50% or more."
- Dr. Ornish, Heart-Healthy Lifestyle Program

Atkins

Although Dr. Robert Atkins advocated a reduction in carbohydrates, that was not the only aspect of his program. He also recommended exercise:

"Calling all couch potatoes: If you're not getting regular exercise, you aren't following the Atkins Nutritional Approach. It's that simple."

"Exercise has enormous benefits for your health, and will speed your weight loss!"

"Regular physical activity has been proven to contribute significantly to weight loss, weight maintenance, good health and disease prevention."

"For example: Without changing the way you eat, say you burned an extra 250 calories per day, which a 150-pound person could accomplish by walking for about forty-five minutes at a pace of three miles per hour. If you did this for two weeks, you would create a deficit of 3,500 calories and thereby lose 1 pound of body weight."
- Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution

American Heart Association

The American Heart Association advocates the "Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes" diet. This is the program developed by the government's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Association’s National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP):

"Daily energy expenditure should include at least moderate physical activity (contributing about 200 Kcal a day)."
- AHA, Heart-Healthy Diets

Just to interpret that "200 Kcal/day", here's a link to a tool that will calculate how many calories you might expend walking, based on your weight, how fast you walk, and for how long. (The food they come up with that equals the calories you burned is, well, you'll see.):


AHA recent advice:

"Women who need to lose weight or sustain weight loss should accumulate a minimum of 60 to 90 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity (eg, brisk walking) on most, and preferably all days of the week."
- Evidence-Based Guidelines for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention in Women: 2007 Update

Taubes

Gary Taubes questioned the belief that weight gain is caused by inactivity (or by overconsumption). He looked at the research and stated:

"... any increase in energy expenditure will have to induce a compensatory increase in intake, and so hunger has to be a consequence. And any enforced decrease in intake will have to induce a compensatory decrease in expenditure - a slowing of the metabolism and/or a reduction in physical activity."

"... neither eating less nor exercising more will lead to long-term weight loss, as the body naturally compensates."

"Running marathons, however, will not make fat people lean, even if they can get themselves to do it, because their bodies will adjust to the extra expenditure of energy, just as they would adjust to calorie-restricted diets."

He concluded:

"Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not overeating, and not sedentary behavior."

"Expending more energy than we consume does not lead to long-term weight loss; it leads to hunger."
- Gary Taubes, Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control and Disease

________In sum:

• Ornish recommends exercise for weight loss.
  
• Atkins recommends exercise for weight loss.
  
• The AHA recommends exercise for weight loss.
  
• Taubes says exercising more will not lead to weight loss.

In fact, Taubes and Atkins are diametrically opposed here. Atkins says that if you hold intake constant and increase activity, weight loss will follow. Taubes says that if you hold intake constant and increase activity, hunger and a slowed metabolism will follow ... which will stymie weight loss.

I agree with Gina Kolata's characterization of Taubes (in her review of his new book) as a "brave and bold science journalist". It certainly is brave to suggest that an increase in physical activity will not encourage weight loss. I think Taubes' assertion is unfortunate, since it may set us down a slippery slope of less, not more, activity. And I believe physical activity is beneficial for health in so many ways.

Update: If you'd like to read more and you don't have his book handy, Gary Taubes published an article in last week's New York magazine that explains his reasoning: "The Scientist And The Stairmaster: Why Most Of Us Believe That Exercise Makes Us Thinner - And Why We're Wrong".________

2007 Farm Bill, Nix

A former White House Administration official wants to Nix The Farm Bill: ¹

"I’ve got a way to reduce global poverty, decrease the number of workers crossing our borders illegally, save American taxpayers money, and cut your supermarket bill -- in one fell swoop. How? Get rid of US farm subsidies and tariffs."

For the rest, see former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich's latest blog post: Nix The Farm Bill.
________¹ USDA 2007 Farm Bill

Meat

I sure am glad it's not my job to come up with the best eating plan for all Americans, let alone the world.¹ (The World Health Organization has my sympathy.) The choices and defenders of those choices are numerous and polarized.

