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KING 5's Lori Matsukawa reports.

KING 5 HealthLink , KING 7:27 PM. EDT September 02, 2017

All vinegar is created equal, choose the one that tastes good to you.

Many are concerned about nutrition and good health habits, often looking for something extra to help.

Vinegar has been said to have many benefits, from weight loss to glowing skin, but is it truly a magic elixir? A nutrition specialist explains useful information about vinegar.

So before you add it to your diet, you need to understand what the active ingredient in vinegar is.

"All vinegar is made from wine or apple cider and fermented by bacteria. So there's not a whole lot of extra steps in there. The bacteria ferment the sugars and make acidic acid. If you include it in a healthy meal pattern, it's great, but it's not a magic bullet, says Eileen Fitzpatrick, DrPH, and chair of the Nutrition Science Department at Sage Colleges.

Vinegar has been touted as a health aid since the 1800s says, Fitzpatrick. While apple cider vinegar is capturing most of the attention nowadays, Fitzpatrick says to select the vinegar you prefer. The benefits are the same across the board.

One such benefit: It's moderately effective in controlling blood sugar levels.

"There's some evidence that the acidic acid interferes with the enzyme that breaks down starch in the gut, which make it a little more like fiber and that may be why you don't get that rise in blood sugar after a starchy meal," says Fitzpatrick.

A salad dressed with oil and vinegar, eaten with that starchy meal, is what Fitzpatrick recommends. This way you're also adding more vegetables to your diet.

Vinegar consumption may also help, although minimally, with weight loss.

"It was a Japanese study, and it did show that 2 to 4 pounds of weight loss over 12 weeks," says Fitzpatrick.

Because vinegar is an acid, don't take it straight. One to two tablespoons in eight ounces of water once a day is sufficient, and you need to drink it along with a starchy meal for blood sugar control.

Which brings us back to Fitzpatrick's recommendation; use vinegar on a salad and choose the type you prefer.

"I think there's no point in doing it unless it tastes good," says Fitzpatrick.

Versatile vinegar is useful for cleaning and disinfecting too. Many use it for preserving food because its thought to kill E. coli.

So if it doesnt fit into your taste palette, there are many other benefits beyond a healthy diet.

2017 KING-TV

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Healthful benefits of vinegar in your diet - WTSP 10 News

Sept. 2, 2017

Final Stats|Photo Gallery

Tickets: Gophers Return Home Sept. 22 to Host #19 Michigan

The No. 2 University of Minnesota volleyball program won its home tournament with a 3-0 (25-22, 25-15, 25-20) over Tennessee, to conclude the Diet Coke Classic, tonight at Maturi Pavilion. With the win, the Golden Gophers improve to 5-0 on the season and remain undefeated at home in the last 39 straight matches. The home win streak spans over four seasons, dating back to 2014.

Stephanie Samedy was named the tournament's most valuable player when she accumulated 43 kills, averaged 4.78 kills per set and hit .363. Samantha Seliger-Swenson added 126 sets and averaged 14.00 per set. Molly Lohman added a hitting clip of .625.

Against Tennessee, Samedy had 17 kills and hit .371, while Regan Pittman had 15 kills and hit .684 and a team-best five blocks. Outside hitters Alexis Hart and Jasmyn Martin had nine and eight kills, respectively. Seliger-Swenson posted a season-high 49 assists, while Dalianliz Rosado posted 12 digs. As a team, the Gophers hit .396 against the Volunteers, added seven blocks, 51 digs and three aces. Tennessee hit .264 in the match, had 33 digs and 5.5 blocks.

Minnesota has a short turnaround this week as it plays in Austin, Texas, Sept. 7-8. The Gophers battle Denver and Corpus-Christi on Sept. 7, and faces No. 4 Texas, Sept. 8. The Longhorn Network will televise all matches as a part of the American Campus Classic.

Set BreakdownFirst Set: Minnesota built a 12-9 lead with back-to-back kills from Samedy as the Volunteers called a timeout. Taylor Morgan pushed the score to 14-11 in favor of the Gophers with a kill, while a Pittman kill added a 16-12 lead. Tennessee, however, battled back and tied the set at 16-16 off a Gopher attack error. The two teams traded points until the Vols took a 20-18 lead. The Gophers, however, responded and rattled off four-straight points and took a 22-20 lead off four-straight kills (Samedy, two by Martin and Pittman). The run forced Tennessee to call a timeout. The Gophers pushed it to set point on a solo block, while Maddie Beal finished off the set with a kill.

Second Set: The Gophers hit .429 in the second set for a 25-15 win. After tying at 11, the Gophers took a 15-12 lead after a Samedy/Pittman block attempt as the Vols used its first timeout. An ace by Lauren Barnes pushed the Gopher lead to four (19-15), while a Tennessee attack error gave the Gophers a 20-15 lead. The attack error forced the Vols to call their second timeout of the set. Minnesota, however, continued to cushion the lead with a block and four-straight kills to close out the second set and take a 2-0 lead.

Third Set: Minnesota hit .424 to Tennessee's .312 to win the set and match, 3-0. The two teams traded two-points leads before Tennessee took a 10-7 lead as the Gophers called a timeout. Minnesota responded out of its timeout and tied the set at 11 off a Tennessee attack error. Minnesota and Tennessee continued to battle within two points. The Gophers took an 18-16 lead after Samedy added her 14th kill of the match. A Samedy/Lohman block pushed the Gopher lead to 20-17 and forced Tennessee to use its second timeout. A Lohman kill put the Gophers at a 22-19 advantage. Pittman and Samedy combined for a block for match point, while Pittman added the final kill for a 25-20 set and match win.

