So today I was simply planning on writing about one of my new favorite grocery store finds – hybrid fruits. I will get to those in a moment, but something was brought to my attention this morning that was so earth-shatteringly (is that even a word?) stupid I was at a loss for words.
Nate Tipilady, the guy you see beating up EC with the Graston tools on EC’s website, sent me this article from sciencedaily.com. The article essentially states that scientists have determined that taking a daily statin will off-set the cardiovascular disease risk increase associated with fast-food consumption. Due to this false assumption, they recommend that statins should be given away for free at fast food restaurants like condiments!
After reading the entire article I was prepared to write an absolutely scathing retort to all of the bullshit spewed in it. Fortunately Stephan over at wholehealthsource did it for me, and essentially took the words right out of my mouth. I highly encourage you to read the article and then read Stephan’s response, as he sheds some light onto the false statements, and points out that it is so ridiculous, he hopes that the authors are just being facetious. I for one surely hope so.
- Note - Stephan is actually responding to the editorial in the American Journal of Cardiology that the article was based on, not the article itself.
Below are my two favorite points that he makes about the editorial.
“They assume the risk of heart attack conveyed by eating fast food is due to its total and trans fat content, which is simplistic. To support that supposition, they cite one study: the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (2). This is one of the best diet-health observational studies conducted to date. The authors of the editorial appear not to have read the study carefully, because it found no association between total or saturated fat intake and heart attack risk, when adjusted for confounding variables. The number they quoted (relative risk = 1.23) was before adjustment for fiber intake (relative risk = 1.02 after adjustment), and in any case, it was not statistically significant even before adjustment. How did that get past peer review? Answer: reviewers aren’t critical of hypotheses they like.
Statins mostly work in middle-aged men, and reduce the risk of heart attack by about one quarter. The authors excluded several recent unsupportive trials from their analysis. Dr. Michel de Lorgeril reviewed these trials recently (3). For these reasons, adding a statin to fast food would probably have a negligible effect on the heart attack risk of the general population.”
Anywho, back to the original blog for today, the amazing and delicious hybrid fruits.
I had seen some of these fruits in the supermarket before, but had never tried one. A few weeks ago when camping with my long-time friends on the beautiful Saco river one of them was eating a pluot, and said it was absolutely fantastic.
A pluot is a pretty complicated fruit hybrid that has many varities created over generations of cross-breeding. The pluot is not to be confused with the plumcot, which is a simple plum and apricot hybrid and is a 50-50 split between the two.
A pluot is a cross between a plumcot and another plum, and so can be anywhere from 60-40 to 75-25 plum to apricot. This second cross-breeding allows for a lot of different varieties and makes the fruit sweeter than a plumcot.
Either way they looked juicy and sweet and really intrigued my wife and I. So of course when we returned home we bought and tried some, and I must say, they are absolutely awesome. They combine the best parts of a plum and an apricot, are sweet but not overlyso, high in fiber, potassium and antioxidants.
A week or so later we came across a variety that was called a Mango Tango pluot. This was a pluot that was supposed to have a slight mango taste to it. While the mango taste was rather mild, the pluot itself was incredibly juicy and delicious.
The next time you are in the grocery store, do yourself a favor and pick up some pluots to keep your fruit intake varied and interesting. I promise you won’t be disappointed.
I have some neat stuff to blog about today. It isn’t in any particular order, just some interesting things that I wanted to tell you guys.
1. I am heading down to CP this coming Saturday. I will be there all day from 9-2, coaching and helping out. If you are in the area come get a lift in, it will be a good time.
2. I saw Inception this weekend. All I have to say is it was absolutely mind-blowing. The creativity of Chris Nolan is astounding. How do people come up with stories like that?
The story was fascinating, the acting excellent, the direction and visual effects spot on. It did drag just a little in a few spots for me, but overall an A.
On the same note my wife and I were talking about it after we saw it, and I mentioned how it was one of those rare movies that immediately after you see it you want to watch it again because you know there are so many more details you will pick up the second time around, and you will enjoy it just as much, like the first time I saw The Matrix or The Usual Suspects.
She mentioned that she had never seen The Matrix, which absolutely blew my mind. So of course we immediately sat down to watch it, and I must say as much as I love that movie, it is amazing how the its visual effects have aged.
