REAL SCIENCE

The Ask Marilyn column in this week’s Parade Magazine featured this question from a reader: “If you wished to test the effects of a placebo, what would you give the control group?” Good question. In her reply, she tells about a study in which sham acupuncture was pitted against sham pills for chronic arm pain. The patients reported that the acupuncture worked better, she says, although objective measures, such as grip strength, showed no difference. But here is another interesting finding: “…Before the study began,…

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Harvard’s New Healthy Plate

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This is really short notice, but we are invited to submit questions to Dr. Eric Rimm of the Harvard School of Public Health in response to the release of their “Healthy Eating Plate,” the version of the nutritional recommendations that they propose as an alternative to the USDA’s “My Plate.” There will be a live, one hour, online question and answer period tomorrow, October 4, from 2:30 to 3:30 PM, EST. This is a chance to get your voice heard. The press release from Harvard showing the new plate is here:…

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Response to: “The New Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010, The Nutritional Law of the Land”

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The March issue of The Front Burner, published by the International Association of Culinary Professionals, included an article by Michelle Dudash titled, “The New Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010: ‘The Nutritional Law of the Land,’” with advice about how we can help implement the recommendations. This is my response: The first Dietary Goals for Americans in 1977 (1.) told us to eat more carbohydrates and less fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, and salt. This same advice, carried to further extremes, is served up in the 2010 Dietary…

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GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS

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The February issue of Reader’s Digest features a smiley face made out of two eggs and a strip of bacon. The headline reads: “Eat This, Lose Weight; The New Science of Dieting.” The bacon and egg face is a parody of the frowney face on the cover of the March 26, 1984 Time Magazine. The headline then was: “Cholesterol, and Now the Bad News.” Inside, an article titled, “Hold the Eggs and Butter,” started with the following statement: “Cholesterol is proved deadly, and our diet…

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SWITZERLAND

My husband had a business meeting in Switzerland the week before Thanksgiving and I decided to go along since I had the chance. The picture above shows a unit at the Palafitte Hotel on Lake Neuchatel (literally ON Lake Neuchatel) where we stayed. It was like being on a luxury cruise without the rocking. Switzerland is known for watches, knives, chocolate, banking, and because it is a mountainous country better suited for grazing cows than farming, it is also famous for its marvelous cheese and…

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THE FOSTER STUDY: “A LOW-CARB DIET IS ASSOCIATED WITH FAVORABLE CHANGES IN CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE RISK FACTORS AT 2 YEARS.”

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You have probably read about the Foster study by now. It has gotten a lot of press coverage and most of the headlines mention that it shows that a low-carb diet is good for the heart. We should all rejoice that that message is (finally!) getting out. The improvements in blood lipid profiles were just too dramatic to be explained away (probably not for lack of trying). But when it comes to weight loss, we hear the same old refrain, “no difference in low fat…

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WHAT’S LEFT TO EAT?

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There was a story all over the news recently about a study reported in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association linking sugar to heart disease. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63J66220100421 As usual, the wording messed up the message when lead researcher, Dr. Miriam Vos, said, “Just like eating a high-fat diet can increase your levels of triglycerides and high cholesterol, eating sugar can also affect those same lipids.” The study had nothing to do with fat or cholesterol, but they just can’t seem to…

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HARVARD STUDY IMPLICATES SALT AND NITRITES, EXONERATES RED MEAT

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A new study published in the journal Circulation says that red meat is not the cause of heart disease and diabetes. Lead author of the study, Renata Micha, of the Harvard School of Public Health, said, “Although most dietary guidelines recommend reducing meat consumption, prior individual studies have shown mixed results for relationships between meat consumption and cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.…Most prior studies also did not separately consider the health effects of eating unprocessed red versus processed meats.…Processed meats such as bacon, salami, sausages, hot…

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THINGS ARE HAPPENING FAST

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A spate of articles have come out about changes in the attitude toward low-fat verses low-carb diets and their impact on health. This one http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/02/AR2010030202091.html from the Washington Post, titled, Atkins diet’s return reflects idea that saturated fat shouldn’t be demonized by Jennifer LaRue Huget, cites two recent studies reported in the March issue of The Journal of Clinical Nutrition, from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. The first found no evidence that saturated fat intake was associated with a greater risk for…

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“FAT” IS A WINNER!

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Well, knock me over with a lamb chop, if Jennifer McLagan hasn’t won the prestigious International Association of Culinary Professionals’ Single Subject Award for her book celebrating–fat! And she beat out two really big names in food circles to do it: the other nominees were Under Pressure, by Thomas Keller, famed chef and owner of The French Laundry restaurant, and A Year in Chocolate by Jacques Torres (a famous name and the word chocolate in the title usually insures a win!). OK, so she didn’t…

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CINNAMON WARNING: UPDATE

cinnamon (CarbWarsCookbooks.com)

< Cassia cinnamon, True cinnamon > (c) 2012, Judy Barnes Baker Dr. Richard Anderson, of the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center in Beltsville, Maryland, and his colleagues were looking into the effects of chromium on insulin action. While testing various foods, they found something that had a much greater influence on blood sugar, cholesterol, and triglycerides: it was apple pie. It turned out to be the cinnamon in the pie that produced what Anderson called the “most significant nutritional discovery he’s seen in 25 years.” He…

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