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GOPHERSPORTS.COM Gophers Win Diet Coke Classic ... - Gophersports.com

The Economist

How to provide a protein-rich diet to a growing population The Economist A fashionable idea is for Westerners to eat more insects, which contain up to three times as much protein as beef and already form an integral or supplementary part of up to 2bn people's diets, according to the FAO. But for that to happen, many will ...

See the article here:
How to provide a protein-rich diet to a growing population - The Economist

Widely promoted guidelines to reduce fat intake could be unhealthy for people in low- and middle-income countries whose diets are already too starchy, say researchers.

Health authorities in Europe and North America recommend eating more fruit and vegetables while curtailing consumption of fatty foods, advice also adopted by the United Nations and globally.

But people in poor nations cutting back on fat may wind up piling on more carbohydrates such as potatoes, rice or bread because fruit and vegetable are more expensive, the authors point out.

The current focus on promoting low-fat diets ignores the fact that most peoples diets in low- and middle-income countries are very high in carbohydrates, which seem to be linked to worse health outcomes, says Mahshid Dehghan, a researcher at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, and lead author of a study in The Lancet.

Meanwhile, a companion study, also published in The Lancet, concludes that the rich-world guidelines backed by the World Health Organisation on fruit and vegetable consumption could be safely cut back from five to a more affordable three portions per day.

Dehghan and her colleagues sifted through the health data of 135,000 volunteers from 18 countries across six continents, aged 35 to 70, who were monitored for 7 years.

People who met three-quarters or more of their daily energy needs with carbs were 28 per cent more likely to die over that period than those whose diet comprised a lower proportion of starchy foods (46 per cent or less of energy needs).

Surprisingly, the findings also challenged assumptions on fat intake: diets high in fat (35 per cent of energy) were linked with a 23 per cent lower risk of death compared to low-fat diets (11 per cent of energy).

Contrary to popular belief, increased consumption of dietary fats is associated with a lower risk of death, Dehghan says.

That covered a mix of saturated fats (from meats and milk products), along with monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats (from vegetable oils, olive oil, nuts and fish). The study did not look at so-called trans fats from processed foods because the evidence is clear that these are unhealthy, says Dehghan.

The best diets include a balance of 50 per cent to 55 per cent carbohydrates and about 35 per cent total fat, according to the authors, who presented their findings at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Barcelona.

Current global guidelines based mostly on studies done in Europe and the US recommend that 50-65 per cent of ones calories come from carbs, and less than 10 per cent from saturated fats.

Overall, the study found that the average diet consists of just more than 61 per cent carbohydrates, 23.5 per cent good fat, and 15 per cent protein.

But these averages hid important regional imbalances: in China, South Asia and Africa, intake of starchy foods was 67 per cent, 65 per cent and 63 per cent, respectively.

A quarter of the 135,000 subjects mostly in poorer nations derived more than 70 per cent of their daily calories from carbohydrates, while half had less than seven per cent saturated fats in their diet.

The findings challenge conventional diet-disease tenets largely based on the lifestyles of Europeans and Americans, Christopher Ramsden and Anthony Domenichiello comment wrote in The Lancet.

Dehghan and colleagues set out to look for links between diet and cardiovascular disease, which kills about 17 million people around the world each year 80 per cent of them in low- and middle-income countries.

Many factors contribute to these diseases but diet is one of the few that can be modified to lessen risk.

While high-carb and low-fat diets were clearly associated with greater mortality, no statistical link was found with the kind of life-threatening events strokes, heart attacks, and other forms of heart failure that stem from cardiovascular disease.

Susan Jebb, a professor at the University of Oxford who did not take part in the study, said the reported link between high-carb diets and excess mortality was from non-cardiovascular deaths and is unexplained.

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Why West's low-fat diet advice could be deadly for Asia's poor, because they'll likely eat even more carbs - South China Morning Post

I am quite confident about the fundamental truths of diet for good health.I am quite confident because they are predicated on a massive aggregation of evidence of every description, spanning methods, populations, and decades.I am quite confident because I share these convictions with a veritable whos who of leading experts, with predilections from vegan to Paleo, from all around the globe.

But I am not absolutely, incontrovertibly certain about much.In the company of the wisest, most thoughtful, most expert and knowledgeable people I know- I have many legitimate doubts about many details of nutrition.

Lets allow for the wisdom of doubt, then, and consider the PURE study currently roiling if not the nutrition world, at least its representation to the public.These articles, which I have reviewed at length, effectively part dietary perspective like Moses and the Red Sea: to one side, there is advocacy for more plant foods (vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, nuts, and seeds); to the other, there is advocacy for more animal foods (meat, butter, cheese, eggs) and more animal fat.I am decisively in the former camp.

What the allowance for doubt tells us is that if, in fact, the evidence is insufficient to be absolutely certain that one of these is right- then we cannot be absolutely certain that the other is right, either.Lets pretend the playing field is level; lets give all the same benefits of all the same doubts to all the members of both camps.I am not entirely sure thats deserved- but lets toss the benefit of that doubt into the pot as well.

It all leaves you with a choice - now, and whenever you hear the latest news about nutrition.You can risk being wrong in one direction, or you can risk being wrong in the other.

Lets say that those of us recommending more whole plant foods, and a dietary pattern in which they predominate, are wrong.What are you risking by listening to us?

Well, we know that all of the worlds longest lived, most vital peoples discovered to date eat this way.So even if we are wrong about whole foods, mostly plants being best for your health- they are clearly compatible with it, as measured by what matters most: both years in life, and life in years.At worst, you wind up eating in a way that is entirely compatible with the best of health, even if not explicitly the best for health.At worst, you wind up missing out on some foods you might otherwise enjoy (although thats a minor matter, because over relatively little time, you are apt to learn to love the foods you are with).

