Dieting May Fail Due to Some of These Reasons

Fitness and Daily Health Tip Today
I just can't lose weight even though I diet." You've probably heard that sorry song from at least one person in your life, and if you tend toward cynicism, you probably wondered if that person cheated by sneaking midnight cupcakes. But in fact, researchers now have turned up a possible explanation for lack of weight loss success, and it doesn't involve cheating on the diet.

While it's true that the old equation, calories burned must exceed calories consumed for weight loss success to occur, it turns out that some food calorie types may trigger faster weight loss than others. Up until now, it's been assumed, at least by mainstream nutritionists, that each food calorie represents a standard unit that will generate the same amount of energy when metabolized. But new evidence seems to confirm what alternative health experts have been saying for years, that different types of calories affect the body differently, and stocking up on the wrong type of calories, even if you consume very few of them, will work against you in your quest to fit into your jeans.

The researchers, out of Boston Children's Hospital, put obese subjects on a radical diet that caused them to lose at least 10 percent of their body weight. Then, the researchers determined the number of calories each of these subjects burned daily. For the next three months, the subjects continued to diet, but now they consumed the same number of calories as they burned daily, so theoretically, they should have maintained their weight. Each subsequent month, the diet changed, though the number of calories (1600 daily) stayed the same.

The first month, the diet was a low-fat regimen rich in whole grains, fruits, and vegetables -- in other words, supposedly healthy, but carbohydrate rich. On that diet, 60 percent of the daily calories came from carbohydrates, 20 percent from fats, and 20 percent from protein. The next month, the subjects tried out a low-glycemic diet, which means they consumed plenty of fiber and carbohydrates, too, but only non-starchy carbohydrates -- broccoli as opposed to pasta, for instance--and minimally processed foods. The ratio on that diet was 10 percent of calories from carbohydrates, 60 percent from fat, and 30 percent from protein. Finally, they went on an Atkins-type diet, heavy on the fat and protein, light on the carbohydrates.

Again, the subjects consumed the exact same number of calories on each of these diets, so in theory, they should have had the same results. But surprisingly, the more carbohydrates the subjects consumed, the fewer the calories they burned. On the Atkins-style low-carbohydrate diet, the subjects burned an average of 300 more calories daily than they did on the low-fat diet and 150 more than on the low-glycemic diet. In other words, those restricting themselves to 1800 calories daily on the Atkins diet lost more weight faster than those eating 1800 calories on a low fat, carbohydrate-rich diet. At the end of the trial, the subjects on the Atkins and low-glycemic diets also had lower cholesterol levels and reduced insulin sensitivity.

Study director Dr. David Ludwig summarizes, "From a metabolic perspective our study suggests that all calories are not alike. The quality of the calories going in is going to affect the number of calories going out."

What explains the differing results when caloric intake is equivalent? The answer may have to do with the fact that calories have two functions: either they get burned for fuel, or they get stored in the cells for later use. Because simple carbohydrates trigger the production of the hormone insulin and insulin works to store fat in the cells, a carbohydrate calorie is more likely to go right to your waistline instead of being burned. In fact, a diet rich in starchy carbohydrates floods your system with insulin. Complex carbohydrates, such as those found in green vegetables, take longer to break down in the system and so don't have quite the same effect. In any event, to burn an equivalent number of calories on the 1600-calorie high-carbohydrate diet as compared to a 1600-calorie Atkins-style diet, the researchers say, you need to exercise for an additional hour daily.

And so, the advice of venerable institutions like the American Heart Association, which suggests sticking to a low-fat diet involving plenty of carbohydrates, seems to be just the wrong thing if you want to lose weight.

Given these results, it seems a no-brainer that Atkins-style diets trump the others. In fact, though, the Atkins diet brings with it other problems that negate at least some of the benefits it confers. The researchers found that while the subjects lost the most weight on the Atkins diet, they also had higher levels of c-Reactive protein and cortisol in their blood, both indicators of systemic inflammation. According to Dr. Ludwig, "The metabolic benefits of this diet may be undermined by more inflammation and higher cortisol, both of which can increase [heart disease and stroke] risk over time." Plus, as Jon Barron has written before, low carbohydrate, high-protein diets put you at risk by stressing the liver and kidneys, lowering the body's pH, which contributes to osteoporosis and cancer, and weakening the immune system.

And so, if the low-carbohydrate diet leads to inflammation, stroke, cancer, and heart disease, and the high-carbohydrate diet leads to obesity, which leads to stroke, cancer and heart disease, plus diabetes, what can you eat? What diet can you follow? It seems that the middle path trumps the other approaches. In other words, the evidence suggests that your best bet is the low-glycemic die.

