Is Sodium Restriction to 2,300 mg/day Really Necessary?

Posted on April 29, 2019 | Comments Off on Is Sodium Restriction to 2,300 mg/day Really Necessary?

I’m still not convinced that severe sodium restriction is necessary or even possible for most people

U.S public health authorities recommend maximum daily sodium consumption of 2.3 grams a day, in order to prevent cardiovascular disease. But a 2018 multi-country study published in Lancet supports a much different and higher maximum sodium intake level:

Sodium intake was associated with cardiovascular disease and strokes only in communities where mean intake was greater than 5 g/day. A strategy of sodium reduction in these communities and countries but not in others might be appropriate.

The researchers also found, “All major cardiovascular outcomes decreased with increasing potassium intake in all countries.”

Click for a list of potassium-rich foods from a .gov website.

You’ll find several cold-water fatty fish there.

My Advanced Mediterranean Diet recommends the fish but you’ll find no sodium restriction advice.

Source: Urinary sodium excretion, blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and mortality: a community-level prospective epidemiological cohort study – The Lancet

Steve Parker MD, Advanced Mediterranean Diet

Two diet books in one

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Posted in Heart Disease, Stroke

Are Drugs the Solution to Your Unhealthy Lifestyle?

Posted on April 24, 2019 | 1 comment
paleobetic diet, low-carb diet, diabetic diet

“This is much easier than exercising and losing 30 pounds!”

Fiona Godlee, editor-in-chief of the British Medical Journal, has a heretical short article at BMJ. I recommend you read the whole thing. It starts thusly:

More than half of adults aged over 45 will be labelled as hypertensive if new US guidelines are adopted, concludes a study in The BMJ this week (doi:10.1136/bmj.k2357). This equates to 70 million people in the US and 267 million people in China being eligible for antihypertensive drugs, a marked increase on already high rates of drug treatment for high blood pressure. Furthermore, the study calculates that 7.5 million people in the US and 55 million in China would be advised to start drug treatment, while 14 million in the US and 30 million in China would be advised to receive more intensive treatment. The evidence from trials indicates some benefit from drugs in terms of reduced risk of stroke and heart disease, but is mass medication really what we want?

Hypertension is just one of the many heads of the lifestyle disease hydra. Another is type 2 diabetes. Once thought to be irreversible and progressive, it is now known to be potentially reversible through weight loss. This is the cautious conclusion of the review by Nita Forouhi and colleagues (doi:10.1136/bmj.k2234), part of our series on the science and politics of nutrition (bmj.com/food-for-thought). Whether by calorie or carbohydrate restriction, weight loss has been shown to improve glycaemic control, blood pressure, and lipid profile and is the key to treatment and prevention of type 2 diabetes, they say.

She goes on to talk about fatty liver disease (NASH) and offers an alternative, of sorts, to pills. Good luck with that.

We’re supposed to eat more fruit, right?

Someone needs to figure out how to put healthy lifestyle in a pill.

Source: Pills are not the answer to unhealthy lifestyles | The BMJ

Steve Parker MD, Advanced Mediterranean Diet

Two diet books in one

 

 

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Posted in High Blood Pressure

Effects of Greek orthodox christian church fasting on serum lipids and obesity

Posted on March 30, 2019 | 1 comment

Dead whole fish aren’t very appealing to many folks

Not mentioned often in scientific articles is the potential contribution of fasting to the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet.  What sort of fasting?

“Orthodox Christian holy books recommend a total of 180–200 days of fasting per year. The faithful are advised to avoid olive oil, meat, fish, milk and dairy products every Wednesday and Friday throughout the year. Additionally, there are three principal fasting periods per year: i) a total of 40 days preceding Christmas (meat, dairy products and eggs are not allowed, while fish and olive oil are allowed except on Wednesdays and Fridays), ii) a period of 48 days preceding Easter (Lent). During Lent fish is allowed only two days whereas meat, dairy products and eggs are not allowed. Olive oil consumption is allowed only at weekends, iii) a total of 15 days in August (the Assumption) when the same dietary rules apply as for Lent with the exception of fish consumption which is allowed only on August 6th. Seafood such as shrimps, squid, cuttlefish, octopus, lobsters, crabs as well as snails are allowed on all fasting days throughout the year. The Greek Orthodox fasting practices can therefore be characterized as requiring a periodic vegetarian diet including fish and seafood.”

Source: Effects of Greek orthodox christian church fasting on serum lipids and obesity

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Posted in Longevity

A practical guide to the Mediterranean diet – Harvard Health Blog – Harvard Health Publishing

Posted on March 30, 2019 | 1 comment

From the Harvard Health blog:

“The Mediterranean diet has received much attention as a healthy way to eat, and with good reason. The Mediterranean diet has been shown to reduce risk of heart disease, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, certain cancers, depression, and in older adults, a decreased risk of frailty, along with better mental and physical function. In January, US News and World Report named it the “best diet overall” for the second year running.”

Source: A practical guide to the Mediterranean diet – Harvard Health Blog – Harvard Health Publishing

Steve Parker MD, Advanced Mediterranean Diet

Two diet books in one

1 Comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Strengthen Your Core Without Injuring Your Back 

Posted on March 5, 2019 | Comments Off on Strengthen Your Core Without Injuring Your Back 

A position you’ll see in the Five Tibetan Rituals for prevention and treatment of back pain

Fanatic Cook posted some (potentially) myth-busting videos featuring Dr Stuart McGill that may challenge your preconceptions about core exercises.

