Archive for the ‘Diet and Nutrition’ Category

Candy Leads to Life of Crime

November 19th, 2009

Candy, Sugar, Violent Behavior, Crime

Tootsie rolls and jellybeans, Snickers bars and Jujubes — these are among the things that send kids into ecstasy. But in one of life’s first cruel ironies, children learn that they pay a price for eating candy. It causes cavities. It causes pimples. It causes bouncing off the walls. It consumes the allowance. And now, a new study says that candy may cause a life of crime.

The research, out of Cardiff University in the U.K., culled data from a long-term study of 17,000 people all born during the same week in 1970. The subjects were followed from birth, periodically answering questions about their lives, their diet, and their health. (Obviously, they were very literate toddlers.) Study director Simon Moore recently reviewed the collected data, looking for links between early diet and later behavior. He discovered that of those subjects convicted of a violent crime by age 34, 69 percent reported that they had eaten candy almost every day in childhood. Of those without criminal records, only 42 percent had been daily candy connoisseurs.

No, the study wasn’t underwritten by Willy Wonka’s nemesis, Ansel Slugworth. In fact, the researchers kept reviewing the data, trying to find some other factor to explain the link. They checked to see if economic status was to blame, or maybe parental permissiveness, or living in a city versus the country, or educational level — but none of these factors made a difference. Candy consumption in childhood still correlated to violent crime later on.

Dr. Moore said, "Initially we thought this [effect] was probably due to something else. So we tried to control for parental permissiveness, economic status, whether the kids were urban or rural. But the result remained. We couldn’t get rid of it."

So is there some crazy-making component in candy that builds up like plaque, eventually causing violence? Moore thinks it’s possible, but it’s more likely that kids who eat candy daily don’t learn impulse control. (Or is it that kids with inherently less impulse control eat more candy because they lack the control?) He also thinks it’s possible that "bad kids" were given candy more regularly to appease them. If this is so, the candy would work much like it did for Skinner’s mice, teaching kids that bad behavior gets a sweet reward. (Or again, is it a question of inherent bad behavior self selecting for more candy consumption?)

Critics, of course, think Moore is leaping to conclusions that don’t hold up. The director of the Food and Drink Federation, Julian Hunt (a totally impartial observer), said, "This is either utter nonsense or a very bad April Fool’s Day joke! Antisocial behavior stems from deep-rooted social and environmental factors such as poor parenting and a deprived upbringing, and is not linked to whether or not you ate sweeties as a kid." (Of course, that’s merely Ms. Hunt’s personal opinion, unsupported by any data.)

And Melinda Johnson, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, said, "If there is any real link, my instinct is that the daily candy may be indicative of certain lifestyle factors that the researchers did not capture. For example, I do not see that the researchers were able to control for violence in the home. Perhaps children who end up violent as adults also tend to grow up in violent homes, and perhaps candy is used excessively as an ‘ease the pain’ tool." (Again, an opinion based on "instinct," not data.)

But in fact, there are huge loopholes in the study. For instance, only 35 out of the 17,000 subjects actually were convicted of violent crimes. That means that 24 of those criminals had a candy eating past, and that’s a very small sample upon which to build a theory. Consider that 7,140 out of the 17,000 ate candy every day and never turned to violent crime. And then, as numerous critics pointed out, there are plenty of factors not controlled for. Did those same 24 criminals, for instance, drink water every day? Did they wear sneakers every day — more days than those not convicted of crimes? Could sneakers and water be a recipe for creating miscreants — even more so than eating Milky Ways? More research needs to be done to confirm that in fact, candy independently correlates to a dissolute life.

Even so, there’s no denying that sugary foods influence behavior. Ask any third-grade teacher what happens after the kids finish devouring a big candy bar, or after they drink a few sodas. Behavioral problems abound when sugary foods prevail. Does the phrase "bouncing off the walls" ring a bell? Also, it may be that those who start eating candy daily in childhood pave the path for a lifetime of poor nutrition. And poor nutritional choices certainly may correlate to poor behavioral choices. In fact, a recent study out of Oxford University found that prisoners who took vitamin supplements had fewer disciplinary problems and were less aggressive than those who took placebos. Numerous studies have shown that foods and various additives affect both mood and behavior. So, maybe the old adage may need to be rephrased: "Spare the nutrition and ruin the child."

:hc

Obese Kids Taken From Parents

November 3rd, 2009

Kids, Children, Overweight, Foster Care, Court Ordered

In at least five states, parents have had their children taken away by the government and placed into foster care, or they have completely lost custody, because the kids weighed too much. Ditto in Canada and in the United Kingdom. With two-thirds of all adults in the US now overweight and one third so overweight that they qualify as obese, it’s surprising to hear about obese children being removed from their homes because they are too fat. You’ve got to wonder if the welfare authorities and attorneys and judges and foster parents involved all fall into that minority of adults still at healthy weight, or if they themselves hypocritically tip the scales.

You would think the preponderance of obese individuals would usher in a climate of leniency toward those grappling with weight problems, but apparently not. In fact, according to Dr. Matt Capehorn of the U.K.’s National Obesity Forum, "It’s happening more than the public is aware of, but because these cases are usually kept quiet [as a result of child-privacy laws], we have no record."

The publicized cases have thus far been extreme. In South Carolina, mother Jerri Gray lost custody of her 555-pound 14-year-old son after failing to show up for an appointment with social services. In New York, a 261-pound teenage girl was ordered by the court to follow a prescribed diet and a fitness regimen, although she was allowed to remain at home.  And in Scotland, parents just had a newborn temporarily removed because the whole family is fat. The other six children in the family range in age from three to 13 and weigh between 56 and 220 pounds.  The three- and four-year-old children already have been placed in foster care. The authorities have warned the parents that all the kids will be taken if their weight doesn’t go down.

