We need to grow a pair!

Hi Everyone!

Yes. I'm walking the line of crudeness because I'm fed up!  Honestly, if I hear one more client say that it's okay that they're having the bag of chips because they are made with whole grains, I'm going to lose it! Honestly, how do you expect to achieve your goals if you're not willing to take out the garbage?

I'm not even sure who to be mad at any more!  I think we all have some culpability in this mess. Let's take a look at how each group plays a role in the obesity epidemic (both creating it and not helping to solve it).

Consumers/Clients

I think that the current food system is the way it is, because we (the consumers/clients) are a bunch of pushovers (not my first choice of words) who are so terrified to give up our vices like junky foods that we know are killing us that we choose to believe the BS claims that are made by food companies about said food items. For instance, these chips are okay because they are made from whole grains, or these cookies are organic.  I mean, PLEASE!

Message: We vote with our dollars, so don't buy processed food anymore & eventually there will be no market for it and similarly, the cost of good quality, real foods will decrease.

Government

The governments who supposedly police the food industry are absolutely culpable & they are made of educated people, so they are not stupid, therefore, I can only conclude that they are driven by money and secondary gain.  There is no other logical reason why in the face of clear evidence that TRANS fats kill humans by well known cardiovascular mechanisms, that they would impose a law to require that the amount of trans fats within a food product be shown on the label rather than make it illegal for the food company to use that item in the foods they make!  WHAT THE HECK!?  Think about it, governments make money on allowing poor quality foods into the market place & people get sick & then there's money to be made on the treatment of those illnesses (preventable ones).  So tell me then, where is the motivation to stop the cycle.  Nowhere for the governments regulators.

Message: Nobody has your back, other than you.  You need to take responsibility for your own lifestyle choices.  Don't you put your health, life & vitality in the hands of people with more to gain if you are sick than if you are healthy.

Nutrition Professionals

Practioners

The nutrition profession including Dietitians, Nutritionists (practitioners), Researchers & Professors.  All of which work very hard (I know I am one) to tow the company line (i.e. the food groups or pyramids or whatever), and most of them (this is where I consider myself different) do NOT question those concepts, they just keep teaching them.  This is where things become ugly for me.  I have a real Masters degree (thesis-based) & am pursuing a PhD all in Human Nutrition, so I believe I can read, interpret & critically appraise the research.  Unfortunately, many of the practitioners in the profession can not, do not or are not willing to do this.  This has lead to the promotion of the low fat diet for instance for the last fifty years or so.  You can see my post on some of my issues with the low fat diet and why that's a huge problem.  And the thing is, the evidence is out there to lead practitioners away from this but most are either too busy or just don't bother to review it.

Researchers

This brings us to researchers and professors. Researchers & Professors are, for the most part positions that are research driven and depend upon production & publications for their institution.  Unfortunately, Western medical research practices are based on supposed gold standards (i.e. randomized clinical trials) that really only work for pharmaceutical drugs, no coincidence that the majority of medical research is funded by these companies and that most medical decision trees produced for physicians and psychiatrists either end at or have as a major part of their treatment a pharmaceutical drug (that's for another rant, though).  I have many research colleagues and friends who consider the current state of nutrition research a joke.  I unfortunately have to agree with them.  They are mostly in the physical sciences like chemistry and physics, both of which I have minors in.  The major difference in my opinion is that those physical sciences have a unifying theory, which guides all research in that discipline to be in line with those principles.  In medical & health research it's more of a crap shoot of random trials & outcome measures.  Many will argue that there is no medical unifying theory, but that is crap!  The unified theory of biology should be and is EVOLUTION!  I talk about that unifying theory in a prior post here.  If nutrition researchers would simply ask does this study/finding/research question that I am proposing make sense in light of evolutionary biology, then this would prevent millions of dollars from being wasted on stupid projects that provide zero insights into human health & disease.  And by the way, food companies are also spending billions of dollars to fund research projects.


