Articles by Allen

The American Dietetic Association has come out with a great list of the “Ten Red Flags of Junk Science.”

Science frequently does junk research but there is no area where this practice is more common than with nutrition and weight loss.

We are bombarded with research study after research study which only create confusion because they all seem so contradictory. There are two reasons for this:

* Doing good and valid research in nutrition and weight loss is enormously difficult and it’s this difficulty that leads to contradictory outcomes.

* The results of the research are inappropriately presented to the public.

It is this second reason that the American Dietetic Association is targeting. Here are their ten red flags you should watch out for:

1. Recommendations that promise a quick fix
2. Dire warnings of danger from a single complex study
3. Claims that sound too good to be true
4. Simplistic conclusions drawn from a complex study
5. Recommendations based on a single study
6. Dramatic statements that are refuted by reputable scientific organizations
7. Lists of “good” and “bad” foods
8. Recommendatons made to help sell a product
9. Recommendations based on studies published without peer review
10. Recommendations from studies that ignore differences among individuals or groups.

My advice? Ignore all scientific research reported on by the media. There is no way you can separate the wheat from the chaff.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Learn about another dietary supplement that seems to do no good

You may have heard that you should take folic acid to prevent heart disease.

Why? Because folic acid reduces homocysteine levels in the blood and high homocysteine levels have been associated with heart disease.

Cool idea and, up until recently, a lot of folks bought into this recommendation.

Well, it turns out it probably isn’t true.

Some researchers from the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine did a “meta-analysis” of 12 clinical trials involving 52,000 participants and found that folic acid does NOT reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease or all-cause mortality.

Whoops!

You wonder how much money has been spent on folic acid in the hopes of receiving some health benefit.

Instead, the authors of the study suggest people’s time and money should be focused elsewhere:

“It is important to focus on strategies of proven benefit in the prevention of cardiovascular disease, including smoking cessation, lipid reduction, treatment of hypertenion and diabetes, and maintenance of a healthy weight and physical activity.”

Bravo!

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

Nutrtion labels were put on foods years ago so consumers could use the presented facts to “control their caloric intake and weight, and to make healthier food choices.”

How do you think this is working?

Well, the FDA has decided — not too well.

And, they’ve concluded the problem is that consumers don’t know how to use these labels. Therefore, they have launched a web-based learning program called “Make Your Calories Count.”

The interactive program features an animated character called “Labelman” who leads the viewer through a series of exercises on the food label. The program includes exercises to help consumers explore the relationship between serving sizes and calories, while they learn how to limit certain nutrients and get enough of others.

The FDA — to keep the program simple — presents just two nutrients that should be limited (saturated fat and sodium) and two that should be consumed in adequate amounts (fiber and calcium).

So, what do you think? Is this website going to finally allow food labels to have their promised postive impact on our health and weight?

The Center for Science in Public Interest doen’t think so. They are quoted as saying, “the governement is just delusional if they think yet another website and brochure will make a dent in the obesity epdemic.”

I agree.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

For years diabetics have been told to take extra vitamin E to gain the benefits of its antioxidant properties.

As a result, worldwide vitamin E supplement sales are enormous.

I first remember reading about the incredible health benefits of vitamin E back in the 60s. Several popular health books were published which promoted this “magical” substance.

Since then there have been a few epidemiological studies suggesting these nutritionists were right. However, such studies can’t fully address biases due to selection of the study population, measurement error of deitary vitamin E intake and other residual confounding errors.

Therefore, what has been needed is a well-designed and well-conducted randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, conducted over a long period of time, that would avoid all these biases.

Well, such a trial has been completed.

Researchers studied almost 40,000 U.S. women over a 10 year period. About half the group received 600 IU of vitamin E every other day and the other half received a placebo.

During the ten-year follow-up, there were 827 cases of diabetes in the vitamin E group and 869 in the placebo group. In other words — statistically — there were no differences between the two groups.

Here is the conclusion of the study as stated by the researchers:

“In this large trial with 10-year follow-up, alternate-day does of 600IU of vitamin E provided NO significant benefit for type 2 diabetes in initially healthy women.”