Thats it.Thats the consequence of choosing to go with the more plants camp, if that camp- my camp- is, in fact, wrong.

What are the alternative risks of listening to the more meat camp, if that camp is wrong?Well, none of the longest lived, most vital peoples yet discovered eat meat predominant diets, or diets high in saturated fat.So if this camp is, in fact, wrong- then its possible that their advice is actually incompatible with the health outcomes that matter most: longevity, plus vitality.If this camp is wrong, you might be increasing your personal risk of disease and premature death.To be clear, I am not saying (at the moment) this is true; I am simply noting that if the more meat crowd CAN be wrong, then this COULD be the implication for your health of listening to them.

But thats the least of it, really, because if you get coronary disease you will probably find some cardiologist to clean out your arteries; you get to have your disease, and make it chronic, too.

The consensus among environmental scientists about meat and dairy is even greater than that of nutrition scientists.Producing plants to feed animals to produce meat for human consumption uses vastly more water than producing plants for direct human consumption; beef, compared to almost any other food, is literally off the chart (in the company of chocolate).Producing meat, and dairy, makes massive contributions to greenhouse gas emission.

So, unless all of the environmental scientists- experts in everything from life cycle analysis to conservation, sustainable agriculture to biodiversity- are wrong, too, then listening to the more meat camp and being wrong means potentially devastating effects on the worlds climate, ecosystems, and aquifers.In contrast, if the more plants camp is wrong about the best diet for health, listening to them will almost certainly confer diverse environmental benefit.

And, finally, there is the matter of ethics, decency- and what we ironically call humane treatment.If the more plant camp is wrong about whats best for your health, listening to them will nonetheless reduce the cruelty and abuse perpetrated on vast populations of animals that think and feel an awful lot like the dogs, and cats, and horses so many of us love.If, however, you listen to the more meat camp and they are wrong, then ever more such animals will be subject to cruelty, abuse, and often traumatic death- in the service of your dietary degradation.

Lets summarize.If the more plant message is wrong, then the worst case scenario is that its still compatible with optimal health (just not necessary for it); still massively beneficial to the environment and planet (unless all of the environmental scientists are also wrong); and massively conducive to the kinder, gentler treatment of our fellow creatures (unlesswell, nothing.Period).

If the more meat message is wrong, then the worst case scenario is that it may be incompatible with optimal health, and listening to it may potentially take life from your years, with or without taking years from your life.Along the way, you will almost certainly be contributing to environmental degradation, aquifer depletion, global warming, and cruelty to animals at an industrial scale.

None of this says that one camp is right and the other wrong.It simply stipulates that if we really have cause to be uncertain about fundamentals of nutrition, then whats good for the plant-loving goose should be good for the meat-loving gander.Human fallibility is non-denominational.

And, presumably, you- like the rest of us- are not infallible either.So if obligated to eat despite the routinely broadcast doubts about diet and health- perhaps the best you can do is choose how you would rather be wrong.

Senior Medical Advisor, Verywell.com

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Diet: Choosing How to Be Wrong - HuffPost

If theres one message that most people get about their diet, its to cut back on fat. Too much fat, especially the saturated fat and cholesterol found in animal meat, dairy products and cheese, can clog up arteries and lead to heart disease, stroke and obesity.

But fat may not be only culprit in those unhealthy conditions. In recent years, studies have revealed that cutting back on fat doesnt always contribute to a lower risk of heart disease or reduced chance of dying early. In fact, some studies show the opposite, that people who eat extremely low amounts of fat tend to die earlier.

MORE: Does a Low-Carb Diet Really Beat Low-Fat?

That may be because of something else theyre eating instead. In one of the most comprehensive studies to date looking at how diet affects health and mortality, researchers led by a team at McMaster University report that rather than lowering fat, more people might benefit from lowering the amount of carbohydrates they eat. In a study published in the Lancet, they found that people eating high quantities of carbohydrates, which are found in breads and rice, had a nearly 30% higher risk of dying during the study than people eating a low-carb diet. And people eating high-fat diets had a 23% lower chance of dying during the studys seven years of follow-up compared to people who ate less fat.

The results, say the authors, point to the fact that rather than focusing on fat, health experts should be advising people to lower the amount of carbohydrates they eat. In the study, which involved 135,000 people from 18 different countries, the average diet was made up of 61% carbohydrates, 23% fat and 15% protein. In some countries, like China, south Asia and Africa, however, the amount of carbohydrates in the diet was much higher, at 63% to 67%. More than half of the people in the study consumed high-carbohydrate diets.

MORE: Know Right Now: Why Low-Fat Diets Might Not Solve Your Health Problems

The findings add more data to the continuing debate over the best advice for healthy eating. When the focus on cholesterol emerged in the 1970s, connecting fatty foods and heart disease, doctors urged people to reduce the fat in their diet by cutting back on red meat, dairy products, eggs and fried foods. Food makers took up the mantra, and pumped out products low in fat. But they replaced the fat with carbohydrates, which scientists now understand may be just as unhealthy, if not more so, than fat.

Thats because carbohydrates are easily stored as glucose in the body, and they can raise blood sugar levels, contributing to obesity and diabetes both of which are also risk factors for heart disease.

MORE: The Case for Whole Milk

So why has there been so much focus on fat? The researchers say that the first studies to link fat to heart disease were conducted primarily in North America and Europe, which has the highest consumption of fat worldwide. Its possible that different diet advice may be needed for different populations. In western cultures, where there is an excess of fat, reducing fat may play a role in lowering heart disease, as long as people arent replacing the fat with carbohydrates.

