Sometimes, the best clues are right in front of you. Over the years of my clinical work, I’ve asked patients and friends to look at old pictures of their family, from 50, 70 and 80 years ago, and tell me what they see that is different.
Do you know what they typically say?
They notice how much thinner their family members from a few generations ago were, compared with how they themselves (most of us) look today.
These photos are striking for showing what positive difference nutrition can make for people’s typical weight. And I am not trying to gloss over other issues from the past, romanticize it or cast a warm, fuzzy gaze towards it.
Family members from 50, 70, 80 years or more ago did not eat anywhere near the number of processed foods that most of us eat today. This might be a critical lifestyle difference in keeping weight in a healthier range, in losing weight and in avoiding gaining unwanted weight in the first place.
This study, discussed on NPR radio on 05.16.19, highlights a research study demonstrating the power of eating fresh foods as a base for daily nutrition. To summarize, the people in the study who ate fresh foods lost about 2 pounds a week; the people who ate processed foods gained about 2 pounds a week and felt pulled to overeat as well. Then the researchers had the people switch what they were eating. The results were the same for each group of people.
Click this link to hear the highlights of the study, the segment is less than 3 minutes long. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/05/16/723693839/its-not-just-salt-sugar-fat-study-finds-ultra-processed-foods-drive-weight-gain
Eating processed foods is probably part of why so many people in today’s world struggle with their weight.
And the whole thing doesn’t feel fair.
Yet if you really want to take control of your weight, your blood sugar and your health, you have to focus on eating fresh, wholesome, nutrient-dense foods. Eating anything else is risky, and can make it more likely you’ll experience problems with weight, obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other chronic illnesses. Nutrition is a foundational key for taking care of your health.
Take a moment to look at what you are eating every day, and see if you can find ways to eat more fresh foods and eliminate processed foods. It might make all the difference for your health and your waistline.
Eat fresh foods, from local sources, and organic as much as possible.
Reference: here’s the original research study, published in the Cell journal. The study is small and highly controlled. https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(19)30248-7
Want an insider secret to help with weight loss?
Any one who wants to lose weight has to have a regular bed time and strive to get both enough sleep (quantity of sleep) and restorative sleep (quality of sleep). For a person to lose weight and keep it off, they must get enough rest. If they don’t get the needed rest, the body perceives it as a stress and shifts the metabolism to store fat. Sleep is a key ingredient for losing weight and keeping it off. Adults usually need 7 1/2 to 8 hours of sleep each night; younger children and teenagers need 10 – 10 1/2 hours sleep a night.
If missing sleep is a habit, for whatever reason, you have to fix it so you can get the sleep you need and deserve. Your weight does depend on this simple fact.
Short term memory is also impacted by sleep. Ask any parent of a newborn baby how well they remember things when they are deprived of sleep night after night!
Sleep can be elusive for some people, and doesn’t always go with having a stressful life. There are lab tests and other assessments that help identify the source of a chronic problem with sleep.
Statin drugs took a big hit in the news today. I always advise my heart disease patients to be thoguhtful consumers of all pharmaceutical drugs, herbs, supplements and other nutrients and to keep their personal knowledge of benefits and disadvantages in the use of any materials for their overall health and well being. This includes impact, both intended and unintended, on the cardiovascular system.
The study published in the Atherosclerosis journal showed statins increased coronary and aortic plaque.
Below, “T2DM” means Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.
In the Diabetes Care journal, the published research study shows that more frequent statin use is associated with accelerated coronary artery calcification in T2DM patients with advanced atherosclerosis.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22875226
Statins Increase Prevalence of Coronary Calcification by More than 50 Percent!
A new study in the journal Atherosclerosis shows that statin use is associated with a 52 percent increased prevalence and extent of calcified coronary plaque compared to non-users. None of the participants in the study – 6,673 in all – had any known coronary artery disease at the time of undergoing coronary CT angiography (CCTA) – a non-invasive method that allows you to see coronary atherosclerotic features, including plaque composition.
Arterial plaque is a hallmark of cardiovascular disease and increases your risk of all-cause mortality, so clearly, anything that increases calcification and stiffening of your arteries is wisely avoided. And statins seem to fall into this category.
These disturbing findings come right on the heels of another study published in the journal Diabetes Care, which discovered that type 2 diabetics with advanced atherosclerosis who are frequent statin users have significantly higher amounts of coronary artery calcification compared to less frequent users of the drug.
Furthermore, in a subgroup of participants who initially were not receiving statins, progression of both coronary artery calcification as well as abdominal aortic artery calcification was significantly increased when they began frequent statin use.
The authors concluded that:
“More frequent statin use is associated with accelerated coronary artery calcification in T2DM patients with advanced atherosclerosis.”
So much for statins being the answer for diabetics… Diabetes is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, which is why many diabetics are prescribed a statin drug to reduce their risk. Alas, as these studies show, statins actually accelerate the progression of disease.
There are other ways to address concerns with managing cholesterol that are natural, safe and effective. Make an appointment to discover what are your options for cholesterol management.
Making matters worse, statins have also been shown to significantly increase your risk of developing type 2 diabetes if you don’t have it already. This is a risk everyone needs to be aware of. In one study, statins increased the risk of type 2 diabetics in postmenopausal women by 48 percent.