Prevention is Easier than CureExperiments in animals have confirmed what common sense suggests: it's easier to prevent health problems than to reverse them. Still, many health conditions can be improved, and in some cases reversed, through lifestyle interventions. It's important to have realistic expectations and to be kind to oneself. Cultivating a drill sergeant mentality will not improve quality of life, and isn't likely to be sustainable.Fat Loss: a New ApproachIf there's one thing that's consistent in the medical literature,...
Sunday, 31 January 2010
The Body Fat Setpoint, Part IV: Changing the Setpoint
Posted by Admin in: diet exercise fat-soluble vitamins gluten hormesis leptin low-carb meditation overweight paleolithic diet
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Saturday, 23 January 2010
The Body Fat Setpoint, Part III: Dietary Causes of Obesity
Posted by Admin in: diet disease fat-soluble vitamins fats leptin overweight
[2013 update: I've edited this post to remove elements that I feel were poorly supported. I now think that changes in the setpoint are at least partially secondary to passive overconsumption of calories, particularly low quality calories]What Caused the Setpoint to Change?We have two criteria to narrow our search for the cause of modern fat gain:It has to be new to the human environmentAt some point, it has to cause leptin resistance or otherwise disturb the setpointAlthough I believe that exercise is part of a healthy...
Wednesday, 20 January 2010
Krauss's New Article on Saturated Fat Intervention Trials
Posted by Admin in: Cardiovascular disease fats
Dr. Ronald Krauss's group just published another article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, this time on the intervention trials examining the effectiveness of reducing saturated fat and/or replacing it with other nutrients, particularly carbohydrate or polyunsaturated seed oils. I don't agree with everything in this article. For example, they cite the Finnish Mental Hospital trial. They openly acknowledge some contradictory data, although they left out the Sydney diet-heart study and the Rose et al. corn oil...
Saturday, 16 January 2010
The Body Fat Setpoint, Part II: Mechanisms of Fat Gain
Posted by Admin in: diet disease hyperphagia overweight
The Timeline of Fat GainModern humans are unusual mammals in that fat mass varies greatly between individuals. Some animals carry a large amount of fat for a specific purpose, such as hibernation or migration. But all individuals of the same sex and social position will carry approximately the same amount of fat at any given time of year. Likewise, in hunter-gatherer societies worldwide, there isn't much variation in body weight--...
Thursday, 14 January 2010
New Saturated Fat Review Article by Dr. Ronald Krauss
Posted by Admin in: Cardiovascular disease diet fats
Dr. Ronald Krauss's group has published a review article titled "Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease". As anyone who's familiar with the literature could have predicted (including myself), they found no association whatsoever between saturated fat intake and heart disease or stroke:A meta-analysis of prospective epidemiologic studies showed that there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased...
Sunday, 10 January 2010
Paleo is Going Mainstream
Posted by Admin in: paleolithic diet
There was an article on the modern "Paleolithic" lifestyle in the New York Times today. I thought it was a pretty fair treatment of the subject, although it did paint it as more macho and carnivorous than it needs to be. It features three attractive NY cave people. It appeared in the styles section here. Paleo is going mainstream. I expect media health authorities to start getting defensive about it any minute now.[2013 update. Did I call it or what?...
