Two Really Great Reads

I don't often recommend books because, well, its 2020 and who reads books? I do though, and here are two really great ones that anyone interested in a long, healthy and happy life really ought to be reading.

"The Hacking of the American Mind" by Robert H Lustig, MD

The first half of the book is a little challenging, dealing as it does with the biochemistry of our brain and topics like pleasure vs happiness, addiction and stimulus-response. But the second half's detailed description of how corporations have applied neuroscience to manipulate our responses to their products and messages is a real page turner. Its scary stuff but in this case knowledge really is power.


"Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong about Everything? How the Famous Sell Us Elixers of Health, Beauty & Happiness" by Timothy Caulfield

An expose of the unholy alliance between Hollywood and Advertising that brings us irresistible science-free therapies, supplements, homeopathy, colonics and intravenous vitamins. Everything from the gluten free diet craze to Kim Kardashian's $500,000 social media posts. If you suspected that celebrity endorsements were mostly bogus, you were mostly right. But you had NO idea how far its gone.

Five Foods to Help You Not Feel Hungry

Despite what you might think from all of the miracle diet plans and no-lifestyle-change weight loss programs, the big secret to losing weight is to burn more calories than you take in. And there are two ways to do this: take in less or burn more. For most people a combination of both is the best approach.

One of the things that is probably going to doom your weight loss effort to eventual failure is to restrict your eating to the point where you are always hungry and can hardly think about anything else except for when you are allowed to have your next stick of celery. If you aren't feeling like you are getting enough to eat, your diet is not going to last. This is one reason why exercise is such an important part of successful weight loss, it lets you eat a bit more.

Here are five foods that will help you feel full longer and keep the hunger pangs at bay.

1. Avocados
    The oleic acid in an avocado is a fat contained in very few other
    foods. The body converts oleic acid into a compound that is
    believed to signal satiation (i.e., fullness) to the brain and a recent
    Italian study found that people who ate a breakfast high in oleic
    acid consumed about 250 fewer calories at lunch than those who
    did not. That adds up to about 1/2 pound lost per week, other
    things being equal.

2. Green Bananas
    Yes, green. Slightly unripened bananas contain a starch which is
    more resistant to digestion and acts to help stabilize blood sugar.
    If green is too hard for you, blend it into a smoothie and you won't
    be able to tell the difference.

3. Oatmeal
    No surprise here. Oatmeal's generous helping of both soluble and
    insoluble fiber slows digestion and will leave you feeling fuller for
    longer. I like to make it overnight in a slow cooker with eggnog
    and cranberries.

4. Soup
    The exact type doesn't matter all that much, just be careful of all
    of the sodium. A Penn State study found that people who start
    dinner with 150 calories of soup consumed fewer calories overall
    than those who went straight to the entree. Cream based soups
    are likely to surpass that 150 calorie threshold fast though.

5. Salmon
    Follow up that soup with with a serving of this healthy-fat rich
    fish. The combination of healthy Omega fats and high quality
    protein will make you feel fuller and more satisfied after your
    meal.

Don't starve yourself between meals either. Feel free to graze to keep the edge off any hunger pangs. Just be a little picky about what you snack on. Pretty much any fruits or vegetables are better than "snack food" (aka, crap) and there is plenty to choose from. Besides that celery stick, reach for cherry tomatoes, carrots, an apple or even a stick of mozzarella string cheese. Pick up some hummus as a dip. Vegetables are fiber rich and practically "free" from a calorie point of view.

Remember, if you are so hungry that all you can think about is food, your "diet" is doomed before you even get started.

Karing for Your Kidneys

You probably don't give your kidneys a lot of thought but they are crucial to your health and wellness. The kidneys filter waste out of the blood, help regulate blood pressure, control the production of red blood cells and regulate the concentration of electrolytes. Without them you die. And if they are compromised, you get ill, including high blood pressure, anemia and metabolic bone disease.  The final stage of kidney disease is kidney failure, dyalisis and/or a kidney transplant.

About 10% of Americans have chronic kidney disease (CKD), the 9th leading cause of death in the USA. Many more are at risk and most of them have no idea there is even any issue. As a result, few people take any precautions to keep their kidneys healthy or get any treatment if they are not until the damage is far progressed.

If you have any of the main risk factors for CKD (high blood pressure, diabetes, are over age 60, are of non-Caucasian descent, are overweight or obese or have a family history of CKD) you should speak with your doctor about testing.  A bi-annual Kidney Profile will reveal any problems.

In the meantime, there are a lot of things you can do to reduce your risk of developing CKD, including:

1. Over the Counter Medicines.
    NSAIDs such as Advil, Motrin and Aleve can raise your risk by
    20% if you take 8 or more standard doses a month. Long term
    use of PPIs like Nexium, Prevacid and Prilosec raise your risk
    nearly 30%. The key here is "long term". Don't use these drugs
    to mask problems, address the problem with your doctor.