Frankenstein Foods, Inc.

Fitness and Today's Daily health Tip
Old McDonald had a farm with some cows, horses, and pigs, but on that farm he probably didn't have synagriculture. Say what? Synagriculture is the latest trend in the world of farming, and it doesn't involve overalls, backhoes, or genetically modified organisms (GMOs). In fact, synagriculture makes GMOs look as dated as flat-screens make the old 90-pound consoles look.

Synagriculture originates from what is known as synthetic biology. According to an abstract in the Idaho Law Review, "Synthetic biology seeks to purge biology of some of its fundamental inefficiencies through the rigorous application of engineering principles. Rather than tinkering around the edges, biological engineering would remake living organisms from first principles, and employ standard parts to make qualitatively new biological devices and systems."

As applied to food, synthetic biology involves creating vegetables, fruits, grains, and other edibles from the beginning, either using synthesized genetic parts or by rearranging natural biological parts. In other words, it means creating entirely new types of engineered food that have never existed before on earth and may bear no biological relationship to what we now enjoy for dinner. It means foods that will have to be patented.

While advocates of synagriculture point to the possibility of creating wonderful new disease-resistant engineered food and thus feeding the world, there's plenty to be worried about. And the worries extend far beyond the obvious concerns about depending on synthetic nutrition created by corporate interests. The kicker is that as synthetic biology takes off in the lab, a new movement called DIYbio, or "Do it Yourself Biology," has young mad scientists working in their garages. Apparently, labs have been popping up in private homes and community locations at an ever increasing pace, allowing tinkering amateurs to try their hands at rearranging cells, genes, and organisms. The website, DIYbio.org has a forum with posts bearing titles such as "Free plasmids for amateur biologists," "Genome compiler," and "Translating bacterial DNA into plant DNA." More than 2000 people already participate in the network.

Who are the participants in DIYbio? According to Wikipedia, "Participants call themselves ‘bio-hackers', not hackers in the sense of infiltrating protected places and stealing information, but hackers in the original sense of taking things apart and putting them back together in a new, better (don't we hope) way. These bio-hackers often have mundane day jobs and pursue biology in their free time."

While it's true that Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs did a similar thing in their garages and ended up with Apple Computer, it's a whole different world to take apart living organisms or to try to create entirely new forms from the ground up -- by converting bacteria, for instance, into lunch. The website, SyntheticBiology.org, says, "Imaginable hazards associated with synthetic biology include (a) the accidental release of an unintentionally harmful organism or system, (b) the purposeful design and release of an intentionally harmful organism or system, (c) a future over-reliance on our ability to design and maintain engineered biological systems in an otherwise natural world."

The DIYbio site says it seeks "to work with the community to establish a code of ethics, develop norms for safety, and create shared resources for promotion of safe practice by amateurs." It doesn't mention anything about oversight, regulation, enforcement, or how to prevent an insane megalomaniac from getting hold of those genome compilers in the short run.

The other problem, of course, is that whatever new engineered food is created will not have stood the test of time. We won't know the long-term consequences, if any, of eating it. Does it impact hormones unfavorably in the body like soy? Do components in it inhibit the absorption of certain nutrients in the way phytates do, for example? Does it contain low-level allergens ala wheat gluten or dairy proteins? Does it promote cancer over time like high fructose corn syrup? I guess we'll find out 20 years down the road…when people start getting sick and dying.

Not to take a dark view here, but it would be appropriate to feel concern. But then again, history teems with worry about the crashing asteroid or the vengeful god bringing about our demise as a race. Somehow we humans seem to keep on truckin'. In the meantime, you would do well to keep a watchful eye, learn what you can about developments affecting what you eat, hope the FDA doesn't allow companies to slip these new foods into the food chain without proper labeling as they're now allowing for certain irradiated foods, and get yourself a patch of garden--and learn how to work the soil.

Probiotic, The Power of Nature.

Today's Fitness and Daily Health Tip

Before you were born, your intestines were free of microorganisms. They were virtually sterile. From the moment you passed through the birth canal swallowing flora on your way out, however, bacteria (both beneficial and harmful) began a fight for dominance destined to continue until the day you die. If you were breast-fed, somewhere between days four and seven after you were born the "good guys" won the battle and staked their claim to virtually every square inch of your digestive tract. It's a battle that's never totally won, however, as the harmful bacteria are never completely eliminated. But in a healthy body, the bad guys never get a chance to gain a foothold to colonize and reproduce exponentially. One of the problems, of course, is that every second of every single day, we are constantly exposed to billions of potentially harmful microorganisms, with every breath that we take, bite of food that we swallow, or swig of water that we drink.

