Preventing Tooth Decay

Meet Sir Edward Mellanby, the discoverer of vitamin D. Along with his wife, Dr. May Mellanby, he identified dietary factors that control the formation and repair of teeth and bones. He also identified the cause of rickets (vitamin D deficiency) and the effect of phytic acid on mineral absorption. Truly a great man! This research began in the 1910s and continued through the 1940s.What he discovered about tooth and bone formation is profound, disarmingly...

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Skin Texture, Cancer and Dietary Fat

Richard and I exchanged a series of e-mails last week in which he remarked that Thai people generally have nice skin, which is something I've also noticed in Thai immigrants to the U.S. I believe you can often tell what kind of fat a person eats by looking at their face, especially as people age or bear children. People who eat predominantly traditional fats like butter and coconut oil usually have nice skin. It's smoother, rosier and it ages more...

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More Thoughts on the Glycemic Index

In the last post, I reviewed the controlled trials on the effect of the glycemic index (GI) of carbohydrate foods on health. I concluded that there is no convincing evidence that a low GI diet is better for health than a high GI diet, and in fact the long-term trials suggest that a high GI diet may even be better for insulin sensitivity. Despite the graphs I presented in the last post, for the "average" individual the GI of carbohydrate foods can affect the glucose and insulin response to carbohydrate foods somewhat, even in the context of an...

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Integrated Nutrition, Lifestyle and Health Database

Ricardo from the website Canibais e Reis has just released a fantastic resource for anyone who's interested in the relationship between nutrition, lifestyle and health. It's an excel spreadsheet that integrates information from several international sources, including:UN Food and Agriculture Organization Statistical YearbookFAOSTAT food consumption databaseBritish Heart Foundation Health Statistics databaseWorld Health Organization Global Health AtlasThis database provides a wealth of information on 86 different countries, and even includes a...

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It's Time to Let Go of The Glycemic Index

The glycemic index (GI) is a measure of how much an individual food elevates blood sugar when it's eaten. To measure it, investigators feed a person a food that contains a fixed amount of carbohydrate, and measure their blood glucose response over time. Then they determine the area under the glucose curve and compare it to a standard quickly digesting food such as white bread or pure glucose.Each food must contain the same total amount of carbohydrate,...

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Paleopathology at the Origins of Agriculture

In April of 1982, archaeologists from around the globe converged on Plattsburgh, New York for a research symposium. Their goal:...[to use] data from human skeletal analysis and paleopathology [the study of ancient diseases] to measure the impact on human health of the Neolithic Revolution and antecedent changes in prehistoric hunter-gatherer food economies. The symposium developed out of our perception that many widely debated theories about the origins of agriculture had testable but untested implications concerning human health and nutrition...

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Are the MK-4 and MK-7 Forms of Vitamin K2 Equivalent?

The vitamin K found in food can be divided into two categories: phylloquinone(K1) and menaquinone (K2). K1 is concentrated in leafy greens and other green vegetables. K2 can be further subdivided into menaquinone-4 through -14. The number represents the length of the side chain attached to the napthoquinone ring. Menaquinone-"X" can be abbreviated MK-"X". MK-4 is the type synthesized by animals for their own use from K1 (and from MK-7 in rats)....

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Margarine and Phytosterolemia

Margarine is one of my favorite foods. To rip on. It's just so easy!The body has a number of ways of keeping bad things out while taking good things in. One of the things it likes to keep out are plant sterols and stanols (phytosterols), cholesterol-like molecules found in plants. The human body even has two enzymes dedicated to pumping phytosterols back into the gut as they try to diffuse across the intestinal lining: the sterolins. These enzymes actively block phytosterols from passing into the body, but allow cholesterol to enter. Still,...

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Latest Study on Vitamin K and Coronary Heart Disease

A Dutch group led by Dr. Yvonne T. van der Schouw recently published a paper examining the link between vitamin K intake and heart attack (thanks Robert). They followed 16,057 women ages 49-70 years for an average of 8.1 years, collecting data on their diet and incidence of heart attack.They found no relationship between K1 intake and heart attack incidence. K1 is the form found in leafy greens and other plant foods. They found that each 10 microgram increase in daily vitamin K2 consumption was associated with a 9% lower incidence of heart attack....

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What Can Evolution Teach us About the Human Diet?

Vegetarians deserve our respect. They're usually thoughtful, conscientious people who make sacrifices for environmental and ethical reasons. I was vegetarian for a while myself, until I decided I could find ethical meat.Vegetarianism and especially veganism can get pretty ideological sometimes. People who have strong beliefs like to think that their belief system is best for all aspects of their lives and the world, not just bits and pieces. ...

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Statistics

Ricardo just sent me a link to the British Heart Foundation statistics website. It's a goldmine. They have data on just about every aspect of health and lifestyle in the U.K. I find it very empowering to have access to this kind of information on the internet.I've just started sifting through it, but something caught my eye. The U.K. is experiencing an obesity epidemic similar to the U.S.:Here's where it gets interesting. This should look familiar:Hmm,...

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