Open Future Health Blog

June 2016 - 7 items

Open Future Health Blog

Your habits when you are in your 40's and 50's are the foundation for your good health and fitness at 85. Improved diet is the low cost alternative to extensive medical intervention later in life. The body has the ability to heal itself, if we treat it with respect. ANYBODY who adopts a healthy diet, at ANY AGE, will benefit, and as the months go by, those benefits will multiply.

Changing Dietary Understanding. Dr Ted Naiman

Given what he's now doing and saying, it's useful to look at Dr Naiman's background. (Pronounced Neighman) He trained first as an engineer, hopeful of joining Boeing on graduation. History, got in the way, in 1993 Boeing was putting engineers off. Naiman needed a plan B. So he entered the Loma Linda University Medical School, a place steeped in vegetarian traditions.

[From Wikipedia:] Loma Linda University (LLU) is a Seventh-day Adventist coeducational health sciences university located in Loma Linda, California, United States. The University comprises eight schools and the Faculty of Graduate Studies.

Today, a community of about 9,000 Adventists in the Loma Linda area are the core of America's Blue Zone. They live as much as a decade longer than the rest of us, and they believe much of their longevity can be attributed to vegetarianism and regular exercise. Plus, Adventists don't smoke or drink alcohol.

Loma Linda was chosen as an American Blue Zone by Dan Buettner for his book, "Blue Zones: Lessons For Living Longer From The People Who've Lived The Longest."

Life as a vegetarian

Ted Naiman at 28 and again at 43

Naiman was raised as a vegetarian, in Colorado. He was delighted to attend Loma Linda University, and he was very strict about eating in a vegetarian way. Beans and soy were a significant part of his diet. He thought he was "healthy."

On reflection he now understands that he wasn't healthy at all. His body structure was weak. He was always hungry. He felt tired all the time. His skin condition was poor. His athletic ability was weak.

"In my medical education, there was no focus on diet. As far as I could tell, I was eating a "text book" healthy diet. Lots of vegetables and whole grain foods. Almost zero saturated fat, and hardly ever any animal products. In medical school we were taught to look at families, where you could often see a pattern of good health or poor health. We were taught that this was the effect of genetics in the family. Most of the medical problems we would meet as doctors were natural, the effect of aging and genetics."

Having graduated in 1997, he worked for the next three years as a junior doctor, under supervision, in a hospital. During that time, a patient who he had previously seen, suddenly lost weight and reversed his diabetes symptoms. Naiman had never seen that before, so he asked how that happened. He was told about the Atkins diet. Naiman discussed this with his supervisor. He was told that he must never recommend the Atkins Diet to anyone. The patients "success" was dismissed, with the view that on an Atkins Diet, in a few years that patient will be dead. High cholesterol was the problem, in his supervisors opinion.

"So as medical students we were told to accept that because of their poor genetic make-up, and their failure to exercise, most patients would get fatter and sicker, and there was nothing that we could do about that."

Edit 2022: Sadly that's still the view of many doctors. Worse, that's also the view many people have about themselves. I've tried to be "healthy" but nothing works; "It's my genes, or it's just the way things are."

Over the next two years Naiman studied nutrition for a research paper he was expected to write at the end of his residency. He discovered that there was a lot of prior literature that supported the Atkins Diet, and that his own personal experiments seemed to have gone well. In 2000, Michael and Mary Eades published their book "Protein Power" which confirmed the dietary direction his own work was already taking.

Working as a doctor.

"For a long time I tried to apply what I was learning in my own life. In the Medical Center where I worked there as a strong view that low-carbohydrate high-fat diets were dangerous. So while his my confidence grew, I seldom shared this knowledge with patients. For a long time I flew under the radar."

Today he's very open about what he's recommending, and he's got hundreds of patients with successful results, using the LCHF approach. Still at the Virginia Mason Medical Center, where he works, many doctors remain strongly opposed to his interventions.

In my daily work I like to deal with people who have obesity problems, or type two diabetes, because I know I can help them.

But I also deal a lot with people who have addiction problems, alcohol, meth, heroin, cocaine. It's interesting. If people who are addicted, feed themselves in the same way I ask people who are obese to eat, if they eat nutrient dense foods, their addiction is much easier to deal with.