Regarding carbohydrates, it may be that a low-carbohydrate diet, around 10% of calories, is the best eating plan for overall health for everyone. Alternatively, it may be that a high-carbohydrate diet, above 45% of calories, is. Research has not sufficiently compared and contrasted the two.

From my reading, I do think that the type of carbohydrate plays a role in health. Carb from lentils is probably better than carb from Twinkies. Carb from an apple is probably better than carb from a bagel.

One reservation I have is the amount of meat, poultry, and fish a low-carbohydrate diet necessitates eating.

• Cooked and processed meat contains compounds than have been linked to cancer in humans (heterocyclic amines (which are estrogenic), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, etc.). Many are known animal carcinogens.
  
  
• Hormones in meat, especially those administered in an industrial setting, have not been fully investigated for long-term effect, and have been linked to hormone-dependent cancer in humans.
  
  
• Heme iron, a highly bioavailable form of iron found in red meat, has been linked to hormone-dependent (and other) cancers and diabetes, through a possible mechanism of increased oxidative stress. Its long-term impact on health is not known.
  
  
• All fish contains mercury.
  
  
• To recommend this change for public health would require a spectacular increase in livestock production, especially given the UN's predictions of population growth in the next few decades. I am skeptical this increase can occur without an increase in factory farming ... and its attendant problems of antibiotic use (developing resistant strains), bacterial infection (e.g. E. coli), and environmental damage.

None of the above is to imply that an alternative high-carbohydrate diet, one that relies on seeds (wheat, rice, soy, corn, beans, etc.), doesn't come without components linked to disease, or without environmental impact.

It may very well be that the public health benefit of increased global meat and fish production, and consumption, outweighs hypothesized risks to health and the environment. Certainly, the increase of global grain production has not had a benign impact on those variables. As far as I can tell, this cost-benefit analysis has not been done.
________¹ Marion Nestle, author of "Food Politics", "Safe Food", and recently "What To Eat" addressed this how-best-to-feed-the-planet issue on her blog post: Today's Question: Feed Efficiency.
Her recent post addresses the renewed interest in low-carbohydrate diets: Sorting Out Low-Fat Vs. Low-Carbohydrate.

NYTs Review of Gary Taubes' "Good Calories, Bad Calories"

From a short review of Gary Taubes' new book: Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control and Disease in yesterday's New York Times:

"As I read Taubes’s book, I kept wondering how he would deal with an obvious question. If low-carbohydrate diets are so wonderful, why is anyone fat? Most people who struggle with their weight have tried these diets and nearly all have regained everything they lost, as they do with other diets. What is the problem?

On Page 446, he finally tells us. Carbohydrates, he says, are addictive, and we’ve all gotten hooked. Those who try to break the habit start to crave them, just as an alcoholic craves a drink or a smoker craves a cigarette. But, he adds, if they are addictive, that “implies that the addiction can be overcome with sufficient time, effort and motivation.”

I’m sorry, but I’m not convinced."

- Gina Kolata, Carbophobia, NYTs Sunday Book Review, October 7, 2007

________

Meat and Breast Cancer

I've been eating a lower carbohydrate diet. By default this has me eating more meat. The recent issues of breast cancer in my family have had me investigating meat consumption's affect on cancer risk.

I found this study while browsing the research:

Red Meat Intake and Risk of Breast Cancer Among Premenopausal Women (November, 2006)

Study Basics

• Study population: 90,659 premenopausal women from the famous Nurses Health Study II
  
• Women were followed for 12 years
  
• Intake assessed through food frequency questionnaires

Findings

"Higher red meat intake may be a risk factor for [estrogen dependant] breast cancer among premenopausal women."

For 1 to 3 servings a week:¹

• Beef and lamb increased risk by 33%
  
• Hot dogs increased risk by 43%
  
• Hamburgers increased risk by 71%
  
• Pork increased risk by 81%

For any combination of the above (and including bacon and other processed meats), meat eaten at about 1.5 servings a day doubled the risk for breast cancer.

As Taubes might say, this doesn't prove anything. But it certainly gives me pause.
________¹ These risks were adjusted for (were independent of): age, smoking, alcohol intake, calories consumed, body mass index, height, number of children, age at first birth, age at menstruation, family history of breast cancer, history of benign breast disease, and oral contraceptive use.

