Eat black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day for good luck in the coming year, at least if you live in the southern U.S. where I grew up. In the Deep South, add pork and collard greens. In some parts of Italy they eat lentils instead, for financial prosperity. Lentils look a bit like coins. In [...]
Entries from December 2009
December 28, 2009
Mea Culpa: Average Holiday Weight Gain Not as High as I Thought
Travis Saunders at the Obesity Panacea blog notes that average weight gain in adults over the Thanksgiving (U.S.)–Christmas–New Years’ season seems to be on the order of 0.8 pounds or 0.37 kg. Data are from a 2000 article in the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers weighed 195 Americans throughout the year. My quick search at PubMed.gov found no better or [...]
December 27, 2009
Mediterranean Diet Linked to Lower Stomach Cancer Risk
The Mediterranean diet is associated with a 33% reduction in stomach cancer, according to a study just published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Stomach cancer (aka gastric cancer) is uncommon in the U.S. Most cases are advanced and incurable at the time of diagnosis. So prevention is ideal. European investigators studied 485,000 people over the [...]
December 22, 2009
Top 10 Diabetes Superfoods
The American Diabetes Association has published a list of Top 10 Diabetes Superfoods. They share a low glycemic index and provide key nutrients, according to the ADA. Click the link for details. Here they are in no particular order: beans dark green leafy vegetables citrus fruit sweet potatoes berries tomatoes fish high in omega-3 fatty acids whole [...]
December 21, 2009
Mediterranean Cookbooks for Health and Longevity
Here are some Christmas gift book suggestions for someone trying to eat healthier via the Mediterranean diet. The Mediterranean Heart Diet: How It Works and How to Reap the Health Benefits, with Recipes to Get You Started by Helen V. Fisher. [More than 140 delicious and healthy recipes from an experienced cookbook author and a doctorate-level [...]
December 18, 2009
Low-Carb Killing Spree Continues
Low-fat and low-carb diets produce equal weight loss and improvements in insulin resistance but the low-carb diet may be detrimental to vascular health, according to a new study in Diabetes. Methodology Researchers in the the UK studied 24 obese subjects—15 female and 9 male—randomized to eat either a low-fat (20% fat, 60% carbohydrate) or low-carb (20% carb, 60% fat) diet [...]
December 14, 2009
More Coffee, Less Diabetes
Coffee drinking is associated with lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to the current issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. Tea and decaffeinated coffee seem to have the same effect. Each additional daily cup of coffee reduced the risk by seven percent. These beverages may have one or more phytochemicals that that alter blood sugar physiology. [...]
December 9, 2009
Book Review: Good Calories, Bad Calories
Here’s my review of good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease, by Gary Taubes, 2007. I give it five stars on Amazon.com’s five-star system (“I love it”). ♦ ♦ ♦ This brilliant book deserves much wider currency among physicians, dietitians, nutritionists, and obesity researchers. The epidemic of overweight and [...]
December 8, 2009
Saturated Fat is Bad – If You’re a Mouse!
I was excited to see an article, “A Look at the Low-Carbohydrate Diet,” in the December 3, 2009, New England Journal of Medicine. I was quickly disappointed. Expecting a scholarly review of low-carb eating in humans, I found an exposition of a diet study in mice. And not just your garden-variety mice. These were a lab strain [...]
December 8, 2009
Healthy Eating Guide from Darya Pino
Darya Pino, founder of Summer Tomato, has generously offered her new guide, “How to Get Started Eating Healthy,” to anyone who wants it, gratis. I’ve not read the guide yet, but I’m very familiar with Darya’s work at Summer Tomato. I’m sure her guide is well done and her suggestions would be a vast improvement over the standard [...]