MORE: Ending the War on Fat

In other parts of the world, where carbohydrates make up a large part of the diet, cutting back on carbs may make more sense than focusing on fat. Individuals with high carbohydrate intake might benefit from a reduction in carbohydrate intake and an increase in the consumption of fats, the study authors write.

More study will also be needed to figure out exactly how much fat and how much carbohydrates should be recommended for optimal health. The study did not compare, for example, people who ate low-fat diets to those who ate low-carb diets to see how their diets affected their mortality.

Original post:
The Low-Fat vs. Low-Carb Diet Debate Has a New Answer - TIME

Imagine a new study, published, one presumes in Road & Track, or Car and Driver, purporting to show that square wheels outperform round wheels.Imagine the attendant headlines: Everything Thought Known About Wheels Proves Wrong! and Wheel Guidelines Need Radical Change!

Would such headlines, in fact, cause you to abandon everything you knew about wheels based on a lifetime of evidence and experience?Or, would you say: that cant possibly be true, and just go about your business?Or, might you say, well, wait just a darn minute and look further into the study, to see how such a preposterous claim could be justified in the first place?

I am guessing one of the latter options in the case of wheels.I only wish we would roll the same way when it comes to news about diet.Well come back to that momentarily.

First, I want to establish that my imaginary study, and its entourage of imaginary headlines, could, indeed, be feasible if there were money to be made confusing people perennially about the proper shape of tires (as there certainly is with regard to diet).How?

Well, as the headlines told you, square tires were compared to round, and square won.What the headlines didnt tell you was that the square tires were made from state-of-the-art tire materials, such as vulcanized rubber.And, perhaps though square, the corners were gently rounded.The round tires were indeed round- but made out of porcelain, presumably because the study result was chosen in advance to favor the square tire industry.The porcelain tires all shattered to smithereens at the first rotation, leaving those cars stranded with no tires at all.The cars on square tires lumbered along clumsily, but they did at least move- and so, they won!The difference was statistically significant.

The above study is just the nonsense it seems.If, however, there were industries that could profit from confusion about the best shape for tires, I would not be shocked to see it.We get just such diverting nonsense about diet week after week.

The latest is the media coverage of a study called PURE (Prospective Urban and Rural Epidemiology), which ranges from mildly hyperbolic to patently absurd.

The study itself is impressive in scope, and I commend the many investigators involved for their good intentions, and massive efforts.In brief, PURE was designed to look at health outcomes associated with variations in lifestyle, and in the current batch of papers diet specifically, in countries not well represented in prior work of this type, and across the range from high to very low socioeconomic status.

A total of 18 countries with a particular focus on the Middle East, South America, Africa, and South Asia- and about 135,000 people participated.Participants were enrolled as long ago as 2003, or as recently as 2013, and were followed for about seven and a half years on average.Dietary intake was assessed with a single food-frequency questionnaire at baseline.Another dietary intake tool, 24-hour recall, was used in a sub-sample, and the correlation between the two was marginal, suggesting considerable inaccuracy in diet reporting.

Three PURE study papers were just published in the same issue of The Lancet, one reporting health outcomes (cardiovascular disease, non-cardiovascular disease, and mortality) associated with intake of vegetables, fruits, and legumes (beans, chickpeas, lentils, etc.); the second reporting on the same health outcomes with variation in the three macronutrients- carbohydrate, protein, and fat- as a percent of total calorie intake; and a third looking at variation in blood lipids and blood pressure in relation to nutrient intake.

There were two main findings that have spawned most of the mainstream media coverage, and social media buzz.The first was that, while health outcomes improved and mortality declined with higher intake of vegetables, fruits, and legumes- in multivariable analysis adjusting for other factors, that benefit peaked at about 3 servings per day.This has been widely interpreted to suggest that, at odds with conventional wisdom on the topic, more is not better with regard to vegetables, fruits, and beans.

The second finding garnering media attention was that across countries, the higher the intake of carbohydrate as a percent of calories, the higher the rates of disease and death; whereas the higher the percentage of calories from fat, the lower these rates.

Lets take these in turn.

Regarding vegetable, fruit, and legume (VFL) intake:

The researchers found that those with the lowest intake (about 9000 people) of vegetables, fruits, and legumes also had the lowest intake of total calories, starch, and meat- indicating that in the many poor populations included in this study, people were simply food-deprived, and hungry.

Those with the highest intake (about 11,000 people) of VFL had nearly twice the total calorie intake intake of the lowest group; smoked about half as often; and were 6 times more likely to have gone to college- and were more likely to exercise (even though the poor likely did manual labor at work).

In other words, the lowest levels of VFL intake represented a fairly desperate socioeconomic status; the highest intake, more than 8 servings daily, meant privilege, and choice.

What have the crazy, hyperbolic headlines NOT been telling you?Roughly 8% of those in the lowest VFL intake group died during the study period; whereas only 3% of those in the highest VFL intake group died- despite the fact that the highest VFL intake group had a slightly higher mean age at baseline.Overall, and rather flagrantly, mortality was LOWEST in the group with the HIGHEST intake of VFL. The lowest levels of heart disease, stroke, and mortality were seen in those with the HIGHEST intake of VFL.

What, then, accounts for the strange reporting, implying that everything weve been told about vegetables, fruits, and beans is wrong?These benefits were adjusted away in multivariable models.When this method of statistical analysis was applied, the health benefit expressly attributable to VFL seemed to peak at about 3 servings per day.That, however, is fundamentally misleading- and the headlines, quite simply, were written by people who dont have a clue what it really means.

