For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

This week the importance of small amounts of exercise, new problems with fructose and why you shouldn’t eat at the wrong time of day.

Want to see all my favorite links? Be sure to follow me on on Delicious. I also share links on Twitter @summertomato,  Google+ and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you. (And yes, I took that pepper heart pic myself).

Links of the week

• Good and Bad, the Little Things Add Up in Fitness <<We often think we need to make a special effort to get enough exercise, when in fact the little things we do add up and are often more important. (New York Times)
• Study: Midnight Snacks Mess Us Up on a Molecular Level <<Eating affects your circadian rhythms, and doing it at the wrong times can have negative consequences. Eat meals at consistent times and in daylight whenever possible. (The Atlantic)
• Let’s Ask Marion: Can It Really Be Healthier To Be Overweight? <<This is a great illustration of why we should avoid the temptation to oversimplify the health science that appears in the news. (Food Politics)
• Fructose Has Different Effect Than Glucose On Brain Regions That Regulate Appetite <<New data suggesting that added sugar is worse for weight control than other forms of carbohydrate. (ScienceDaily)
• CARBOHYDRATES: BAD FOR THE AGING BRAIN <<Keep in mind that body weight isn’t the only reason it’s important to eat healthy. (Dr. Weil)
• Do the Brain Benefits of Exercise Last? <<Exercise is also important for brain health, and new research (though still not peer-reviewed) suggests you need to keep it up to maintain the benefits. Big shock, right? (New York Times)
• Are You Eating These Important Supplemental Foods? <<Though this is very similar to my underrated health foods post, but it’s a great reminder and there’s a few additional ones in here worth noting. (Mark’s Daily Apple)
• How to Learn to Love Healthy Food (Even If You’re a Picky Eater) <<Fantastic advice. I agree with almost all of it. (Lifehacker)
• Exercise in Short Bursts Is Effective <<A nice reminder that for exercise, it really doesn’t take much. (Wall Street Journal)
• Moroccan Carrot and Chickpea Salad Recipe <<This looks so darn good. Moroccan food is my favorite. (101 Cookbooks)

What inspired you this week?

For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Great information this week around the web, and I didn’t even need to call BS! Read about why being a foodie isn’t elitist, what scientists think about US agriculture policy, and what’s the big deal about dietary fat.

Want to see all my favorite links? Be sure to follow me on on Digg. I also share links at Twitter (@summertomato) and the Summer Tomato Facebook fan page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• Why being a foodie isn’t ‘elitist’ <<I agree with this so much it hurts. Huge props to Eric Schlosser. (The Washington Post)
• Expert Panel Calls for ‘Transforming US Agriculture’: Changes in Markets, Policies and Science Needed for More Sustainable Farming <<This is so refreshing to read. Finally scientists are being vocal about US food policy. (ScienceDaily)
• Low-Salt Diet Ineffective, Study Finds. Disagreement Abounds. <<I’m still very suspicious about the true dangers of salt. This is a good analysis. (New York Times)
• The Great Fat Debate <<Every scientist agrees total fat consumption isn’t important in heart disease, and the polyunsaturated fats can help. From there it gets complicated. (Nutrition Blogma)
• ‘Bad’ Cholesterol Not as Bad as People Think, Study Shows <<In case you’re wondering why there is a debate about fat, it’s because of data like this. (ScienceDaily)
• Mouse Study Turns Fat-Loss/longevity Link on Its Head <<Dropping body fat doesn’t increase lifespan? The most important lesson from this study is that everybody is different. (ScienceDaily)
• How Sugar Affects the Body in Motion <<Great article reminding us that sugar, like most things in nutrition, is complicated. (New York Times)
• Young adults have a ‘disconnect’ between behavior and their health <<I was totally like this when I was a kid, and it’s good to bring it into public awareness. (Los Angeles Times)
• Munchery Wants To Bring Personal Chefs To The Masses <<This sounds like a fantastic idea to me. What do you guys think? (TechCrunch)
• Cucumber Peanut Salad Recipe <<This looks light, delicious and healthy. And if you haven’t checked out Heidi’s cookbook yet, you should! (101 Cookbooks)

What inspired you this week?

Photo by Werwin15

The science of aging is among the most dynamic and provocative in modern biology. Over the past two decades we have seen a virtual explosion in research investigating the molecular and behavioral systems that control the aging process. But the more researchers uncover about the science of aging, the more questions emerge.

Dietary restriction has long been considered the most potent regulator of aging. Restricting food intake by any means induces a series of metabolic changes in organisms from yeast to primates that serve to extend life. Studies are currently underway to investigate the ability of dietary restriction to extend life in humans.