2. Herbal and Dietary Supplements
    I am a fan of supplements, but because the industry is so
    casually regulated there is often only a fanciful correlation
    between what is on the label and what is in the bottle. So
    make sure you are getting your supplements from a reliable
    manufacturer and not whatever you find at the Dollar Store.
    Chinese yew extract, St. John's wort and wormwood are all
    suspected of causing kidney injuries in any doses. Again,
    check with your doctor or pharmacist.

3. Lifestyle (You knew I'd get around to this, right?)
    Too much protein - common in low-carb diets - especially from
    red and any processed meats will raise your CKD risk. White
    meats, fish and dairy protein do not seem to have as high a
    risk. Vegetable proteins may even be protective. The inorganic
    phosphorus used in many processed foods as a preservative is
    much more easily absorbed by the body than organic
    phosphorus (90% vs 60%) and the kidneys are taxed to remove
    the excess. (Excess phosphorus causes a host of problems in
    its own right.)

4. Chronic Air Pollution
    The Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (the kidney
    guys) estimated that 45,000 new cases of CKD are caused each
    year by long term exposure to small particle air pollution (the
    kind in chimney smoke and car exhaust). Further study is
    needed to understand the link but for now its one more reason
    to limit your exposure as much as possible.

Wishing you and your kidneys a long and happy life together!

Three Popular Myths About Water

First of all, there is nothing wrong with drinking water. In fact, almost everything about it is good. Most of us are dehydrated. If, like me, you live in a high altitude and low humidity region, you are probably much more dehydrated than you realize. You get used to it, but its neither normal nor healthy.

I thought I was drinking plenty of water, about 50oz a day. Recently during my annual physical I mentioned to my doctor that every now and then I felt a little lightheaded when suddenly rising or after some exertion. I expected a discussion of blood pressure. My doctors suggestion? Try drinking more water.

But water is big business. Bottled water is the #1 beverage product in the USA. Bigger than soda, bigger than bottled juices, tea or coffee. There is vitamin water, mineral water, carbonated water, flavored water and yes, even water water.

Here a couple of things about water you may not know.

1. Bottled water is not "healthier" than tap water.

Despite the glaciers and pristine snowfields on the label, the source for many - if not most - bottled brands is tap water. It may be purified, filtered and enhanced with various additives but at its heart it is just tap water. And because tap water comes from municipal suppliers it is subject to EPA standards and regulations. Suppliers are subject to their own standards and testing. And then there are all those plastic bottles - an emerging health issue in its own right.

Save your money. Save the planet.

2. You need to drink 8 glasses of water a day to stay healthy.

Lets assume that a "glass" is 8oz. That's 64 ounces a day. Maybe I do need to drink that much. But that doesn't mean its right for you. The "8 glasses a day" comes from a government recommendation issued in 1945.

There is no doubt that every cell in our body needs water to survive. But how much water depends on a multitude of factors including our height, weight, gender, activity level and environment. Want a simple test to see if you are getting enough? Look at your pee. If it is a light straw color, your are doing fine. If its a dark yellow, bottoms up.

3. You can't drink too much water.

Yeah, you can. Its even got a name (hyponatremia) and it can be life threatening. It occurs when you drink so much water that the sodium in your blood becomes diluted to dangerously low levels. (Yes, too little sodium is dangerous too.) Your body can process about 1 liter of water an hour when you are very active. That's a lot of water. To stay safe, think about a maximum 12oz of water for every 30 minutes you are working out or being physically active.

Would You Like Plastic With That?

In the 1967 film The Graduate, Walter Brook pulls Dustin Hoffman's character aside to give him some career advice. "I just want to say one word to you. Just one word." Hoffman listens attentively as he finishes, "Plastics".

In 1967 plastic was a booming chemical business with endless potential. Now, more than 50 years later, plastic is everywhere. It wraps our food - and just about everything else. It holds our drinks. It fills the stomachs of whales and kills them. It creates vast swirling garbage dumps in our oceans. And now it is, literally, becoming a part of us.

In a meta study by at the University of Victoria in British Columbia and published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, researchers concluded that, on average, Americans consume (as in eat) 70,000 plastic microparticles every year. These arise from our food and water containers, our water supply and even the air we breath.

The authors note that the health effects of all this plastic (the particles are really, really tiny) are not known. Most of the microscopic bits of plastic "probably" pass through us harmlessly because the are "indigestible". But because of their small size, it is possible that "some" may be absorbed. If only 1% of them manage to find their way into your body, that is about 35,000 of them since The Graduate premiered.

There is nothing illegal about plastic nor is there a proven link between plastic and health problems (unless you happen to be a fish). But perhaps it is time to consider consuming less of it. Do you really need plastic bottles of water? Why not get yourself a reusable metal one? Glass for our drinks? It works for beer, and its recyclable. Cardboard food packaging? The health risks are in addition to the very real disposal problems. Plastic lasts a really, really, really long time.