All of these cases went to court on the grounds that allowing kids to get fat represents a form of abuse. In fact, courts in Texas, Pennsylvania, New York, New Mexico, and Indiana already have ruled that medical neglect includes morbid obesity. Although criminal charges against the parents have been filed in several cases, no parent yet has served jail time because junior is fat. But an expert from the British National Obesity Board, Tam Fry, says, "My point will be that we regard malnourished children as being abused and so with those children who are so overweight, either consciously or by neglect because their parents allow it, there should be a case for them being removed from their parents to a pediatric ward and put under weight management by doctors."

And Ron Jones, an Atlanta-based wellness expert, has spearheaded a campaign declaring that child obesity is child abuse. "If you gave your child a drug, you’d be held in the court. But if you kill them with food, that seems to be acceptable," he says.

The thinking is that kids who remain obese will likely develop weight-related diseases like type 2 diabetes, hypertension, sleep apnea, and so on unless they get out of the environment where they gained excess weight. They need to go somewhere that will enforce dietary restrictions and teach them healthier eating habits. Meanwhile, their parents need to pay the price for allowing their kids to balloon up.

But some experts decry this type of thinking. Grant Varner, who is the attorney for Ms. Gray, the South Carolina mother mentioned above, says, "If she’s found guilty on those criminal charges, you have set a precedent that opens Pandora’s box. Where do you go next?" In other words, just how fat do kids need to get before they get taken away from their parents, and who makes that determination? Twenty states now have laws that allow schools to screen kids for body mass index. Can the law be interpreted so that kids who "fail" their BMI become wards of the state? These are the questions that critics of the recent actions against parents are asking.

Meanwhile, the welfare authorities universally argue that they wouldn’t remove children from their homes just on the basis of weight, that they only act when there’s an imminent medical threat to children. But let’s get real. The fact is that 30 percent of all kids between the ages of 10 and 17 are now overweight or obese. In Mississippi, that rate is 44 percent. The obesity rates keep climbing — not going down. Studies show that one out of four overweight children already shows early signs of type II diabetes and 60% already have one risk factor for heart disease. And according to the CDC, one in three U.S. children born in 2000 will become diabetic — and if you’re black or Hispanic, that percentage is half. That means that if we are to believe the authorities, one third of all children will be subject to court ordered removal from their homes — and again, half if they’re black or Hispanic. Perhaps it’s just me, but that seems a bit Orwellian!

And maybe all the parents of all those kids are indeed endangering the health of their children, and they need to be stopped. But clearly, the problem is so out of control that something needs to be done beyond pressing criminal charges against parents. For instance, consider the fact that food companies are allowed to produce and market foods that make kids fat, no holds barred. And while it’s true that cigarette companies can’t bombard kids with ads during cartoon hour trying to get them to crave tobacco, the makers of candy and chips and greasy prepared foods sure can — and do. They also seduce the parents with promises of no-fuss meals and surefire ways to keep the kids happy, and load the shelves with these products.

As obesity expert Dr. Marc Jacobson of The American Academy of Pediatrics says, "There’s clear evidence that the food industry — fast food restaurants, vending machines, sweetened cereals — influences childhood obesity. I can’t say which is relatively greater in influence [parents or the food industry], but [the food industry] certainly is important. The more fast food restaurants in a community, the more likely the kids are to be obese." If we want to point fingers, the FDA and AMA both endorse high fructose corn syrup, one of the primary culprits in the obesity epidemic, and the US government subsidizes its production and sale. Isn’t it a bit Hansel and Gretelish for the government to subsidize the fattening of our children and then be in charge of removing them from their homes once they get fat?

Meanwhile, the economic realities demand that most parents work during the hours when kids snack and nobody is home to monitor. Parents who don’t have health insurance can’t afford to enroll kids in weight-control programs after the damage is done, and many can’t afford to live in neighborhoods where parks and recreational options abound. And let’s not forget the fact that fast food outlets are concentrated in poor neighborhoods — by design.

David Ludwig, director of the Optimal Weight for Life program at Children’s Hospital in Boston sums up this side of the argument in Time Magazine, "Parents have a responsibility, but it’s also society’s responsibility — the national government spending billions of dollars on farm subsidies for poor-quality foods, communities placing their priorities on development revenue rather than parks, cutbacks to school nutrition. All this is unfair to the kids." In short, holding a few parents criminally responsible won’t end the epidemic of fat kids. Sweeping changes are needed in industry and society. Or perhaps as (dare I say it) Hillary Clinton once said, "It takes a village to raise a child."

:hc

Prenatal Diet Sets Food Preferences

October 22nd, 2009

Prenatal Diet, Food Preferences, In Utero, Nursing, Pregnant

If the smell of beets makes you gag but you simply can’t get enough sour crème and chive potato chips, your Mom may be to blame — and not because of what she fed you growing up. Several studies show that food preferences may be set even before you’re born, as early as 13 weeks after gestation. And those preferences derive from what your Mom ate while you were in the womb.

The process is called "food imprinting," and it works because the scent and flavor of what a pregnant woman eats passes into the amniotic fluid. The fetus ingests that amniotic fluid starting at 12 weeks, and apparently, develops taste preferences based on that experience.

To verify that particular foods eaten by mothers affect later preferences of the baby, researchers at the Monel Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia had pregnant women in their final trimester drink carrot juice four days a week for three consecutive weeks. Six months later, the babies of these women preferred carrot-flavored cereal to other varieties and made fewer unhappy faces when exposed to carrot cereal than babies who had not had prenatal carrot juice. They also consumed 20 percent more carrot-flavored cereal than babies who didn’t have exposure to carrot juice in utero.

A series of similar studies have found parallel results. When mothers consumed lots of peaches during pregnancy, their babies preferred peaches after birth. When nursing mothers ate green beans in large quantities, their babies developed a lasting love of green beans. Similar studies in Europe found that women who consumed plenty of garlic during their pregnancies had babies who enjoyed garlic, and a French study found anise-consumption by pregnant moms imparted a love of anise to their offspring.