Researchers now realize that one of the chief reasons breast-fed babies get so many fewer infections than formula-fed babies is that mother's milk tends to promote the growth of beneficial bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract, whereas store-bought formulas have no such beneficial effect. In fact, the primary role of colostrum, the fluid in the breasts that nourishes the baby until the breast milk becomes available, is to "launch" the baby's immune system. The net result is that, in a breast-fed baby, beneficial bacteria (such as acidophilus and bifidobacteria) control over 90 percent of the intestinal tract. These microorganisms, in turn, produce a large amount of essential byproducts in the intestines, which act as a barrier to the growth of pathogenic microbes that can cause disease and infection. When you're healthy, over 100 trillion microorganisms from some 400 species flourish in your intestinal tract. They cover virtually every square inch of available surface space from your mouth to your anus, thus crowding out all harmful bacteria—allowing them no place to gain a foothold. They also aid in digestion, absorption, and the production of significant amounts of B vitamins, vitamin K, and enzymes.

Pollens from Flowers, Superfood that You must not Ignore

TODAY'S FITNESS AND DAILY HEALTH TIP

This week we turn our attention to a “forgotten” superfood, flower pollen. Years ago, bee pollen was THE superfood in the alternative health industry – and for good reason. But over time, it was replaced by the next “hot” thing and the next hot thing after that. The simple truth, though, is that pollen still ranks as probably the single greatest superfood ingredient yet discovered. Just because something is old doesn't make it out of date. When Jon Barron hiked the 212 miles of the Jon Muir Trail a number of years ago, bee pollen was his primary energy food. It sustained him as he hiked a pass a day, ranging from 10,000 to 14,500 feet in altitude.

Again, keep in mind that just because other superfoods have come along since (spirulina, chlorella, rice bran, noni, mangosteen, etc.) it doesn't lessen the value of the original great superfood. It's still number one. And, in fact, it has improved with age.

Back when Jon first used it, it was available only in the form of fresh bee pollen. Flower pollen extract, though, which wasn't even possible until advanced manufacturing methods were invented, is a much, much more powerful supplement than the original.

Its first advantage is that unlike bee pollen, flower pollen is remarkably clean (containing no bee parts or dirt) and is therefore close to allergy free. It is also far more digestible. It is harvested directly from the flower, totally bypassing the bees. In addition, unlike bee pollen, which contains the whole pollen grain, flower pollen (such as Graminex^®) is an extract of the actual nutritive heart of the pollen – eliminating the hard to digest and allergy causing outer pollen husk. In particular, Graminex flower pollen extract contains virtually every single known compound necessary for life, including: vitamins, amino acids, nucleic acids, minerals, long chain alcohols, unsaturated fatty acids, prostaglandin precursors, and plant hormones – not to mention several thousand enzymes. According to Elson M. Haas and Buck Levin, authors of "Staying Healthy with Nutrition," while the precise makeup of pollen varies from flower to flower, almost all types of pollen contain a rich mix of amino acids, vitamins, and minerals.¹

Because it has been around so long, flower pollen, and Graminex^® in particular, are backed by mountains of clinical studies. In fact, Jon’s own medical library has over 400 pages of clinical study data supporting Graminex^® flower pollen extract – related to just its benefits vis-à-vis the prostate. But we will spare you having to read through 400 pages of content! To summarize, Graminex^® flower pollen extract has shown benefits in the following:

• Helps with allergies, especially Hay Fever and any pollen allergy
• Shown to inhibit the growth of prostate cancer cells and tumor cells
• Can stabilize body weight
• Increase resistance towards infections
• Shows prophylactic effect against symptoms of the common cold
• Has anti-inflammatory properties and can help normalize lipid metabolism disturbances
• Protects and heals the lungs and liver, especially against alcohol damage to the liver
• Can reduce the size and congestion of prostate cells, improve urinary flow rate, and clearance through action of the smooth muscle
• Relieves urinary tract symptoms
• Reduce hot flashes and menopausal symptoms²

Overall, this is a remarkable superfood. It contains a full spectrum of concentrated vitamins, minerals, amino acids, phytosterols, antioxidants, and even fatty acids. Make sure to include flower pollen extract in your daily superfood shake!

Deficiency In Vitamin D can Cause Weight Gain

Many of us no longer have the metabolism we once had as teenagers, when it seemed that we burned off all the calories we consumed with ease. As we age, we tend to gain weight, even if we are careful with our diet and exercise routine. There are many factors that cause the numbers on the scale to rise as we get older, and now a new study provides another one to consider: low levels of vitamin D may be one of the causes of weight gain.