This is just one recent study of many showing that taking a vitamin E supplement provides NO health benefit. In fact, a couple of recent studies have demonstrated a negative health impact (increased mortality) from taking vitamin E.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

I’m sure you know (along with everyone else on the planet) that sitting up straight is important to prevent back pain — right?

This “truth” is just one of the many pieces of health and fitness advice which are so well established they are almost never questioned.

Well, maybe some of this “proven” advice should be questioned.

Some researchers recently analyzed different postures and concluded that the strain of sitting upright for long hours is a perpetrator of chronic back problems.

What?

Yep, you read this correctly. These researchers found that a 90-degree sitting position causes the spinal disks to move and misalign more than any other position.

They used a new form of magnetic resonance imaging to study 22 volunteers sitting in three different positions — slouching, sitting up straight, and sitting back with a 135 degree posture.

Which one do you think put the least strain on the back?

I’ve already told you that sitting up straight put the most strain so you only have two to choose from.

Well, it turns out the 135-degree sitting posture was the best (as far as sitting — laying down with the knees slightly bent put the least strain on the back).

Back pain is the most common cause of work-related disability in the United States and costs Americans nearly $50 billion annually. Most researchers believe one of the major causes of this ailment is sitting — and, given the results of this study, sitting incorrectly.

Here is what one of the study’s authors said about their results:

“This may be all that is necessary to prevent back pain, rather than trying to cure pain that has occurred over the long term due to bad postures.”

My point? Don’t assume that long-standing health and fitness advice is correct.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

I just read a great review article about flavonoids. Have you heard of these magical substances?

The article analyzed the scientific literature related to the effect of flavonoids on cardiovascular disease — and found the effect to be a positive one.

Let me provide some background.

Flavonoids are a subgroup of a class of compounds known as polyphenols and are present in fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds.

Over 4,000 flavonoids have been identified in six major subgroups — flavonols, flavanones (the catechins), flavones, anthocyanins, and isoflavonoids. But scientists believe more than 25,000 exist.

The flavonoids in chocolate have received a lot of attention recently because of studies showing improved “endothelium-dependent flow-mediated dilation” (whatever that is) in people who eat a lot of chocolate.

No one really knows why these flavonoids have their positive effect — but it seems to happen pretty consistently.

This specific article focused on the positive effect of grapes and grape-seeds, a food which has received a lot of attention due to the “French paradox”

See, the French have a lower incidence of cardiovascular disease even though they eat a high-fat diet and scientists have been trying to figure out why. One theory that’s been proposed is that this “paradox” is due to the French drinking a lot of wine (and, as a result, consuming more grapes).

So, scientists have done a lot of research on the effects of the flavonoids found in grapes. And, sure enough, they’ve discovered these substances do some pretty amazing things inside the human body.

But, here’s the key point. There are more than 25,000 types of flavonoids and scientists know very little about any of them other than they seem to have some positive health effects.

What does this mean to you?

* Don’t think a multivitamin is going to cover your nutritional needs. These pills contain only 20 to 30 substances so there’s a ways to go before any pill will be complete nutrient supplement.

* Eating a lot of certain food (red wine, chocolate) because some study has shown a positive effect is silly. First, it’s possible the substances in these foods cause problems if they are over-consumed. But, the bigger issue is that, by eating a lot of one food, it’s very possible you are missing out on flavonoids in other foods which have even more positive effects.

* The best strategy to gain the health-benefits of flavonoids is to eat a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

There was a great article published back in December that I just found in my file. Somehow I misplaced it and I shouldn’t have because it makes a great point.

Have you noticed how almost everything we eat is fortified with extra vitamins? There are cereals that provide 100% of your daily requirement and power bars that provide another 50%. Bread has been fortified with vitamins for a long time but, now, even orange juice and bottled water have extra vitamins added.

The article makes this point and then says, “Before you know it, you’ve dosed yourself with five, six, maybe 10 times the recommended allowance for the day’s nutrients.”

So, should you take a daily vitamin for insurance — or, could that cause an overdose?

Actually no one knows. The advice in the article — “if you don’t take multivitamins, there’s no reason to start. If you do, there’s no evidence to stop.”

Pretty definitive, huh?

