Book Review: 'The Big Fat Surprise' by Nina Teicholz

What if the government's crusade against fat fed the spread of obesity by encouraging us to abstain from foods that satiate us efficiently?

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It is a commonplace in public-health discussions of obesity to warn that the search for "perfect" or "better" evidence is the enemy of good policy and that we can't afford to wait for all the information we might desire when there is a need to do something now. Yet Ms. Teicholz's book is a lacerating indictment of Big Public Health for repeatedly putting action and policy ahead of good evidence. It would all be comical if the result was not possibly the worst dietary advice in history. And once the advice had been reified by government recommendations and research grants, it became almost impossible to change course. As Ms. Teicholz herself notes, she is not the first to point out that saturated fats have been sinned against by bogus science; and yet, the supermarket aisles are still full of low- and no-fat foods offering empty moral victories.

"The Big Fat Surprise" is more than a book about food and health or even hubris; it is a tragedy for our information age. From the very beginning, we had the statistical means to understand why things did not add up; we had a boatload of Cassandras, a chorus of warnings; but they were ignored, castigated, suppressed. We had our big fat villain, and we still do.

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An Apple a Day, and Other Myths

SAN DIEGO — A trip to almost any bookstore or a cruise around the Internet might leave the impression that avoiding cancer is mostly a matter of watching what you eat. One source after another promotes the protective powers of “superfoods,” rich in antioxidants and other phytochemicals, or advises readers to emulate the diets of Chinese peasants or Paleolithic cave dwellers.

But there is a yawning divide between this nutritional folklore and science. During the last two decades the connection between the foods we eat and the cellular anarchy called cancer has been unraveling string by string.

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This month at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, a mammoth event that drew more than 18,500 researchers and other professionals here, the latest results about diet and cancer were relegated to a single poster session and a few scattered presentations. There were new hints that coffee may lower the risk of some cancers and more about the possible benefits of vitamin D. Beyond that there wasn’t much to say.

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A Grizzly Answer for Obesity

So maybe we’ve been on the wrong track. An alternative approach looks at whether nature, through millions of years of evolutionary experimentation, has already figured out how to appropriately cope with biological threats.

Many fascinating examples exist. A diminutive rodent, the grasshopper mouse, is resistant to the excruciating sting of the bark scorpion. For longevity, nothing can top the naked mole rat, which is naturally resistant to types of pain, cancer and, possibly, Alzheimer’s disease. After weeks of fasting, Burmese pythons are able to enlarge their hearts by as much as 40 percent within two to three days of eating in order to accommodate the increased metabolism — a degree of cardiac hypertrophy that would be a leading predictor of mortality in humans.

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Hibernation by bears is an astonishing feat of evolution. After an epic period of late-summer gorging, during which, every day, a bear may consume more than 50,000 calories and gain up to 16 pounds, it will fast for up to seven months. Then it subsists solely on stored fat, without eating, drinking, urinating or defecating.

Bears also shut down their renal function during hibernation, resulting in badly scarred kidneys and high levels of blood toxins that would kill a human. What is truly remarkable is that the bears’ kidney failure is reversible: Upon awakening from hibernation, their kidney function is fully restored with no lasting damage.

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Why Sugar Makes Us Feel So Good

Last week, I reported that scientists are working their way toward a consensus that sugar is addictive. While some researchers are still hesitant to liken sweet stuff to drugs or alcohol, the evidence is accumulating to explain why some of us really struggle to resist or moderate our sugar intake. (I count myself among them.)
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Avena has also just put out a clever TED-Ed video with colorful visuals to help explain the details of just why sugar makes our brains go bonkers. 

As the video shows, the key player in the reward system of our brain — where we get that feeling of pleasure — is dopamine. Dopamine receptors are all over our brain. And doing a drug like heroin brings on a deluge of dopamine.

Guess what happens when we eat sugar? Yes, those dopamine levels also surge — though not nearly as much as they do with heroin.

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Fitness and Weightloss Tips

Losing weight and getting fit is a huge topic and it’s important for everybody, and perhaps especially so for IT pros like ourselves who sit in front of a screen all day. We can only scratch the surface of this subject here–the main focus after all of this newsletter is the Windows Server platform not weightloss. But the hugely favorable response we received from our previous issue on this topic demanded that we address this subject one more time.

So first of all I’ll share with you ten tips based on my own experience of losing 50 lbs and becoming fit. Then I’ll share some terrific tips and suggestions submitted by readers of this newsletter.

And if you still want more after all this, guess what? Later this summer I’ll be publishing an ebook that will describe my weightloss story in lurid detail with tons of motivational tips that can help you do what I did. And I’ll include a link to my ebook in WServerNews once my ebook available, so stay tuned to this newsletter!