Insulin Resistance

The plague in our society is undiagnosed, even unsuspected insulin resistance. You can't get fat, or get type two diabetes without it. There is a simple test anyone can do, you only need a tape measure. Measure your height, and waist. (cm or inches) Divide your waist by your height, and the result should be a number less than 0.50. This measure is quite sensitive, at 0.53, you are already overweight. At 5.55 you need to seriously consider corrective action. At 5.60 your doctor has been telling you for a long time that you are too heavy. There is serious risk for future CVD, stroke and diabetes. Even at 0.51, probably when you were 30, insulin resistance is already developing, and it builds and builds over the years. If weight is an issue for you, insulin resistance is the topic you need to discuss with your doctor.

Measuring your weight or calculating your BMI, are less reliable measures of your health.

70% of all deaths today, are from chronic diseases, many of which were virtually unknown 100 years ago. These are modern lifestyle diseases all caused in the first instance by our poor nutrition, and secondly by our failure to exercise. It's easy to do something about that. Some of us will. Target insulin resistance, not blood sugar. Refer to Dr Jason Fung for that detail.

(Note 2022:) The people who suffer most from Covid 19 are those with pre-existing health problems, most notably the diseases related to metabolic syndrome. Too often those problems like obesity and type II diabetes, have existed for many years. We now KNOW, that with lifestyle changes, people can lose weight and reverse their type II diabetes.

Mitochondria for Fat Oxidation

People don't understand where the energy of the body comes from. All of your cells have mitochondria that are continually converting glucose, fatty acids or ketones into ATP, the energy your cells use. (Krebs Cycle) You have less than 6 seconds supply of ATP in your body at any time, so this production process is continuous and under strict control.

Mitochondria are energy conversion units. They are inside every cell in your body.

If you exercise your cells produce more mitochondria to help with the process. The most effective exercise for that is easy to do and it's very quick. Exercise the muscle to failure with a suitable weight and a very slow continuous movement. It should take between 60 seconds and 90 seconds to reach failure (inability to continue) if the weight is right. Then don't do that again for 7 days, allow the muscle to recover fully. (See "Body by Science" by Dr Doug McGuff.)

There are five exercises to do. You don't need to change your clothes or even break a sweat. You don't need any equipment except a bar to hang from or pull-up on.

The five exercises: Horizontal push (moving the door frame, or the car), and horizontal pull (rowing).
Vertical pull (pull-up on a bar) and vertical push (push-ups).
Finally a squat either a stationary squat with your hands pressing up against a table, or a moving squat with your hands holding weights.

It's not Just About Calories

The standard way to look at the adequacy of a diet is to count calories. In addition the body needs protein and fat, and the food programmes of the United Nations and various governments, try to supply adequate food at minimal cost.

"The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) recommends that each refugee receive more than 2,100 calories per day, but often camps fall short of this standard. For example, in 2005 and 2006, the daily amount of distributed food in Tanzanian refugee camps was 1,700 and 1,460 kilocalories per person, respectively. A 1987 study in the largest refugee camp on the Thai side of the Thailand-Cambodian border found that 30% of the population was chronically malnourished.

A report from an refugee camp in Asia reported that, carbohydrate, protein, and fat accounted for 84%, 9%, and 7% of total energy, respectively. The intake of vitamins A, B1, B2, and C and of calcium ranged from 24.2% to 53.1% of the RDA. ... Among children under five years of age, 33.7% were underweight, 36.4% were stunted, and 8.7% were wasted.

Why do I bother to speak about this?  Gary Taubes wrote a book called "Good Calories, Bad Calories." He writes about the Pima Indians of South Western Arizona, when the tribe was deprived of their land and animals, and were forced to live on the reservation, dependent on rations from the government for survival. The rations were inadequate. The children were short, underweight and malnourished, but the adults, especially the women, were obese. Why? Do these adults starve their children to feed themselves? Not at all. The adults fed the children the best food they had.