"So what that tells you is that there’s some type of memory that’s being formed," said Dr. Julie Menella, director of the carrot-juice study. That’s also the premise of a new book called Feeding Baby Green by pediatrician Dr. Allen Greene. Dr. Greene contends that babies remember the tastes they experienced in the womb and seek them out after birth. He cites a study published in 2008 in the Journal of Physiology in which pregnant animals were divided into two groups: one that ate healthy foods and another that ate fatty, sugary, salty foods including donuts and chips. After giving birth, the offspring that had been exposed to healthy diets in utero wanted healthy foods, while the junk food fetuses turned into junk-food junkies with far more health problems than the animals that came from parents with healthier diets.

(Thank goodness no major food company has yet undertaken a study to discover if brand preferences can be set before birth — if one can cultivate "Kelloggs babies," for instance, as opposed to "Post babies.") Anyway, if a mother can’t get past pickles and ice-cream while pregnant, there’s still hope of salvaging the baby’s food tastes as long as the mother acts quickly after giving birth. Dr. Menella says that what mothers eat while nursing their babies impacts the child’s food tastes, too. In fact, what a child eats in the first seven months of life, combined with the mother’s food intake in the last few months of pregnancy, sets that child’s food preferences for life. Or to put it another way, regular meals of Hamburger Helper, Diet Pepsi, and Ding Dongs while pregnant are probably not in your baby’s best interest.

And as I was saying, this advice also extends to nursing mothers as babies who nurse will probably have more diverse food preferences than babies fed formula. This is because breast milk contains traces of whatever mom has eaten and the baby imprints those various flavors. Formula, on the other hand, has a fixed blend of flavors, exposing the child to limited tastes. The experts suggest that pregnant and nursing moms should eat plenty of diverse fruits and vegetables if they want their children to grow up making wise choices.

They should also avoid drinking, as most pregnant women and nursing mothers know — but now for another reason. Studies have found that rodents exposed to alcohol in utero prefer alcohol-flavored water after birth. Other studies have found a connection between prenatal alcohol exposure and alcoholism later in life. And as described above, a yearning for junk food can be passed on, so pregnant and nursing moms would do well to avoid sugar and unhealthy fats as assiduously as they avoid beer and margueritas. It’s also something to think about when choosing a formula for your baby if you’re bottle feeding. In many formulas, sugar or corn syrup is either the first or second listed ingredient.

That’s especially true because babies naturally prefer sweet tastes, and given limited exposure to other tastes they can easily evolve into sugar junkies. According to Dr. Leann Birch, chair of Pennsylvania State University Department of Health and Human Development, fetuses increase the rate at which they ingest amniotic fluid when a sweet taste is present. Vegetables tend to taste bitter to babies, and so they naturally prefer fruits, but exposing the children to vegetables from before birth can ameliorate that tendency.

The trick is to be consistent. If mom eats a carrot every other week it isn’t going to turn junior into a vegan after birth. By the same token, an ice-cream cone enjoyed by Mom every other month probably won’t lead to baby’s first words being "Cherry Garcia."  As Dr. Birch says, "[F]or an infant to interpret a food as same and acceptable, there has to be repeated exposure — particularly when you get to fruits and vegetables that aren’t naturally sweet"

The side benefit to eating well during pregnancy and lactation, of course, is that mom also gets healthy. But if mom herself was exposed to too many cookies and cakes and convenience foods before her own birth, she may have a difficult time giving up the foods she craves for the duration of her pregnancy — the foods she’s been imprinted to — even though she knows the potential benefits to her offspring and herself. And so the cycle continues, with each generation getting fatter and unhealthier than the previous.

:hc

Non-Drinkers Virtuous, but Depressed

October 20th, 2009

Drinking, Alcohol, Teetotalers, Depression, Anxiety, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

To drink, or not to drink: that is the question that the experts keep batting around, and the jury still is out. One week the news announces that red wine keeps the doctor away; the next it announces that drinking alcohol leads to cancer. For those on the love-to-drink side of the fence, a new study gives you something to toast.

The study, led by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and the University of Bergen, analyzed data collected on 38,000 Norwegians. The researchers looked at drinking habits and mental health of the subjects, considering how much alcohol they had consumed in the two previous weeks and reviewing results of standardized tests that measure anxiety and depression levels. While it was indeed those who drank the most who turned up the most anxious, the surprise was that those who didn’t drink at all had an elevated incidence of anxiety compared to moderate drinkers. Even more surprising, though, was the fact that those who drank the least registered as most depressed. Those who hadn’t had a drink in the past two weeks were more depressed (and more anxious) than the moderate drinkers; those who abstained from alcohol completely were the most depressed of all.

It seems counter-intuitive that abstinence would bring on the blues since alcohol is a depressant, but in fact, the data showed that the happiest people consumed a few glasses of wine a week, or a bottle of beer, or a shot of hard liquor. To repeat, too much alcohol correlated with increasing depression, but again, not as much as complete abstinence. As the abstract for the study, published in the journal Addiction, concludes, "The risk of case-level anxiety and depression is elevated in individuals with low alcohol consumption compared to those with moderate consumption. Individuals who label themselves as abstainers are at particularly increased risk."

But teetotalers need not despair. There is a silver lining in this study for them — sort of.

The reason for the increased depression, say the experts, probably has nothing to do with the effects of alcohol on the system, and everything to do with the context in which drinking occurs. According to study director Dr. Eystein Stordal, non-drinkers tend to be social misfits. "We see that this group is less socially well-adjusted than other groups. Generally when people are with friends, it is more acceptable in Western societies to drink than not to drink. While the questionnaire recorded non-drinkers’ subjective perception of the situation, a number of other studies also confirm that teetotalers experience some level of social exclusion."