Professors

Professorships are research-dependent and therefore all of the research criticisms discussed above apply.  Additionally, however, most of the time there is a regulating body (i.e. college or other guiding body) that dictates the competencies and content that are required to become a certified health professional.  Unfortunately, these practice recommendations are based on the assumption that the last fifty plus years of lifestyle based research has been sound and that the principles of many of the early low fat proponents was correct (which is now known to be false).  Yet, each new generation of nutrition, health and medical practitioner are taught the same strategies to prevent and manage/treat cardiovascular disease, diabetes, kidney disease, etc... without any regard to human evolutionary biology.  This is absolutely a critical mistake and the most frustrating part of all is that this is a relatively easy one to fix.

Message: You can't always put your faith in credentials.  Just because someone has a certification or degree, doesn't mean they're good at what they do or even know about or truly understand the current research, it just means they were able to complete coursework & do well on a test. I am a certified health professional, I have many colleagues and only some of them truly understand the current research. Be sure to do your own research and then discuss it with your certified health professional.  If they are completely closed, fire them & find another who is more open and versed on the research.

So. What the heck can we do about it?

It's an easy fix, but not a quick one.  I learned everything I could (and still am by the way) about evolutionary biology and then use these principles to filter all of the latest research findings through and see which ones still make sense or try to figure how they might fit.  Also, I use these evolutionary principles to adjust my prevention and treatment protocols so that they are more in line with evolutionary biology.  There are many non-certified Western and Alternative medical practitioners that have been doing this for some time, I applaud the honest ones for doing this.  I think it's time that we in certified Western medicine caught up!

Message: It's through this practice of selecting professionals that are more open-minded & versed on the literature, that health professionals will ultimately expand their knowledge and be accountable to you, the client.  Also, we have to stop always citing old studies as the basis for our current treatment practice, research question or curriculum and seriously attempt to integrate the evolutionary biology approach.


Thanks for reading my rant!  I hope you found it useful as well as entertaining!  Honestly, I feel better for having wrote this, so thanks for giving me an audience.

Have a great week!

Take care,

Dan T

Metabolism and Mental Health

Hi everyone!

I'm back from some time away and am thrilled to announce the birth of our second daughter Kathryn!  Kudos to my beautiful wife who delivered her naturally and has been an amazing trooper plowing through breast feeding challenges! Let's just say, there's not a lot of sleep to go around in our home right now!

On to today's topic: Metabolism and Mental Health

I'm constantly disgusted by the preachings & teachings of many of my peers who blindly tow the economically motivated company line!  I'm speaking from both the head and the heart here!

Maybe it's not news to any of you reading this that there is something wrong with the current model of "healthy lifestyles" being touted by North American health care professionals, and I might add is still being taught as the gold standard by many of the educational institutions creating the next generation of said health care professionals!  The sad part of all this is that it's all based on poor research and worse yet, the last 2 decades of evidence has clearly shown that the food pyramids & groupings that are are NOT the answer they are touted to be and could actually be responsible for the obesity epidemic we are now facing.  Denise Minger has done an awesome job illustrating the facts as to why the USDA pyramids since the 1970's are a bad idea in her book Death by Food Pyramid.

In fact, the evidence absolutely opposes regular consumption of a high carb, low fat diet for any prolonged period of time, suggesting that the increased prevalence of mental health conditions over the last 50 years is due to the shifting of public consumption to a low fat, high carbohydrate diet vs. the more traditional, low carb, high fat one (Riby LM and Riby DM, 2013)!