Several biological changes are known to occur upon the onset of dietary restriction including a decline in reproductive ability, increased stress resistance and a slowdown of some metabolic processes.

Insulin signaling was among the first molecular pathways to be identified in the regulation of aging, and offered a direct tie between diet and the aging process.  In 1998 UCSF scientist Cynthia Kenyon showed that removing an insulin receptor gene (daf-2) in worms could double their lifespan. Her lab later showed that removing another insulin signaling gene (daf-16) could extend life even longer. I spoke to Kenyon about the relationship between diet and aging for this article.

Blocking insulin signaling in these worms did not just prevent the worms from dying and allow them to age longer. Instead the aging process actually slows so that older worms continue to behave like young worms. Also, as these experiments were repeated in different animals, it was shown that lowering insulin signaling also helps protect animals from stress and diseases such as cancer and heart disease.

Insulin is released as a direct response to glucose in the blood. This means that any time you eat a meal with carbohydrates, you are increasing your insulin signaling and likely accelerating aging. But this does not mean that you will live forever if you stop eating carbohydrates.

Interestingly, protein metabolism also contributes to accelerated aging, but through a different mechanism. Even more intriguing is that restricting protein increases lifespan to a greater extent than restricting sugar.

So is it simply calories that promote aging?

Probably not. For one thing, the effect of a calorie from protein is greater than a calorie from carbohydrate, making it unlikely that a calorie is the basic unit of impact. Second, there is evidence that calories are not required to accelerate aging.

Recent studies have shown that the mere act of smelling food can reduce lifespan. The mechanism for this effect is still unknown, but seems to be tied to respiration.

According to Kenyon it is clear that “sensory perception influences lifespan,” at least in worms and flies.

Thus it is likely that aging is controlled by the interaction of several pathways, including metabolism, respiration and stress. Importantly, however, lifespan seems to be dependent on a handful of specific pathways rather than global changes in cellular function or breakdown. The idea that aging is an inevitable function of time must be put aside given the evidence that it is controlled at a genetic and environmental level.

This makes sense when you think about it. Different organisms exhibit vastly different lifespans and rates of aging that are too great to be explained by some kind of universal cellular breakdown. A more parsimonious hypothesis is that organisms differ in specific genetic factors that, combined with environmental influences, regulate lifespan.

So how should we mortal humans react to these findings?

The genes linking diet and aging are highly conserved through evolution, indicating that there is a great chance human aging is sensitive to diet. Indeed, insulin-related genes have been found to be important in long-lived human populations. This suggests that the pathways discovered in worms and other organisms have similar functions in humans.

What is not clear is how much influence diet has on lifespan and to what extent we are able to manipulate it. It is already known that abnormal insulin activity in humans is linked to higher disease rates, especially “diseases of civilization” such as heart disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes and cancer. And these diseases are clearly associated with diets rich in processed foods, especially refined carbohydrates.

The effect of protein consumption on lifespan in humans has yet to be investigated. Envisioning an experiment that would test the influence of smelling food on human aging is difficult to even imagine.

Although direct evidence is not available, there is good reason to suspect that a diet with low glycemic load may extend human lifespan. In November 2009, Kenyon’s lab reported that adding glucose to a worm’s normal diet shortens lifespan, but has no effect on the long-lived worms that lack insulin signaling genes daf-2 and daf-16. This discovery prompted Kenyon herself to adopt a low-carbohydrate diet.

Despite this there is still not sufficient evidence to recommend a calorie restricted diet for humans to extend life, largely because optimal nutrition levels for a given individual are unknown. However, most people would benefit vastly by eliminating processed foods and refined carbohydrates from their diets as much as possible.

Focusing on fresh, whole foods, enjoying an occasional glass of wine, avoiding smoking and getting regular exercise can add 14 years to the life of an average person. Maintain a healthy weight as well and your outlook gets even better.

Would you change your diet to be healthier and live longer?

Originally published February 3, 2010.

For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

For some reason the New York Times was brimming with great food and health articles this week. I particularly like the expose of meaningless food labels and the article on the wonders of the pressure cooker. And if you feel like giggling, find out why Stephen Colbert thinks being skinny is un-American.

I read many more wonderful articles than I post here each week. If you’d like to see more or just don’t want to wait until Friday, be sure to follow me on Twitter (@summertomato) or the Summer Tomato Facebook fan page. For complete reading lists join me on the social bookmarking sites StumbleUpon and Delicious. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you there. (Note: If you want a follow back on Twitter introduce yourself with an @ message).