- See more at: http://fitnesselectronicsblog.com/2013/04/23/from-fat-to-fit-the-conclusion/#sthash.xaaXmiDC.dpuf

More Signs A Mediterranean Diet Helps Prevent Cardiovascular Ills

There's fresh evidence that a Mediterranean diet can help cut the risk ofatherosclerosis, a disease caused by the buildup of plaque in the arteries. 

A new analysis, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association,builds on the work of a prior study, which looked at how a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, fish and healthful oils — namely olive oil — cuts the risk of heart attacks and strokes. That earlier study found that the risk was 30 percent lower for people eating the Mediterranean diet compared with those on a standard low-fat diet.
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 via Guy Kawasaki

What’s in Your Fish Oil Supplements?

Millions of Americans take fish oil supplements to promote heart and vascular health. But a new analysis suggests that some consumers may not always get what they are paying for.

The new research, carried out by a testing company called LabDoor, analyzed 30 top-selling fish oil supplements for levels of omega-3 fatty acids, a group of compounds with anti-inflammatory effects. It found that six of those products contained levels of omega-3s that were, on average, 30 percent less than stated on their labels.

The research found more problems when it looked specifically at levels of two particular omega-3s that are promoted for brain and heart health: docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). Tests showed that at least a dozen products contained DHA levels that were, on average, 14 percent less than listed on their packaging.
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Then they were ranked according to quality and value. Among the companies whose supplements ranked highly were Nordic Naturals, Axis Labs and Nature Made. LabDoor, which is funded in part by the investor Mark Cuban and by Rock Health, a nonprofit digital health incubator, posted its full list of rankings and results on its website.

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Is This the Healthier Version of Butter?

Like many Indians of his generation, Niraj "Raj" Patel, M.D., a collaborator on the book "The Healthy Indian Diet," grew up in a household that banned ghee-clarified butter that had been a staple of an Indian diet for centuries and was always an integral part of the ancient medical practice Ayurveda.

Unless it was for very special occasions, ghee was a no-no-a victim, as it were, of the generalized, worldwide war on fats. But as science has evolved and shown that fat is less likely to cause heart disease and diabetes than previously believed, ghee is once again coming into the spotlight, Dr. Patel says, among Indians and a wider number of Americans. In fact, it's even used in some cleanses, such as The Whole30 Program.

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The Key to Weight Loss -- Gut Bacteria?

Imbalances in the microbial community in your intestines may lead to metabolic syndrome, obesity and diabetes. What does science say about how to reset our bodies?
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Your brain is making you fat!

Fighting obesity means overcoming our deepest ingrained urges

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Are Cranberries a Better Way to Long Life?

Berries' Antioxidant Properties May Increase Longevity at Any Stage of Life

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Are Nuts a Weight-Loss Aid?

The reports about their many benefitshave come thick and fast: studies finding that people who eat nuts (tree nuts like cashews, almonds and pistachios, along with their legume pal, the peanut) live longer and healthier lives, with less risk of chronic ailments like heart disease, respiratory problems and Type 2 diabetes.

But perhaps the most startling news is that nuts may help in maintaining a healthy weight. Research has found that people can snack on modest amounts of them without gaining pounds, and that nuts can even help in slimming down.

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Why do nuts appease the appetite so well? Dr. Mattes pointed to several studies.

“They’re high in protein, and protein is satiating,” he said. “They’re high in fiber, and fiber is satiating. They’re rich in unsaturated fats, and there is some literature that suggests that has satiety value. They’re crunchy, and that would suggest just the mechanical aspect of chewing generates a satiety signal.”

Snacking on nuts makes it likely that you will eat less later in the same day, according to some research. That decrease in consumption can make up for many of the nuts’ calories — as much as three-fourths of them, studies have shown.

Nuts are also resistant to digestion, thanks to the tough walls of their cells. As much as one-fifth of the fat in nuts never gets absorbed by the body, Dr. Mattes estimated in a 2008 paper published by The Journal of Nutrition. He noted some weaker evidence that nuts may cause people to burn a little more energy as they simply sit around.

Even the fat that the body absorbs from nuts tends to be virtuous. It’s mostly unsaturated fat, with lesser amounts of the saturated type whose excessive consumption has been associated with heart disease.

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Chowing Down On Meat, Dairy Alters Gut Bacteria A Lot, And Quickly

Looks like Harvard University scientists have given us another reason to walk past the cheese platter at holiday parties and reach for the carrot sticks instead: Your gut bacteria will thank you.