I work at a mental health hospital and I see significant overlap between the mental health conditions that lead to hospitalization (i.e. Anxiety, Depression, Bipolar Disorder, Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective Disorder, Bipolar Affective Disorder, etc...) and the metabolic syndrome that has also become increasingly prevalent in our modern society.  FYI, Metabolic syndrome is defined by having 3 or more of the following conditions (as defined on the Diabetes Canada website):

• High fasting blood glucose levels (5.6 mmol/L or higher)
• High blood pressure (130/85 mm Hg or higher)
• High level of triglycerides, a type of fat in your blood (1.7 mmol/L or higher)
• Low levels of HDL, the “good” blood cholesterol (lower than 1.0 mmol/L in men or 1.3 mmol/L in women)
• Abdominal obesity or too much fat around your waist [a waist circumference of greater than 102 cm (40 inches) in men and greater than 88 cm (35 inches) in women]

The more of these conditions you have, the higher your risks of developing type 2 diabetes and heart disease.  I can tell you from my experience, that at least 1-3 of these criteria are met by almost all the clients I come across in mental health.  It's far to common to be mere chance!  In fact, there is research outlining how these metabolic disturbances are linked with mental illness  (Carria G et al. 2014).  I think the best objective review of the evidence linking lifestyle habits with subsequent mental health issues and specifically cognitive decline is in Dr. David Perlmutter's book Grain Brain.

Furthermore, metabolic syndrome has been shown to be associated with poor memory and executive functioning in the elderly (Rouch I et al, 2014). I think we can safely assume that they are at the very least related & that nutrition and our consistent lifestyle habits are intimately involved in the pathophysiologies of these conditions.

One theory as to how this link occurs is through epigenetics or the altering of gene expression within individuals through methylation and other processes that turn on and off of various genes in the body.  Mark Sisson in his book The Primal Blueprint describes becoming a fat burning machine through altering our gene expression to do this.  Evidence is definitely starting to show that consistent lifestyle activities including diet, resistance and aerobic exercise and more do exactly this, alter gene expression of certain genes that favor fat burning and turn off others that would favor fat storage.  Epigenetic changes have been shown to occur in populations with Diabetes as well.  Interestingly, these gene expressions can be either health marker related (which can be tracked) or appetite-generating or suppressing to name a few, which can help explain how processed foods can stimulate people to over-consume them so frequently.  This phenomenon has been demonstrated clinically in a study that examined midlife diet and future phenotype expressions of Healthy Aging.



Regardless of mechanisms, there is definitely evidence that suggests we shouldn't be relying, let alone recommending high grain & refined carbohydrate intake (including grains) and that we shouldn't be restricting fat as much as we are now!

Specifically, there are a number of studies linking grain consumption to mental health issues including schizophrenia, depression and bipolar disorder.

 
I will leave you with one closing thought.  Most people know that the body is made of mostly water and if we don't get enough water daily, then we're on the road to problems; so once you understand that the brain is made of mostly fat, it shouldn't surprise you that if we don't consume adequate fat from our diet we are heading down the road to troubles with our brain!  Obviously, the types of fat matter, but this is another post in and of itself!



Anyway, I believe the time is coming for change & I am striving to advocate for it!  It will likely be many years until Government agencies climb aboard, so in the meantime, take control of your and your family's health!

Also, to any and all clinicians reading this, you should try the changes I'm talking about and advocate for change too!  To blindly move forward is irresponsible!


Till next time.  Have a great weekend & Take care!

Dan T

The Real Deal about Nutrient Losses!

Now, right off the bat let me say that nutrient losses are real; however, I believe that perspective gets lost in the discussion of these concepts

The Taoist saying, "My barn having burned to the ground, I can now see the moon." is not only a testament to the human spirit of optimism, but it also illustrates a point about perspective, and how we can become fixated on an issue or concept (however minute in the overall scheme of things) and then be ignorant to the much bigger picture. I can't tell you how many times I've had "debates" with clients regarding nutrient loss phenomenon.

 

Although it's real, the overall significance of the effect of losing nutrients in many of the foods we consume is ridiculous to even contemplate, especially considering the abysmal state of food quality that most people who start to debate nutrient losses with me.  I would argue that the effect of food processing on carbohydrate availability is even more detrimental to human health and I will cover this in a future post; however for the purposes of our discussion today we will focus on the effects of food processing on nutrient content.  All of these concepts are reflected by food quality anyway.

