Merry Christmas to all!
—Italian proverb
Quote of the Day
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Filed under Quote of the Day
Rapper Fat Joe Loses 100 lb on Low-Carb Diet
Rapper Fat Joe is in a YouTube video talking about his 100-lb (45 kg) weight loss by eating low-carb. He’s not doctor, but he knows a lot about preventing diabetes and heart disease. He’s livin’ it.
h/t Tom Naughton
Filed under Inspiration
What About “The Biggest Loser”?
Probably not watching The Biggest Loser
Although not stressed by Dr. Sears, my impression is that contestants exercise a huge amount.
Go to the Sears link above and you’ll learn that all contestants are paid to participate. In researching my Conquer Diabetes and Prediabetes book, I learned that the actual Biggest Loser wins $250,000 (USD). Also, “The Biggest Loser” is an international phenomenon with multiple countries hosting their own versions, with different pay-off amounts. A former Biggest Loser, Ali Vincent, lives in my part of the world and still has some celebrity status.
This TV show demonstrates that the calories in/calories out theory of body weight still applies. Including the fact that massive exercise can help significantly with weight loss. In real-world situations, exercise probably contributes only a small degree to loss of excess weight. The major take-home point of the show, for me, is that you can indeed make food and physical activity choices that determine your weight.
Most of us watch too much
Filed under Exercise, Weight Loss
Your Tax Dollars At Work: FDA Warns HCG Marketers
"It's been three months. That HCG should kick in right about now."
I ran across a patient in the emergency department a couple months ago who coincidentally happened to be taking over-the-counter HCG oral drops for help with weight loss. She didn’t ask my opinion, so I didn’t give it.
Now the FDA has sent a stern warning letter to seven HCG diet marketers to cease and desist. I started seeing ads for homeopathic oral HCG at least a year ago. And the FDA is just now getting around to the letters?
The Science-Based Medicine blog can teach you about homeopathy.
Here’s a snippet from the first FDA link above:
Miller explains that HCG was first promoted for weight loss in the 1950s. “It faded in the 1970s, especially when it became apparent that there was a lack of evidence to support the use of HCG for weight loss,” she says.
The diet has become popular again and FDA and FTC are taking action on illegal HCG products. “You cannot sell products claiming to contain HCG as an OTC drug product. It’s illegal,” says Brad Pace, team leader and regulatory counsel at FDA’s Health Fraud and Consumer Outreach Branch. “If these companies don’t heed our warnings, they could face enforcement actions, legal penalties or criminal prosecution.”
You think these HCG marketers didn’t know from the git-go that what they were doing was illegal?
I’d have thought the FDA already had enough poop to start enforcement actions.
But what do I know?
Filed under Drugs for Diabetes, Weight Loss
What About Insulin Pumps?
Ever wonder what it’s like to get your insulin via a pump? Tim at Shoot Up or Put Up shares his year’s worth of pump experience with the world. Tim must have type 1 diabetes. He lives in the U.K., so you’ll see blood sugar levels in mmol/l instead of the U.S. standard of mg/dl. To convert mmol/l to mg/dl, multiply by 18.
Filed under Drugs for Diabetes
Does Olive Oil Protect Against Stroke?
Older adults with high olive oil consumption have a lower risk of stroke, according to French investigators.
The Mediterranean diet, rich in olive oil, has long been linked to lower rates of stroke and other health benefits. The French researchers wondered stroke prevention might be attibutable to higher olive oil consumption. Triglyceride esters of oleic acid comprise the majority of olive oil, and oleic acid blood levels reflect olive oil consumption.
Have you heard of monounsaturated fatty acids? Oleic acid is one.
Methodology
Over 7,000 older adults without history of stroke were surveyed with regards to olive oil consumption. Oleic acid plasma levels were measured in over a thousand of the study participants. Over the course of five years, 175 strokes occurred.
Compared with those who never used olive oil, those with the highest consumption had a 41% lower risk of stroke. The researchers made adjustments for other dietary variables, age, physical activity, and body mass index.
In looking at the plasma oleic acid levels, those in the highest third of levels had 73% lower risk of stroke compared to those in the lowest third.
Comments
Results suggest that the olive oil in the Mediterranean diet may help explain the diet’s protection against stroke. They also support my inclusion of olive oil in the Low-Carb Mediterranean Diet and Advanced Mediterranean Diet.
Reference: Samieri, C. et al. Olive oil consumption, plasma oleic acid, and stroke incidence: the Three-City Study. Neurology, Published online before print June 15, 2011, doi: 10.1212/WNL.0b013e318220abeb
Filed under Health Benefits, Mediterranean Diet, olive oil, Stroke
The Wonders of Olive Oil
Laura Dolson has posted a good article on olive oil: health benefits, types, selection, storage, and cooking tips.
Filed under olive oil
Reverse Diabetes in 30 Days With a Raw Vegan Diet. Really?
I wanted to share a link with you that’s a review of a documentary called “Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days.” It’s at Science-Based Medicine.
The guys over at Science-Based Medicine take a look at the evidence for and against such ideas as reiki, Chinese bloodletting, Chinese medicine, homeopathy, vaccines, vaccines and autism, integrative oncology, holistic medicine, naturopathy, complementary and alternative medicine, quackademic medicine, chelation therapy, and chiropractic.
Filed under Vegetarian Diet
Gluten-Free, Wheat-Free, Sugar-Free: “Low-Carbing Among Friends”
I’m very excited about a brand new cookbook for folks limiting their consumption of carbohydrates, wheat, and gluten. It’s a unique collaboration among five chefs (Jennifer Eloff, Maria Emmerrich, Carolyn Ketchum, Lisa Marshall, and Kent Altena) and other low-carb luminaries like Jimmy Moore and Dana Carpender. I was honored to contribute a couple pages myself. The book is Low-Carbing Among Friends, volume 1.
All 325 recipes limit digestible carbohydrates to a maximum of 10 grams; many have five or fewer grams. This should be great for people with diabetes and anyone trying to manage excess weight with low-carb eating. All recipes are gluten-free, wheat-free, and sugar-free.
I can’t wait for my copy. I’m “online friends” with several of the contributors, so I’m familiar with the great quality of their work. You can get the book at Amazon.com, but I ordered mine from the book’s website, figuring the authors make more profit there. (If we want good books, we have to support authors.) It’s not too late to order this as a Christmas present. Don’t you know someone who could use it?
Filed under Book Reviews, Carbohydrate
Is Exercise Supposed To Be Fun?
Exercise is not supposed to be fun. If it is, then you should suspect that something is wrong.
That quote is from an essay by Ken Hutchins posted at the Efficient Exercise website.
When I was a young man in my 30s, I was jogging 20 miles a week and ran a couple marathons (26.2 miles). I enjoyed it and didn’t do much else for exercise or overall fitness. I thought I was in pretty good shape. You can get away with that when you’re 35, but not when you’re 50. At 57 now, I can’t think of any single recreational activity that can help me maintain the overall strength, functionality, and injury resistance I want and need as I age.
I’ve come to view exercise as a chore, like flossing/brushing teeth, changing the oil in my car, and sleeping when I’d rather not. I’ve got my current exercise chore whittled down to an hour three times a week. OK, sometimes just twice a week.
Skyler Tanner takes a thoughtful and in-depth look at the exercise versus recreation dichotomy at his blog. If you have comments, more people will see them at his site than here.
Steve Parker, M.D.
Filed under Uncategorized
Diabetic Mediterranean Diet 