I hope that the critical and commercial success of Inception causes Hollywood to start making more movies like this, creative thinking-man movies rather than recycling the same shit over and over again.
3. I had one of the best nights sleep of my life last night. Like I mentioned the other day I use a dawn simulator to wake up naturally. One of my readers mentioned that his favorite function of those clocks is the dusk simulator that will slowly darken the room, mimicking the sunset rather than the sunrise to help you fall asleep.
I had never used that function before, so I decided to give it a try. It was glorious. I passed out as the light decreased and when I woke with the light of the dawn simulation (before the alarm) I thought it was the sunset turning off! I had slept so soundly that I hadn’t moved an inch all night. I woke up fresh and rested.
It makes me love my dawn simulator even more, and I can’t recommend it enough to help you fall asleep and wake up as we were meant to.
So some random tidbits from my life, but I thought it was some pretty interesting stuff.
While I am of the mind that quality of carbs is just as important, if not more so, than quantity of carbs, I do recognize the fact that low-carb diets work well for a lot of people, and can be especially beneficial as a dietary intervention in people with certain conditions (like diabetes and epilepsy).
A low-carber's dream
Unfortunately people like the American Dietetic Association (of which I am a part of) and a lot of MDs have warned us of the “dangers” of a low-carb, high-fat, high-protein diet. You know like potential kidney damage, increased cardiovascular disease risk from that extra dietary fat, and other non-sense that has just not been found to be true yet is somehow taught in nutrition undergrad courses and written about incessantly.
Maybe these RDs are just afraid that their constant recommendations of high-carb low-fat diets will be shown to be no more beneficial or safe than other methods?
Thankfully actual research is being done on the topic, and it is showing that low-carb diets are actually not dangerous. Shocking, I know.
Recently a two year study was conducted comparing a low-carb Atkins style diet to an ADA recommended low-fat low-calorie diet. The researchers measured weight loss, HDL (the “good” cholesterol) and other markers of health in 307 adults.
At the end of two years both groups lost the same amount of weight on average – about 15lbs. The biggest difference between the two groups was actually in cardiovascular disease risk.
If you had asked a traditional MD or RD which group would decrease its cardiovascular disease risk the most after this trial, they undoubtedly would have answered with the low-fat group. Obviously, its low-fat, and fat contributes to heart disease right?
Surprisingly, this study found that the low-carb dieters increased their HDL by 23%, which is comparable to the boost from a lot of pharmaceuticals. Both groups had equal improvements in LDL, which I am sure would surprise a lot of traditionalists as well, since the low-carb group most definitely are more fat and more saturated fat, and saturated fat raises LDL and therefore heart disease risk right? Hhmmm…
There was an initial rise in LDL in the low-carb group, but by the two year mark this had dropped and their LDL levels were equal to the low-fat group. This is expected as the body adjusts to the increase in saturated fat and cholesterol in the diet, and this has been discussed ad nauseum over at wholehealthsource.
The moral of the story is that if you choose to eat a low carb diet for whatever reason, as long as you choose real whole foods you will markedly improve your health and not increase your cardiovascular disease risk.
I came across some really interesting new research that I thought I would share with you guys.
There was a recent study looking at the effects of green and black tea, as well as rooibos tea on angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE). I have written about tea many times, check here and here for more.
On a quick aside, my favorite rooibos tea (above) was ranked as the best rooibos tea on realsimple.com. Check out their list of best teas.
Angiotensin-converting enzyme has two main functions: converting angiotensin I to angiotensin II and to degrade bradykinin. This is a problem because angiotensin II constricts blood vessels and bradykinin relaxes blood vessels.
As such ACE inhibition is a goal in the treatment of many conditions: high blood pressure, heart failure, diabetic nephropathy, and type 2 diabetes.
The problem is there are many problems associated with ACE inhibitors: hypotension, cough, hyperkalemia, fatigue, and renal impairment. Renal impairment is a problem with all ACE inhibitors, with no known cause. This can be especially problematic when taken in conjunction with NSAIDs and a diuretic there is a very high possibility of going into renal failure.