For The Love of Food

• Buy a Virtual Slice of Dessert…and Help Haiti <<My friend Michelle Stern is running a fund raiser for Haiti with some help from some other food bloggers. Check out what they have going. (What’s Cooking)
• Six Meaningless Claims on Food Labels <<You probably know by now that I don’t like foods with labels. Here’s a good review of why I feel that way. (New York Times)
• Calcium – The Wonder Mineral <<BS of the week. Another dose of unimaginably irresponsible and unscientific journalism from DIR. Clinical trials have shown that calcium and dairy do not protect against fractures or osteoporosis. Calcium is also linked to prostate cancer. It is definitely an important nutrient and you should be sure to get enough of it, but “wonder mineral”? I don’t think so. (Diets In Review)
• Low-carb diets may trump low-fat in lowering blood pressure <<We already know that low-fat diets are useless in weight loss and preventing heart disease. Looks like they lose the battle in lowering blood pressure too. (Los Angeles Times)
• Vitamin D May Lower Colon Cancer Risk << The case for vitamin D just keeps growing. It is the only supplement I take besides a multivitamin. (HealthDay)
• Exercise: In Women, Training for a Sharper Mind <<A new study suggest that strength training can help prevent cognitive decline in older women. Great news! (New York Times)
• Video Gaming Just Might Fight Aging <<Video games also seem to help keep brains sharp with age. (HealthDay)
• Pressure Cooking: Fast, Healthy Eating << My favorite piece of kitchen equipment finally made it into the New York Times! Read up!
• Ginger Edamame Soybean Soup (Bacon?) & How we took the photograph <<Doesn’t this recipe sound (and look) amazing? I’m so there. (White On Rice Couple)
• Colbert Report: The Word – Manifest Density <<Stephen Colbert thinks it’s un-American to be skinny, and it’s too funny to miss.

For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

I’m back! Sorry for being MIA the past few weeks. But you’ll be happy to hear my thesis committee meeting is over and I aced it. That means I will, finally, get my PhD in 2010. Woohoo!

Also thanks to all of you voted for me in the Wellsphere HealthBlogger Awards! I came in 8th! Not bad for just starting campaigning for votes last Friday. Thanks everyone!!!

Not all the links below are from this week since I had to include a few of the gems I’ve collected since Thanksgiving. I’ve also shared the latest info on BPA, which is getting worse.

I read many more wonderful articles than I post here each week. If you’d like to see more or just don’t want to wait until Friday, be sure to follow me on Twitter (@summertomato) or the Summer Tomato Facebook fan page. For complete reading lists join me on the social bookmarking sites StumbleUpon and Delicious. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you there. (Note: If you want a follow back on Twitter introduce yourself with an @ message).

10 Best Links of the Week

• The ongoing Bisphenol A saga: more updates <<More bad news about BPA. My guess is this will be taken out of our food supply as soon as canned food companies start to see dips in their profits. So maybe we should stop buying cans for awhile… (Food Politics)
• Rudolph: The Other White Meat <<LOL!!! Hand it to my favorite grocery store to be the source of the most awesome holiday headline of 2009. Bravo Bi-Rite!! (NBC Bay Area)
• Too Much TV Reduces the Benefits of Physical Activity <<This is the best analysis I’ve seen of the much publicized study about TV time and exercise. Travis also wrote a fantastic guest post here on NEAT, a great alternative to structured exercise. (Obesity Panacea)
• Fat in diet won’t affect weight gain over time <<One of my biggest pet peeves is when people say something is low-fat as if that’s a good thing. Dietary fat is not bad for you and is essential to a healthy diet. (Medline)
• A cup (or more) of coffee or tea a day could keep Type 2 diabetes away <<I’m often asked about the impact of coffee on health. Most of the science says it is not bad for you and can in fact be beneficial for weight loss and metabolic health. (Booster Shots)
• Genie In A Bottle? Her Name Is Colatura <<I had never heard of colatura, but after this post I must find it. (MattBites)
• Statins For Everyone! <<As statin use goes up, Monica Reinagel at the NutritionData blog asks why more attention doesn’t go to the less expensive alternative: healthy lifestyle.
• Big Mac: Make Your Own, Have a Party <<I don’t think there’s ever a reason to eat at McDonald’s, so if nostalgia has you craving a BigMac try this one instead. (Local Lemons)
• Looking Younger Than Your Age May Mean Longer Life <<What’s really interesting about this study is that it was done on twins. Proof that aging is about more than just time. (Medline)
• Butternut Squash and Apple Casserole <<It was not easy finding a healthy, seasonal recipe to post this week since cookies seem to be the only thing on anyone’s menu. Luckily White On Rice Couple came through with this beauty.

Did you miss me?