Those people in PURE with the highest VFL intake were ALSO benefiting from less smoking, more exercise, higher education, better jobs, and quite simply- a vastly better socioeconomic existence.A multivariable model enters all of these factors to determine if a given outcome (e.g., lower death rate) can be attributed to ONE OF THEM with the exclusion of the others.The exclusive, apparent benefit of VFL intake was, predictably, reduced when the linked benefits of better education, better job, and better life were included in the assessment.

This no more means that VFL was failing to provide benefit in those with more education, than that more education was failing to provide benefit in those eating more VFL.It only means that since those things happen together most of the time- its no longer possible to attribute a benefit to just one of them.Really, thats what it means (and with all due respect to the miscellaneous headline writers untrained in the matter, I am qualified to say so).

The country-specific presentation of data showed the same gradient, with the lowest intake of VFL in the poorest regions and countries, including Bangladesh, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Zimbabwe.

Based on their multivariable models, the authors suggest that there is no clear benefit from eating more than 3 servings of VFL per day, and they propose a public health advantage in that conclusion: 3 servings a day, rather than 5, 7, or 9, represents an approach that is likely to be much more affordable for poor people in poor countries. Unfortunately, those same models could be used to make the same case about education: there is no clear, exclusive benefit (among those eating the most vegetables, fruits, and legumes daily) from more education- so lets forget about college!That, too, should make things easier for the poor.I appreciate the good intentions- but the message is, simply, wrong.

What about the study of macronutrients- carbohydrate, protein, and fat?

Lets start with dietary fat.Baseline fat intake by country ranged from a low of about 18% of calories, to a high of about 30%.All of these values are considerably lower than current, average intake in the U.S. and much of Europe.

Those countries with the lowest intake of dietary fat also had the lowest intake of protein, suggesting these were people with food insecurity, having trouble obtaining adequate food intake, or dietary variety.

Saturated fat intake ranged across the countries studied from about 6% of calories to a high of about 11% of calories, again all lower than average levels in the U.S. and much of Europe, and actually very close to recommended levels.Headlines encouraging populations that already eat more saturated fat than this to add even more are not merely unjustified by anything in the study, they are egregiously irresponsible.

Unlike dietary fat, which the investigators examined in all of its various categories, carbohydrate was all lumped together as a single class.This produced an apparent paradox in the data: disease and death went down with more intake of vegetables, fruits, and legumes- but up with carbohydrate.Whats the paradox?Vegetables, fruits, and legumes all are comprised overwhelmingly of carbohydrate.

What explains away the apparent paradox is that vegetable, fruit, and legume intake were apparently highest in the most affluent, most highly educated study participants- while total carbohydrate as a percent of calories was highest in the poorest, least educated, most disadvantaged.In those cases, carbohydrate was not a variety of highly nutritious plant foods; it was almost certainly something like white rice, and little else.

The highest intake of carbohydrate as a percent of total calories was associated with lower intake of both fat and protein, and was associated with higher mortality.However, much of the increase in mortality was from non-cardiovascular diseases.

So, unless you are prepared to believe that eating only white rice is the reason you are likely to be gored by a bull and bleed to death- this study doesnt mean what the headlines say it means!

The findings actually suggest that intake of carbohydrate as a percent of total calories was highest (e.g., a diet of white rice and little else) where there was the most poverty, the least access to medical care, and the greatest risk of dying of trauma, infectious diseases, and so on.

Non-cardiovascular mortality went down as total protein intake went up across the study populations, too.Do you think this means that eating more protein prevents you from bleeding when gored by a bull- or that people in places with access to more dietary protein are less likely to be gored by a bull in the first place, and far more likely to have life-saving surgery if ever that should happen?

An alleged surprise in the PURE data is that higher intake of saturated fat was associated with lower mortality overall.Here, too, however, higher saturated fat intake- which occurred together with higher protein intake- was associated with much reduced risk of non-cardiovascular death.So, does eating more saturated fat protect you from dying when run over by an ox- or does being in a place with access to more saturated fat (i.e., animal food) in the diet mean you eat the ox before he can run you over?And, that, if ever he does run into you- theres a hospital somewhere reachable?

To be quite clear about it, there was no adjustment for, or even mention of, access to a hospital or medical care in the PURE papers.

The researchers examined the replacement of carbohydrate as percentage of calories, with fat as a percentage of calories, but did not report variation in total calories, or the degree to which very high intake of carbohydrate as a percent of that total correlated with very low calorie intake overall, and malnutrition.Looking across the several papers, it is apparent that correlation is strong.There was also no examination of what replacing one kind of fat with another did to health outcomes, a kind of dietary variation that might have more to do with choice, and less to do with socioeconomics.This is an odd omission.

On the basis of all of the details in these published papers, the conclusion, and attendant headlines, might have been: very poor people with barely anything to eat get sick and die more often than affluent people with access to both ample diets, and hospitals.One certainly understands why the media did NOT choose that!It is, however, true- and entirely consistent with the data.

Also, by way of reminder: the HIGHEST levels of both total fat, and saturated fat intake observed in the PURE data were still LOWER then prevailing levels in the U.S. and much of Europe, providing no basis whatsoever for headlines encouraging people already exceeding these levels to add yet more meat, butter, and cheese to their diets. Absolutely none.

As noted, the work represented by PURE, and the apparent intentions of the investigators, appear to be quite commendable.There is, however, something very odd about the timing of this observational study- independent of its rather obvious failure to address the massive impact of poverty on health outcomes.