As such it is important to know which real whole foods can impart some of the benefits of ACE inhibitors, without the side effects (this is true of all drugs really).
This study had patients drink 400ml of green, black or rooibos tea once daily. It then monitored ACE activity for up to 3 hours after consumption.
It was found that green tea and especially rooibos tea significantly inhibited ACE activity. While this does not definitely show that consumption of green and rooibos tea can be used to replace ACE inhibitors, it does show that they might help in the treatment of high blood pressure and can be used as part of a dietary intervention before putting someone on powerful ACE inhibitors.
More research is needed to see how much this ACE inhibition actually contributes long-term benefits, but the results are promising none the less.
Here is the study abstract if you want to take a look at it yourself.
A former client sent me an interesting article about exercise. We have known for a long time now that exercise is the closest thing we have to a fountain of youth.
Exercise improves quality of life in innumerable ways. It improves cognitive function, cardiovascular health, improves blood vessel function, improves mood and decreases risks for a plethora of diseases.
Even knowing all that, we still have never really known why exercise works. What is it that it actually does to drastically improve our health?
This article on boston.com delves into some new research on that very topic. It is just scratching the surface, but already revealing some interesting facts about the benefits of exercise.
These researchers have looked at exercise and found that there are 21 metabolites in the blood stream that respond to exercise. They also found that fit people respond to exercise differently than unfit people.
Of these 21 molecules some of they indicate how carbohydrates, sugar and fat are oxidized as fuel, while others are involved in controlling insulin levels and cellular stress. Clearly this makes tremendous sense, since we know that exercising will improve glucose tolerance, insulin sensitivity, decrease fasting glucose and insulin and is associated with longer life expectancies.
The scientists took blood from people before and after the 2006 Boston Marathon, as well before, during and after subjects rode exercise bikes or ran on treadmills.
They measured the changes in 200 metabolites, and by finding which ones responded to exercise they pulled back the curtain a little bit on why exercise is so good for us.
They found that fit people and unfit people had different responses. Fit people had levels of glycerol twice as high as unfit people as well as higher levels of niacinamide. Glycerol is the backbone of fatty acids, and is released into the blood stream when these fatty acids are oxidized as fuel. Niacinamide is involved in regulating insulin levels.
There are many more questions to be answered, but “The studies to date are really what we like to think of [as] the first comprehensive chemical snapshot of exercise,’’ said Dr. Robert Gerszten, senior author of the paper and director of clinical and translational research for the MGH Heart Center.
Now that I have had a little time to catch my breath this week, and actually get in three quality training sessions, I have been able to not only blog consistently, but do a little reading as well.
I love reading blogs as I find they can often offer little tidbits of wisdom that often get lost in long overly-written articles. Plus often times the comments sections can offer just as much if not more than the blog itself.
Below are some of my favorites from the past week or so, check em out and let me know what you think!
On an aside, I hadn’t really done much foam rolling, ok any at all, since I moved back to Maine. My gym doesn’t have any foam rollers, lame I know, and mine has just been sitting on the porch where I keep planning on using it but never getting around to it. A lazy hypocrite I know. Well my knees have been a little creaky lately and I figured that it is probably because I have let my tissue quality go to shit.
So last night I busted out the foam roller and my oh my was I in for some fun. My body hated me. My upper back, lats, pecs, and especially my vmo’s and adductor magnus lit up like a Christmas tree. I can’t even tell you how much better and more free I felt after that rolling session and some targeted stretching. I have decided to make this a 5 minute morning habit.
For all of you out there slacking on the foam rolling, I can’t encourage you enough to hop on. It will make a world of difference.
For more reading on vitamin K2, check out one of my favorite blogs, as he wrote about it here.
The China Study: Fact or Fallacy? – Denise Minger. Denise goes into great depth and detail, as she crunched the data of the massive China Study herself! Performing some actual statistics on the raw data, she came to some very different conclusions than our dear Dr. Campbell. This is one hell of a read, but if you are someone who has any interest in the China Study, it is well worth your time.
Best. Ad. Campaign. EVER – Tony Gentilcore. This blog is just plain awesome, and it makes me chuckle. Tony delivers one of his most simple yet entertaining blogs that I feel is really pertinent to the training world, and women in general. Give it a read and let me know if your favorite line is the same as mine “Why not just get a 2×4 and put a dress on it?”