This pattern applies to Indian tribes across the USA. But also world-wide. In Jamaica, in West Africa, in Soviet Czechoslovakia, among the poor in every country. Why? The poor get cheapest food, both when they buy it themselves, and when it's supplied by the government or a charity. Carbohydrates were 84% of the energy (calories) in the diet in the example above. Carbohydrates are cheap, and sugar provides very high energy at the lowest cost. The obese women in Western Sahara refugee camps, ate very little, but spent much of the day drinking sugary tea. And the poor in my country, drink soft drinks with exactly the same effect.

The protein refugees ate lacked animal sources, and the fats and oils were the poorest quality. Essential vitamins and minerals were commonly less than 50% of the RDA. What does sad situation this teach us?

FEED Yourself

People will continue to eat, if they can, because they are malnourished. Your body has a requirement for certain fatty acids and amino acids that it can't make itself. If those are not already in your food, your body will drive you to eat more.

If you eat the same old wrong foods, or those are the only foods available, that doesn't help. You MUST eat foods that contain those essential nutritional ingredients. In the developed world, we don't lack calories, most of us eat far too many calories, but we eat empty calories, without the essential nutriments.

The obese women on the Western Sahara refugee camp, got obese on sugar, lots of calories and inadequate nutrition. They can say; "I don't eat much," truthfully. Some of us do exactly the same, we eat foods with excess energy and inadequate nutrition. Cereal, muffins and bread, instead of bacon, eggs and tomatoes.

So the first step to good health is to FEED yourself. Eat good quality food. Start the day with four to six eggs and a little bacon on the side. You may not need to eat again for six hours. Eggs are an ideal food, but so are fatty meats. Gram for gram both are about 50% protein and 50% fat. In calories that makes the breakfast 70% fat and 30% protein. By all means add tomatoes, mushrooms or spinach or kale for variety.

"Plan your day around the main sources of protein you will eat. Two meals a day, with something small or maybe nothing for lunch. Focus on nutrient dense foods and you'll never feel hungry because you've met your bodies need for essential fatty acids and amino acids."

As I planned to write this blog, yesterday, I looked up "nutrient dense foods" and I uncovered the old philosophical arguments that plague nutrition. There is some science, but mostly it's prejudice, pretending to be science. I will write about that next time.

Nutrient Dense Foods: Nutritious Foods

The standard American diet, by default has become the standard diet of the world. The standard American diet is said to be energy-rich, meaning full of calories, and nutrient-poor, meaning lacking essential amino-acids, vitamins and minerals, and being deficient in omega-3 fatty acids. The first official recognition of this fact was in the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which recommended that people seek to eat nutrient-dense foods. But exactly what those foods were was not defined.

In the Banting world, there is a very clear concept of what nutritious foods are. More on that later.

When I search online for guidance, I discover wildly different ideas of what nutrient-dense means, and which foods should be included is not well defined. Most of those expressing an opinion are keen the EXCLUDE some foods. Most obvious are the "authorities" that exclude all meat, and those that exclude red meats. Some are clear that all dairy foods are inflammatory in the diet of adult humans. More recently, by promoting a "healthy gut" the idea of being gluten free, has been expanded to being wheat free, and then grain free.

Banting Foods

This takes me back to the McGovern Senate Committee and the debates they had in 1977. Many Senators had been influenced by Nathan Pritikin or Dean Ornish and were keen on promoting a vegetarian diet. McGovern sought help from science, but the science was confused, and unreliable. Eventually market pressures prevailed. The committee supported the American farmer. Whatever the American farmer produced must be good. So we have for the first time strong promotion of wheat and corn, crops in surplus. The suggestion that red meat should be excluded from the diet was dropped, in favour of the cattlemen.

In a paper called, "Concept of a nutritious food; toward a nutrient density score" (American Society for Clinical Nutrition, 2005) Dr Adam Drewnowski, finds there is no agreement. In the literature, this point had already been argued for 30 years. Many dietitians adopt the view that there are no good or bad foods, only bad diets. This supports the idea that "a little bit of everything" is likely to be good.

If you look at food marketing, foods that are sugar free, or fat free, and sometimes salt free, are described as "healthy" and given ticks or stars of approval, by the heart association or the diabetes association, when there is zero science backing that assessment. Those ticks and stars are recognition of the payment of money from industry to the association, and acknowledge that some sort of "partnership" agreement exists. It's a financial transaction, with marketing objectives.

