the-psoriasis-treatment

There are few food ingredients that conjure up more fear in the public mind than sugar and sugar substitutes found in manufactured products. This fear can be bolstered by a common ploy some companies and organizations use to create panic and push their products by smearing nutritive and non-nutritive sweeteners used by their competitors. The hysteria surrounding fructose is one such example — a simple fruit sugar found in almost every natural food on the planet has been unfairly targeted as the scapegoat for all of the extra pounds on America’s waistlines. But although it’s appropriate for people to watch for extra calories from all sources, including sugars, reasonable amounts of fructose each day as part of a balanced diet is not really anything to worry about. What’s alarming is the attacks on fructose have become so frequent that people have started to believe that the sugar is inherently harmful to health. The hype has even led people to believe they must reduce their intake of fr...

When it comes to losing fat and maintaining muscle, at the same time, there are no shortcuts. The process generally has to be slow to be healthy. When one loses a lot of weight in a few days, most of what is being lost is water, followed by carbohydrates. (Carbohydrates are stored as liver and muscle glycogen.) Smaller amounts of fat and protein are also lost. The figure below, from Wilmore et al. (2007), shows the weights in grams of stored water, carbohydrates (glycogen), fat, and protein lost during a 30-day water fast. On the first few days of the fast a massive amount of water is lost, even though drinking water is allowed in this type of fast. A significant amount of glycogen is lost as well. This is no surprise. About 2.6 g of water are lost for each 1 g of glycogen lost. That is, water is stored by the body proportionally to the amount of glycogen stored. People who do strength training on a regular basis tend to store more glycogen, particular in muscle tissue; this is a compe...

I am yet to be convinced that grilled meat is truly unhealthy in the absence of leaky gut problems. I am referring here to high heat cooking-induced Maillard reactions and the resulting advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs). If you are interested, see this post and the comments under it, where I looked into some references provided by an anonymous commenter. In short, I am more concerned about endogenous (i.e., inside the body) formation of AGEs than with exogenous (e.g., dietary) intake. Still, the other day I had to improvise when cooking meat, and used a cooking method that is considered by many to be fairly healthy – slow-cooking at a low temperature. I seasoned a few pieces of beef tenderloin (filet mignon) for the grill, but it started raining, so I decided to slow-cook them in a frying pan with water and some olive oil. After about 1 hour of slow-cooking, and somewhat to my surprise, they tasted more delicious than grilled! I have since been using this method more and more, wit...

Blood glucose levels in birds are often 2-4 times higher than those in mammals of comparable size. Yet birds often live 3 times longer than mammals of comparable size. This is paradoxical. High glucose levels are generally associated with accelerated senescence, but birds seem to age much slower than mammals. Several explanations have been proposed for this, one of which is related to the formation of advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs). Glycation is a process whereby sugar molecules “stick” to protein or fat molecules, impairing their function. Glycation leads to the formation of AGEs, which seem to be associated with a host of diseases, including diabetes, and to be implicated in accelerated aging (or “ageing”, with British spelling). The graphs below, from Beuchat & Chong (1998), show the glucose levels (at rest and prior to feeding) and HbA1c levels (percentage of glycated hemoglobin) in birds and mammals. HbA1c is a measure of the degree of glycation of hemoglobin, a protein...

Now, as the Award Lecture at American College of Nutrition Conference in New York City, we are treated to Harry G Preuss , MD, discussing an overview of how to alleviate the manifestations of aging. These manifestations are hypertension, insulin resistance, and dyslipidemias. But it's complicated. "If there is anything that's important for your life it isn't controlled by one thing," Preuss says. Preuss is now talking about how he got started working with chromium (not just for bumpers). He did study in animals with chromium (Preuss et al Mol Cell Biochem 2010). With chromium in animals at least, "you can keep blood pressure down". In human studies, he showed how niacin-bound chromium resulted in increased fat loss and tended to preserve muscle. He says there wasn't much weight loss resulting from chromium supplementation., but the balance of fat and muscle is different. In his study, weight was not significant, but fat loss was! He coined the term ...