The major processing techniques that can decrease nutrient content are:

1) Cooking (heating) foods - heating certain components of foods can destroy certain compounds that would otherwise have been nutritionally beneficial.

2) Freezing foods - reducing temperatures of some foods can destroy compounds that would otherwise have been nutritionally beneficial.

3) Drying foods - removing water can destroy and remove (especially water soluble) nutrient compounds.

4) GMO foods - forced genetic selection for specific character traits that either make for tastier crops or heartier crops pay no mind to nutritional content.  In fact a recent study revealed that GMO corn was "nutritionally dead" with 20 x less nutrition compared with non GMO corn.Additionally, GMO crops can contain components that irritate our guts or that can elicit an immune response, therefore driving up inflammation. 

The Big Picture

I hate the tendency that we have towards nutritionism.  This term, popularized by Michael Pollan, suggests that the only value that foods have is that endowed to them by the individual nutrients that science has identified. This is preposterous because it is shifts perspective to the one nutrient in question (on that given day) and completely ignores the whole food element that the nutrient was part of and how that might play a role in any perceived benefits. 

Food companies have certainly taken advantage of these concepts to tempt us with otherwise nutritionally void foods because they contain a few nutrients that are considered good for us.  Some examples include enriching flour with 13 essential vitamins and minerals (sound familiar), or fruit juice with calcium in it, etc... The challenge with all of this is that these foods are all extremely processed (in one way or another) and as a result are nutritionally empty foods.  They are yummy due to the concentrated sugars, etc... but have little in the way of nutritional content.  Furthermore, adding exciting individual nutrients that are good for us back into a nutritionally void food, does not make that food good for us in any way.  Seriously, let's take fruit or vegetable juices for example. If I take a fruit or vegetable that have health benefits, cook the hell out of them, therefore killing any potentially beneficial enzymes and then blend them into a drink, add some sugar or salt to improve the flavor and then add in some vitamins or minerals (usually from a cheap powder), what do I have as my end product.   A high calorie beverage that has little to no nutritional value, especially when compared to its original form (fresh, whole vegetables or fruits).

Here's a quick tool that I've created that can help you choose the best quality and least processed foods.  This tool only addresses the quality of foods related to processing level and does not consider your needs and the amounts that you are eating.  However, I've seen that people can derive benefits (i.e. fat loss, increased energy, etc...) from simply improving the quality or decreasing the processing of the foods they regularly eat!  Give it a shot for 60 days and see how you look, feel and perform and let me know how it goes for you.  I'd love to hear that it worked, or didn't or what tweaks you made that improved it for your n=1 experiment!


Try organizing the foods you regularly eat into a spectrum of processing (similar to the one I created below) and choose the least processed foods that you can.  I'm not a raw food purist or anything, just be sure to eat more foods that are less processed over those that are more processed.  In fact, for 60 days just omit all foods from the processed side of the spectrum and see how that works for you.

Food Processing Spectrum*



*Created by: Dietitian Dan T for this blog.
This is not a quick fix, it's truly a lifestyle change.  It will be challenging at first, but could eventually become second nature.

Perspective Shift

The reality is that we need to burn down the barns of the food industry (figuratively people, I'm not suggesting anything radical). Only then, will we be able to see the big picture, which in this case is that we need to improve the quality of the foods we eat and see how that affects our health!

Honestly, there is nothing better than cleaning up your diet and living better overall.  Better means more in line with our natural genetic adaptations, which I will cover in more detail in a future post, but in the case of today's topic this means as free from the processed forms of foods as possible.

Till next time!

Citations:

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=george&dbid=61
http://nutritiondata.self.com/topics/processing
http://www.infowars.com/analysis-finds-monsantos-gm-corn-nutritionally-dead-highly-toxic-2/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutritionism