Category — Food and Nutrition

I was watching TV this morning – while on a treadmill doing high intensity interval training, thank you very much – when a commercial for a bladder control medication came on the air.  The announcer first extolled the virtues of this prescription drug (which transformed a crabby woman, who was always pestering her husband to stop the car so she could go pee, into a smiling woman, who strolled arm-in-arm in a lovely park with a very relieved-looking – forgive the pun — husband.)  Just when I was enjoying this happy scene, the announcer began listing, with the rapidity of an auctioneer, the possible side effects of taking the medication: dry mouth, dry eyes, headache, constipation, nausea, dizziness, drowsiness.

The potential side effects of taking statins, the cholesterol-lowering drugs that almost a quarter of all Americans older than 45 currently take, include muscle aches – “could be a sign of a life-threatening condition,” warns the label — abnormal liver function, heartburn, dizziness, abdominal pain and decreased sexual desire.  Those taking meds for high blood pressure (17 percent of Americans) run the risk of leg cramps, fatigue, cold hands and feet, skin rash, dry hacking cough, loss of taste, asthma symptoms, insomnia, depression and erectile dysfunction.

I mention this not to scare away people from taking medications that could help them and could, in the case of statins and anti-hypertensives, significantly reduce two important biomarkers of aging.  (In fact, many of these listed side effects, particularly the scariest, are very rare.) I mention this not to steer people to “Natural” products.  You assumed that’s where I was headed, right?

Nope. I mention these side effects to highlight the fact that federal regulatory law requires that we consumers are made aware of the potential side effects of prescription drugs.  But no law requires we know the potential side effects of the vast array of highly touted non-prescription anti-aging remedies.

That’s because the $28 billion a year supplement and nutraceutical industry is largely unregulated.  What manufacturers claim – “instantly builds lean muscle mass!” “revs your metabolism and boosts your energy!” etc. is not subject to rigorous (actually, any) testing.  Potential side effects do not have to be revealed.  It is a caveat emptor world in which it sometimes it takes a tragedy, or a lawsuit, to discover if there even are potentially serious side effects.

So it’s our job as emptors to assume that anything and everything we put in our mouths has potential side effects.  When you blast the body with large doses of something, even if that something is a substance the body normally produces (a hormone, for example), even if that substance is “natural” (a bio-identical hormone, for example), you are altering the body’s ecology.  Some alterations may be helpful, some benign, some downright harmful.  Regardless, other things are going on in addition to the one alteration you had in mind.  The “other things” are the side effects — helpful, benign or harmful.

I personally would like to make a decision about what anti-aging supplements and remedies I use based on solid research.  I want to know both the upside and the downside.  Don’t you?  This website will help.

I am sometimes not a Poster Girl for anti-aging eating.

I know what’s good for me.  I read the studies and the magazine articles and the newest Google Alerts.  I consult Dr. Weil and Dr. Oz.  I regularly stalk the aisles at Whole Foods.  In fact, this time last year, while researching a chapter for my new book, Counterclockwise (officially out and available in just 3 weeks!), I devoted an entire month to eating superfoods.  That’s right:  Just superfoods.  Nutrition-packed, wholesome, fresh, organic, reverse-the-biological-clock superfoods.

During week 1 of my strict Superfoods-and-Superfoods-Only diet, I ate the 10 superfoods mentioned most frequently in the lists of “top superfoods” compiled by the most credible sources I could find, like the Mayo Clinic and Center for Science in the Public Interest.  Three meals a day, seven days, 10 foods.  That’s it.  Here’s what I ate when I was the Poster Child:  almonds, apples, black beans, broccoli, blueberries, salmon, spinach, sweet potatoes, yogurt and quinoa.  Oh, and skim lattes.  Which were not on anyone’s superfood lists, I admit, but were on my personal Must-Get-Through-This-Week list.

For week 2, I added the 10 next most touted superfoods to my healthier-than-thou menu:  olive oil, eggs, tofu, garlic, onions, brown rice, green tea, colored peppers, kiwifruit and – the reason behind compiling this runner-up list – dark chocolate.  This was a good week.

For week 3, I kept this 20-superfood regimen and added a mix of trendy, exotic, over-hyped and over-priced items, the ones we’re always reading about, the ones that cure cancer and restore 20-20 eyesight and lead directly to world peace.  These products come from the protected valleys of Inner Mongolia, the rainforests of the Amazon, from Peru, Guatemala, Australia – and the ever-exotic province of Manitoba.  I chewed gogi berries and hemp seeds, drank acai tonic, maca water, kombucha and wheat grass.   If you want to know the whole story, you’ll have to read the book.

Week 4 I went raw, which is worth a post of its own.

My point in chronicling this for you is to say that, although I deeply researched the many connections between food and health, between nutrition and aging, although I walked the talk, although I wrote the book…occasionally (and sometimes more than occasionally) I answer the siren song of Newman’s Pretzel Rods.  Or Quaker Oats “Natural” Granola. (Sugar is the third ingredient…I know, dammit, I read the label.)  But this is a significant improvement over my pre-superfood-experiment cereal addiction to Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch.

Like I said:  Not always an anti-aging foods Poster Child.

Most people, when deciding on what immune-boosting, inflammation-fighting, vitality-enhancing “anti-aging” supplements to take, don’t do what I just spent the last year doing. They don’t attend medical conferences or decode scores of research articles in peer-reviewed journals. They don’t fly around the country interviewing scientists. They don’t take college-level nutrition classes or sit through lectures by internationally acclaimed herbalists.