Energy dense foods are easier. Dried fruits and sugar by any of it's 40+ names and potato crisps and whole grains and cereals, are all energy dense. In terms of cost per calorie, the calories supplied by sugar and grains are very cheap indeed. When any government or the United Nations, or a relief agency is purchasing food for a refugee camp, or for poverty stricken tribal peoples on a "reservation" this is what they buy. 2200 calories a day per person, 70% carbohydrate (energy dense foods), 20% protein (very little meat or fish, beans and lentils are cheapest), and 10% oils (Vegetable oils are cheapest.) The effect of this sort of diet over the long term is well understood.

Better Quality Food

In the previous post I wrote about the debate, as to which foods were truly nutrient dense. Perhaps we should also think about a second food group, foods that are anti-inflammatory. I think in meat and fish we can have both.

For a couple of years now we've been buying a lot of bacon in our household. We're slow learners. We tried to buy the cheapest bacon we could find. Streaky bacon is cheaper than middle bacon. And since we're not lipo-phobic (We don't fear saturated fats.) we're happy about buying that. From the Supermarket here in New Zealand we were paying $16.00 a kg.

About eight months ago I went to Euro Gourmet Meats, and purchased some aged middle bacon, $29.00 a kg. Seems expensive. (New Christchurch shop: Address: 2/303 Colombo St, Sydenham, Christchurch 8023) That was enlightening. Cooking supermarket bacon takes a long time, and white foam develops on top of the meat as it cooks. That's caused by the water and additives they pump into the bacon, coming out as the bacon cooks. The bacon pieces shrivel up to half their size. In contrast the Euro Gourmet Meats bacon produces no white foam, and cooks in half the time, and shrinks hardly at all.

Excellent descriptions of meat cuts and more than 77 recipes. Beautiful photographs.

On their web site, Euro Gourmet Meats say; "We have top quality meat cut by experienced butchers. While our specialty is Cressy Farm pork we also have aged beef, prime lamb and hogget and some approved wild game. All our meat is free-range and we try our best to source direct from the farm."

I need to know more. So in the last few months we've been talking more to our local butcher. We've been buying kidneys and liver there, rather than from the supermarket. Once again there is a marked improvement in the quality of the product. (Peter Timbs Meats Ltd, in Bishopdale this time.)

So I went to Traiteur of Merivale (European butchery on the corner of Aikmans and Papanui Roads, Christchurch.) I couldn't find any prepacked bacon. But they sliced some for me. $26.00 a kg, but once again well worth the price. Beautiful bacon. We will shop there again.

The local butcher (Peter Timbs Meats Ltd) doesn't carry chicken on the counter. But he will order it for you. So Carolyn placed an order. She got two packs of chicken breasts, $10.00 each, enough for six meals for the two of us. Another success, that just required us to talk to the butcher.

Following up on that, I determined to learn more about quality meats. I purchased "Lidgate's The Meat Cookbook; Buy and cook meat for every occasion" from the Book Depository. I think I paid $21.00 for the hardback edition (Including delivery.). I see Amazon have even cheaper options, plus delivery.

Muscles for lunch - Three days.

I've mentioned previously in this blog my ignorance about buying whole fish. Yes I need to learn more about fish too. But that's another exercise.

In the meantime; whenever muscles are on special at the supermarket I buy a little more than 2 kg. I steam them for 6-7 minutes half a kg at a time. (About 12 muscles) I use a liquid 50% the salted water from the steam pot, and 50% cider vinegar to cover them. Any extra salty water makes a delicious drink hot or cold. Or add it to a soup or gravy.

A quick easy lunch is two or three muscles and a lump of cheese. You can eat it on the run. You can drink the water the muscles were kept in too. With saturated coffee; 17g carbs, 74g protein and 114g fat.

Another tiny lunch, of a similar type is to eat canned sardines. Zoe Harcombe gives sardines a special place as a "superfood" if such a thing exists. Sardines (half a can) and cheese make an excellent quick lunch. With saturated coffee; 7g carbs, 73g protein and 124g fat.

Once a week at least we buy filleted fish. Usually from the supermarket. I note though that Theo's in Riccarton, appears to be an excellent fishmonger. Given what we've been learning about meat, maybe we should go there more often.