The research, which took place at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Oregon, found that women at least 65 years old who have deficient vitamin D levels experience more weight gain than their counterparts with higher levels. The scientists analyzed blood tests of more than 4,600 women and determined that those with too little vitamin D gained an average of two pounds more weight over the course of a five-year period than did those with sufficient vitamin D. In addition, the women lacking in vitamin D were heavier than their peers at the outset of the study.

The majority of women involved in the research had vitamin D levels below 30 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml), which is considered insufficient by The Endocrine Society, an international organization of members in the field of endocrinology. This group defines an actual vitamin D deficiency in adults as less than 20 ng/ml and an insufficiency as between 21 and 29 ng/ml. The study participants whose levels were deemed sufficient were those who measured at least 30 ng/ml.

So it would seem that there is an association between increased weight gain and a lack of vitamin D. But the study does not tell us whether this vitamin D deficiency in adults is the cause of the added pounds or they are linked in another way. It will take more research to answer that question, but vitamin D may somehow influence the levels of fat we retain and release. We know that fat cells have vitamin D receptors and these cells may be more metabolically active when we get enough of the vitamin.

Adequate amounts of vitamin D are also good for other aspects of the health besides possibly preventing additional weight. A deficiency in vitamin D has been found in numerous studies to be associated with a wide variety of ailments, including heart disease, several types of cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, and certain autoimmune disorders.

Now you're probably wondering what the best sources are. Our bodies make their own vitamin D when the skin is exposed to sunlight. However, our fear of sunburn and skin cancer causes most of us to use sunscreen nearly all the time. Unless you are extremely fair-skinned and prone to burning very quickly, you can probably safely spend at least a few minutes a day in the sun, during the early morning and later afternoon, forgoing the sunscreen without causing any appreciable damage to your skin. And that can be enough time for you to produce all the vitamin D you need. Just 15 minutes of exposure a day can provide the equivalent of 10,000 units taken orally.

Food sources can help add to your daily quota but typically can't provide enough vitamin D on their own. Certain fish, such as salmon and tuna, offer vitamin D, as do cheese, egg yolks, and beef liver. It is also added to milk (usually synthetic D2). However, if these are not items you consume in large quantities, it's best to consider supplementation.

The Office of Dietary Supplements of the National Institutes of Health suggests a recommended daily intake of 600 IU for everyone between the ages of one and 70 and 800 IU for those over the age of 70. But plenty of others believe that higher levels would be very beneficial. In fact, Jon Barron recommends supplementing with 1,000 to 2,000 IU of vitamin D3 daily, which should provide your body with enough to meet its true needs without danger of overdosing. But note he has specified D3 as opposed to synthetic D2.

Aging can Bring in A Better Vision For You

Today's Daily Health Tip

They say that age is all in your mind. The trick is keeping it from creeping down into your body." -- Author Unknown

Getting older isn't so easy. There are lots of extra aches and pains, wrinkles, and more health issues that seem to pop up in each passing decade. One of the aging process areas in which most of us start to experience difficulty is eyesight. Many vision problems are much more common in the elderly than any other population group. However, before any of us gets too depressed about what may be in store for us as we approach our golden years, let's focus on a bright spot. New research has found that far fewer of the elderly have eyesight "impairments" than was the case a few decades ago.

Two surveys of senior citizens across the United States were analyzed by scientists at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, and the Institute for Health & Aging and Disability Statistics Center at the University of California, San Francisco. They discovered that, in less than a 30-year period, the reported instances of serious vision trouble went down by more than 50 percent. The study focused on eyesight problems that may limit a person's activity level as well as those that truly impair their abilities.

In the first segment of the study in 1984, nearly 25 percent of the respondents who were 65 or over said they had difficulty reading the newspaper due to vision loss. By the second segment of the study in 2010, that figure was reduced to only 10 percent of the elderly respondents. While the researchers did not expand on why they saw improving eyesight in senior citizens, there are several possible answers. First and foremost is likely the fact that many fewer Americans smoke cigarettes nowadays. In the 1980s, approximately one-third of U.S. adults were smokers. Now, however, that number has dropped to about 20 percent. We still have a way to go, but at least that is a significant improvement. This is critical because cigarette smoking is linked to a number of diseases of the eye, particularly macular degeneration, which is one of the most prevalent causes of vision loss in older people, affecting the clarity of their central vision.

Another factor may be improvements in cataract surgery. Complications such as posterior capsule opacity and retinal detachment were more routine 30 years ago, increasing the risks of undergoing this procedure and leaving many older people unwilling to take the risk of making their vision even worse. Now, this is the most routine type of surgery in the United States.

