Nutrition

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

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

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

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

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

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