The Best Diet
Submitted by Dr. JG Kaplan on Thu, 2010-03-18 22:21
To lose weight and reduce your risk of heart disease, there are six (6) fundamentals:
- Cardinal rule: You MUST take in (eat) less calories than you burn (exercise and by being active)
- Portion size must be reasonable; do not eat to satiety; try to eat a fair amount of whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, but consume
- Fewer carbohydrates, especially refined and high sugar-loaded ones.
- Enjoy more polyunsaturated fats (e.g., plant oils and fish).
- Veer away from low-fat dairy products and nuts.
- You gained weight over years; you must lose it gradually as well and remember, despite the inevitable 'ups and downs, keep it off!
A brief discussion of the controversial Atkins Diet is in order; it is a low carbohydrate, but high fat diet (68% of its total calories comes from fat), which in the past this "would have been considered a sure road to a heart attack." Nevertheless, one loses pounds with it (fat is a satiety factor) and the resulting weight loss is associated with reduced cardiac risk. The problem is, however, that many people regain their weight (and then some). "In addition, experts continue to be nervous about the long-term effects of such a high-fat diet on overall health."
A specific diet, proven to be effective is the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension or DASH diet--"It is similar to a Mediterranean-type diet, in that it includes high amounts of fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy products, whole grains, nuts, fish, and poultry. DASH diets have low amounts of total and saturated fats, red meats, sweets, and sugar-containing beverages." [It] can lower blood pressure, particularly if you also reduce the amount of salt in your diet. It is similar in some important ways to the complex pyramid approach recently recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Neither approach is really a weight-loss diet, but an approach to eating that provides guidance on the relative proportion of foods for someone eating a "normal" amount of calories (about 2,000 per day)."
Lee TH (Brigham and Women's Hospital) The Perfect Diet (Really!)
CRP Increases Begin Age
CRP Increases Begin Age Three, Other Markers Rise Later on
The researchers conducted a cross-sectional analysis of children aged one to 17 in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999-2006, who were categorized using weight for length when aged under two and body-mass index (BMI) for those two and over. Those in the fifth to <85th percentiles of BMI were considered at a healthy weight; those between the >85th and <95th percentiles were deemed overweight; those between >95th and <99th percentiles were categorized as obese; and those in >99th percentile as very obese.
The main outcome measures were high-sensitivity CRP and two other inflammatory markers, absolute neutrophil count (ANC) and the newer ferritin/transferrin (F/T) ratio. They used Cox proportional hazard models to examine the risk of abnormal values of the inflammatory markers according to weight.
Increased risk of a CRP level of >1.0 mg/L was evident among very obese children from ages three to five years (hazard ratio 2.29; p<0.01) through 15 to 17 years (HR 4.73; p<0.01). Increased risk of abnormal neutrophil count among very obese children began at six to eight years (HR 2.0; p=0.049), and increased prevalence of abnormal ferritin/transferrin ratio started at nine to 11 years (HR 7.06; p<0.001).
"There is a very clear and direct relationship between obesity and inflammation as assessed in this nationally representative sample of children, going down to a young age and using multiple markers of inflammation."
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