For those who don’t cop to the "if you can’t beat them, join them" mentality at cocktail hour, here’s some more unsettling analysis from the pros. Time Magazine says non-drinkers "have fewer close friends than drinkers, even though they tend to participate more often in organized social activities," and "have a harder time making strong friendship bonds." And a UPI article says, "…abstinence may be associated with being socially marginalized, or with particular personality traits that may also be associated with mental illness."

The experts do also note that non-drinkers may have made the choice to abstain not because they’re lunatics, but because they have health issues that prevent them from drinking, and those health issues may have an independent effect on mood. And in fact, according to Dr. Stordal, "We found on average that there were more people with physical complaints among the non-drinkers than in the other groups. These individuals are more likely to use medicines that mean they shouldn’t drink. But it may also be true that having such an illness increases a person’s tendency to be anxious or depressed."

In other words, if you don’t drink because you have cancer, it may be the cancer that makes you depressed and not the lack of merlot. Or, it could be the medications you take to battle the disease are triggering your depression. On the other hand, if you had a drinking problem in the past, as did 14 percent of the subjects now on the wagon, you might still be facing the internal and external issues that led you to drink in the first place, and now you have no substance with which to soothe yourself, which would lead, of course, to depression.

If you do choose to risk being a pariah and refuse to drink, you can take comfort in knowing that a study several years ago found that after seven days of abstinence from alcohol, brain cell proliferation doubled, and after four to five weeks, new neurons formed in the hippocampus. You can interpret those findings several ways. Perhaps they indicate that ignorance really is bliss — the more brain cells you have, the more miserable you get. On the other hand, maybe the analysts need to go on the wagon for a month or two themselves so they might notice that many non-drinkers don’t have a personality flaw, a physical ailment, a mental illness, or a history of substance abuse — they simply want to be conscious, clear, and happily depressed without the use of intoxicants.

:hc

Ten Sickening Foods: Health Blog

October 15th, 2009

Food Borne Illness

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has just released a report listing the 10 foods most likely to make you sick — or so the report claims. Leafy greens (a frequent source of salmonella, E. coli, and norovirus) take position number one, a fact that the media has latched onto by sporting headlines such as “Ten Healthy Foods Can Make You Sick.” While the sentiment does have a certain intrigue, it’s misguided on several accounts.

First, the 10 foods on the list certainly don’t all fall into that “healthy” a group. Ice-cream holds position number seven, cheese number five, and mercury-laden tuna number three. Even more to the point, though, the emphasis on greens as public-food-enemy #1 misses the fact that the study didn’t include poultry, beef, and pork. A closer look reveals that the report focuses only on foods regulated by the FDA, and meat products fall under the jurisdiction of the USDA instead. That’s a problem if you’re actually looking for an honest top ten list, because poultry, beef, pork, and egg products sicken a whole lot more people every year than do salads — which, sadly, also sicken plenty.

Since 1990, leafy greens, including lettuce, spinach, kale, and so on, have caused 352 outbreaks and 13,600 individual cases of food-borne illness. The most severe, recent, and widespread outbreak was caused by E. coli-tainted spinach, which sickened 200 people in 26 states in 2006, and left three dead. After that incident, growers nationwide vowed to clean up their acts, but by August of 2009, regulators found 1715 cartons of spinach that tested positive for salmonella, prompting a 12-state recall.

What makes leafy greens so problematic? First, they grow close to the ground, where they can come into contact with contaminated soil and water runoff. As Craig Hedberg, a professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health says, “These items are grown outdoors in fields with dirt. It’s probably impossible to grow them without contact with a food-borne pathogen.” Now there’s a concept to inspire an arugula salad for lunch.

Then, so much salad gets pre-bagged these days, and many analysts blame the processing for the problems. If one tainted head of lettuce gets chopped in the processing bin, it typically gets distributed into hundreds of bags of prepared salad, and all the ingredients that come into contact with it will also be contaminated. In fact, the incidence of food-borne illness related to greens has risen with the advent of “convenience salads.”

The other items on the “Top 10″ list are eggs (11,163 illnesses since 1990), tuna (2,341 illnesses), oysters (3,409 illnesses), potatoes (3,659), cheese (2,761), ice-cream (2,594), tomatoes (3,292), sprouts (2,022), and berries (3,397). Not surprisingly, following the announcement of the report, the various named food contingents leapt into the fray.

Apparently, the Produce Marketing Association, the American Blue Fin Tuna Association, and the National Milk Producers Federation “are outraged.” The National Milk Producers Federation issued a statement discounting the study, claiming it relies on outdated information. And, a spokesperson for the US Potato Board said, “Potatoes are inherently healthy and are not an inherently risky food and they should not be on this list at all, the issue is cross-examination and not potato itself [sic].” Huh? Even if you buy the contention that potatoes aren’t risky despite the statistics, you might wonder if eating them confers a Mr. Potato-Head IQ based on such twisted logic…and grammar.

“On a relative scale our food supply remains quite safe, says Dr. Hedberg. His cohorts point to the fact that there’s “only” one illness reported for every 3,000 to 4,000 meals. But if that’s true, and if you consider that for every “reported” meal three or five or a dozen others might go unreported, the odds of eventually getting food poisoning or some more destructive food-borne illness are actually quite high. At three meals a day, you eat 1,000 meals a year, so according to the odds (as reported), you should get sick from your food every three to four years at the least.

But lest you fear your lettuce, here are a few facts that should give some perspective. Government statistics cite 76 million cases of food-borne illness annually, causing 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths. Out of those 76 million illnesses, remember only 13,000 were caused by greens, and that was over a 16-year time span. In fact, all the items on the Top 10 list added together caused fewer than 50,000 illnesses over that 16-year time span.

So what’s causing the 75.9 million other illnesses?

Beef, chicken, and pork, of course!!! The very items left off of the Top 10 list. The fact is that meat products cause 75 million percent more illnesses than produce does. Your odds of getting sick from lettuce or ice-cream or from potatoes are slim indeed compared to eating meat (Mr. Potato-Head is vindicated).