Homocysteine, an sulfur amino acid, has been used over and over again marker for cardiovascular events. However, it is complicated so Jacob Selhub is going to talk about its particulars this morning at American College of Nutrition conference in New York City. He starts by going through all the metabolic pathways that homocysteine is involved in, with methionine and SAM, as well as serving as a source for cysteine. Hyperhomocysteinemia, he says, is caused by deficiencies in CBS, MTHFR, or in enzymes of B12 metabolism. He tells the story about how back in 1969, pathologist McCully was studying how two children died of hyperhomocysteinemia. The pathology was identical, but causes were different. The pathologies were arteriosclerosis. Even low levels of homocysteine was responsible for CVD. At the time, the idea was not accepted because the focus was on cholesterol. But newer data showed that homocysteine is strongly associated with higher CVD and stroke incidence (Wilcken, 1976; others)....

What's the latest on vitamin D and the elderly? Most don't get enough, says Jeri Nieves, Ph.D., who addresed us on the topic today at the American College of Nutrition conference in New York City. There has been a "burst" of new studies on vitamin D, so she will only covef a few. The prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in older adults puts them at higher risk of several poor health outcomes such as osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. We know that vitamin D is necessary with calcium to prevent bone loss and fracture risk. Plus, several studies she goes into show that vitamin D status is directly correlated with hip fracture. One study showed 36 percent reduction of hip fractures in people with high vitamin D status. The higher the dose, the stronger the reduction. What if we give vitamin D to people in the hospital who have already had hip fractures? At 2000IU daily, there was no significant difference in rate of falls, but reduced repeat hospital admissio...

Do we age at different rates? At the American College of Nutrition conference today, we are being treated on this subject entitled "Nutritional and Hormonal Influences on Aging" by Nir Barzilai, MD, of Albert Einstein College of Medicine. "Aging is the major risk factor for death from all chronic diseases," Dr. Barzilai says, so we should be focused on strategies to modulate aging. Is lifespan determined by genes or the environment? This is not a really good question, he says. It's about "50 50" because it's really "genes in an environment." But even if it was 20 percent genetics, then you can still change the environment and increase lifespan. He gives an example about how caloric restricted animals decreases all causes of death. In calorie-restricted animals fat is melted away, so this caused Barzilai to question, "what is the role of adipose tissue in aging." In an experiment on Zucker diabetic fatty rats, those with visceral...

Remember the basic four food groups? Beth Dixon, Ph.D., from the Department of Nutrition of New York University is going to try to talk about Dietary Guidelines for Americans (but it sounds like she's got a sore throat). Out of the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, she says, came a focus on consuming a variety of foods, controlling calorie intake, increasing fruits and vegetables, etc. We know all this, but what was new was the USDA Food Guide (based on MyPyramid) and the DASH eating plan. The USDA Food Guide were designed to be flexible with 12 different plans at a 2000-calorie level with main food groups (like fruits, vegetables) given in amounts (like 2 cups per day). There are also subgroup categories such as vegetables having a subgroup of dark green vegetables, orange vegetables, etc. "The idea behind these food plans is to focus on nutrient-dense foods," she says. "There's a behind-the-scenes way of counting food groups." To get to the concept of...

Greek, Italian or Spanish? What kind of Mediterranean-style diet are we talking about when we consider eating a Mediterranean diet? Talking about this right now at American College of Nutrition conference in New York City is Paul Jacques, S.c.D., FACN. Well, mostly it's Greek, he says, which recommends eight servings of whole grains, six servings of vegetables, three servings of fruits, two servings of dairy, one and a half servings of wine, exclusive use of olive oil, fish, and little meat. Many of the studies are based on the Greek Mediterranean-style diet. So, Jacques captured the most frequently consumed foods based on NHANEs in the U.S. and tried to find how a Mediterranean diet could be followed in using 1,250 commonly consumed U.S. foods. He found that the caloric intake would be about 2,680 kcal, 92 g protein, 361 g carbohydrate, 78g total fat, 41g fiber, 1155mg calcium, 521 mg magnesium, 3.9g of potassium (a little short). However, there are studies that are on anything bu...