Q. What are you thoughts on “Cheat” meals? How often do you go off your diet with such a meal? Can you give an example of such a meal?
My thoughts on cheat meals are myriad. It can vary from person to person really. Some people when they have a cheat meal can enjoy the meal, recognize that it wasn’t a part of their normal food intake, be ok with that, and move on. Others start a cheat meal, and just the thought of cheating makes them feel guilty, so they cheat some more, turn it into an 6,000 calorie extravaganza and then go a week long binge.
Cheat Meal
Ok, maybe that was a little extreme, but you get my point. One person has a healthy relationship with food, the other person clearly does not, so I think it all depends on how you respond to a cheat meal. Some people do better not really cheating for months until they feel like they are truly on a roll and are comfortable with what they eat. In the Precision Nutrition Lean Eating program they interviewed some winners and contestants, and many of them said they were at their best when they didn’t cheat at all. They didn’t feel restricted because they had such a wide variety of real whole food available to them, and took advantage of it.
Now not everyone is like that. I for one prefer to cheat from time to time, as I dislike being “that guy” at social settings. Now there are times when I am “that guy”, bringing grass-fed beef hamburgers and Ezekiel buns, but there are other times when I eat hot dogs and drink beer too. Just enjoy it, and move on. Maybe even compensate. If you know this meal is going to give you probably twice as many calories as a normal meal, just eat one less meal that day, or cut away from a few others. It isn’t that hard and it doesn’t have to be precise to the exact calorie, it just helps mitigate any potential damage.
My hamburger bun of choice
The point is that the real key is developing a healthier relationship with food (which is beyond the scope of this blog). It also helps to know that one meal is not going to make or break your progress. Being obsessive over every food and calorie you consume is counter productive, so enjoy some treats from time to time, you will live to tell about it I promise.
As for how often, I prefer you keep it under 10% of the time. If you eat real whole food 90% of the time, and allow yourself some exceptions that other 10%, you will be just fine.
Q. What are your thoughts on intermittent fasting or short duration fasting? I recently fasted on Homemade Bone Broth and Kvass for 3 days and feel the benefits.
I honestly really don’t even know what to think. I am sure it works, just like most dieting strategies, but I just don’t know how practical it is. Especially with a family. How many family meals do you have to endure watching everyone else eat while you fast?
I just dislike the mindset of dieting more and more. While there are places and times for things like Warp Speed, and maybe IF, I don’t think they are easily sustained lifestyles. To some people they are, to the vast majority, I leaning towards a no. I also think eating 6-8 times a day, ala the strict bodybuilding protocol, is also impractical and probably even less effective. I prefer people eat 4-5 times per day.
I can’t emphasize enough how much I think just eating real whole food makes all the difference. Maximizing your nutrient density and expending more than you consume are the real keys my friend. While there is more than one way to skin a cat, I find IF, while it may work, to be far more complicated than just focusing on food selection and size.
If a client really prefers to only eat 3 times per day, from whole foods, and meets their caloric, macronutrient, micronutrient and fruit and veggies needs, then I really have no issue with it. If you can meet all of your needs doing IF, then I really don’t have an issue with it either.
My problem is people making ridiculous statements like breakfast is bad for you (there was a recent article about it). I mean really? Maybe it doesn’t work for some people sure, but bad for us as a whole? Ridiculous.
I guess what really bothers me about IF is that people who follow it make it out to be the holy grail and there is nothing better. It is merely a means to an end, and people have lost weight successfully on tons of different methods, so I just dislike the mentality of this way is the best way and therefore the only way.
The real key is finding what works best for you, your schedule, etc. As long as you focus on real food and meet all your needs, then have at it.
A lot of writers have spent a lot of time providing people with proper habits to improve their sleep quality.