That’s the problem with nutrition — no one really knows what you should do or should not do. There just hasn’t been valid studies done that prove one thing or another — and there probably never will be. It’s just too difficult to do a good study that deals with what people eat. It’s impossible to track everything subjects put in their mouths and survey data is notoriously inaccurate.

But the studies get funded none-the-less and then get reported by the media — but the studies are all so contradictory we all just get more and more confused.

For example, although nutritionists have told us for years to take extra vitamin E, a study in 2005 with 40,000 women found the vitamin had no effect.

Or what about taking the B vitamins to lower the risk of heart attack? Again, recent studies have shown it doesn’t work.

In fact a large NIH study examined ALL the evidence available through clinical trials and could only find three well-established benefits from taking vitamins:
* Folic acid protects against neural tube disorders in developing fetuses (but a pregnant women only needs to take as much folic acid as what is contained in most multivitamins).
* Calcium with vitamin D helps prevent bone fractures (you can get plenty of each by drinking some milk and getting some sunshine).
* Vitamins C, E and zinc reduces eyesight deterioration from age-related macular degneration.

But, what about the other side of the equation. What is the negative health effect of overdosing on vitamins? Again, no one knows — but the doctors quoted in this article all said this was a potential concern.

Bottom line, it probably is OK to take a basic multivitamin. But, taking megadoses of anything is likely a mistake.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

A University of Iowa researcher has found that parents with kids at home eat more fat than adults without children.

Dr. Helena Laroche performed a survey of 6,600 adults living with and without children.

And, sure enough, adults living with kids ate 5 more grams of fat each day than the adults without kids.

Why did this research produce these results. Well, here are the theories proposed by the researchers:

1. Parents are under more time pressure so they are more prone to opt for snacks and convenience foods.

2. Parents buy high fat foods for their kids (hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, pizza) and then end up eating what their kids eat. In other words, parent’s eating habits are shaped by their children’s food choices.

3. Parents end up eating the food left over by their children — even after completing their own meal.

Which of these reasons is it? No one knows. In fact, the reason might not be any of these three.

But, that doesn’t stop the researchers from guessing and it doesn’t stop the media from reporting on their guesses.

What gets lost in the media coverage is that ALL the adults — where they had kids living with them or not — ate more fat than what is recommended by healthy eating guidelines.

This is interesting because over the last forty years fat consumption by Americans, as a percentage of total calories, has dropped significantly (from over 40% in the 1960s to less than 34% today).

In reading this study, the clear message is that we must cut our fat consumption even more — and that parents with kids have the most cutting to do.

All this despite little evidence that American’s current level of fat consumption is unhealthy — and a fair amount of evidence that certain subgroups of the population (pregnant women, growing kids) are negatively impacting their health by eating too little fat.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

Yesterday, I mentioned the article which concluded taking antioxidant vitamins may increase mortality risk.

What I didn’t mention was the number of participants included in this literature review — 232,606! In other words, this study had some real weight.

Given that 80 to 160 million people are taking these supplements in the United States, the results of this study should cause some real concerns.

But, it will probably get mentioned by the media for a week or two and then get overwhelmed by all the advertising for these supplements. Within a few weeks, the results of this study will likely be forgotten and we’ll go back to purchasing the $20 billion we spend annually on these supplements.

So, why do antioxidants have this negative effect on mortality?

Well, the researches offered this explanation:

“By eliminating free radicals for our organism, we interfere with some essential defensive mechanisms like apoptosis, phagocytosis, and detoxification.”

Now, I’m not sure exactly what this means but it doesn’t sound too good. But, what’s interesting is how often nutrition theories change.

Everyone thought that getting rid of free radicals was a good thing (the theory why these supplements were supposed to be good for us) but now — after almost 40 years of believing in this theory — it turns out this probably isn’t true.

Here’s the reality — scientists know very little about nutrition. But that doesn’t keep food and dietary supplement companies from making health claims.

Rather than listening to these claims and acting upon them, we should just eat a variety of real foods that we truly like. That’s the way to optimize our nutrition.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

A Danish-led study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that vitamin supplements may cause more harm than good.

For as long as I can remember, nutritionists have told us to increase our intake of the major antioxidants — beta carotene, vitamin A, vitamin E, vitamin C and selenium.