Speaking on HPLC diets for obesity is Mount Sinai School's Jeffrey Mechanick, M.D., who starts out with the theoretical advantage and perspective of low-carb diets.  There is a clinical problem of obesity, type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular  disease. And there is controversy about whether or not total calories matter or if there is something to the composition of calories as in a high-fat, high-protein, low carb diet.  The minimal amount of daily carbohydrate recommended is 130 grams per day (ADA; IOM). The IOM says healthy eating is carbs 45-60 percent carbs.  As a summary of HPLC diets, there are many:  - Atkins -Bernstein -Paleo -Mediterranean -Protein-power -South Beach Dr. Mechanick has an interest in Paleo dieting since it is based on genomic programming and evolutionary biology. Like McKeown before him, he says that Mediterranean diet is no single diet, but is characterized by a diet high in fruits and vegetables, moderate fish and alcohol, high...

Next up at American College of Nutrition conference, we're about to enjoy a talk given on "Nutrition and Chronic Disease: Advantages of a Diet Pattern and Health Outcomes" given by Nicola M. McKeown, Ph.D., of the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University.  "Trying to measure dietary exposures is very difficult," sayd McKeown. The nature of nutrition is extremely complex, and she quotes Walter Willet on the complexity (which makes me like her already). "A single nutrient may be confounded by an overall dietary pattern." Single-nutrient approaches ignore complexity of diets, biological interactions, and there is difficulty to detect small effects and observe health effects of single components.  How do we research with this complexity? We may be interested in a dietary pattern, a food group, an individual food, single nutrients, and bioactives (a top-down approach).  Why study dietary patterns? They represent the interactions and...

As part of Symposium II at American College of Nutrition conference in New York City, we are now enjoying a talk by PATH Medical director Eric Braverman, M.D., FACN. Braverman starts out talking about how "the brain is the most important organ" and you can have "too highs and too lows" such as in blood pressure, etc. He says he operates on the view that the purpose of being a doctor is to improve health in dramatic ways, which he adds should be measured. He has a slide up of several examples of aging patterns: "pause," "decline in," and "onset age." One example is "osteopause," "bone sensity" and "30", or "menopause," "estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone in women" and "40." Brain aging, from his perspective, has to be simplified to get anywhere. He "boils down" to loss of neurotransmitters and hormones in aging that leads to widespread down. "Aging is marked...

Now, for the second keynote at American College of Nutrition conference in New York City we're listening to Mark Mattson, Ph.D. He starts out talking about his work in the laboratory of neurosciences at National Institutes of Aging. He talks about what happens during aging in the brain. More and more as people get older, neurons age and die, predisposing us to Alzheimer's and other brain diseases. The mechanisms on how this happens are being shown and he discusses the different pathways. Dietary energy restriction, exercise, cognitive enrichment promote neuroprotection (hormesis?) by reducing oxidative stress and inflammation. Current trends in Alzheimer's showing it's a huge issue that's not being dealt with. We need a war on it like we have on cancer. Many people die from Alzheimer's and it's a tax on society. He discusses amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles (with tau) that is involved in AD pathogenesis. There's a number of animal models for ...

Our keynote presentation at American College of Nutrition conference in New York City was neurologist David Perlmutter, MD . He started off talking to us about the "uniqueness of the human brain." However, inflammation and oxidative stress ultimately lead to neurological degenerative disease. The brain's antioxidant defenses are limited and inflammation happens in the brain just as anywhere else. He showed us MRIs of classic brains and those of Alzheimer's patients (along with activated microglia). "This is the picture of what is happening. It is the brain on fire." In Parkinson's there is an increased density of glial cells expressing inflammatory cytokines, showing oxidative stress and inflammations is related to the disease too. Typically when Perlmutter helps Parkinson's patients, he tells them the drugs don't treat the disease only the symptoms. "You need to treat the fire," he says. Now, we also can "unlock the potential of o...

What are we doing about our national addiction to sodium? To present on this topic, we have Sonia Angell, MD, from the National Salt Reduction Initiative at the American College of Nutrition Conference in New York City. "The most recently daily recommendation of 2,300 milligrams of sodium or lower is not being followed," says Dr Angell. So, who's to think that people will follow new recommendations of intake of no more than 1,500 milligrams? How much is it about individual choice? Clearly, sodium intake is much higher in the U.S. than recommended, she says. What can industry do? Many clinicians spend enormous amounts of time supporting high-risk populations, but what can be done about the overall population? She asks, "How do we support choices?" Then she shows an example of two billboard signs placed next to each other, ironically: one advertising blood pressure readings, one advertising fast food. Lewington et al showed that there is a linear increase of hyper...

