Sick Pets

Below is a picture of Choco (7 years old), my brother's dog, happily eating "whole" animals, bones, skin and organs as part of his daily diet. He is free to consume as much as he wants and the parts he likes most.

Hyperinsulinemia - High Insulin Level

I'll attempt to summarise this article: Hyperinsulinemia: A unifying theory of chronic disease?

Modern Epidemic

“When diet is wrong, medicine is of no use. When diet is right, medicine is not needed.“ 
- Ayurvedic wisdom

Obesity and chronic diseases

Today, obesity is increasing at an alarming rate. Fat tissue growth increases our risk for chronic diseases, such as diabetes, cancer, heart disease etc. By this logic, if we lose fat tissue, we also reduce our risk for these diseases at the same time. So, what makes us fat?

Carbohydrate Tolerance

We are all different and our tolerance to carbohydrates also differs depending on:

• the quantity of carbohydrates consumed
• the quality of these carbohydrates
• the amount of time we've been consuming these different types of carbohydrates
• the genetic profile of the individual.

Improvements in Biomarkers through Diet

I was quite busy working with diabetic patients on their diet, this is the reason why I have been absent from my blog for the past few months.

Diabetes and Blood Sugar Control

"There are essential amino acids and essential fatty acids, but there is no such thing as an essential carbohydrate."
                                                                         - Dr. Bernstein (Diabetes Solution)

Videos: The Skinny on Obesity

Sorry for being repetitive, I've already posted a few of these videos earlier. They are very interesting with easy to understand animation. Enjoy!

Metabolic Syndrome

Great summary from the book Fat Chance (Robert H. Lustig) about the development of Metabolic Syndrome (in bold):

Video Presentation: Fat Chance

Recently I've been quoting a lot from the book Fat Chance, by Robert H. Lustig (I borrowed it from the library), and here's the easy-to-understand presentation. If you watch this video, you don't even need to read the book.

Enjoy!

About Cholesterol

I received a lot of requests recently about high cholesterol levels and their implication in heart disease. I made a few graphs to make it easy to understand.

The Effects of Fructose

I recently received a little present from Hungary: a chocolate bar. I was very surprised to read on the packaging: “Suitable for diabetics”. I checked the ingredients behind, it listed 35% fructose!

Dietary Fat and Health - Medical Review

An important review by NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information):

Dietary fats and health: dietary recommendations in the context of scientific evidence.

"[...] the evidence of dietary saturated fats increasing CAD [Coronary Artery Disease] or causing premature death was weak."

Brain - Cancer and Alzheimer's

Article Number 1:

When it Comes to Brain Cancer, Let's Look Beyond Chemo

In cancer research, it is very important to understand how cancer cells work, what they need to thrive and multiply, in other words their metabolism. As I've mentioned before, sugar (glucose) is an important "food" for cancer cells, as they generate energy by fermentation (Sugar and Cancer and Starving Cancer Cells). They are unable to survive in an oxygen rich environment and without sugar.

Fats versus Oils

The animal fat versus vegetable oils is going on. For more information, please watch this presentation by Dr Miller (Professor of Surgery, Cardiothoracic Division, University of Washington). I think this video makes it clear that saturated fat is the winner.

Path to Diabetes

The stage preceding diabetes is called metabolic syndrome, a term coined by Gerald Reaven. He discovered that the symptoms are common to:

• obesity
• diabetes
• heart disease

Hungry Planet - Bhutan

For today's detailed diet study I chose this Bhutanese family from Hungry Planet.

Hungry Planet - India

This is an example of a typical Indian vegetarian diet of a family living in Ujjain (Central India), from the book Hungry Planet. (My previous post about Japan.)

Nutrient Density

This presentation by Mathieu Lalonde, PhD gives an insight into the nutrient density of different food groups. The conclusion is very surprising:

Diseases of Civilization - Japan

Japan is often cited as a proof that a high carbohydrate diet is the solution to avoid chronic diseases. I think it is a misguided belief.

In the 1950s, Ancel Keys considered his hypothesis (dietary fat causes heart disease) confirmed by the example of Japan, where people ate a low-fat diet, had low cholesterol levels, and had very little incidence of heart disease. It is true. It is also true, that at that time, sugar consumption was also very low and carbohydrates (brown rice, millet, buckwheat, etc) were not processed. So, we could also say that the low incidence of heart disease was a result of the lack of sugar and refined carbohydrates in their diet. Of course, Keys paid no attention to sugar consumption.

Diet Trends

"It is incredible that in the twentieth-century America a conscientious physician should have his hard-won professional reputation placed on the line for daring to suggest that an obesity victim might have some relief by cutting out sugars and starches."
                                                                        - Robert Atkins