For The Love of Food

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

The internet was overflowing with nutrition BS this week. It’s so often the same issue, people mistaking one special case for general health and safety. But the body is complicated and there is always more to consider. I also found some great articles defending salt and olive oil, and a brilliant demonstration of why portions matter.

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 a complete list of my favorite stories check out my links on Digg. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• No link between mercury in fish and heart disease found in study <<BS of the week. People have asked me if this means mercury is safe. Mercury is a neurotoxin and potentially dangerous for pregnant woman and developing children. It can be dangerous to the brains of healthy adults in large doses. This study is about heart disease, so pretty irrelevant. (Los Angeles Times)
• Hot dogs for better health? Actually, yes <<Actually no. This is BS of the week #2. Just because hot dogs have fewer HCAs than rotisserie chicken doesn’t mean loading up on nitrates is good for you and won’t cause cancer. There are dozens of studies indicating that processed meats are unhealthy. (MSNBC)
• Use of fibrates to lower cholesterol growing despite mounting evidence they don’t work <<BS of the week #3. How would you feel about your doctor prescribing you drugs that don’t work? Good, right? God forbid your doctor tell you to eat more fat and less sugar and flour to improve your blood numbers–that might put him right out of a job. (Los Angeles Times)
• Vitamins Slow Rate of Brain Shrinkage in Elderly <<A recent study came out that vitamins don’t prevent cancer or heart disease, but this shows they might still have other benefits. (Diabetic Mediterranean Diet)
• Is Salt Unfairly Demonized? <<I totally agree with Monica on this one. The evidence I’ve seen against salt just isn’t that convincing. (Nutrition Overeasy)
• Defending Olive Oil’s Reputation <<The casual nutrition reader might not be aware that there is some controversy about the value of olive oil (paleo folks still think animal fat is the best, and they have a good argument). But olive oil is still beneficial, and Mark Sisson does a great job of explaining why. (Mark’s Daily Apple)
• When is White Bread Preferable to Whole Wheat? <<I love the rigorous logic here. People are so quick to label foods as “good” or “bad” somehow portions get thrown by the wayside, and they shouldn’t be. (Nutrition Overeasy)
• Eskimo Study Suggests High Consumption of Omega-3s in Fish-Rich Diet Reduces Obesity-Related Disease Risk <<This is encouraging. It shows eating fish can be healthy and reduce cardiac risk factors even in the obese. (ScienceDaily)
• More Added Sugars, More Pounds? <<Yep. This is a really long study and shows how closely body weight follows sugar consumption patterns. (Medline)
• Sweet Potato Coconut Thai Curried Soup: Gluten Free and Vegan <<A tasty recipe to prepare for our discussion of vegetarian and vegan diets next week on Summer Tomato Live. (Jenn Cuisine)

What inspired you this week?

Tags: mercury, olive oil, omega-3, portions, processed meats, salt, sugar, vitamins, whole grain

In honor of the food issue this week at Synapse, I compiled a list of ten essential diet and nutrition facts you might not know:

1. “Vitamins” are not the same as whole foods. Instant ramen and a multivitamin is not a healthy meal. There is no substitute for a diet of whole foods rich in vegetables, beans, grains and fish.
2. A healthy diet can prevent or even reverse four out of the six leading causes of death in the US. Evidence indicates that diet is more important than genetics in the vast majority of heart disease, stroke, cancer and type 2 diabetes cases.
3. The thinnest, healthiest people in the world eat “high carb” diets. But they definitely do not eat the processed, refined carbohydrates that flood Western culture. If you want to lose weight and live longer without disease, eat more vegetables and whole grains.
4. You get plenty of calcium. Americans consume more calcium than most countries on earth, yet still sport some of the highest rates of osteoporosis. This debilitating disease is more likely caused by insufficient vitamin D, not enough exercise and/or too much protein. Also, excess calcium is linked to prostate cancer and milk to ovarian cancer. Calcium does not support weight loss either.
5. “Fiber” is not the same as vegetables and grains. Fiber supplements do not offer the same benefits as fiber-filled foods, and do not help with weight loss or protect against disease.
6. The best sources of protein are plants and fish. It is relatively easy to get complete protein (i.e., all the essential amino acids) from a diverse diet. Protein from red meat offers more risk than reward. (Yes, pork is red meat.)
7. Fruits and vegetables protect your vision. Both cataracts and macular degeneration are strongly tied to diet.
8. Fats from factories are dangerous. Processed oils and trans fats (not total dietary fat) are associated with heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer and obesity. Replacing them with natural oils could save your life.
9. Fats from plants and fish are essential. Mono- and polyunsaturated fats protect against heart disease, type 2 diabetes and memory loss. In moderation they can also aid in weight loss, since they increase the satiety you feel after a meal.
10. You can lose weight on any short-term diet, but you will probably gain back more than you ultimately lose. This is often true even if you stay on the diet. Focusing on long-term health is the best strategy for sustained weight loss, but it requires patience.

