Articles About Health And Fitness

A recent study supports the notion that an 'ancestral diet' focused around high-starch agricultural foods can cultivate leanness and metabolic health. John McDougall gave Christopher Gardner a hard time at the McDougall Advanced Study Weekend.  Dr. Gardner conducts high-profile randomized controlled trials (RCTs) at Stanford to compare the effectiveness of a variety of diets for weight loss, cardiovascular and metabolic health.  The "A to Z Study", in which Atkins, Zone, Ornish, and LEARN diets were pitted against one another for one year, is one of his best-known trials ( 1 ). Dr. McDougall asked a simple question: why haven't these trials evaluated the diet that has sustained the large majority of the world's population for the last several thousand years?  This is an agriculturalist or horticulturalist diet based around starchy foods such as grains, tubers, legumes, and plantains, and containing little fat or animal foods.  Researchers have studied a number...

For those of you who aren't familiar with him, Dr. John McDougall is a doctor and diet/health advocate who recommends a very low fat, high starch, whole food vegan diet to control weight and avoid chronic disease.  He's been at it for a long time, and he's a major figure in the "plant-based diet" community (i.e., a diet including little or no animal foods). Dr. McDougall invited me to participate in his 3-day Advanced Study Weekend retreat in Santa Rosa, CA.  My job was to give my talk on insulin and obesity, and participate in a panel discussion/debate with Dr. McDougall in which we sorted through issues related to low-carb, Paleo, and the health implications of eating animal foods.  I was glad to receive the invitation, because I don't see myself as a diet partisan, and I believe that my evidence-based information is applicable to a variety of diet styles.  I saw the Weekend as an opportunity to extend my thoughts to a new community, challenge myself, and m...

Chris Kresser has been a major figure in the ancestral health community for some time now.  It's funny to recall that I was actually one of his first readers, back in the early days of his blog when it was called The Healthy Skeptic and the audience was small.  Chris's readership rapidly eclipsed mine, and now he's in high demand for his ability to convey ideas clearly and offer practical solutions to important health concerns. He recently published a book titled Your Personal Paleo Code , which also happens to be a New York Times bestseller.  The primary goal of the book is to help you develop a diet and lifestyle that support health and well-being by starting from a generally healthy template and personalizing it to your needs.  Let's have a look. Introduction Kresser opens with the poignant story of his own health problems, which began with an infectious illness in Indonesia and several courses of antibiotic therapy.  After years of struggling with the resulting s...

A new review paper on dietary fatty acids and heart disease risk was just published by Dr. Rajiv Chowdhury and colleagues in the Annals of Internal Medicine-- one of the top medical journals ( 1 ).  The goal of the paper is to comprehensively review the studies evaluating the effect of dietary fatty acids on heart (coronary) disease.  The review covers observational and intervention studies pertaining to saturated, monounsaturated,  trans , omega-6 polyunsaturated, and omega-3 polyunsaturated fats.  The paper is notable for its comprehensiveness (inclusion criteria were very lax). Here is a summary of the results: In observational studies that measured diet, only trans fat was related to cardiovascular risk.  Saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats were unrelated to risk. In observational studies that measured circulating concentrations of fatty acids, long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (DHA, DPA, EPA, AA) were associated with lower risk.  The dairy-fat-derived margar...

I'm happy to announce that we're releasing a free e-book titled Why do We Gain Fat, and How do We Lose it? An Introduction to the Science of Body Fat , by Dan Pardi and myself. This is a slimmed-down version of the longer, fully referenced e-book we offer as part of the Ideal Weight Program. In it, we provide a succinct overview of the science of body fat gain and loss, and the evidence base for our program.  It also contains a schematic that ties together the various concepts in visual form. You can download it from the Dan’s Plan site by following this link  to our program overview page. Ideal Weight Program 2.0 Upgrades Over the last year, Dan and I have been working hard to improve the Ideal Weight Program, both in response to user feedback and our own ideas for development.  Here are some of the new features we offer in 2014: Four-week meal plans and shopping lists for the FLASH diet and the Simple Food Diet, as requested by Ideal Weight Program users.  This is...

The Claim: We Overeat Because Our Diet is Low in Vitamins and Minerals We know that animals, including humans, seek certain properties of food.  Humans are naturally attracted to food that's high in fat, sugar, starch, and protein, and tend to be less enthusiastic about low-calorie foods that don't have these properties, like vegetables ( 1 ).  Think cookies vs. plain carrots. In certain cases, the human body is able to detect a nutritional need and take steps to correct it.  For example, people who are placed on a calorie-restricted diet become hungry and are motivated to make up for the calorie shortfall ( 2 ,  3 ).  People who are placed on a low-protein diet crave protein and eat more of it after the restriction is lifted ( 4 ).  Humans and many other animals also crave and seek salt, which supplies the essential minerals sodium and chlorine, although today most of us eat much more of it than we need to.  At certain times, we may crave something sweet or acidic, and pregnan...

Glucagon is a hormone that plays an important role in blood glucose control.  Like insulin, it's secreted by the pancreas, though it's secreted by a different cell population than insulin (alpha vs. beta cells).  In some ways, glucagon opposes insulin.  However, the role of glucagon in metabolism is frequently misunderstood in diet-health circles. The liver normally stores glucose in the form of glycogen and releases it into the bloodstream as needed.  It can also manufacture glucose from glycerol, lactate, and certain amino acids.  Glucagon's main job is to keep blood glucose from dipping too low by making sure the liver releases enough glucose.  There are a few situations where this is particularly important: Read more »