The theory was that these antioxidants would help eliminate “free radicals” that are thought to cause all sorts of problems in our bodies.

Vitamin companies adopted this theory years ago and used it to heavily market their products as substances that would improve health, guard against diseases such as cancer and heart disease, and slow down the aging process.

Well, this was a nice theory and it made all kinds of sense — but the actual research on real people demonstrates it probably isn’t valid.

In fact, it seems like just the opposite is true — through some mechanism these products actually increase mortality levels.

The authors of this 2007 paper reviewed 815 clinical trials (all studies prior to October 2005 testing the health outcomes from taking these vitamins) and sifted through the data to identify those studies having the least amount of bias.

When they reviewed this subset of data they discovered the following:

* Taking vitamin A increased death risk by 16%
* Taking beta carotene increased death risk by 7%
* Taking vitamin E increased death risk by 4%
* Taking vitamin C increased death risk by 6% (with less clear results)

Only taking selenium showed a decreased death risk but this decrease was not shown to be statistically significant (meaning, the death risk difference could have happened by chance).

The overall conclusion of the study was that on balance, the best quality research shows that beta caroten, vitamin A and vitamin E may increase mortality risk, but vitamin C and selenium need further study.

Yikes! 10 to 20% of the US population take dietary supplements (beyond just a multivitamin which is taken by about half the population). This seems like a bit of a problem to me!

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

Given their label you’d kind of expect that “nutrition” bars would be nutritious.

That’s probably why 33 million households in the United States buy nutrition bars and shakes on a regular basis.

But do American’s really know what they are eating?

According to a recent survey by Kelton Research of 1,000 individuals the answer is a no.

Quick. which has more sugar — a Clif Bar (crunchy peanut butter) or a Krispy Kreme doughnut?

Well, it turns out the Clif Bar has almost twice as much sugar (18 grams) as the doughnut (10 grams). If you got this wrong, don’t feel bad. More than 50% of the respondents in the survey also were incorrect.

So which product is healthier? Since sugar, along with calories and fat, ranks in the top three most important things people look for on a nutrition label, you might expect people would say the Krispy Kreme doughnut.

What?? How could a doughnut be healthier than a “nutrition” bar.

It’s not. In fact, neither product is “healthier” than the other. The reality is that all REAL foods are “healthy,” so we should worry a lot less about which foods are good and which foods are bad.

The question isn’t if a food is healthy or not healthy — instead, when selecting which foods to eat, you should consider the REALNESS of the food and if you are selecting a wide variety of foods.

When I look at a doughnut or a nutrition bar, the first thing I consider is if the item is a REAL food. In other words, is it made up of substances that otherwise exist in nature (e.g., real sugar, real fat) or are its components fabricated (e.g., high fructose corn syrup, trans fat)? I’m pretty sure my body can deal with REAL foods since humans have been exposed to these substances for millions of years. However, I’m much less confident that the human physiology knows what to do with these manufactured substances that have only been around for a few decades.

If I really want a doughnut, I eat one. But I look for a doughnut that’s made the way my grandmother made doughnuts — that consist of real foods and that taste wonderful.

As far as nutrition bars, I must say that my body rarely (actually never) craves such a product — so I rarely eat them. But, if I ever did, I’d look for one made with real foods which, in my experience, is hard to find.

One more thing — guess who sponsored this survey about the sugar content of nutrition bars? It was Atkins Nutritionals — the maker of “nutrition” bars that are promoted as having less sugar than most brands but “packed with protein and fiber.” Their goal in funding this study was to convince people to read food labels and pick the nutrition bar with less sugar because that will be the “healthier” bar.

They should be ashamed.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

At a Cabinet meeting last week the Japanese government approved a white paper on food education, which emphasizes the importance of proper nutrition and warns that healthy dietary habits are disappearing in their country.

So, what type of advice do you think this report offered? Here are some of the guesses I’d expect to hear from Americans:

* Cut back on eating fast food
* Limit intake of saturated fat found in animal products
* Eat more fruits and vegetables
* Decrease salt intake
* Cut back on consumption of processed carbohydrates

Isn’t this what you’d expect? The Japanese report is about proper nutrition so the advice is likely to be about WHAT foods to eat, right?