This doesn’t mean you should be cavalier. Contaminated produce does exist, and it could end up on your plate, though it isn’t likely. Your safest bet is to avoid beef, pork, and chicken as much as possible, and grow your own vegetables. But short of that, get fresh vegetables instead of the bagged stuff. Wash all produce very carefully; keep perishables refrigerated; cook eggs thoroughly; and keep a supply of a good colon detoxifier on hand to give you relief and purify your intestines just in case you do get food poisoning.

:hc

Exercising with Others Gives Advantage: Health Blog

October 13th, 2009

Physical Endurance

If you’re debating between splurging on a home gym versus joining the Fitness Club, some new research may sway your decision. According to a study out of Oxford University, people who exercise together increase their pain threshold by a huge margin. In fact, those who work out in a team have twice the pain tolerance as those who work out alone, meaning they can exercise longer and harder.

If tolerating increased pain isn’t exactly your dream goal, you might be interested to know that the side benefit of raising the pain threshold is that you simultaneously raise your level of happiness. That’s because pain triggers the release of endorphins, also known as endogenous opioid polypeptides (opioid being the illuminating word here), and endorphins act on the brain much like morphine, numbing pain and enhancing mood. After pain triggers the endorphins, they interact with opiate receptors, preventing nerve cells from releasing additional pain signals.

Somehow, having others at your side as you exercise increases the output of endorphins. The researchers aren’t exactly sure how or why this happens, but they are reasonably sure it does occur. According to study director Emma Cohen, “The results suggest that endorphin release is significantly greater in group training than in individual training even when power output, or physical exertion, remains constant. The exact features of group activity that generate this effect are unknown, but this study contributes to a growing body of evidence suggesting that synchronized, coordinated physical activity may be responsible.”

To test the theory, the researchers pulled subjects from a rowing team and had them row alone on a gym machine. Then, the subjects rowed simultaneously with other subjects, simulating the experience of working with the team in the water. After each exercise, the researchers attached blood pressure cuffs to the subjects and pumped the cuffs up until the subjects “cried uncle.” The subjects tolerated at least twice as much pressure after working out with the group as when they exercised alone, and the researchers surmise that endorphins are the reason.

Possible factors for the group effect include the possibility that synchronous movement triggers an endorphin effect, or that reaching team goals triggers more of an associated “rush” even than reaching individual goals. Those are the possibilities put forth by the researchers, but those who engage in alternative healing practices might be equally inclined to suspect that energy actually transfers from one person to another simply from being in proximity. If you’ve ever engaged in endurance sport and pushed to the limit, you know that being physically close to others does somehow enhance your own energy level. It’s as if the other person’s strength spills over to you. This is the principle that some healers use to transfer curative energy to patients through modalities such as Reiki, some forms of massage, quantum healing, and so on.

In any event, the downside of the endorphin effect is that it can drive you to push a bit too hard, beyond your body’s limits. If you don’t feel the pain, you may keep jogging or biking or dancing to the beat and then injure yourself. This can happen during solitary exercise, too, but when exercising with a group, the risk becomes more pronounced. That may be why so many marathon runners, for instance, don’t injure themselves until race day, when the energy of the crowd and all the other runners carries them beyond the capacity of their legs, or why sports stars often get injured during games rather than when practicing alone.

On the plus side, if you want to increase your physical capacity, this research indicates that training with a buddy or taking group classes is the way to go. Plus, having an exercise pal or two increases the likelihood that you’ll stick to your regimen, and it makes the experience more fun. If you have no buddies or none willing to get off the couch, you can search for exercise partners on several websites. On the other hand, you can also trigger the endorphin effect by eating chili peppers, having acupuncture or a massage, or even by meditating. It may be that these things alone won’t help you take minutes off your race time, but they’ll sure make you feel good and increase your overall well-being.

Then again, if all else fails, you can just try cursing a blue streak during exercise. New studies indicate that swearing increases both resistance to pain and physical endurance. (I can’t wait until competitive parents learn that this technique can give their sweet, darling Little Leaguers a leg up on the competition.)

:hc

Scientists “Discover” Low Self-Esteem Leads to Weight Gain: Health Blog

September 29th, 2009

Weight Gain

It seems so very Monty Python-esque: a new British study involving 6500 people has come to the conclusion that low-self esteem and emotional problems lead people to get fat. One can almost hear the director of that study, Dr. David Collier of King’s College, echoing Ms. Anne Elk in the Flying Circus, “This is my theory, it is mine, and it belongs to me, and I own it, and what it is, too.” Like Anne Elk’s theory that the brontosaurus is thin on top, fat in the middle, and thin at the other end — this latest study points to the obvious.

 

Dr. Collier and his research team tested his theory that emotional problems and weight are linked by collecting data on 6500 participants in the British Birth Cohort Study, which began back in 1970. At age 10, the participants were measured for height and weight, and they also completed self-esteem assessments. The scientists tracked the participants over the next 20 years, and sure enough, those with low self-esteem and emotional issues put on more weight over the next two decades than those who were emotionally stable. The researchers noted that subjects who felt less in control of their lives and who worried more were among the biggest weight gainers, with the correlation being stronger for women than men. But, Dr. Collier says, “This is not about people with deep psychological problems, all the anxiety and low self-esteem were within the normal range.”

The most surprising fact about the research is that anyone found the results surprising. But it seems that the research team did, in fact, believe they had stumbled upon something new — something thin on the ends and fat in the middle, dare I say. “What’s novel about this study is that obesity has been regarded as a medical metabolic disorder – what we’ve found is that emotional problems are a risk factor for obesity,” said Dr. Collier.