I did all this because I was researching and writing a book. I didn’t do any of this when (in my pre-book life) I was deciding what supplements I should take.

Most people (like me pre-book) hear about the newest, best, most powerful something from a friend, or an upbeat tidbit in a health and fitness mag or (‘fess up) in a 3 am infomercial. They Google this newest, best, most powerful something…and thus enter the over-hyped, underregulated land of marketeers who have positioned themselves to cash in on our aging angst. Here you read all about the “synergistic vitality products” and “novel formations of anti-aging essentials” that include a dazzling array of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, seeds, berries, flowers, fruits, herbs, mushrooms – not to mention Spanish moss and an extract from “young, clean Scotch pine cones harvested from Wisconsin forests.”

These products all promise vitality and robust health. They promise to turn back the clock. Some of the ingredients in the products have good science behind them. Some have made cages full of rats very happy. Some have proven their worth in Petri dishes. Some are wishful thinking. You would not know the difference based on the claims.

There is an alternate universe that exists along side the internet. (I call it reality.) It is where credible, careful, conscientious researchers are hard at work delving into the mysteries and complexities of how we age and how we might exert some control over that process. Why not use that research to make decisions about supplements rather than falling for – like I used to fall for – those enticing, too good to be true internet claims.

A site I use to educate myself about this wild wild west of supplements, to get links to the latest research and check the latest claims is the Linus Pauling Micronutrient Information Center. It is a no-nonsense compendium, written in understandable language that, like the man after whom it was named, is not afraid to scout the frontier while hewing to the best in scientific inquiry.

Many over-hyped, under-studied supplements are just useless and a waste of money. Occasionally one will be dangerous and a waste of money. Some might work and are worth a try. And some really do work. It is a caveat emptor world out there. And we are the emptors. Time to get smart about it.

“Chocolate is a perfect food, as wholesome as it is delicious, a beneficent restorer of exhausted power. It is the best friend of those engaged in literary pursuits.”  I found this wonderful, spot-on quote while hunting for a snappy way to begin this post about the health (and apparently literary) powers of chocolate, a food once maligned and now touted as an anti-aging miracle.  The author of this bold – and true! – statement is a guy by the name of Baron Justus von Liebig.  In addition to being a chocoholic – a term not in use during his lifetime (1803-1873) – he is considered to be the father of fertilizer industry (an honor, I guess).  He also kind of invented the beef boullion cube.  Which is to say:  Chocolate does not discriminate in its lovers.

I love chocolate.  Not with the same passion that I love seared scallops or — just so you don’t think I’m that pure — not with the same full-body rush I experience when cutting into a Silver Palette carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.  But I do love the stuff.  And, like everyone else except, apparently, the father of the fertilizer industry, I used to feel guilty about it.  An indulgence.  Bad for you.  Then came the research about chocolate as a mood booster (as if science had to tell us this), and all of a sudden it was kind of okay to go to the Dove side.  But there was also this “chocolate is a drug” vibe that added a layer of guilt for those of us vulnerable to such things.

Recently, however, the burden of guilt has been lifted by the work of experimental scientists who are busy chronicling the many, varied and most excellent effects of chocolate (dark chocolate, that is  – 70% cacao) on the human body.   How excellent?  Let me count the ways:

Dark chocolate significantly lowers LDL (the bad cholesterol).

Dark chocolate reduces inflammation (that’s systemic inflammation, the kind that wrecks havoc on the cardiovascular system).

Dark chocolate is a powerful scavenger of free radicals.

Dark chocolate has beneficial effects on the lining of blood vessels and the lymphatic system.

Dark chocolate has beneficial effects on cognitive function.

Dark chocolate ‘s anti-oxidant effects may directly influence insulin resistance and, in turn, reduce the risk of diabetes.

Conducting the kind of research that makes you want to be a guinea pig  — in one study, healthy (and lucky) volunteers ate had to eat dark chocolate every single day for weeks – scientists here and in Europe have been amassing powerful evidence of the heart-healthy, anti-aging properties of dark chocolate.  It may not be, as the Baron said, a “perfect” food.  But it is a bonafide “health food.”  In fact, it might be considered a superfood.

But, beware.  As Yale researchers concluded in a study that touted the protective benefits of dark chocolate, “potential detrimental effects of overconsumption exist (i.e. weight gain).”  Potential?

“Caramels are only a fad. Chocolate is a permanent thing.”
― Milton Hershey

Here are 6 good reasons– well 5.5, if we give “rice cakes” the benefit of the doubt – to “shop the perimeter.”  That’s the advice from nutritionists and dietitians and other health-conscious folks who want us to eat for life and health (and not illness, lethargy, obesity and aging).

It’s around the perimeter of the grocery store that you’ll find the produce section and the store’s selection of meats and fish.  Around the perimeter you can buy fresh food (maybe even organic or locally grown/ raised food) that is nutrient rich, with the vitamins and minerals (aka phytochemicals) that research is showing have powerful disease-preventing, anti-aging effects.  Shopping the perimeter you have the chance to choose foods that increase energy, boost the immune system, keep arteries clear, the heart strong, the digestive tract happy and metabolism powered up.

What do you find cruising the inner aisles?  Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch, Cool Ranch Doritos, Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls, liters of Coke and family-sized bags of M&Ms.  (You better NOT be salivating now.)

Btw, the photo above is of my local Safeway.