Painting, watercolor, "Study for American Girl" by James Brantley

"Can I Eat A Low-Carb Diet, But Not Eat So Much Fat?"

This is another in my series of posts on low-carb diets. I've been reducing the amount and changing the type of carbohydrate I eat, which by default changes the amount of fat and protein I eat. I'm wondering what the long-term effect of this pattern of eating is.________
Sherri (the other Sherri :) commented on a recent post, "I'd be interested in how an Atkins type diet affects health if it just included lean meats."

That's similar to a question I'm often asked: "Can I eat a low-carb diet, but not eat so much fat?" It's not exactly the same as Sherri's question, which just addresses fat in meat. In my case, people are asking if they can do an all-around low-fat version of Atkins.

I think you can make a trade off - eat less carbohydrate and more protein. But I don't think you'll achieve an Atkins' effect without reducing carbohydrate to Atkins' levels. Once you do that, you'll naturally be eating more fat.

In my exploration, I've tried to set aside judgment about low-fat/high-fat or low-carb/high-carb diets. I really don't know yet what macronutrient distribution is best. I like the following quotation. Some readers may recognize its source.¹

"Men who have excessive faith in their theories or ideas are not only ill prepared for making discoveries; they also make very poor observations."
- Claude Bernard, An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine, 1865

The following is a hypothetical case of attempting to eat a low-carb diet while moderating fat intake.
________
Carbohydrate Intake

Say you want to eat an Atkins-type, low-carb diet and you limit your carbohydrate intake to 50 grams a day. If you're eating 1800 calories a day, that amounts to 11% of your caloric intake.

In a recent study comparing low-carb and high-carb diets, the low-carb eaters were consuming 4% of their caloric intake as carbohydrate. So I think 11% is not extreme if low-carb is your goal. Naturally, you could go lower.

That leaves 89% of your calories to come from fat and protein.

Fat Intake

The USDA, American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association, etc. recommend a diet that provides about 30% of calories from fat. (I'm not saying whether I agree with that recommendation. I selected it as an example since many people have in their mind 30% fat as a recommended moderate intake. By contrast, Dr. Ornish's 10%-of-calories-from-fat would be considered a low-fat intake.)

So, say you want to shoot for 30% of your calories to come from fat. If you're eating 1800 calories a day, 540 calories would come from fat. That's about 60 grams of fat a day.

That leaves 59% of your calories to come from protein.

Protein Intake

If you're eating 1800 calories a day, the remaining 1062 calories would have to come from protein. That's about 266 grams of protein a day. (This is only an example.)

What foods provide that level of protein without infringing on your fat and carb limits?

Here are some foods I looked up on NutritionData.com:

• White meat chicken breast (140g, 1 cup chopped = 43g protein, 5g fat)
  
• White meat turkey breast (140g, 1 cup chopped = 40g protein, 1.5g fat)
  
• Beef tenderloin, lean, all visible fat trimmed (85g, 3 oz steak = 24g protein, 7g fat)
  
• Canned light tuna in water (165g, 6 oz can = 42g protein, 1g fat)
  
• Pork chop, loin, lean, all visible fat trimmed (85g, 3 oz chop = 26g protein, 9g fat)
  
• Tofu, lite, firm (85g, 3 oz slice = 5g protein, 1g fat, 1g carb)
  
• Non-fat plain yogurt (245g, 8 oz = 14g protein, 0 fat, 19g carb)

Notice that if you want to eat a low-carb diet, but still limit your fat intake, you'll be eating large quantities of lean meats. From the foods above, you might want to eat 6 or 7 cups of chicken or turkey breast daily. Or maybe 5 beef tenderloin steaks for breakfast plus 3 cups of chicken/turkey breast for dinner. If you ate a pound of tofu a day, you'd only get 27g protein towards your 266 gram goal, so you'd need to add another 5 or 6 cans of tuna that day, or another 6 cups of turkey breast.