Perhaps Dr. Collier and his cohorts have been stuck in the lab for the past few decades while overwhelming numbers of overweight citizens bought books about emotional eating and tuned into talk shows on the subject. A quick trip to Amazon.com shows that typing in “Emotional Eating” brings up 2,803 titles. Type “emotional eating” into a Google search and you’ll pull up 2,970,000 references. Clearly, it’s hardly news that difficult emotions can lead to overeating, and it’s a no-brainer that overeating leads to weight gain.

At least the researchers gave a nod to the other factors that correlate with weight gain. “While we cannot say that childhood emotional problems cause obesity in later life, we can certainly say they play a role, along with factors such as parental BMI [body mass index], diet and exercise,” said co-director of the study Andrew Ternouth. Plus, Dr. Ternouth had advice to offer: “Strategies to promote social and emotional aspects of learning, including the promotion of self-esteem, are central to a number of recent policy initiatives. Our findings suggest that approaches of this kind may carry positive benefits for physical health as well as for other aspects of children’s development.”

Well, it may seem naïve and the money spent on the study may seem wasteful, but those preventative recommendations sure beat the pants of pharmaceutical and surgical approaches. On the other hand, promoting self-esteem doesn’t guarantee svelte waistlines, either. We’ve all known chubby bullies who feel terrific about themselves. In fact, experts on emotional eating, such as Dr. Roger Gould, author of Shrink Yourself, suggest that it isn’t the emotional problem, per se, that makes the person overeat — it’s that the person learns to use food to “stuff down” emotional difficulties, and that is learned behavior, at least in part.

The child observes the parent deal with problems by eating junk. The parent gives the child treats as rewards, or to shut the child up. The child watches commercials for junk food on television, seeing the actors smiling as they devour treats. The child discovers that by eating junk, he gets a temporary soothing sensation, using food as a drug. But the thing is, as the child keeps eating to stuff emotions, he suffers from the physiological and psychological effects of eating junk food. These effects can include emotional imbalance from the effects of sugar, low-self-esteem as weight piles on, mental fog, lack of energy and withdrawal from exercise. In other words, it’s a catch-22 — emotional problems lead to overeating, and overeating leads to emotional problems.

To interrupt the cycle, kids need emotional balance and nurturing, yes; but they also need to learn that overeating isn’t the answer. They need healthier foods, healthier coping mechanisms, and healthier routines, including getting enough exercise. After all, emotional problems and low self-esteem are hardly new phenomena. People in the 1950s had emotional problems, but most didn’t get fat.  Now two-thirds of adults in the US are overweight — so clearly something has changed and you can bet it isn’t plummeting self-esteem. In fact, new studies show that kids today suffer from too much self-esteem — that the self-esteem movement in education that started in the 1980s led parents and teachers to overindulge kids, making them lazy and narcissistic. They think they’re great as they are.

The experts are right about one thing — early intervention is key. But they miss the mark in thinking more hugs and praise will help Johnny eschew the brownie when he feels blue. Johnny needs to learn other ways to deal with episodes of normal sadness (also known as life). Johnny needs to understand that when it comes to his body and his life, “They are his, and they belong to him, and he owns them, and what they are, too.”

:hc

Way Over Sugar Threshold: Health Blog

September 17th, 2009

Diabetes, Sugar

Let’s say you’re a woman, aged 54, who just played tennis as you do every Monday and Wednesday, and on your way home you stop for a small soda. By the time you finish that drink, you’ll have consumed about 50 percent more added sugar than you should for the entire day, according to the American Heart Association (AHA). That means that anything else you eat with added sugar — cereals, crackers, snacks, treats, ketchup, frozen meals, barbecue sauce, salad dressing, and so on — puts you even more over the top. Everyone pretty much knows they eat too much sugar during the day. The surprise is how much too much and in how many foods it’s hidden.

According to a new report by the AHA, Americans eat way too much sugar — an average of 22 teaspoons a person daily. That’s almost half a cup every single day. If someone handed you a half cup filled with cane sugar, it’s unlikely that you’d even think of downing the entire amount, and yet, if you’re a typical American, you probably eat double that on your more indulgent days. In fact, teens eat 34 teaspoons daily, on average, or almost three-quarters of a cup. And note that these figures do not include sugars from natural sources, such as fruits and fruit juices. This only counts sugars added to food.

How much sugar should you have at the upper limit? The AHA has established specific guidelines for adults based on how much you can burn off calorie-wise, totally ignoring sugar’s other detrimental qualities. The amounts vary wildly, depending on your age, sex, and activity level. For instance:

  • Active men aged 21-25 can have up to 18 teaspoons, maximum
  • Sedentary men aged 46-50: up to nine teaspoons
  • Moderately active women aged 51-55: up to five teaspoons
  • Sedentary women aged 71-75: up to three teaspoons

Plus, the report says, the average woman shouldn’t consume more than 100 calories per day from added sugars, and the average man should limit added sugars to 150 calories per day. For some perspective, that’s less than you’ll get in a bowl of oatmeal with cinnamon and spice. “Excessive consumption of sugars has been linked to several metabolic abnormalities and adverse health conditions, as well as shortfalls of essential nutrients,” says the AHA statement.

Unfortunately for those who rely on the AHA guidelines, the problem with all that extra sweetness goes far beyond weight gain, and even tooth decay. “Excessive consumption of sugars has been linked to several metabolic abnormalities and adverse health conditions, as well as shortfalls of essential nutrients,” says the AHA statement. Studies show that high-sugar diets boost triglycerides and increase risk of stroke, hypertension, and heart disease. And of course, eating a sugar overload depletes the pancreas, builds up cellular resistance to insulin, and increases diabetes risk.