What is odd in this case is the publication of an observational study to refute the findings of many intervention trials, including randomized controlled trials.As a rule, observational studies are used to generate hypotheses, and intervention trials- especially RCTs- are used to test those hypotheses.Observational studies come first, and only suggest associations; intervention studies come after to confirm or refute.

Personally, I have long been a proponent of observational epidemiology.I argue routinely that what we know reliably about diet, and many other things such as putting out fires, can come from sources other than randomized trials.Generally, the most complete and purest of understanding comes when insights born of diverse sources, from intervention trials to the common experiences of a culture, are combined, and aligned.Still, it is very odd to go back to observational data once the intervention trial data have already been filed.

A number of the researchers directly involved in PURE have spent their careers, long and illustrious for some of them, nearer the beginning for others, criticizing just such observational methods.Certain investigators involved in PURE have been among the more vocal and high-profile critics, for instance, of Ancel Keys and the Seven Countries Study (SCS), impugning both on the basis of overtly false accusations about lapses and improprieties, but also on the basis of an undeniable truth: the SCS was observational epidemiology, not a randomized controlled trial.

There is a truly enormous difference, though, along with many lesser ones, between the SCS and PURE: a gap of more than half a century!

Planning for the SCS goes back some 60 years.At that time, not only did we not have RCTs to tell us much about diet and health outcomes; we did not yet even know that diet and lifestyle had any appreciable effect on the most common of such outcomes, namely heart disease.The primary question Keys and colleagues set out to address had nothing to do with any particular nutrient; it was far more fundamental.Keys was among the first to suspect that variation in diet and lifestyle produced variation in heart disease risk, that coronary disease was not simply an inevitable consequence of aging.

Perhaps it seems incredible to you now that there was ever a time we doubted a role for diet and lifestyle in coronary disease, but that simply indicates how far we have come in the last half century, how big a gap that truly is given the pace of progress.So, again, an observational study now, especially by researchers prone to propound the advantages of randomized trials, is rather odd- because we have accumulated many such randomized trials in the decades since the SCS.

We have randomized trials to show that a shift from a typical American diet to a diet richer in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, lentils, nuts, and seeds- and consequently reduced in refined carbohydrate, added sugar, and saturated fat- slashes rates of type 2 diabetes in high-risk adults, far more so even than the best of medications.We have randomized trials to show that shifting from a standard, northern European diet rich in meat and dairy, to a Mediterranean diet with less of those and more vegetables, fruits, olive oil, legumes, and seafood- causes the rate of heart attack to plummet in high-risk adults. We have intervention trials to show that diets in which whole, wholesome plant foods predominate can cause coronary plaque to regress, and heart attack rates to plummet.

We also have, along with simple observations of both longevity and vitality in populations around the word that eat diets of wholesome foods, mostly plants, in various sensible and balanced combinations- an intervention study at the population level shifting diets away from meat and dairy, toward more produce, whole grains, and beans, and resulting in more than an 80% reduction in heart disease rates, and a 10 year addition to life expectancy.

We have also seen what has happened in India and China with transitions to higher intake of processed foods, meat and dairy- and away from diets of simple plants in their native state: massively more obesity, diabetes, and chronic disease in general.We have a massive study in the entire U.S. population showing that more meat, especially processed meat, and more intake of processed foods, salt, and sugar, and less consumption of produce means more risk of premature death.

In other words, past the hype and headlines, the apparent paradoxes and puzzles, what PURE means is that: poor people with poor diets and barely enough to eat, and living in places with limited if any modern medical care- are more likely to get sick and die than people living in better circumstances.With all due respect to the researchers, and none to the promulgators of massively misleading media coverage- we knew that already.

Who eats mostly plants?Two kinds of people: those who have choices, and choose plants for the many benefits; and those who have no choices at all.The former enjoy excellent health.The latter eat what they can get their hands on, struggle against the forces of poverty, and routinely die young.There is a correlation between meat intake and coronary disease; but there is also a correlation between the affluence that allows for meat intake in the first place, and access to a cardiac catheterization lab.In general, those people living in places with more cardiac cath labs have more chronic disease, but avoid early death due to the advent of advanced medial care.

Before concluding this admittedly long column, one final note about the alarmingly bad timing of the PURE publications.These papers were released concurrently with the devastation in Houston, and the Gulf Coast, of Hurricane Harvey- the greatest rain event in the recorded history of the continental United States.The unprecedented rainfall is related to climate change, which in turn is monumentally influenced by global dietary choices.How appalling that the PURE findings were not merely misrepresented to the public in irresponsible reporting pertaining to human health effects, but in reporting that ignored entirely the implications of that bad dietary advice for the fate of the climate, and planet.

This week, as last, round tires are reliably better than square, assuming both are made of the same materials.This week as last, whole vegetables and fruits are reliably good for you, and for the most part, the more the better.The benefits of that produce, however, do not preclude the benefits of an education, a job, and medical care- nor vice versa.

This week as last, summary judgment about carbohydrate is entirely meaningless, because that term encompasses everything from green beans to jelly beans, arugula to added sugar, and subsistence diets of white rice and little else.The vegetables and fruits, as well as the whole grains, beans, lentils, nuts and seeds in the mix are this week as last- good for you.

This week as last, some fats are good for you, some are bad, and some are relatively neutral; but in all cases, it depends on what you eat instead of what.This week as last, the best sources of the most beneficial dietary fats are nuts, seeds, olives, avocado, and if from animal foods- then fish and seafood.

This week as last, observational epidemiology has merit in elucidating new hypotheses worth testing in intervention trials, but plays no legitimate role at all in displacing answers already predicated on just such trials.