If that’s what you thought, you’d be wrong.

What did the white paper emphasize instead? — families eating dinner together and children eating breakfast.

See, in a government survey conducted in 2004, just 25.9% of families said they ate dinner together every day, down from 36.5% in 1976. And, a similar survey taken in 2000 found that almost 20% of fifth graders did not eat or rarely ate breakfast.

The government viewed these statistics as a national problem and set out to do something about it. In other words, they decided the problem was in HOW people were eating not WHAT they were eating.

Whereas American nutrition goals are set around limiting the consumption of certain foods, the Japanese goals are to have families eat together and have all children eat breakfast. In fact, the white paper suggests promoting food education at home with the simple slogan of “Early to bed, early to rise, and eat breakfast!”

The Japanese get it.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

When it comes to nutrition (selecting what you eat), there are so many contradictory recommendations, it’s hard to keep track.

That’s one of the reasons I generally recommend that you should ignore the “experts.” There have just been too many times where some research study recommends doing one thing and several years later a new study finds that doing that thing causes more harm than good.

The most dramatic example of this is with trans-fats which I’ve discussed in previous blogs. For 30 or 40 years the “experts” told us that margarine was better for our health than butter. Now, new studies are demonstrating just the opposite. In fact, it turns out that trans-fat (which is the primary fat in margarine) is so dangerous it has been completely banned in some countries and other countries/cities are considering such a ban.

So, for how long have we been told that chocolate is a “bad” food. It’s loaded with saturated fat and sugar so how could it be categorized any other way?

Well, it turns out that chocolate could actually be good for you. In fact, based on data from recent research, some folks are now recommending you eat some dark chocolate every day.

The research shows that dark chocolate helps thin the blood (causes the blood to take longer to clot) which may help prevent heart attacks and stroke.

Are these experts right? Or, are we going to find out in ten years that chocolate may help thin your blood but it also causes brain cancer if you eat it every day?

Here’s the key. You must ignore the results of these isolated studies and just pay attention to what your body is telling you and some basic nutrition principles. I go into detail on these two topics in my course.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

In a previous blog I discussed how trans-fat has been proven to be bad for your health.

In fact, there are efforts to ban this manufactured substance in several countries and US cities because the evidence for the health problems it causes are so strong.

Now, a new study by researchers at Wake Forest University suggests that trans-fat might be a even a bigger health problem than anyone thought.

These researchers fed two groups of monkeys, over a six year period, a calorie-controlled diet. Both groups were fed exactly the same number of calories.

The only difference in the diet between the two groups was the type of fat which made up 8% of the calories consumed. In one group, the fat was olive oil and, in the other group, the fat was trans-fat.

You’d expect that the weight of the monkeys in the two groups would be the same after six years. The ate exactly the same amount of calories so it doesn’t even seem possible that the monkey’s weight would be different.

Well, surprise, surprise!

The monkeys that were eating trans-fats gained FOUR TIMES more weight than the olive oil eaters! And, worse, the fat that was gained settled in their abdomen (see November 1st post on exercise and visceral fat to learn why this is an issue).

How is this possible? I have no idea — but that’s what the researchers found.

You can read a more in-depth review of this study at this link:

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/521041/

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

Sometimes it seems like we all should be scared to death about food.

Almost every day we hear about a new study that says that some foods are killing us.

Whatever happened to just enjoying the food we eat? — and not being quite so uptight and obsessed about eating the correct foods and staying away from the killer foods.

Well now a study which analyzed data collected over 20 years on more than 82,000 women suggests that relaxing a bit about what we eat is probably OK.

The study showed that low-carbohydrate eaters didn’t have an increase (nor did they have a decrease) in heart disease.

Wait a minute! What about all the animal fats eaten by low-carb dieters? Don’t high fat diets cause heart disease?

Well, not in these 82,000 women.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

Are you aware of the difference between subcutaneous fat and visceral fat?

Visceral fat is the fat in your stomach area and subcutaneous fat is the fat found elsewhere on your body.

Over the last 20 years, researchers have discovered that visceral fat is much worse for your health than the other kind.

In fact, some medical practitioners are proposing that a person’s waist measurement may be a better predictor of health problems than body weight.