Where do all the extra sugars come from? Certainly sodas and candy drive up the numbers, with a 12-ounce soda adding eight to 12 teaspoons. A bag of Skittles adds another 12 teaspoons, and a cup of ice-cream piles on 10 more. But it’s obvious that desserts and soft drinks would up the sugar quota. What if you never have dessert, if you eat “healthy” packaged foods? Well, if you have a small fruit-flavored yogurt for breakfast, you’ll pick up six teaspoons. Raisin Bran adds another six. Fruitopia in a 20-oz serving gives you 18 more. Add on another 3.5 from baked beans, another four from your low-fat salad dressing, and another six for a snack of 1/3 cup of dried cranberries.
In other words, it’s easy to accumulate added sugar without even opting for “sweet” foods. Sugar keeps sneaking into prepared foods, disguised by names such as maltose, dextrose, high-fructose corn syrup, and so on. But for the average American, it’s soda that’s really the culprit, according to lead author Rachel Johnson of the University of Vermont. It’s the number one source of added sugars in the diet, fueling the $115 billion revenues that sodas rake in each year. In the three decades from 1970 to 2000, soft-drink consumption increased by 70 percent in the US. Given that a regular can of soda averages 135 calories from sugar, and that amount exceeds the allowable amount for women according to the AHA, it’s no wonder we’re getting increasingly fat.

Predictably, the sugar and soft-drink industries found creative ways to double-talk around the AHA report. The American Beverage Association, for instance, issued a statement claiming that, “Like many foods, soft drinks and other sugar-sweetened beverages are a source of calories, but in and of themselves, they are not a unique risk factor for obesity or other negative health outcomes — including heart disease.” Being generous, I guess we could call that a point of view.

The Sugar Association then ramped up the nonsense, accusing the American Heart Association of “[issuing] a scientific statement titled ‘Dietary Sugars Intake and Cardiovascular Health’ without a higher standard of evidence to support its contentions and therefore misleading the average consumer.” They go on to say that “every major systematic review of the body of scientific evidence exonerates sugar as the cause of any lifestyle disease, including heart disease and obesity.” (Perhaps it’s just me, but I have to think that claiming that “every major systematic review” exonerates sugar would qualify as a tad hyperbolic.) Finally, they resort to finger-pointing, noting that the European Food Safety Authority and an expert panel convened by the Institute of Medicine in 2002 did not set an upper limit for added sugars.

Seems rather a desperate response, perhaps compounded by the fact that a sugar shortage looms on the horizon. According to a report just issued by the USDA, because so much corn formerly used for corn sweetener has been getting repurposed for ethanol, and because of strict import limits on sugar, “the United States will end the next fiscal year with less than 13 days’ worth of sugar on hand, unless imports are increased…our nation will virtually run out of sugar.” What sweet irony that these two reports — the one from the AHA and one from the USDA–came out at about the same time, and that the sugar shortage, should it occur, will naturally take care of the sugar overload problem the AHA cites.

Thank goodness we have artificial sweeteners to fall back on.

:hc

Bait & Switch at Restaurants: Health Blog

September 5th, 2009

Seafood Fraud

In a world where you can buy knock-off designer clothing at flea markets and on city street corners, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that knock-off designer foods would soon arrive. Who doesn’t want to go high-class on a low-class budget? However, as is often the case when buying a fake Rolex, you may not get what you bargained for — literally. Let’s say you order grouper at your local restaurant. You pay the high price for grouper, but in fact, you may be eating something entirely different — something far cheaper.

That’s exactly what “fish detective” Mahmood Shivji found when he went coast to coast ordering high-end fish at 150 restaurants. When he stopped in Kansas City, he found that 14 out of 15 restaurants — nearly all — had substituted cheaper fish such as imported catfish or tilapia for the red snapper on the menu, without telling patrons the truth. He went on to New York, Los Angeles, Charlotte (NC), and Florida, where he discovered that more than 50 percent of the restaurants tested had switched-out various fish items on their menus. He’s not a fish connoisseur with a refined palate; rather, he’s a genetics professor and he used fail-proof DNA testing.

Shivji isn’t the only investigator to uncover this story. NBC News in Kansas City followed up with its own investigation of 20 local restaurants, and they found an 85 percent deception rate. But some of the exposed restaurants cried “Innocent,” claiming that their supplier had deceived them.  And in fact, the investigation did find supplier deception, too.

Given that grouper costs restaurants an average of $11 to $12 per pound, versus only $2.50 a pound for catfish, and given that the typical restaurant patron has no clue, it’s a huge temptation that many eating establishments, apparently, can’t resist. Most people don’t routinely eat high-end fish or seafood products at home, so they just don’t recognize subtle differences in taste, particularly when the fish comes swimming in Beurre Blanc or pesto.

Other than the rip-off factor, it might not be a big deal, except that you could be getting fish that isn’t particularly clean, healthy, or ecologically proper. Some species have been practically fished out of the water and shouldn’t be served, some may come from polluted waters, or be farm raised under atrocious conditions, and some may produce allergies. If you order a particular fish because you know it to be one of the healthier, safer varieties but end up eating a less healthy substitute, you have good reason to be outraged.

In fact, “seafood fraud” isn’t new — it’s just newly big news. For nine years between 1988 and 1997, the National Seafood Inspection Laboratory conducted an inspection and found that 37% of fish and 13% of shellfish, including products sold at stores, were mislabeled. The deceptions included false labeling, misrepresenting the true weight of the fish, adding water to bulk up the weight, and adding color or treating with carbon monoxide to make old fish look fresh (a technique also favored by the meat packing industry). The common substitutions found included replacing Pacific salmon with Atlantic salmon, sea bass with halibut, real crab with imitation crab, and flounder with Dover Sole.

Surprisingly, one of the few restaurants to emerge clean from the investigations was McDonald’s, of all places. McDonald’s actually tells the truth about its Filet O’ Fish, which turns out to be genuine Alaskan Pollock — a cheap, moderate-mercury fish in plentiful supply. Grouper, by the way, has a very high mercury content, plus it’s one of the threatened species on the “Eco Worst” list. If your restaurant pulls a slight of hand and substitutes tilapia, they may actually be doing you a favor. The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s consumer guide to ocean-friendly fish gives U.S. farmed tilapia its “best” rating and Central American farmed tilapia a “good” rating.