Since most American adults do not get the optimal 7-9 hours of sleep per night this can contribute to many health issues including:
increased blood pressure
increased risk of diabetes
confusion or cognitive impairment
obesity
poor attention span and more
Clearly this is not something that should be taken lightly, which is why so many writers have written so extensively about creating proper sleeping habits like:
make a nightly routine
don’t read, eat or watch tv in bed
make your room is as dark as possible
run a fan or other source of white noise
I think these are all important and helpful tips. To that I would add look into supplements like ZMA and Z-12 by Biotest. While I do not recommend taking them every night, we don’t want you to feel like you need them to sleep, they will absolutely improve your sleep quality. I am especially a fan of Z-12, and I find I feel more refreshed on nights I take it. If I know I am going to get less than 7 hours of sleep that night, then I definitely take it to ensure the sleep I do get is of the highest quality.
Now as important as all these tips are I have one problem with this. No one ever addresses tips on how to wake up. We have evolved to sleep and wake on the schedule of the sun. Making our room as dark as possible is wonderful for falling and staying asleep, but it is definitely counter productive when trying to wake. I actually have a hard time waking when it is too dark in my room, because my body still thinks it is night out.
Waking up to a screeching alarm is not a refreshing way to wake either. It jolts you out of bed and jacks up your fight or flight response, disorienting you.
I have found a much better way to wake up in a calm and more evolutionary correct manner. Instead of using a traditional alarm clock, I use a clock called a dawn simulator. Instead of a blaring alarm to jar me out of sleep, it slowly emits light over a chosen period of time until it fully illuminates the room, waking me up naturally. It is glorious. It also has a backup alarm in case the light doesn’t wake you, but it is not blaring. It is a soft beep that slowly gets louder with each beep to rouse you slowly.
I personally use a Biobrite dawn simulator, though I know there are a few other brands out there. I would highly recommend it, especially for those of you like me, who have to get up really early in the morning before the sun rises, especially in the dark and gloomy New England winters.
While maximizing sleep quality is incredibly important, I think the often-neglected topic of the proper way to wake up can make a huge difference in how you start your day. Get a dawn simulator and try it for yourself!
A reader of mine sent me this video from CBS about the dangers of protein powders. It only takes about 4 minutes, so give it a quick watch, I’ll wait.
The video is based on a report on protein powders and ready-made protein drinks from Consumer Reports, which showed some protein powders failing quality testing due to excessive amounts of arsenic, cadmium and lead. You can take a look at that report yourself right here.
After looking over that report you can see there are a few problems with it. It is based on people consuming 3 servings of the protein product daily. Not necessarily 3 scoops, but 3 servings, which is a lot. In reality many of these products make their serving sizes larger to seem like they provide greater amounts of protein, when in reality on a per gram of product basis, they are all pretty similar.
This can be misleading when looking over this report, as 3 servings should be anywhere from 60-75 grams of protein. You can see that many of these products far exceed that. GNC Wheybolic, which is a very popular product with high school athletes, contains 180 grams of protein in 3 servings! This is because 3 scoops equals 1 serving, which is ridiculous. Kids get it because they think it provides them with so much more protein, when in reality it is simply a larger serving size.
All three products that failed the testing were larger than normal serving sizes, providing 96, 96, and 126 grams of protein in “3″ servings. To me this slightly confounds the data, as the products should have been compared on an equal gram to gram basis. I understand that doesn’t necessarily reflect real life consumption as people consume the protein on suggested serving sizes not x number of grams, but I hope that people are not really consuming 9 scoops of GNC Wheybolic to meet their protein needs.
In reality people should look to real whole food to supply the vast majority of their protein needs, with protein powders like whey helping to round out intake. Whey protein is actually chock full of health benefits, and is actually the subject of my next article.
Whey is loaded with BCAAs, glutamic acid, cysteine, immunoglobulins, lactoferrin, alpha-lactalbumin and glycomacropeptides which all contribute significantly to our immune system, so it is not some dangerous and deadly food when consumed from quality sources in reasonable amounts.
Now I think it is important that we test these products to ensure they do not contain high amounts of heavy metals. I would also discourage people from consuming more than 40-50 grams of protein from powders anyway, whether from a high quality whey or not. While whey does contain many immuno-supportive properties, other protein sources contain valuable vitamins, minerals, fatty acids and other nutrients that are also necessary for optimal health.
The video goes on to list some of the “dangers” of excess protein – dehydration, digestive problems, increased risk of osteoporosis, complications for people with kidney problems. Lets look at these one at a time shall we?
