Why It's So Important to Avoid Holiday Weight Gain

It's that time again, folks.  The best time of the year.  Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years... the holiday season.  There's just nothing like it... turkey dinners, Christmas trees, the snow, the gift of giving, the time spent with family.  I look forward to it every year.  But step inside the psyche of any health-conscious person this time of year, and you may find a war zone:

"I love apple pie, but I don't want any.  I don't want it.  It goes right to my butt.  God, look at it... it's gawking at me.  Ahhh okay I'll have a slice.  ONE slice.  Just one slice and I'll stop.  This is the year I keep my weight under control during the holidays.  Oh god that was good.  Shit girl, give me another.  This is better than sex, oh my god.  The apple pie god.  I love him, he who created apple pie.  Screw butt fat, whatever.  Men like big butts anyway... they cannot lie."

Right?  We all know the holiday season presents a problem.  Excessively yummy food + great people + alcohol = weight gain.  It happens every year... and come the New Year?  Resolutions abound.  Gyms explode with new members, we eat less, and we try to right the wrongs of the past few months.  But, as anyone who has done this probably knows, that weight doesn't come off with the same ease at which it was put on, and rarely does it stay off.

And that's the point of this post.  I want to explain to you why that weight won't stay off, and why, consequently, it's so important to prevent the weight gain to begin with.  Saddle up partner...

Why Are Food Allergies on the Rise? Part 2: Modern Wheat

In this second installment of my food allergy series, I want to focus on wheat specifically.  As you may know, celiac disease is a destructive disease caused by an immune reaction to gluten, a protein in wheat.  In recent years, the prevalence of celiac has been rising; today it is about four times more common than it had been in the 1950s.  According to recent estimates, about 1% of the population suffers from this disease, many of which are still undiagnosed (1, 2).  But still more people suffer from something called gluten sensitivity.  While not a true allergy, gluten sensitivity can manifest in a variety of ways... chronic migraines, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), fibromyalgia... you know, all those pesky, seemingly random conditions that you're told you have when your symptoms don't fit neatly into a real disease.  According to the Center for Celiac Research at the University of Maryland, gluten sensitivity affects 7% of Americans (3).  But some estimates have been as high as 15-20%.  Researchers and practitioners agree that gluten sensitivity is far more common today than ever before. 

Very likely about 1 in 10 Americans have some adverse, acute reaction to eating wheat.  So what gives?  Why the sudden problem?

The story of modern wheat is a fascinating one.  It's something I've never seen discussed in any mainstream media outlet, but the reasons for that will become clear later.  Quite frankly, I didn't believe it when I first read about it in "Wheat Belly", mostly because it's a horribly biased book based on scientific fairy tales.  I dislike it so much I won't even link to it.  Don't bother.  But a recent Mark's Daily Apple article has convinced me that it's true... The wheat and flour products we eat today are distinctly different than what we've eaten in the past.

How to Treat Rheumatoid Arthritis Without Drugs

I want to tell you about a patient I had in my clinical rotation at UConn Health Center.  She was in her 60's, and she was hospitalized following a surgical procedure to fix a pericardial effusion (fluid buildup around the heart).  Other than this acute issue, she had very few health problems, and nothing heart-related.  What she did suffer from, however, was rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a nasty autoimmune, inflammatory disease in which the body attacks its own cells in joints, often in the hands or feet.  Over time, this can lead to deformities in the structure of the hands and feet, like here:

And this is what her hands looked like.  I asked her if her RA bothered her in everyday life, and she said only rarely.  But I saw her hands.  Maybe she could perform easy tasks without any trouble, but she's not opening a jar of tomato sauce any time soon.  Of course, this patient was being treated the same way most RA patients are treated:  with glucocorticoids like Prednisone.  But drugs like Prednisone come along with approximately 4,732 serious side effects, such as increased blood pressure, weight gain, mood swings, osteoporosis, increased risk of infection, and diabetes.  Not exactly "safe" over the long-term.

I am fully aware that a paleo-type diet would help her control her RA; I thought long and hard about whether or not to bring it up with her.  But in the end I didn't, because I'm a student, and paleo isn't exactly protocol at UConn Health Center.  Besides, she eats a super-low-fat, cholesterol-is-deadly, 80s-style diet, full of egg beaters and vegan sausage.  (Her total cholesterol was an extremely low 87 mg/dl by the way, something none of the doctors seemed to be even remotely worried about *palmtoforehead*).  I wasn't about to broach that subject with a 10-foot-pole.  She wouldn't have believed me, and my preceptor never would have signed off on it anyway.