On the other hand, it advises consumers to “avoid” tilapia imported from China and Taiwan, where it says “pollution and weak management are common.” Unlike farm-raised salmon that are fed fish meal and have been shown to contain polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), contaminants and antibiotics, farm raised tilapia are plant eaters that grow well in high densities and resist contamination — at least in comparison to other farm raised fish. The bottom line is that you’re probably better off if your restaurant pulls a fast one and tricks you into eating tilapia (depending on where it comes from) instead of grouper, though your wallet may suffer the insult.

:hc

Vitamin D Shortage Affects Kids: Health Blog

September 1st, 2009

Vitamin D Deficiency, Children

What’s wrong with this picture? Your kid comes home from school, does homework for an hour or two, heads out the door to play baseball with friends in the hot sun, but before he exits, you remind him to put on suntan lotion. If you guessed that the problem was baseball, you were wrong. (For shame, how could you think anything was wrong with baseball?) On the other hand, if you guessed “suntan lotion,” you were correct. A new study has found that a startling number of kids are deficient in vitamin D, and since exposure to sunlight creates vitamin D, indications are that one of the main culprits may be suntan lotion. Other suspected factors include spending too much time indoors, and too little dietary vitamin D.

According to two studies just published in the journal, Pediatrics, vitamin D shortage affects at least 70 percent of American youth. Both of the studies analyzed the same data, which was collected from over 6000 kids aged one to 21 between 2000 and 2004. Of the subjects, nine percent showed a vitamin D “deficiency,” and 61 percent had “insufficient” vitamin D. Experts consider 30 nanograms of vitamin D per milliliter of blood desirable. The blood levels of the insufficient group measured between 15-29, and the deficient group measured  a mere 14 nanograms per milliliter or less. Extrapolated to the population at large, that comes to a total of almost 58 million kids, nationwide, who are either vitamin D insufficient or deficient.

Even the researchers were astounded at the results. “We expected the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency would be high,” said Dr. Juhi Kumar of Children’s Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center, “but the magnitude of the problem nationwide was shocking.” And study director Dr. Michel L. Melamed of the Albert Einstein School of Medicine said the results were so surprising that “we sat on our data for six months. We didn’t publish until it was confirmed by other people that we had the right numbers.”

It’s an epidemic, in other words, and one with serious implications. I reported last year about studies that found 40 percent of kids under age two lacked enough vitamin D, but these new studies up the ante. At the extreme edge, vitamin D deficiency can cause rickets, which results in deformed, weakened bones and soft teeth. Although rickets has been all but eradicated in developed countries in recent generations, it’s on the rise again, but according to Dr. Michael F. Holick, a professor at Boston University School of Medicine, and the author of The Vitamin D Solution, “Rickets is just the tip of the iceberg. Vitamin-D deficiency has insidious, serious long-term health consequences for children that could remain with them throughout their lives.”

As these studies confirmed, those health consequences include cardiovascular challenges and imbalances that could give rise to diabetes and heart disease. In the survey group, the 25 percent of kids with the lowest vitamin D levels had a 2.36 increased risk of hypertension, a 54 percent increased risk of low HDL cholesterol, and a more than two hundred percent increased risk of elevated blood sugar. They also were almost 400 percent more likely to have metabolic syndrome, which involves multiple risk factors for heart disease. As Dr. Melamed points out, “Low Vitamin D levels have been linked to diabetes, to high blood pressure, to all different types of cancer, including colon cancer, and breast cancer, and to cardiovascular disease.”

The problem is that sunlight exposure is the best way to get vitamin D into the system, and kids just aren’t getting enough sun (nor, for that matter, are their parents). Dietary sources are so limited. Milk is one source, but to drink it means taking on the problems associated with dairy products; and besides, kids now drink more sodas and energy drinks than milk. Certainly, playing outside would be the healthiest solution, but kids these days just don’t spend time outside as much as they once did. Indoor entertainment has become far more compelling, contributing to the obesity factor as well as to the lack of sunlight exposure. And then there’s sunscreen. For several years now doctors have been telling parents to protect their kids with sunscreen. (Big sigh!!! And, yes, once again, I must ask, “Why would anyone listen to a doctor when it comes to issues of natural health? When’s the last time they got anything right?”) The net result is that when the kids do go out, they typically put on sunscreen, and so they can end up getting almost no sun exposure at all.

The experts say 15 to 20 minutes of exposure to sunlight, minus the sunscreen, should suffice for most people, but they warn that individuals have different tolerance levels for sunning. Those with dark skin may need to be outside an hour before their skin starts converting sunlight to vitamin D. In fact, black children were more likely to be vitamin D deficient than white kids in the study. On the other hand, fair-skinned kids with a family history of melanoma might endanger themselves getting even 20 minutes of direct sun daily.

And by the way, the advisability of slathering on sunscreen is debatable from another standpoint — the chemicals in the stuff may include carcinogens and estrogenic chemicals. Some sources believe that sunscreen causes as much cancer as it prevents. The Environmental Working Group found that four out of five of all the sunscreens they tested didn’t meet minimum requirements for either safety or effectiveness. So it pays to choose your product wisely, using the Cosmetics Database for guidance.

The bottom line is to make sure your kids worship the sun without worshipping sunscreen, at least for a few minutes each day, according to their skin type. Early morning and late afternoon provide the maximum benefit with minimal skin damage. During these hours, sunscreen is barely necessary. Midday, on the other hand, is best avoided. Covering up and wearing a hat (brim forward, all you would be gangstas) is a better alternative than sunscreen, of course. In any case, get your kids unglued from the screen and out the door. In northern climates or situations where getting good sun just isn’t possible, make sure your kids supplement with at least 400 international units of vitamin D daily. And by the way, what’s good for the gosling is good for the goose and gander. For adults, up to 2000 units of supplemented vitamin D a day is recommended.

:hc

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