What are other common myths about diet and nutrition?

UPDATE: For more information on the health value of oils from fish, please read my answer in the comments section.

Tags: calcium, cancer, cataracts, complete protein, fiber, heart disease, high-carb, high-protein, macular degeneration, omega-3, red meat, saturated fat, stroke, Synapse, trans fat, type 2 diabetes, unsaturated fat, vitamins, whole grains

Vitamin D

Both environmental and genetic factors seem to play a role in the development of multiple sclerosis (MS), but determining an exact cause of the disease has been elusive. Now new evidence suggests that vitamin D may play a direct role in regulating a gene known to be associated with MS. This finding helps bridge the gap between environmental and genetic risk factors, and strengthens the hypothesis that vitamin D could be instrumental in MS prevention.

MS is an autoimmune disease that attacks myelin, a component of the nervous system essential for the conduction of neural impulses. Onset of MS usually occurs between the ages 18 and 35, and is more prevalent in females than males.

One of the most interesting epidemiological findings associated with MS is that it is more common in regions farthest from the equator, with a few notable exceptions. Climate, sunlight and vitamin D are all suspected candidates in the occurrence of MS, as are genetics and diet. Importantly, the relationship between geographical location and MS risk seems to be most significant in early childhood years. After age 15, risk of MS for immigrants is closer to that of their home country than to that of their new country.

Sunshine is the most common source of vitamin D for humans. Vitamin D is created when ultraviolet B (UVB) light contacts skin. Dietary vitamin D is rare, though it can be obtained at significant levels with certain foods, particularly oily fish (e.g. sardines and salmon). Notably, Norway and many Asian countries have relatively low prevalence of MS. It has been suggested that fish consumption is the reason for these regional discrepancies that cannot be explained by sun exposure. This makes vitamin D a particularly strong candidate for MS prevention.

In addition to environmental factors, certain genetic risks are linked to MS. In particular, proteins associated with the body’s immune cells are mutated in many MS cases. Mutations in these proteins disrupt the ability of immune cells to determine which particles in the body are foreign and which are “self.” When this happens, the cells get confused and begin to attack their own body’s tissues.

A new article published last week in PLoS Genetics investigated the relationship between vitamin D and the genetic variants associated with MS. They found that vitamin D directly interacts with these genes at a molecular level, providing insight into the mechanism by which vitamin D may affect the disease. Though it is still not clear what specific role vitamin D plays in its interaction with MS genes, a new avenue of exploration has opened up into MS etiology.

The tie between vitamin D and MS is still vague, but it is a good idea to ensure your vitamin D levels are adequate. People living at latitudes greater than 40 degrees from the equator (San Francisco is on the border) should be taking vitamin D supplements. This is true for many reasons; MS is not the only disease that is linked to low vitamin D levels.

Vitamin D pills are now easy to find, and can be obtained at both Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. Take one or two oil-based 1000IU vitamin D supplements daily. Men should avoid vitamin D supplements that contain calcium, because excess calcium increases risk of prostate cancer.

Do you take vitamin D supplements?

UPDATE: This article can also be found in Synapse.

Tags: multiple sclerosis, San Francisco, sun, sun tan, tanning, vitamin D, vitamins