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Want to make coffee less acidic? Add cream to it

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The table below is from a 2008 article by Ehlen and colleagues ( ), showing the amount of erosion caused by various types of beverages, when teeth were exposed to them for 25 h in vitro . Erosion depth is measured in microns. The third row shows the chance probabilities (i.e., P values) associated with the differences in erosion of enamel and root. As you can see, even diet drinks may cause tooth erosion. That is not to say that if you drink a diet soda occasionally you will destroy your teeth, but regular drinking may be a problem. I discussed this study in a previous post ( ). After that post was published here some folks asked me about coffee, so I decided to do some research. Unfortunately coffee by itself can also cause some erosion, primarily because of its acidity. Generally speaking, you want a liquid substance that you are interested in drinking to have a pH as close to 7 as possible, as this pH is neutral ( ). Tap and mineral water have a pH that is very close to 7. Black cof...

Boring is another word for satiating

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Satiety is a common topic of discussion on this blog. In the last few posts it came up several times in the comments’ sections. Also, in my interview with Jimmy Moore , we did talk a bit about satiety. I told him what has been my perception and that of many people I know, which is that the least satiating foods tend to be foods engineered by humans. (Source: Wellnessuncovered.com) There is another component to satiety, which applies to natural foods, or foods that are not man-made. That other component is the nutrition value of those foods, and whether they meet our nutrition needs at a given point in time. If our body needs certain essential amino acids for tissue repair, subconscious mechanisms will make us crave those foods from which those amino acids can be extracted. In this context, eating is generally a good idea. The problem is that we have not evolved mechanisms to differentiate “true” from “fake” nutrient starvation; one example of the latter would be fat starvation due to t...

The China Study II: Carbohydrates, fat, calories, insulin, and obesity

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The “great blogosphere debate” rages on regarding the effects of carbohydrates and insulin on health. A lot of action has been happening recently on Peter’s blog , with knowledgeable folks chiming in, such as Peter himself, Dr. Harris, Dr. B.G. (my sista from anotha mista), John, Nigel, CarbSane, Gunther G., Ed, and many others. I like to see open debate among people who hold different views consistently, are willing to back them up with at least some evidence, and keep on challenging each other’s views. It is very unlikely that any one person holds the whole truth regarding health matters. Unfortunately this type of debate also confuses a lot of people, particularly those blog lurkers who want to get all of their health information from one single source. Part of that “great blogosphere debate” debate hinges on the effect of low or high carbohydrate dieting on total calorie consumption. Well, let us see what the China Study II data can tell us about that, and about a few other things....

Chew your calories and drink water: Industrial beverages and tooth erosion

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Dental erosion is a different problem from dental caries. Dental erosion is defined as the removal of minerals from the tooth structure via chemicals. Dental caries are the result of increased site-specific acidity due to bacterial fermentation of sugars. Still, both have the same general result, destruction of teeth structure. Losing teeth probably significantly accelerated death among our Paleolithic ancestors, as it does with modern hunter-gatherers. It is painful and difficult to eat nutritious foods when one has teeth problems, and chronic lack of proper nutrition is the beginning of the end. The table below, from Ehlen et al. (2008), shows the amount of erosion that occurred when teeth were exposed to beverages for 25 h in vitro. Erosion depth is measured in microns. The third row shows the chance probabilities (i.e., P values) associated with the differences in erosion of enamel and root. These are not particularly enlightening; enamel and root are both significantly eroded. The...

The China Study II: Fruit consumption and mortality

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I ran several analyses on the effects of fruit consumption on mortality on the China Study II dataset using WarpPLS . For other China Study analyses, many using WarpPLS as well as HCE , click here . The results are pretty clear – fruit consumption has no significant effect on mortality. The bar charts figure below shows what seems to be a slight downward trend in mortality, in the 35-69 and 70-79 age ranges, apparently due to fruit consumption. As it turns out, that slight trend may be due to something else: in the China Study II dataset, fruit consumption is positively associated with both animal protein and fat consumption. And, as we have seen from previous analyses (e.g., this one ), the latter two seem to be protective. So, if you like to eat fruit, maybe you should also make sure that you eat animal protein and fat as well.