The idea that calorie restriction extends human life comes largely from studies of other species. The most relevant of those studies have been conducted with primates, where it has been shown that primates that eat a restricted calorie diet live longer and healthier lives than those that are allowed to eat as much as they want. There are two main problems with many of the animal studies of calorie restriction. One is that, as natural lifespan decreases, it becomes progressively easier to experimentally obtain major relative lifespan extensions. (That is, it seems much easier to double the lifespan of an organism whose natural lifespan is one day than an organism whose natural lifespan is 80 years.) The second, and main problem in my mind, is that the studies often compare obese with lean animals. Obesity clearly reduces lifespan in humans, but that is a different claim than the one that calorie restriction increases lifespan. It has often been claimed that Asian countries and ...

Renee Simon is going to "tie it all together" by sharing some case studies at the Autism and Nutrition workshop here in Bridgeport. First case, is A She starts with -eliminating sweets, preservatives -adds protein - healing gut with 4R principle (remove reactive foods and yeast, reintroduce good microflora, replace processed foods with nutrient-dense foods, repair lining with glutamine, DGL, etc) then -building immune system with vit C, herbs -detox support? -metabolic rebalancing? this entails B complex, zinc, Ca/Mg, selenium -testing for food sensitivity, stool, organic After three years, she started kindergarten with "huge progress" when docs provided no solutions. Second case, B is a 6-year-old boy diagnosed at 3 with eczema, ADD, ear infection -put on balanced macronutrient, higher protein, healthy fats, GFCF diet -tests of stool, hair, food sensitivity revealed harmful bacteria, high pH, high histamine, low zinc, low calcium, poor immunological function, low p...

Now we're going into Part 2 of the Autism and Nutrition Workshop at University of Bridgeport, with Gerri Brewster opening up with a lecture on the Dietary Interventions for Autistic Spectrum Disorders. She begins with a discussion of current diets, which she says are designed to "facilitate healing" the GI tract to improve autism-linked symptoms like cognitive performance. The diets often selected are -organic/clean diets - gluten free/casein free - SCD (Specific Carbohydrate) - Body Ecology - GAPS - Weston A Price "At the very least you want to clean things up," says Brewster. Clean diets should be the goal for everyone since according to California Department of Public Health showed that a "High rate of autism [is] seen in children exposed prenatally to organochlorine pesticides." You have six times more incidence of autism in children from women who lived within 500 meters of fields with organochlorines (reference: www.cdph.ca.gov/prgramservices/new...

In Part 1 (second lecture) of the Un of Bridgeport's seminar on autism, we're now hearing a lecture on nutritional approaches with autism with Renee Simon, MS . Simon is sharing why getting a complete "patient history is crucial" and should include: - family history - medical history - current eating habits - current symptoms - exams - yeast questionnaire - patterns (picky eating, food cravings, sleep problems) "Knowing what your starting with is very valuable," she says. You don't want to just tell them "you need to avoid this, you need to avoid that." This might frighten the patient. "You can't solve these problems in one or two visits. These can take years. You will most likely be working with a patient for a long time." As far as initial suggestions, - macronutrient balance - special diet (casein-, gluten- , yeast-free?) [Really, is there science to support this?] - supplements (vitamin D, calcium, B vitamins, fish oil, probio...

Autism is a "whole body" neurological disorder with defining criteria that has only been generally accepted since 1994, after Dr. Kanner described it in 1943. There are a total of 12 defining characteristics in early childhood, which include lack of responsiveness, gross deficits in language, etc. The prevalence of autism diagnosis is growing fast -- with rates rising 273 percent from 1987-98. Today, I'm live-blogging at University of Bridgeport while listening to Gerri Brewster, RD , talking about the disorder and what approaches nutritionists can take with these special-needs children. This is Part 1 of a seminar at the university on Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD). She says that there is a lot of speculation for why autism on the rise, with many discussing possible causes: - toxins in the environment - nutritiion deterioration - vaccines increasing - problems with detoxification What Brewster sees every day are children with gut issues, asthma, and food allergies, al...