Switching to a diet packed with meat and cheese — and very few carbohydrates — alters the trillions of microbes living in the gut, scientists report Wednesday in the journal Nature.

The change happens quickly. Within two days, the types of microbes thriving in the gut shuffle around. And there are signs that some of these shifts might not be so good for your gut: One type of bacterium that flourishes under the meat-rich diet has been linked to inflammation and intestinal diseases in mice.

"I mean, I love meat," says microbiologist Lawrence David, who contributed to the study and is now at Duke University.

"But I will say that I definitely feel a lot more guilty ordering a hamburger ... since doing this work," he says.

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In Food Cravings, Sugar Trumps Fat

What makes a milkshake so irresistible?

Is it the sweet flavor that our taste buds are after? Or the smooth and creamy texture? Or perhaps it is the copious blend of fat and sugar?

An intriguing new study suggests that what really draws people to such treats, and prompts them to eat much more than perhaps they know they should, is not the fat that they contain, but primarily the sugar

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13 Scientific Reasons To Drink Coffee

Coffee is actually very healthy. It is loaded with antioxidants and beneficial nutrients that can improve your health.

The studies show that coffee drinkers have a much lower risk of several serious diseases. Here are the top 13

Read more: http://authoritynutrition.com/top-13-evidence-based-health-benefits-of-coffee/#ixzz2lijmk0vC

Slow metabolism 'obesity excuse' true

The mocked "obesity excuse" of being born with a slow metabolism is actually true for some people, say researchers.

A team at the University of Cambridge has found the first proof that mutated DNA does indeed slow metabolism.

The researchers say fewer than one in 100 people are affected and are often severely obese by early childhood.

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They are a mystery to researchers: people who are significantly overweight and yet show none of the usual metabolic red flags. Despite their obesity, they have normal cholesterol levels, healthy blood pressure levels and no apparent signs of impending diabetes.

Researchers call them the metabolically healthy obese, and by some estimates they represent as many as a third of all obese adults. Scientists have known very little about them, but new research may shed some light on the cause of their unusual metabolic profile.

A study in the journal Diabetologia has found that compared with their healthier counterparts, people who are obese but metabolically unhealthy have impaired mitochondria, the cellular powerhouses that harvest energy from food, as well as a reduced ability to generate new fat cells.

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HOW TO DELAY GRATIFICATION WHEN YOU’RE TRYING TO LOSE WEIGHT

A new study contradicts previous research that suggests overweight people have a harder time delaying gratification compared to people who are more lean.
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Published in the journal Appetite, the findings show that behavioral interventions designed to improve delay of gratification can work just as well with overweight and obese women as with lean women.
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In a study published earlier this year, Epstein and his colleagues demonstrated that overweight and obese women ate less when they were imagining themselves in enjoyable future scenarios and reduced their inclination to engage in delay discounting.

“In the current study, we show that episodic future thinking works equally well in overweight and obese women in comparison to lean women,” says Epstein. “That’s important since several studies have shown that overweight/obese women are more impulsive.

“The fact that projecting oneself into the future and imagining future scenarios works equally well for lean and overweight/obese women is important for designing interventions to reduce impulsive decision making in women who need to lose weight.”

Overweight? Maybe You Really Can Blame Your Genes

The mice were eating their usual chow and exercising normally, but they were getting fat anyway. The reason: researchers had deleted a gene that acts in the brain and controls how quickly calories are burned. Even though they were consuming exactly the same number of calories as lean mice, they were gaining weight.
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How Carbs Can Trigger Food Cravings

Are all calories created equal? A new study suggests that in at least one important way, they may not be.

Sugary foods and drinks, white bread and other processed carbohydrates that are known to cause abrupt spikes and falls in blood sugar appear to stimulate parts of the brain involved in hunger, craving and reward, the new research shows. The findings, published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, suggest that these so-called high-glycemic foods influence the brain in a way that might drive some people to overeat.

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Regardless of the diet they choose, most people who lose a great deal of weight have a difficult time keeping it off for good. For many people, despite their best efforts, the weight returns within six months to a year. But a few studies of weight loss maintenance, including a large one in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2010, have reported some success with diets that limit high-glycemic foods like bagels, white rice, juice and soda.

In addition to raising blood sugar, foods that are sugary and highly caloric elicit pronounced responses in distinct areas of the brain involved in reward. Earlier imaging studies have shown, for example, that the main reward and pleasure center, the nucleus accumbens, lights up more intensely for a slice of chocolate cake than for blander foods like vegetables, and the activation tends to be greater in the brains of obese people than it is in those who are lean.