FROM PYRAMID TO PLATE: THE NEW USDA FOOD GUIDE

It’s no longer a pyramid! Yes, the new dietary guidelines that came out last week from USDA look more intuitive as they are arranged like a real plate. It’s called MyPlate! I consider it a big step forward for guiding people towards making healthy eating choices. The biggest difference between the old ‘pyramid’ and the new ‘plate’ is that while the old pyramid weighed heavily towards grains, making no distinction between whole and refined grains, the new plate places more importance on fruits and vegetables and recommends half the grain servings come from whole grains. It recommends filling half the plate with fruits and vegetables and the other half with grains and proteins. It recommends getting bulk of your protein from beans, nuts, soy products and lean cut meats and seafood. Instead of dessert it has a side serving of diary to meet the calcium requirements but it recommends that the diary be either non-fat or the low-fat kind. Calcium fortified soy milk is also considered part of the dairy group. 

So where did fat go? Although not obvious if you read into the food groups it does account for fat intake and further makes the distinction between vegetable oils and solid (saturated) fats. While it makes the recommendation to eat a certain amount of oils it lumps all solid fats and sugars into what it calls the ‘empty calories' group. This group, according to USDA, adds calories without any nutritional value.

So what’s my take on MyPlate? I think it’s a step in the right direction towards giving people healthier eating recommendations and should help curb the obesity epidemic to some extent. What I like best about MyPlate is the heavy bias on fruits and vegetables which I think is crucial to a healthy diet. And while they make a recommendation for eating more of healthy oils (poly-unsaturated and mono-unsaturated fats), what I don’t like about MyPlate is that there is no explicit recommendation on what percentage of the daily calorie requirement should come from fat. Moreover I don’t quite agree with lumping saturated fats like butter and coconut oil with simple sugars as empty calories.

THE LINK BETWEEN SALT AND HEART DISEASE

None! Yeah you heard it right, there is no link between salt intake and heart disease. There is certainly a link between high salt intake and high blood pressure (hypertension) but how that translates into a higher risk for heart disease is unclear at best.

Popular theories claim that a high salt intake causes, due to osmosis, the circulatory volume  to be higher in the blood vessels. This higher volume causes excessive pressure along the walls of the blood vessels causing them to thicken and as a result contrict the blood flow. Just as working the muscles hard in the gym causes them to enlarge in size the higher volume required to pump causes the heart to enlarge dangerously.  But if the muscle enlargement in response to stress analogy was true for blood vessels then the blood vessles should enlarge in response the the added stress and it should actually help with blood flow if anything. If the expansion of heart in response to pumping stress was dangerous, then running a marathon would, by the same token, increase the risk for heart disease because its a well known fact that running frequent marathons increases heart volume. The real danger with excessive salt intake is renal stress in response to excreting the excess salt. I call it a real danger because the excess filteration of salt in the kidneys causes a vascular disorder known as “hypertensive nephrosclerosis,” a major cause of kidney disease. 

So while eating excess salt is dangerous for other reasons it has little correlation with heart disease. An 8 year European study found no correlation between salt intake and the risk for heart disease. In fact they found the exact opposite, i.e., people with high salt intake are less likely to die of heart disease. So while I wouldn't advice excessive salt in diet, there is no reason to avoid this condiment and eat bland food.

ROLE OF DIETARY IRON

Iron is an essential micronutrient in our diet. It's part of hemoglobin in blood and serves the purpose of transporting oxygen to cells. It’s also an essential part of many proteins and enzymes that maintain good health and is also essential for regulation of cell growth and differentiation. A deficiency of iron limits the delivery of oxygen to the cells resulting in fatigue, low work efficiency and poor immunity. On the other hand excess amounts can lead to toxicity and in extreme cases, even death.

Dietary iron is present in two forms, heme and nonheme. As the name suggests heme iron is present in the form of hemoglobin and is more bio-available than the nonheme form. Animal sources of Iron like red meat, fish and poultry are rich in heme form of iron (sorry vegetarians, meat wins here again) while the vegetarian sources contain the nonheme form. The following table shows the common sources of dietary iron separated by heme and nonheme sources. Please note that even though the plant based sources of iron seem richer in absolute quantities, they are poorly absorbed in the body. Also most fortified cereal and juices in the market contain the nonheme type of iron.

Absorption of iron in the body depends on the available reserves of iron. If the body is running low on iron reserves the absorption is high and when the reserves are high the absorption is low to protect against toxic effects of excess iron. Also animal sources of iron are absorbed anywhere from 15-35% while the absorption from plant sources is in the 2-20% range. Also iron from animal sources is absorbed independent of other dietary components while absorption of iron from plant sources is dependent on other components in diet.  For example tannins (found in tea), calcium, polyphenols, and phytates (found in legumes and whole grains) can decrease absorption of nonheme iron. Some proteins found in soybeans also inhibit nonheme iron absorption.  Keeping an adequate level of iron in the body is important for vitality and overall health. So if you are feeling fatigued and out of breath doing daily chores and keep getting sick often then perhaps fortifying your daily iron intake is in order.

COLLAGEN: THE SECRET TO A RADIANT YOUTHFUL SKIN

So what is collagen? And why has it received such widespread attention lately?

