Posts Tagged ‘eating’

Diabetics low-carb it for results; the proof is in the way it lowers insulin resistance and enables weight loss. A low-carb diet restricts the amount of refined carbohydrates, which alone is worth the effort. The best part it leaves you satisfied. Hunger isn’t your constant companion.

Diabetic Study

Obese women with insulin resistance lose more weight after three months on a lower-carbohydrate diet than on a traditional low-fat diet with the same number of calories, according to a new study. The results were presented at The Endocrine Society’s 92nd Annual Meeting in San Diego.

“The typical diet that physicians recommend for weight loss is a low-fat diet,” said the study’s lead author, Raymond Plodkowski, MD, chief of endocrinology, nutrition, and metabolism at the University of Nevada School of Medicine, Reno. “However, as this study shows, not all people have the same response to diets.”

People with insulin resistance, a common precursor for Type 2 diabetes, metabolize carbohydrates, or “carbs,” abnormally, which may affect their rate of weight loss. For them, Plodkowski said, “the lower-carb diet is more effective, at least in the short term.”

Super Booster

This way of eating shouldn’t be thought of as a super booster for accelerated weight loss. For diabetics this would help stabilize and reverse the effects of the condition.

The composition of the low-fat diet was 60 percent calories from carbs, 20 percent from fat and 20 percent from protein. The lower-carb diet also had 20 percent of calories from protein, it had 45 percent from carbs and 35 percent from primarily unsaturated fats, such as nuts. Menus included a minimum of 2 fruits and 3 vegetable servings a day.

The way they did the study was to use a high percent of carbs in the diet. The low-fat diet with 60 percent of the diet in carbohydrates is a study in disaster. Elimination of all refined carbohydrates is really the name of the game. Whole food healthy eating works. A diet high in vegetables and fruit will provide the fiber and some carbohydrates. It is not a matter of low carbohydrates only, it is where are your getting them from.

It is strange how cake, cookies, pie, white bread, white rice, and sugar are called carbohydrates. That would imply that they are food of some sort. This is where the problem  is. A low fat diet consists of low fat dairy high in sugar, and low fat cookies full of sweetners. The truth is it is easier to overeat when presented with these items. They make you hungry and play games with your endocrine, cardiovascular, brain function, and energy level.

Achieving Health

Achieving health the low-carb way is to unleash your internal defenses with plant compounds found in vegetables and fruit, and Omega-3 fatty acids in whole foods such as grass-fed meat.

Calories count on the path to longevity. Most of us know the phase you are what you eat. This says you are also what you don’t eat.

Calorie Restriction

Calorie restriction is more than a way of cutting calories. People who practice this also eat a nutrient dense diet. It has been found that in less complex organisms restricting calories can double or even triple lifespan. With the human population there are indications that this has a profound effect. These are not formal studies, but from interviews of people who have remained healthy and reached 100 years plus.

In a review article in Science, Nutrition, and Longevity researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, University College in London and the Andrus Gerontology Center at the University of Southern California, reports that calorie restriction influences the same handful of molecular pathways related to aging in all the animals studied.

The first author Luigi Fontana MD, PhD is interested in the ability of calorie restriction as a way to promote good health. “The focus of my research is not really to extend lifespan to 120 or 130 years,” said Fontana.

Calorie Counter

Instead of being up for the count, use a calorie counter. This isn’t about where is the beef; this is about where are the calories. The currency of health is in the amount and type of calories consumed.

Just putting the data out there such as in calorie counters isn’t going to save lives. People have been counting calories for a long time and look where they are. The strategic priority is to audit the type of foods that are consumed on a daily basis. Your body can’t run on 3 pieces of toast, only one candy bar, and a frozen low fat dinner.

A low calorie diet is not meant for those that keep eating the same poor diet. To see change the guiding principal should be the source of the calories. 

Calorie Poisoning

Calorie poisoning is a relatively new phase that is being used to describe the current health landscape. The growing rates of obesity, cancer, premature ageing, cardiovascular disease and cognitive problems are examples of this in action.

What happens is the desire becomes so strong for a fix that the option of both health and longevity are shoved to the sideline.

The first step in this new world of abundance is to be wary of processed foods.They are the ones that set up the cravings that lead to overeating.

Solution

The growing rates of obesity are a reason some scientist think calorie restriction is a mute cause. But, Fontana said if researches who study nutrition and aging can understand how calorie restriction lengthens life and makes people healthier, it may be possible to develop less drastic interventions of medicines that influence pathways affected by calorie restriction, and help keep people healthy

Real Solution      

The common sense solution is to eat more whole foods with lots of  fruits and vegetables. The idea is not to concentrate on calories, but nutrition. There are very few cultures that have a healthy population that counts calories. This is a phenomenon of Industrial nations. It isn’t about an abundant food supply; it is about a poor food supply.

Extreme obesity is affecting more children at a younger age, 7.3 percent of boys and 5.5 percent of girls are now classified as extremely obese, according to a Kaiser Permanente study of 710,949 children and teens that appears online in the Journal of Pediatrics. That means more than 45,000 extremely obese children were in this group. 

These numbers are taken of children from the ages of 2-19 years from a largely racially and ethnically diverse population, using the recent 2009 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention extreme obesity definition.

Children’s Obesity Risk

Children’s obesity risk is greatest for this generation, and a threat to their health as they mature.

“Children who are extremely obese may continue to be extremely obese as adults, and all the health problems associated with obesity are in these children’s futures. Without major lifestyle changes, these kids face a 10 to 20 years shorter life span and will develop health problems in their twenties that we typically see in 40 – 60 year olds,” said study lead author Corinna Koebnick, PhD, a research scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Southern California’s Department of Research and Evaluation in Pasadena, Calif. “For example, children who are extremely obese are at higher risk for heart disease, type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease and joint problems, just to name a few.”

Obesity and Health 

“Our focus and concern is all about health and not about appearance. Children who are morbidly obese can do anything they want — they can be judges, lawyers, doctors — but the one thing they cannot be is healthy,” said study co-author Amy Porter, MD, a Kaiser Permanente Baldwin Park pediatrician who leads the Pediatric Weight Management Initiative for Kaiser Permanente’s Southern California Region.

“The most important advice to parents of extremely obese children is that this has to be addressed as a family issue. There is rarely one extremely obese kid in a house where everyone else is extremely healthy. It’s important that everyone in the family is invested in achieving a healthier lifestyle,” Porter said.

Obesity Head Start

What we are promoting in this country is a new head start program.This problem is not only growing, but it is starting at a younger and younger age. Numerous studies have shown that packing on the pounds during the infancy and toddler years put very young toddlers at risk to become obese adults. It has also been shown that the eating patterns that children are exposed to early on sets up preferences.

Obesity is Abuse

America is setting children up to develop diseases of aging at very young ages.

To halt the vicious cycle that comes from a life of unrestricted eating, nutritional intervention is needed. The body can only tolerate so much abuse before it starts to fail. How much more can Americans tolerate?

There are failures, deception, and cover ups that are making our food supply both addictive and dangerous. The danger that obesity poses to this generation is enormous. This is a generation that will be introduced to pharmaceuticals before they learn about healthy eating.