How much are you willing to risk for convenience?

Unfamiliar Variety

Potatoes are white. Carrots are orange. Bananas are yellow. Asparagus are green. Tomatoes are red. Everybody knows this. And its not wrong. Its just woefully incomplete.

If you have never tasted purple, blue, yellow or red potatoes you are missing out on a tasty change of pace. (And this does not even consider yams and sweet potatoes.) You can cook and eat them the same way as the familiar white potatoes you are used to but the flavor and nutritional content can be noticeably different. Purple potatoes, for example, have about four times the antioxidants of white potatoes.

Red bananas are shorter, plumper and heartier than the average yellow banana. When ripe, it will have a thick, brick red peel and ivory-hued semi soft flesh. Its flavor is sweet and creamy with raspberry highlights. The Red banana has more beta carotene and Vitamin C than yellow banana varieties.

The orange carrot is a relative newcomer. Long before orange, yellow and purple carrots were cultivated. The purple variety contains twice the beta-carotene of the orange.

In Europe, especially Germany, white asparagus (called spargel) is very common. It is very similar nutritionally to the green asparagus we are familiar with but it has a milder flavor which many people prefer.

What is better than a fresh red tomato right off the vine? Maybe try a purple tomato. They have a similar taste with somewhat firmer flesh and higher levels of several antioxidants. And a bonus feature: a longer shelf life.

You can find many of these, and other, varieties of familiar fruits and vegetables in most supermarkets these days. Go ahead and give them a try. Worst case, your plate becomes a lot more colorful.

Health or Hype?

Judging from the packaging and advertising I see, pretty much all food is now healthy, good for you, and backed by "clinical research" that proves it. Even ice cream now boasts of its fiber, and foods with the tiniest trace of some trendy new "superingredient of the month" boast about it as though there were enough of it in their product to make any difference.

For decades, food industry organizations have supplied substantial amounts of cash to fund studies of the health and wellness impact of their products. Just last year Ocean Spray committed $10 million to study the antimicrobal properties of cranberries. Pom Wonderful has spent $35 million on pomegranate research, sparking endless reviews hailing the fruits' antioxidant benefits. It also sparked a warning from the FDA to stop making health claims that the research did not substantiate but somehow that did not generate the same media interest.

Here's the thing. Just because a study is funded by the industry does not invalidate the study. But you need to be wary and skeptical. Any study can be designed to produce the result desired. A New York University review of 168 food industry funded studies found that 156 of them (93%) drew conclusions favorable to their sponsors. "There may be a rare case when a company is motivated by a concern for public health or to advance nutrition science," says Bonnie Liebman, Director of Nutrition at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "But overall, the purpose of this research is marketing, not science."

Whenever you see claims being made based on "studies", you need to do your part in weeding out the credible from the false. And your very first question should be "Who paid for this study?"

Stunning Research Result on Weight Loss

The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition has just published the results of a research study of weight loss. The researchers randomly assigned over 170 people who were sedentary and already overweight or obese to one of three supervised exercise regimens:

Group A maintained their current habits.
Group B burned roughly 100 extra calories a day doing simple things
              like walking more.
Group C burned roughly 250 extra calories a day by doing light
              exercises.

After maintaining the program for six months, Group A participants had lost 1/2 pound - well within the margin of error. Group B participants had lost about a pound while Group C had lost 3 1/2 pounds.

But based on the calories expended, Group B should have lost about 3 pounds and the Group C participants about 6. What happened? The people in Groups B and C "compensated" for the extra work by eating more.

The studies remarkable conclusion? If you want to lose weight, eat less. Seriously. It was a real, funded study. So there you have it. Fewer calories in than calories out equals less weight. Who would have guessed?

Obesity and Cancer Rates Rise in Lock Step

I like graphs. Pictures just seem to make things clearer to me than the numbers often do. I recently saw a graph that showed rates of obesity in the USA over the last 20 years. (Sorry about all the annoying popups. I don't really get how advertisers conclude that annoying people sells more stuff.) One particularly troubling aspect of this graph is the rise in obesity among our youth.

In fact, the rates of several cancers linked to obesity are on the rise among people ages 25 to 49 much faster than among older populations.

Between 1995 and 2014 the annual rates of gallbladder, pancreatic, uterine and colorectal cancers rose about 4% among 25 to 29 year olds. Kidney cancer risk was up about 6%. This is eerily in sync with the rise in obesity rates.

Now this doesn't prove that obesity causes higher cancer rates. But along with all the other problems caused by - lets be politically incorrect for a moment - being fat (high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea and more) here is one more reason to put an end to it.

At the end of the day, obesity is very much under our own control. The choices we make, the lives we live. Like Eric Cartman, we can blame it on being "big boned" and keep stuffing ourselves with crap food, or we can take control and eat ourselves healthy and slim.

The choice is yours.