Collagen is the most abundant protein found in the human body. It s a tough elastic protein that forms the connective tissue in our ligaments, tendons and skin. My main interest in collagen was after my rotator-cuff surgery when I was looking for ways to quickly heal my ligaments. So I started reading up on how I could naturally boost collagen production in my body. After some research I found three main ingredients that aid collagen production. I ordered the supplements online and put myself on what I call collagen therapy. I took the recommended dosage (on the packaging) and compared my activity milestones with the orthopedic surgeons recommended timeline. The ‘prescribed’ chart suggested that I would be able to perform normal over head activity after 6 months of surgery. Two weeks before the 6^th month anniversary of my surgery I was not only performing the overhead activities but was able to swim 4x50m laps in the pool. The prescribed chart suggested I would be able to start light exercises with dumbbells by 9 months after the surgery but on the 9^th month anniversary I was already benching about 95lbs. The average recovery time for a rotator cuff tear surgery is 51 weeks but by my 1 year anniversary I was already benching about 175lbs. 

So did the collagen therapy help me recover faster? Or was it a placebo effect? Or was it muscle memory? Well there is no sure way to find, is it? It wasn’t a controlled experiment to begin with since the recovery pathway without collagen therapy wasn’t explored for comparison. I thought I would still share my research with the readers since collagen not only builds healthy connective tissue in the tendons and ligaments but also gives our skin the much needed elasticity without which the skin would sag and form wrinkles. It is the foundation for a healthy and youthful looking skin and true beauty comes from the inside, as they say! With age the body’s natural collagen production capacity declines and hence it would benefit to naturally increase the production with diet and supplementation.  

So what are the special ingredients that promote collagen production in the body? They are (drum roll please!):

Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid): It’s one of the most powerful antioxidant and abundantly found in all citrus fruits, peppers and many other vegetables. Nobel laureate Linus Pauling (the only person to get two Nobel prizes in two different areas) postulated that vitamin C consumed in large doses (over 2000% RDA) can prevent plaque formation in the arteries and can prevent CHD but obviously the pharmaceutical industry wouldn’t like us to believe that the answer to plaque formation lies in something as simple as large doses of vitamin C. But that is a discussion for another day. For this article it will suffice to know that Vitamin C is also one of the most important building blocks of collagen. It is an essential micronutrient that is not synthesized in the body and must be ingested from external sources.

Lysine: It’s one of the essential amino acids and must also be ingested from external food sources. The vegetarian sources of protein lack this vital amino acid except Soy derivatives.  It’s abundant in animal sources of protein like dairy, meat and seafood. It’s also one of the key components in collagen.

Proline: It’s a non-essential amino acid that is produced in the body from L-Glutamine and Ornithine. Its most abundantly found in collagen and is also responsible for lowering arteriosclerosis. It also helps in speedy recovery of injuries because of its ability to form collagen in the presence of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and lysine. Supplementation is not needed in normal individuals but has been shown to be non toxic even in large supplement doses and is prescribed for individuals with arteriosclerosis, blood pressure and slow healing problems. 

Apart from these three ingredients a sufficient intake of antioxidants is also necessary to prevent oxidative damage (from free radicals) to several other amino-acid chains that are responsible for protein regeneration in skin and other connective tissue. Consuming sufficient quantities of fruits that are bright orange, yellow and red in color like oranges, apples, carrots etc will ensure ample supply of antioxidants in the body. Vitamin E is also a powerful antioxidant that is found in nuts and fish.  Retinol which is another form of animal vitamin A, is also found in fish oils and is essential for a healthy skin. 

So you see there is nothing special about these ingredients and they can be found all around you. If you already eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, nuts and fish and stay away from processed packaged foods (that increase free radical generation) you are already enjoying the benefits of healthy collagen production: a radiant youthful skin and good joint health. But if you lack any of these ingredients in your diet then they are readily available in supplement form. When buying these supplements, make sure they are pharmaceutical grade and GMP (good manufacturing practice) certified.

BEST WAYS TO BOOST METABOLISM

Here is an article from health.com about the best ways to boost your metabolism.

http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20306911_12,00.html

The most noteworthy tips are:

1) Strength train with intensity to build muscle. Go HIIT!

2) Eat protein to preserve and build lean muscle mass (the best fat burner of all).

3) Eat protein for increased food thermogenesis preferably early in the morning.

4) Eat healthy fats. Healthy fats promote fat burning in the liver by recycling old fat.

LOW FAT DIET NOT THE BEST FOR WEIGHT LOSS

If you have been following my blog you must know by now that I am not a fan of low fat diet for a number of reasons. Firstly, fat is an important nutrient in our diet and performs many essential functions in our bodies. It is essential for healthy fat metabolism in the liver and the good fats (MUFAs) protect against certain forms of cancer and other age related mental disorders. Secondly, its unhealthy if the calories that must come from healthy fats are substituted with calories from carbohydrates as they raise insulin levels in the blood and lead to insulin resistance which eventually causes type II diabetes.

A two year study done at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) showed that even though the medically prescribed low-fat diet for weight loss is as effective at losing weight as the low-carb diet or the Mediterranean diet the later two were better at improving the HDL/LDL ratio of the dieters.On top of that the low-fat diet actually increased the fasting glucose level by 12mg/dL while the Mediterranean diet decreased the fasting glucose level by 33mg/dL. This is especially important for diabetics or people with high blood sugar that are trying to lose weight. So don't shy away from fat and try to get a third of your daily calorie requirement from healthy fats. Your heart and mind (and the rest of your body) will thank you for it.

WHY MEN SHOULD WORRY ABOUT SOY IN THEIR DIETS

In a previous article I talked about the dangers of Soy and here is a recent article from Men's Health linking Soy's phytoestrogens to Gynecomastia in males. Gynecomastia is a benign enlargement of mammary glands in males that typically happens with elevated estrogen levels. The other problem is a reduced testosterone level causing impotence. The problem is that Soy has infiltrated the modern American diet in a big way, mainly because of soy subsidies (the other one is corn) and the general consensus among people that its the miracle super food that's necessary for good health. So the next time you go for a high protein shake or a high protein vegetarian source that has low cholesterol think twice!