Ironically, later on that week, I listened to a Chris Kresser podcast in which he discussed how he treats RA using diet and supplements.  No Prednisone.  No side effects.  This is the information my patient really needed, along with everyone else who suffers from this debilitating disease.  This is how you get to the root cause of RA and fix it, not simply cover it up with corticosteroids. 

Prop 37, Labeling GMO Foods, and the Evilness of Monsanto

Okay that's it.  I've had it up to HERE with Monsanto and their shenanigans.  Who is Monsanto, you may ask?  The giant biotech company producing most of the genetically modified foods here in this country (and probably the world).  Yes, genetically modified foods, or GM foods, or GMOs.  Any of those.  Those franken-foods created in a lab and fed to the United States citizens without their knowledge.  If you're slightly confused and need a basic education on GMOs, look through my previous blog post here.

In case you haven't been paying attention, the state of California had the opportunity this past week to vote to have genetically modified foods labeled.  Seems like common sense, don't the people have a right to know what they're eating?  Shouldn't you and I have the right to know if what we're eating came from nature, or if that tomato was created from DNA found in a maggot eating the feces of a retarded sloth?  I'd like to know.  But they voted NO!  They voted to allow Monsanto, Dow, and the big food producers to feed YOU genetically modified foods, and NOT tell you about it.  This makes me very angry.  Which makes my writing significantly more interesting to read.  So read on.

Why on earth, you may ask, would anyone be opposed to labeling GM foods?  It seems like an obvious right-to-know case.  And quite frankly, it is.  Unless... somebody has a shit ton of money lying around to change that.  Somebody who would lose a great deal of that money if Californians happened to vote yes on that ballot.

Why Are Food Allergies on the Rise? Part 1: GMOs

If you've worked with kids lately, or if you're a new parent yourself, then I'm sure you know all about this epidemic of food allergies.  According to a 2011 study, 8% of American children under 18 have at least one food allergy, and that is up from 4% in 2009 (1).  Peanut allergies in particular have been on the rise.  In one Midwestern county, the prevalence of peanut allergies in children tripled between 1999 and 2007 (2).  But you don't need numbers to realize it's a problem.  Just spend a day in a school cafeteria.  Or a summer camp.  Just enter an elementary school classroom at all and you'll hear about it; the concern is clearly growing.  Dairy may be the most common allergy, and it seems kids can have a reaction just looking at a peanut, but there are others to worry about as well, including wheat, eggs, soy, tree nuts, fish, and shellfish.

But it wasn't always this way.  When I was a youngster, I don't recall ever hearing about another kid having a food allergy.  Maybe the most I ever heard was that a classmate was lactose intolerant.  But there was no mention of peanuts.  Nobody had a wheat allergy.  Nobody went into anaphylactic shock at the mercy of a pistachio.  So what gives?? Why are food allergies exploding?

Well, sadly I don't think we know the answer to that question.  Much has changed in the food and health world over the past few decades, so we have many likely culprits.  Over these next few posts, I'll be exploring the options, in a sort of thinking-out-loud fashion.  Excuse me if what follows turns into an incoherent mess.

The Coca-Cola Polar Bears

Welp, looks like all those years of drinking Coke has finally caught up to the polar bears.




That is all.

Vegetarians Live Longer than Meat-Eaters

You may be shocked by the title of this post.  Have I changed my tune?  Am I finally giving up meat and going vegan??  Fear not, my friends, it's simply a catchy title I used to draw you in. But it is the topic of an article I read today entitled "Vegetarians have longer life expectancy than meat eaters, study finds".  The study they're referring to is one that followed 96,000 Canadian citizens, thousands of which were Seventh-day Adventists, who are vegetarians (supposedly).  The study isn't yet complete, but the preliminary results were reported at last weekend's Food and Nutrition Conference and Exposition (FNCE) in Philadelphia.  Although I was in attendance at the conference, I did not see the presentation on this Seventh-day Adventist study.  I would have loved to be there, but instead I chose to see a lecture on food blogging, which, incidentally, I am doing right now.  Unfortunately I couldn't be everywhere at once... and I'm fresh out of time travel crystals.

So I was happy to come across this article today and find out what I missed.  Here's the lowdown... Seventh-day Adventist men lived on average 9.5 years longer than other men, and women lived on average 6.1 years longer than other women.  That's a pretty significant chunk of extra life.  But is it the vegetarian diet?  Or is is something else that keeps them truckin'?  Maybe we should learn a little more about these Adventists...