Ten Years of Nutritional Guidance

Dr Marion Nestle has been writing a blog on food for 10 years. Over 3000 posts. A remarkable effort. Dr Nestle, is a professor of nutrition. I would describe her as "Old School," but still her experience counts for something.

She believes that a calorie is a calorie, and that eating less is good, and that minimizing sugar and eating more plants is always the right choice. She's against carbohydrate restricting.

On the other hand, she says that eating a Paleo Diet could be healthy, but she sees no need to restrict dairy foods. Her comments on low-carbohydrate high-fat diets are dismissive. "Why would anyone want to give up those delicious carbohydrate foods," she asks?

While she would not agree with Dr Tim Noakes, or Dr Eric Westman, about the best way to control obesity, the position she does take is always moderate and sensible. Here she writes about why she's kept writing for 10 years.

Understanding Type Two Diabetes

Dr Jason Fung is a Canadian nephrologist, a specialist in kidney disease. I've written about him as an expert here. This issue concerns us all. Although we might not have yet developed type two diabetes, most of us are on track to do that. One in five of us will become diabetic, unless we take corrective action. The best time to take corrective action is 20 years before diabetes develops in your body. For many of us; too late for that. Act NOW, understand the issue, it's not too hard.

With regards to type two diabetes, Dr Fung says that if we have a disease where given the best medical treatment, patients continue to decline and eventually die with the disease, and with the many adverse health effects of widespread vascular damage. Perhaps we should reconsider what we are doing. Maybe the "treatment is wrong." This is exactly the position Dr Tim Noakes takes too. Dr Noakes' father was diagnosed with type two diabetes, and treated in the same way most diabetes is still treated today, and died of complications caused by diabetes 18 years later.

Dr Noakes himself, having run marathons for much of his life, having eaten a high-energy high-carbohydrate diet, as recommended for athletes for 30 years, was also diagnosed with type two diabetes. This got Dr Noakes rethinking everything he thought he knew about healthy diets. Professional colleagues in the USA pointed him in the right direction. Noakes discovered a very-low-carbohydrate diet. He now has no symptoms of type two diabetes.

With his new knowledge, Dr Noakes became involved in a new initiative to improve the diet of South African's. They started a company called "The Real Meal Revolution" and produced a book of that name and an online training programme, both for people who wanted to learn how to eat better food, and for people who want to be nutritional consultants based on the principles of "The Real Meal Revolution." The success of this venture caused conflict between the traditional establishment which supported the Dietary Guidelines for South Africa, and the very outspoken and popular Dr Tim Noakes.

In the following video, Dr Jason Fung, explains that if there is excess glucose in the blood, taking medication to remove the glucose from the blood doesn't cure the problem it merely shifts the problem elsewhere. It's the same problem a city has in disposal of sewerage, we can put it into a river or into the sea, but it doesn't go away, and wherever we put it, a new problem is created. As ecologists tell us, "there is no such place as 'away'."

In this video Dr Fung is talking to the public, so his focus is on blood glucose management. It's simple; don't eat and your glucose levels will go down.

When talking to medical doctors Dr Fung doesn't talk about blood glucose control. For a medical practitioner, blood sugar control in the patient is the wrong target. The right target is to reduce, minimise and eliminate insulin resistance. Since a doctors time is limited, Dr Fung doesn't recommend a very-low-carbohydrate diet. (Training people to understand nutrition and to choose food wisely, simply takes up too much time.) Dr Fung recommends intermittent fasting.

Type two diabetes is not a chronic irreversible disease. You can cure yourself, but you need to understand the problem. First, all carbohydrates become sugar in the body. Diabetes is a problem of too much sugar in the body, so shifting it from the blood into glycogen stores, or into adipose tissue, isn't a solution. You must find a way to get it out of the body, or stop it from getting into the body. So your diet is critical.

Try to understand the issue. If you eat excessive carbohydrates for a long time, slowly your body becomes insulin resistant, and eventually you become fat and diabetic. That "disease" cannot be cured by taking medication. The only solution is to change your diet. Intermittent fasting, is a quick and dirty solution that works. A better solution is to understand nutrition and to improve your diet, but that takes time and effort. Until you've done that, perhaps you should fast, or use the "Take Out Diet" as I've recommended for two years.

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