First off, what is excess protein anyhow? This is not clearly defined in any way in the video. It is just some abstract statement with no qualification, aimed at making people believe that protein powder is deadly.
Dehydration due to protein consumption – While there is some limited research on this topic, it is scant at best. This idea is mainly from one study on military personnel on a water-restricted diet, clearly this does not apply to normal people and normal fluid intake. This is also related to the unsubstantiated but often-reported belief that excess protein damages the kidneys. Neither one has any actual science behind it, so why does it persist in the media?
On a side note, athletes and exercise enthusiasts have been consuming high protein diets for decades without any noted increases in kidney problems or dehydration. While only empirical, it still seems reasonable that if high protein diets truly caused dehydration and kidney problems, it would have been actually reported by now. Maybe this is because the kidneys are an incredibly adaptive piece of machinery, that attenuate change in protein intake. Hmm, what a concept.
Digestive problems? – I could not find anything on this in the literature, and seems to be based solely on ancedotal evidence to me. Does all protein cause digestive problems, or merely protein “drinks”, the video does not specify. In none of the studies, reviews or position statements I looked at is this even addressed, so it seems to be so small a concern to not even be considered in a review of high protein consumption and potential health effects. If a particular protein causes you GI distress, choose another protein source, it is that simple.
Increased risk of osteoporosis – This statement is based on early research that showed that people with high protein intakes had higher urine acidity that also appeared to linked to the leaching of calcium from bones to buffer this increased acidity. These studies were of poor design, with tiny sample sizes and using pure forms of isolated protein. This is not realistic as even conventional protein powders, especially whey, have calcium and other bone-supporting nutrients still intact. It has been more recently shown with higher quality research that the phosphate content of high protein foods negates this potential issue. The main reason why people on higher-protein diets excrete more calcium is because they consume more calcium, not because their bones are weakening. In the elderly, where risk of osteoporosis is a large issue, it is recommended that they exceed the RDA for protein intake of 0.8g/kg up to 1.0-1.2g/kg to maintain bone mass. International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: protein and exercise.It has also been shown that when calcium and vitamin D intake are adequate, protein intake is actually beneficial to bone health. Interaction of dietary calcium and protein in bone health in humans.
Complications for people with kidney problems - OK my first beef with this point is that the writing on the screen differed in a small but significant way from the reading of the reporter, as she stated that excess protein can “for some people cause kidney problems.” That vague statement makes it sound as if just about anybody could develop kidney problems from excessive protein intake. When in reality, unless you have a pre-existing kidney condition, this is not the case. Here is a free pubmed article that looks at the state of the literature on the topic, and declares this to be a non-issue. Dietary protein intake and renal function. I will say it again, according to the numerous studies on the topic, unless you have a pre-existing kidney condition you are at no risk of kidney problems from increased protein consumption. Period.
As someone who has suffered from dry skin in the past, I am always looking for ways to improve it. I use a filtering showerhead, which works very well. I also consume plenty of healthy fats, including fish oil and borage oil, which both have made significant contributions.
Unfortunately I still found when I showered more than once in a day, my skin would still get pretty dry. I mentioned this once talking to Cassandra Forsythe, and she recommended I check out Kettlepot Soaps.
These have been absolutely amazing. These soaps are handmade right in CT, from natural oils and fragrances with no harsh detergents. I bought them for my wife as a small gift the first time we bought them, and she absolutely loved them.
“All bar soaps are made with top-quality base oils (olive, palm, coconut, soybean and canola), essential oils, fragrance oils, natural pigment colors, herbs, flower petals and more. Bars are hand-cut and wrapped in pretty, coordinating fabric. Each mild bar is rich in olive oil and glycerin to produce a creamy, cleansing lather.”
These bars do come really nicely wrapped and presented, and make a nice gift for the ladies. All you guys out there take note.
Needless to say these bars have made a tremendous difference to my skin, especially during the end of winter. They make you smell clean and fresh, yet leave your skin moist. Some of our favorites have been: Oakwood Sandalmoss, Oatmeal Milk & Honey, Cool Cocoa Mint, and Dragon’s Blood.
Posted on August 13th, 2010 by Brian St. Pierre
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