This week as last offering up each new study out of context is like trying to make sense of an entire puzzle by examining each piece in isolation.Why we treat diet this way is the puzzle to me.As long as we do so, we can expect to make about as much progress as cars on porcelain tires.

Senior Medical Advisor, Verywell.com

Read more:
Diet And Health: Puzzling Past Paradox To PURE Understanding - HuffPost

Over the years, Robert Kushner has seen many obese patients get tripped up trying to keep pounds off because they rely on fast food, juggle too many tasks and dislike exercise.

So Kushner, an obesity expert, began helping patients plan diet and physical activity around their lifestyles and habits.

We dont necessarily put people on any specific diet; it really gets to what is their life, what are their struggles, he said. We believe obesity care cant be inconsistent with culture, family or how you lead your life.

He recently suggested that a patient split meals with his wife when they dined out, rather than each having large portions or avoiding restaurants entirely. When the man said he was uncomfortable sharing a meal with his wife when the couple was out with friends, Kushner said to do it anyway.

I said, Its a strategy that works whether youre with other people or not. ... Be assertive, said Kushner. I think people dont think about it because they just arent raised to share.

The patient kept track of the foods he was eating, learning to avoid larger portions and fattening dishes. He has lost 15 pounds in six months, cutting about 500 to 700 calories per day.

More than a third of U.S. adults are obese, according to a 2015 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Kushner, who directs the Center for Lifestyle Medicine at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, said he realized in the 1980s that obesity was a looming problem. He started combining diet, nutrition, exercise and behavioral changes into a plan for patients.

Since then, whats changed is the maturity of the area, understanding more about the effects of stress and sleep on body weight, and some of the behavioral-change techniques have expanded, he said.

In addition to promoting good sleep habits and stress management techniques such as meditation, Kushner and his colleagues suggest bariatric surgery for patients with a body mass index of 40 or more and for some who are less obese but who have medical problems such as Type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea and heart disease. They also recommend medication for patients with BMIs as low as 30 who have additional medical problems or have failed to lose weight despite lifestyle changes.

While studies havent generally proved that lifestyle changes are effective for weight loss, Kushner said patients often have trouble shedding pounds unless problems like stress are managed.

Kushners approach proposes gentler, moderate changes. Rather than tell patients to cut out every unhealthy food they love, Kushner suggests focusing on alternatives with higher fiber and water content but fewer calories. (Think beans, vegetables, salads, fruits, broth-based soups and whole grains such as oatmeal.)

For the couch potato who finds exercise overwhelming, Kushner advises walking for short periods, building up to three 10-minute brisk walks daily to boost your energy level and mood while you also burn calories.

He also suggests that dog owners walk their pet for 30 minutes daily rather than leave Fido in the back yard. Kushner found that dog-walking helped overweight and obese people lose weight in a study, and he wrote a book about it Fitness Unleashed!: A Dog and Owners Guide to Losing Weight and Gaining Health Together with veterinarian Marty Becker.

I call it an exercise machine on a leash, Kushner said. It is a way for people to think about moving their body around in a fun way.

Most of his patients lose about 10 percent of their body weight (some more than 20 percent) after six months and keep it off during the program, Kushner said.

Patients say they feel understood and more motivated as they are given personalized direction to make positive changes in their lifestyle, he said.

Kushner created a questionnaire to screen patients for traits that prevent weight loss such as eating whats convenient rather than planning healthy meals or having an all-or-nothing mentality traits that Kushner and colleagues found in a study to be strongly linked with obesity.

Once you take the quiz and know your factor type, I can personalize a plan to help you lose weight and keep it off, Kushner said.

Another way Kushner hopes to help patients tackle obesity is by teaching medical students about treating and preventing it. He found in a recent study that the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination was focusing much more on diagnosing and treating obesity-related illnesses, such as Type 2 diabetes and sleep apnea, than on how to counsel patients on diet, physical activity, behavior changes, the use of medications and bariatric surgery.

But Kushner said his approach isnt only about weight loss.

We know that as little as 5 to 10 percent weight loss will improve the health and well-being of individuals and can also improve blood sugar, blood pressure, the fats in your blood, arthritis or reflux symptoms, as well as your mood and energy level.

Read more

Changing your perspective about weight loss may change the outcome, too

A weight-loss expert changes his tune: Focus on enjoyment, not perfection

Weight loss, especially with surgery, tied to lower risk of heart failure

Read more:
Losing weight gets personal: Combining diet and behavioral changes may help - Washington Post

Honeybee (Apis mellifera) workers tending larvae on brood comb. The larvae that will grow up to be workers have a plant-based diet of a mix of honey and pollen. Stephen Dalton/Minden Pictures/Getty Images hide caption

Honeybee (Apis mellifera) workers tending larvae on brood comb. The larvae that will grow up to be workers have a plant-based diet of a mix of honey and pollen.

When a female honeybee hatches, her future holds one of two possible paths within the hive's caste system. She will become either a worker bee or a queen bee. And her fate is determined in part by the food she eats as a larva.

Larvae that are fed mostly a bitter type of pollen combined with honey, a mixture called "beebread," grow up to be worker bees. They are generally sterile and destined for a life of housekeeping tasks. Future queens, on the other hand, grow up on royal jelly a goopy, yellowish substance rich in proteins, sugars and fatty acids that is secreted from the glands of worker bees. The queen's sole task in life is to make more bees. She also lives a longer life and has a stinger she can use more than once without dying.

So what is it about the two different diets that determines the caste of bees? It's a question that bee researchers have puzzled over for a long time. A study published Thursday in the journal PLOS Genetics suggests that the plant-heavy diet of a future worker bee helps prevent it from becoming a queen.