He [Dr McGill] says that a flexible back or a strong back are not protective of back injury. In fact, they are associated with more injury. The muscles of the back are meant to stabilize, to prevent movement. This is true for abdominal muscles and others of the core or torso. However, since back and stomach muscles are in constant use, they need to be maintained to provide endurance.

Now I don’t feel so bad about not being able to touch my toes by bending over at the waist. I regained the ability to do that eight years ago by following the Core Performance program. But that regimen took about five hours a week—more than I wanted to invest long-term

Source: How To Strengthen Abdominals Without Injuring The Back | Fanatic Cook

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Posted in Low Back Pain

Disappointing Weight Regain as of July 14, 2018

Posted on March 3, 2019 | 5 comments

I love peanut M&Ms

In just five and a half weeks since finishing Nuttin’ But Salads, my weight is up nine pounds, to 171. I failed even to keep eating one large salad daily.

BP is up significantly and I’ll probably be restarting amlodipine. Max of 153/109, more commonly 144/94.

Why? Candy, pastries, pie, cake, bread, alcohol.

Magnesium supplement fell by the wayside. Still drinking hibiscus tea when working.

5 Comments

Posted in Weight Regain

Paul Ingraham on Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome (PFPS)

Posted on February 14, 2019 | Comments Off on Paul Ingraham on Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome (PFPS)

Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome is probably the most common cause of knee pain in younger folks. I precipitated in it myself by accelerating my training program too rapidly in preparation for my last mountain climb

I just ran across this long PFPS article and didn’t want to lose track of it, so here’s the link.

The author is a (former?) massage therapist who thinks like a scientist.

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Posted in knee pain

Does Your Doctor Use Automated Office Blood Pressure Readings? 

Posted on February 14, 2019 | Comments Off on Does Your Doctor Use Automated Office Blood Pressure Readings? 

High blood pressure is linked to heart attacks

I’ve never heard of regular physician offices measuring blood pressure like this  meta-analysis describes. It may be the standard of care in the future if the automated device is affordable.

“Key Points

Question

Should automated office blood pressure (recording several blood pressure readings using a fully automated oscillometric sphygmomanometer with the patient resting alone in a quiet place) measurement replace readings recorded by nurses and physicians in routine clinical practice?

Findings

This systematic review and meta-analysis of 31 articles comprising 9279 participants compared automated office blood pressure with awake ambulatory blood pressure, a standard for predicting cardiovascular risk. Mean automated office blood pressure readings were similar to the awake ambulatory blood pressure readings and did not exhibit the “white coat effect” associated with routine office blood pressure measurement.

Meanings

Automated office blood pressure measurement should replace the recording of blood pressure by nurses and physicians in routine clinical practice.”

Source: Comparing Automated Office Blood Pressure Readings With Other Methods of Blood Pressure Measurement for Identifying Patients With Possible Hypertension: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis | JAMA Internal Medicine | JAMA Network

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Posted in High Blood Pressure

Can a Ketogenic Diet Prevent or Treat  Alzheimer’s disease?

Posted on February 14, 2019 | Comments Off on Can a Ketogenic Diet Prevent or Treat  Alzheimer’s disease?

Sunny’s Super Salad

Maybe…we don’t know yet. From a recent scientific article:

“Highlights

•Impaired brain glucose metabolism and amyloid β plaques are associated with Alzheimer’s disease pathology.

•Ketones provide an alternative metabolic precursor to glucose in the brain.

•Ketogenic diets likely reduce amyloid plaques and may reverse their neurotoxicity.

•Modern diets high in carbohydrates may contribute to increasing Alzheimer’s incidence.

•The ketogenic diet (including carbohydrate restriction) might be useful in the management of Alzheimer’s disease.”

Source: The ketogenic diet as a potential treatment and prevention strategy for Alzheimer’s disease – ScienceDirect

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Posted in Alzheimer Disease, Ketogenic Mediterranean Diet

QOTD: Denninger on Politics and Blackmail

Posted on February 11, 2019 | Comments Off on QOTD: Denninger on Politics and Blackmail

“I have long considered that one of the primary qualifications for being “accepted” into the major parties as a serious candidate (for anything) is that you’re able to be blackmailed.  There has to be something in your past that they know about and can use to “keep you in line.”  There is an utterly-ridiculous over-representation of people in the US Congress and other “high positions” that have been accused (or even proved) to have had interest in “little girls”, as an example, which has led to the (not very funny) anecdote that the only way to “get” this politician or that is to find them with a dead girl — or live boy.

As just one example I give you Dennis Hastert, who was Speaker of the House.  Long after he left office (but sadly for him, before he died) he was accused of structuring transactions illegally to pay off a kid he allegedly did inappropriate things with before he was in the House at all, say much less before he was Speaker.  It beggars belief that nobody knew of this alleged indiscretion before Hastert ascended to the House itself, say much less Speaker of the House.

Therefore this is a perfectly reasonable question: Who blackmailed him and what did they get?  I remind you that the Speaker of the House has near-absolute control over what is and isn’t heard on the floor and thus what bills can and cannot be voted on.”

Source.

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Posted in QOTD