Interestingly, however, another major cause of vision loss in the elderly is diabetes, the rate of which, of course, has skyrocketed in the United States between 1984 and 2010. In 1984, there were 611,000 new cases of diagnosed diabetes in adults between the ages of 18 and 79. By 2009, that number had jumped to 1,812,000 new cases. And yet, so far, there has not been a concomitant increase in vision problems. Perhaps, more people with diabetes may be aware of how to properly maintain blood sugar levels, leading to fewer eye-related complications. On the other hand, Americans are getting diagnosed with diabetes earlier and earlier because obesity is a major risk factor and the population in general is getting heavier. This could be a statistic that turns the facts of the current study around in another 25 or 30 years, to eventually show that vision loss may become more common once again in the elderly if we don't get the diabetes epidemic under control.

Another major factor in the aging process -- including the vision problems many people face in old age -- is protein glycation, which is caused by increased levels of sugar in the blood. You can find out more about this uncontrolled reaction of sugars with the body's proteins and the damage it can cause in Jon Barron's anti-aging newsletter. Carnosine supplementation, on the other hand, has been shown to protect against protein glycation, which may also protect your vision if you're already tending to diabetes or pre-diabetes. Even if the numbers in the study show we are headed in the right direction with preserving seniors' vision, it can't hurt to have a little extra protection in the form of a supplement, which helps our eyes as well as other aspects of anti-aging.

Corn Syrup Hight in Frutose can Make Your brain Dull

We all know sweets are bad for you, filling you up with empty calories, decaying your teeth, and so on. But now there is new evidence that sweetened drinks and snacks harm our mental health as well, impacting our learning abilities and memory.

A recent mental health study at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that steady consumption of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) can lead to a decrease in mental acuity, particularly in the capability to learn new information and correctly store it. The researchers fed laboratory rats a typical rat diet and trained them to learn a maze twice a day for a five-day period. They then tracked the rats' ability to make their way properly through the maze. There were several potential pathways, but only one led to an exit. The rats were provided visual cues within the maze to help them determine the correct path and commit it to memory.

The scientists next split the rats into two groups, both of which were fed fructose-sweetened water for six weeks. One of the groups was additionally given flaxseed oil and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), to provide the rats with omega-3 fatty acids. At the end of the experiment, the rats were retested to see how well they could remember the maze and correctly find the exit. The rats that were not given omega-3 supplementation along with their high fructose corn syrup showed a clear decline in ability. The researchers monitored the rats' brains and discovered that there was reduced activity within the synapses, with fewer signals taking place between the brain cells. This resulted in a disturbance to their thought processes and difficulty remembering the maze pathway they had learned previously.

The omega-3 fatty acids clearly provided some level of brain protection from the high fructose corn syrup because the rats given flaxseed oil and DHA were not nearly as confused. They remembered the route better than their counterparts, showing that omega-3 fatty acids can be helpful in combating the destructive forces of HFCS on the brain and help restore mental functions, at least in the short term.

These HFCS-related results are truly bad news because of the prevalence of this stuff in our diets these days. High fructose corn syrup is a cheap sweetener that many food manufacturers put in all kinds of processed foods and drinks. In fact, it is so ubiquitous that the average American has an intake in excess of 40 pounds per year of HFCS, according to the USDA. HFCS is six times sweeter than cane sugar, too, which only leads to an adjustment of our tastes that makes the sweet tooth even sweeter.

This just adds to the considerable body of knowledge we already have about high fructose corn syrup health risks. The exposure of the liver to large quantities of fructose leads to rapid stimulation of the breakdown of fats and the concomitant rapid accumulation of triglycerides, which in turn contributes to reduced insulin sensitivity, insulin resistance, and glucose intolerance. Unlike glucose, high fructose corn syrup doesn't increase leptin production or suppress production of ghrelin (both hormones that play a primary role in appetite control). The net effect is that high fructose corn syrup encourages you to eat more…the more of it you eat. In effect, it is addictive and encourages weight gain and obesity. And, if that were not enough, it appears that high fructose corn syrup distorts the body's magnesium balance, thereby accelerating bone loss. Even David Kessler, the former head of the FDA is now expressing unhappiness with HFCS.

Now, on top of that, it would seem it affects our mental acuity as well. We would all benefit from cutting out the high fructose corn syrup from our daily diets, but that is nearly impossible if you eat most commercially prepared foods. Using only fresh ingredients and cooking for yourself gives you control over what you are putting into your body so you can keep it all nutritious. But since most of us can't do that all the time, at least there is the ray of hope that came out of this study to consider. Eating foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids and/or taking a regular supplement may help protect our bodies and minds to some extent from harmful additives that we unfortunately can't always avoid.