The pork chop doesn't work well because it's still pretty high in fat for its protein content. The yogurt, as is true with all low- and non-fat milk products, is still too high in carbs for the amount of protein it delivers.
________
The above example demonstrates, for me, the difficulty of trying to restrict both carbs and fats at the same time. There will need to be a substantially greater amount of lean protein consumed, probably in the form of lean meat, to meet caloric needs. If you eat less protein than what I outlined, then you will, by default, be eating either more than 50g carbohydrate or more than 30% fat.

So, if you choose to eat an Atkins-like low-carb meal plan, you'll likely be eating a high-fat diet.

Which brings me back to a question I've been researching since this summer. What is an optimum carbohydrate, fat, and protein intake for the average person?
________¹ Gary Taubes, Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control and Disease, Page 1.

Dr. Ornish: "When You Go On An Atkins-Type Diet, You Lose Weight. But You Mortgage Your Health."

This is another in my series of posts on low-carb diets. I've been reducing the amount and changing the type of carbohydrate I eat, which by default changes the amount of fat and protein I eat. I'm wondering what the long-term effect of this pattern of eating is.________
Jimmy Moore on his Livin' La Vida Low-Carb™ Blog, posted the following YouTube of a 2002 Charlie Rose program this week.


Guest Host:

• Dr. Mehmet Oz - Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. Author of You: On A Diet: The Owner's Manual for Waist Management

Guests:

• Gary Taubes - Journalist (On the heels of his New York Times article, What If It's All Been A Big Fat Lie)
  
• Dr. Dean Ornish - Founder and President, Preventative Medicine Research Institute. Author of Eat More, Weigh Less: Dr. Dean Ornish's Life Choice Program for Losing Weight Safely While Eating Abundantly
  
• Dr. Barbara Howard - American Heart Association (AHA)

________
The video is about an hour long. If I was pressed to characterize the three guests' endorsements of diet after watching just this video, I'd say:

• Dr. Ornish endorses a very-low-fat diet, with reduced refined carbohydrates.
  
• Dr. Howard endorses moderation, neither Ornish-style low-fat nor low-carb, with reduced refined carbohydrates.
  
• Mr. Taubes avoided making an endorsement, but stressed the need for more evaluation of a low-carb diet.

I thought each of them made a case for their respective endorsements/objectives.

I was impressed most by Dr. Ornish's presentation. I haven't in the past been impressed by Dr. Ornish's low-fat (10% of calories) diet. I think it's difficult to stick with and the foods people eat to replace fat end up being highly-refined, albeit low-fat, foods which none of the panel members, nor anyone else that I've read, seems to think are good for health.

Here's what Dr. Ornish said that struck me. (This conversation starts at about 41 minutes into the video. It has to do with a diet's ability to reduce heart disease. I'm paraphrasing, but you can check my near-quotes in the video.)

Dr. Oz:

I think the panel will agree that if you're heavy you have a higher incidence of heart disease. (Everyone nodded.)

Is it also true that if you follow a diet, no matter what diet, that reduces your weight, you're better off than if you do a diet that does not reduce your weight.

Dr. Ornish:

Absolutely not. When you go on a high-fat, high-protein Atkins type diet ... you lose weight, there's no question about it, but you mortgage your health.

We're not just talking about risk factors, we're talking about disease. And when we measure the underlying disease, using state-of-the-art measures, even in people whose triglycerides went up a little or whose HDLs went down ... their LDLs went down by 40% ... they still showed [heart disease] reversal.

Markers for inflammation [C-reactive protein, fibrinogen, Lp(a)] also improve when we make these changes in diet that I recommend. In a recent randomized clinical trial [comparing Ornish, Atkins, AHA diets] these markers of inflammation were by far the lowest when people were put on a diet of the type I recommend [low-fat] and they actually got worse in people, every one of them, in people who went on an Atkins-type diet. We found 2.5 times fewer cardiac events as well in this trial.

The question is not, can you lose weight on a high-fat diet, clearly you can. That's why Dr. Atkins is selling so many books. The issue to me is, are people mortgaging their health by doing that, and the data that we do have, as imperfect that they may be, indicate that they are.

I think Dr. Ornish has a compelling argument, especially since heart disease is essentially a disease of inflammation. I'm wondering what Dr. Davis' take on this would be.________