As a result, if you’re overweight, you may gain more health benefits by losing a few pounds if you are genetically predisposed to lay down fat in their stomach area.

Now researchers have discovered that there may be another way to decrease the amount of visceral fat other than just losing weight.

Duke University Medical Center researchers have demonstrated that physical inactivity leads to a significant increase in visceral fat and that high amounts of exercise can cause significant decreases in such fat over a relatively short period of time.

The most surprising discovery was how quickly fat accumulated deep in the abdomens of study participants who did not exercise (8.6% increase after eight months). However, in another group that did exercise at pretty high levels (17 miles of jogging each week), their visceral fat decreased by a similar amount during the same period.

I find this study very interesting. Up until reading it, I had assumed that a person’s level of visceral fat — relative to their overall weight — was genetically predetermined. Now it looks like you can influence it’s accumulation through exercise.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

The FDA and FTC have joined forces to launch a drive to stop deceptive Internet advertisements and sales of products misrepresented as cures or treatments for diabetes.

Their new campaign is called Be Smart, Be Skeptical and has, so far, resulted in over 180 warning letters being sent to web site owners in 3 countries. The goal is to get these companies to change their claims or to stop selling their products.

This is issue is near and dear to my heart because I have a daughter who has had Type 1 diabetes since she was 8 years old.

Diabetes is a global epidemic and the last thing we need to a bunch of hucksters preying on the public with the promise of a cure. I wish the FDA and FTC great success in their efforts.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

The Bush administration just announced they will develop guidelines for physical activity that help people avoid obesity and live healthier lifestyles, which in turn could slow soaring health care costs.

Wow — that sounds like a worthwhile project.

However, here’s the problem — the guidelines aren’t expected to be ready until 2008.

What?? How is it possible for it to take until 2008 to come up with some physical activity guidelines?

You’d expect the government to have a bit more of a sense of urgency about this. They certainly understand the problem. Mike Leavitt, the health and human services secretary, is quoted as saying –”Obesity is an epidemic, and chronic disease inevitably follows. It has become a major quiet killer.”

If this is true, don’t you think it would be worth getting some physical-activity guidelines together pretty soon?

But, wait a minute — do we really need government guidelines for this? Don’t we already all know that increased physical activity is good for our health and the more, the better?

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

If you’ve reached this page and are not familiar with me, I encourage you to review the About Allen page to gain some understanding of where I’m coming from. If you do, you’ll learn that I’m on a personal mission to discredit the mainstream and fad beliefs about weight loss that have so-obviously failed us (and which are totally unsupported by the evidence) – and to convince the world there is a completely different approach to losing weight that actually works due to its precise alignment with the true nature of human physiology. To learn more about this mission, please visit Truths Publishing.

This blog is one component of my efforts that’s focused on nutrition and fitness. Here I review recent media reports related to these topics and try to clarify the confusing, contradictory and inaccurate information that’s so prevalent. My goal if for you to understand the fundamental and unchanging truths about nutrition and exercise so you can stop worrying about doing the wrong thing and enjoy optimal health and fitness.
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For years physicians, nutritionists, public health officials, and weight-loss gurus have been arguing over the “fit or fat” controversy — is it better to be above an average weight and fit, or at a normal weight and unfit?

The truth is no one really knows which is better for the general population. But, even it was known, the conclusion would not apply to everyone. There is just too much diversity in the human population for the results to apply universally.

But that doesn’t keep people from arguing about it.

Now a new study published in the September 2006 issue of the journal of Critical Care adds fuel to the fire by analyzing data on 15,000 subjects collected since 1987.

Here’s what the researchers found.

Diabetes increased the risk of illness and early death — but being overweight or obese, without diabetes, added no additional risk of these outcomes.

Being overweight did increase the risk of diabetes and this risk increased with size (although most overweight people are not diabetic). But, the added weight in the absence of diabetes didn’t seem to cause any health problems.

What? How is this possible? Isn’t being overweight the number one killer in the United States?

Well, some people think so. But this study seems to suggest otherwise.

As did a study from 1997 published in the Journal of the American Medical Association by researchers at the Cooper Institute in Dallas. They analyzed data on over 25,000 men and discovered that those who were unfit and lean had a death rate nearly three times higher than that of men who were overweight but moderately fit.