One difference between beebread and royal jelly is that the former has a higher concentration of tiny pieces of plant genetic material called microRNAs. These molecules are known to influence the expression of genes. "Plant microRNAs play important roles for the plant development and physiology," says Chen-Yu Zhang, a biochemist at Nanjing University in China and an author on the new study. "One set of the microRNA we tested is also important to the plant to make their flower bigger, more colorful."

And their past research also showed that differences in the plant RNA content of foods changed gene expression in honeybees and fruit flies. So they wondered: Could plant microRNAs influence development in honeybee larvae?

To answer the question, they created a synthetic beebread in the lab, adding microRNAs to it that they extracted from pollen in flowering plants. Larvae that ate this synthetic beebread weighed less, were shorter and had smaller ovaries compared with those that didn't eat it. In other words, they were more like worker bees.

And the larvae that were not fed beebread (with the added microRNAs) grew up to be more queenlike. They had bigger bodies and larger ovaries.

"Plant microRNAs really mediate the honeybee caste formation," says Zhang. The molecules seem to slow the growth of the bee larvae, keeping their ovaries so small that they are sterile.

Gene Robinson, director of a genomic biology institute at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, says this new study is exciting. It raises the possibility of a new component of honeybees' diets that might be influencing their social fate.

"As we've gone into the genomic era in the past 25 years, the interest increasingly is understanding the molecular basis for these nutritional effects," he says. But "exactly how are the substances in the bees' diets engaging with internal systems, molecular pathways, to actually flip the switch?"

The new study also looked at how these microRNAs could be affecting the bees' development. Their findings suggest that one of the microRNAs targets a specific gene called amTOR, which has been shown to influence the development of queen bees. They also suspect that other plant microRNAs and RNAs also influence bee development.

A big question about the new study is whether these small microRNA molecules can survive in the larvaes' digestive tracts long enough to alter gene expression. The researchers' previous work suggests they can, but some researchers have expressed doubt over their claims.

However, Zhang and his colleagues stress that RNAs are probably not the only factor determining a bee's fate. The nutritional content of royal jelly, for example, may also play a role in helping honeybee larvae become queens. And p-coumaric acid, another plant-based compound present in honey, also seems to change gene expression to nudge bee larvae toward developing into worker bees.

Robinson says future research on this topic should delve further into understanding how these plant microRNAs "take the long and winding road" to being eaten by bee larvae and then influencing gene expression in them. "That's an amazing journey," he says. "And so we need to understand that whole process."

Follow this link:
The Divisive Diet of Honeybees: Why Some Will Never Be Royals - NPR

The first time I went to an endometriosis support group, one word came up a lot: Diet. I quickly learned how certainfoods dictatethe symptoms we suffer, or worsen our condition. Glutenconsumption can lead to inflammation and bloating, coffee and dairy can wreak havoc on your hormones, red meat is a big fat no-no, and the list goes on.

For a while, I was reluctant to make huge changes to the way I ate. Why would anyone voluntarily give upextra-cheesy pizzas or banish ice cream from their freezers? Could Igive upmy morningcoffee? However,the worse I felt after eating certain foods, the more I thought about it. Now, its been four months since I decided to follow anendo diet. Following is what Ive learned:

Gone are the days when I could fixmyself a quick sandwich or grabanything on the go. My diet is almost completely plant-based and gluten-free. Lunch means coming up with ways of making bread usingwheat-free flours, rememberingnot to reach for cheese when thinking aboutsandwich fillers. I even cried about this two weeks ago first-world problems anyone? Mostpeople dont blink when choosingfood. Endometriosis will make youconsider eachingredient of every meal. Its fine if it makes you a bit cranky.

Most of the foods an endometriosis sufferer should avoid are the onesI love. I havent wiped out all of my favorites.Sometimes its cheese on my fries, others times its spoiling myself with a more digestible sourdough-based pizza. As long as Iconsider these as treats, its fine. The more tasty alternatives I find, the easier it becomes. Also, coconut-based ice cream is the work of gods.

Avoiding gluten or dairy left me less bloatedalmost overnight. However, it tooktwo months before I noticedany bigchanges to my general health. My energy levels are higher and the usualmidday slump seems to have gone. My daily bouts of nausea have practically disappeared, and during my period I now only spend one day in bed on average, instead of three or four.

You can still go out and enjoy life, but its helpful if you plan your outings. Look up menus online for gut-friendly options, and be prepared to talk about your dietary needs withothers. Not everyone will understand, but those who dont will just have to miss out on spending time with you and some really good food, because

I recently discovered a recipe for a vegan nut butter pie that tastes like Oreo cookies. Plant-based food has come a long way since we first began hearing about it. Recipesby fellow endo-sufferers, likeJessica Murnane, and countless gluten-free and veggie cookbooks make producing delicious dishes easy. (Word of warning: My kitchen has never been messier.)

Its not so much a diet, but a change in lifestyle. It took me a while to notice anychanges. But after four months, I dont miss the bloating or the stabbing pains in my stomach. The increase in my energy levels makes me see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Life with a chronic disease may be something I actually can do.

***

Note:EndometriosisNewsis strictly a news and information website about the disease. It does not provide medical advice,diagnosis, or treatment. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician orother qualified health providerwith any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website. The opinions expressed in this column are not those ofEndometriosisNewsor its parent company, BioNews Services, and are intended to spark discussion about issues pertaining to endometriosis.

Go here to read the rest:
After 4 Months on an Endometriosis Diet, Here's What I Learned - Endometriosis News Today

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