the-psoriasis-treatment

I am not a big fan of using arguments such as “food questionnaires are unreliable” and “observational studies are worthless” to completely dismiss a study. There are many reasons for this. One of them is that, when people misreport certain diet and lifestyle patterns, but do that consistently (i.e., everybody underreports food intake), the biasing effect on coefficients of association is minor. Measurement errors may remain for this or other reasons, but regression methods (linear and nonlinear) assume the existence of such errors, and are designed to yield robust coefficients in their presence. Besides, for me to use these types of arguments would be hypocritical, since I myself have done several analyses on the China Study data ( ), and built what I think are valid arguments based on those analyses. My approach is: Let us look at the data, any data, carefully, using appropriate analysis tools, and see what it tells us; maybe we will find evidence of measurement errors distorting the

"I can't help it, it's my genes" is a familiar phrase among frustrated dieters and gym goers who feel they can’t make the scale budge despite all efforts to reduce calories and exercise more. There may be something to their justification. After all, weight can depend partly on genetic makeup (among several other factors). Luckily, the genetic revolution continues to churn out exciting news giving us hope that, no, we're not completely left at the mercy of the wrong kind of genes. The latest example is a study presented March 14 at the American Heart Association meeting in San Diego. The study found that people could keep their obesity genes under wraps by doing as little as turning off the tube and taking a brisk walk. The study found that a brisk one-hour walk daily cut the influence of genes on obesity by as much as half! On the other hand, every couple of hours of watching television appeared to increase the influence of obesity genes by a quarter. That can m

In the two last posts I discussed the idea of gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time ( ) ( ). This post outlines one approach to make that happen, based on my own experience and that of several HCE ( ) users. This approach may well be the most natural from an evolutionary perspective. But first let us address one important question: Why would anyone want to reach a certain body weight and keep it constant, resorting to the more difficult and slow strategy of “turning fat into muscle”, so to speak? One could simply keep on losing fat, without losing or gaining muscle, until he or she reaches a very low body fat percentage (e.g., a single-digit body fat percentage, for men). Then he or she could go up from there, slowly putting on muscle. The reason why it is advisable to reach a certain body weight and keep it constant is that, below a certain weight, one is likely to run into nutrient deficiencies . Non-exercise energy expenditure is proportional to body weight. As you keep on

Welcome new followers! I'm excited to report that I've been selected as official blogger for The American Society for Nutrition ( ASN ) 76th Scientific Sessions and Annual Meeting in conjunction with  Experimental Biology 2012  (EB 2012) on April 21 through 25 in San Diego, Calif. Click here for a peek at the preliminary program. What exactly is EB 2012? The conference is a highly anticipated annual event where six scientific societies hold their joint scientific sessions and annual meetings. Besides ASN, other societies represented are: the American Association of Anatomists ( AAA ), the American Physiological Society ( APS ), the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology( ASBMB ), the American Society for Investigative Pathology ( ASIP ), and the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics ( ASPET ). The conference attracts leading researchers from several different life-science disciplines. There will be new findings presented and it is sur

In my previous post ( ), I mentioned that the idea of gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time seems impossible to most people because of three widely held misconceptions: (a) to gain muscle you need a calorie surplus; (b) to lose fat you need a calorie deficit; and (c) you cannot achieve a calorie surplus and deficit at the same time. The scenario used to illustrate what I see as a non-traumatic move from obese or seriously overweight to lean is one in which weight loss and fat loss go hand in hand until a relatively lean level is reached, beyond which weight is maintained constant (as illustrated in the schematic graph below). If you are departing from an obese or seriously overweight level, it may be advisable to lose weight until you reach a body fat level of around 21-24 percent for women or 14-17 percent for men. Once you reach that level, it may be best to stop losing weight, and instead slowly gain muscle and lose fat, in equal amounts. I will discuss the rationale for th