But, again, this data and all the other data on both sides of the “fit or fat” controversy are from analysis of large populations. The reality is that the results — no matter what the conclusions when the controversy is ultimately resolved (which will likely never happen) — may not apply to a specific individual. Therefore, we each need to decide for ourselves what it means to be healthy and fit.

Is your blood pressure too high? Do you have elevated cholesterol levels? Do you have diabetes? Are you more sedentary than most people? Do you eat a poor diet with little food variety? These are much better questions to ask yourself to evaluate your health than just looking at your weight.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

If you’ve reached this page and are not familiar with me, I encourage you to review the About Allen page to gain some understanding of where I’m coming from. If you do, you’ll learn that I’m on a personal mission to discredit the mainstream and fad beliefs about weight loss that have so-obviously failed us (and which are totally unsupported by the evidence) – and to convince the world there is a completely different approach to losing weight that actually works due to its precise alignment with the true nature of human physiology. To learn more about this mission, please visit Truths Publishing.

This blog is one component of my efforts that’s focused on nutrition and fitness. Here I review recent media reports related to these topics and try to clarify the confusing, contradictory and inaccurate information that’s so prevalent. My goal if for you to understand the fundamental and unchanging truths about nutrition and exercise so you can stop worrying about doing the wrong thing and enjoy optimal health and fitness.
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I’m sure you’ve seen the news that the health departments in New York and Chicago are considering a total ban on restaurant foods that contain trans-fats. You may not know that Denmark has passed legislation and Canada is considering legislation that eliminates trans-fat from food supplies.

What’s going on here?

If you are as old or older than me, then you may remember how, way back in the 50s, we were all told to quit eating butter and use margarine instead. The assumption was that the vegetable fat in margarine is healthier than the animal fat in butter.

What we weren’t told is that the fat in margarine isn’t actually vegetable oil. Rather, it’s a manufactured substance that takes vegetable oil and then modifies it via a process called hydrogenation to lengthen its shelf life and increase its flavor stability. I guess no one imagined that feeding people a manufactured product which doesn’t otherwise exist in nature would cause any problems.

Certainly, the fast-food and snack-food companies didn’t consider the possibility of any negative health effects. Instead, in the 1980s, in response to pressure to reduce the level of saturated fats, these companies started replacing the real fat they were using with this vegetable-based fabricated fat (now called “trans-fat”). Since then, its use has increased to the point where it’s now found in over 35% of the products are supermarket shelves and it represents over 2.5% of our total calorie consumption.

Sadly, up until January 2006 when the FDA started requiring trans-fat to be listed on food labels, it was impossible to know which foods had trans-fat and which didn’t.

Well, guess what? — the nutrition experts and food companies were wrong. Now, after 50 years of being told trans-fat is OK and consuming tons of it, researchers have discovered that this manufactured fat is terrible for our health.

What should we learn from this? Two things:

1. We should be very skeptical about what the “experts” tell us about good nutrition.

2. We should be very cautious about eating substances that don’t otherwise exist in nature. Real food is much safer bet than fabricated foods.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

If you’ve reached this page and are not familiar with me, I encourage you to review the About Allen page to gain some understanding of where I’m coming from. If you do, you’ll learn that I’m on a personal mission to discredit the mainstream and fad beliefs about weight loss that have so-obviously failed us (and which are totally unsupported by the evidence) – and to convince the world there is a completely different approach to losing weight that actually works due to its precise alignment with the true nature of human physiology. To learn more about this mission, please visit Truths Publishing.

This blog is one component of my efforts that’s focused on nutrition and fitness. Here I review recent media reports related to these topics and try to clarify the confusing, contradictory and inaccurate information that’s so prevalent. My goal if for you to understand the fundamental and unchanging truths about nutrition and exercise so you can stop worrying about doing the wrong thing and enjoy optimal health and fitness.
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Thanks for visiting.

If you want the straight scoop about what you read in the media about nutrition and fitness, this is your source.

Whenever you see a big media story (or even some small stories) on these topics, you can expect I will post something here within a couple of days which shares the truths behind the story.

I look forward to keeping you up-to-date.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness