U.S. Dietary Guidelines: Toss Calorie Counter
March 31, 2011 by admin
Filed under News Stories
March 31st, 2011
SFGate.com
By: Stacy Finz
After more than a half century of counting calories, experts are advising dieters to ditch the numbers game and take a more holistic approach to losing weight.
Tom Vilsack, the U.S. secretary of agriculture, signaled a major change in mind-set last month while unveiling the country’s new dietary guidelines. “Not all calories are created equally,” he said.
A 1,200-calorie Twinkie diet isn’t going to do the body as much good as a 1,200-calorie diet of whole grains, even though both may achieve weight loss.
But the country’s multibillion-dollar diet industry has mostly operated on a calories-in, calories-out philosophy. Now, nutritionists and dietitians, many of whom have always thought calorie counting was a flawed way of losing weight, are preaching a new course of action.
“At the end of the day, we’re seeing that the calorie-in, calorie-out approach was the wrong message,” said Heather Schwartz, a dietitian with Stanford Hospital and Clinics. “Of course, if you significantly reduce calories, you will lose weight. But how long can you sustain that?”
The answer is not for very long, Schwartz said. Studies show that most people gain back weight within six to nine months of losing it, she said.
Since the 1950s, dieters have focused on counting calories, and when the obesity rate started climbing in the 1970s and ’80s, the emphasis became even stronger. In the past 20 years, a rash of fad diets have promoted everything from eliminating carbohydrates and fats to adopting packaged-food plans. But when you get right down to it, Schwartz said, those diets have focused on calories.
“They were quick fixes, not lifestyle changes,” she said. She added that despite the conventional wisdom that reducing calorie intake is the way to a trimmer waistline, a whole school of nutritionists and dietitians opposed that notion.
“We knew that a calorie is not a calorie is not a calorie,” Schwartz said. “But how do you fight a mega industry saying otherwise?”
Click here for the full report from SFGate.com
The Kevin Trudeau Show: 3-24-11
Today, Kevin delves deep into the obesity epidemic in America. Plus, find out how Kevin Trudeau would run The United States of America if he were president!
Self Help:
Loss Weight Right!
Emergency Preparedness
Trace Minerals
Health:
The Worst Food In America
Worker Dies at Cubicle, Found a Day Later
Light Bulbs Advertised as ‘Green’ Contain Arsenic and Lead
The Weight-Loss Industry Makes Huge Gains
111 Health Care Professionals Charged in $225 Million Medicare Scam
Wealth:
US Debt Clock
Danger! Falling Incomes!
First Premier Bank Removes Credit Card With 59.9% APR
Government:
Judge Found Guilty of Racketeering & Tax Fraud
TSA Screening Supervisor Admits to Stealing from Passengers
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Scientists Warn of Solar ‘Katrina’
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Is The HCG Diet Hazardous To Your Health?
March 10, 2011 by admin
Filed under News Stories
March 10th, 2011
Cleveland Leader
By: Julie Kent
Most fad diets promise quick weight loss, but are often unhealthy and don’t work in the long-term. The latest diet craze, however, takes it to the extreme, and involves injecting the hormone hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) while eating just 500 calories per day.
hCG was first pushed as a weight-loss aid in the 1970s. Fans of the diet believe that it could help people lose weight because in pregnant women, hCG helps to direct calories to the fetus.
hCG is a hormone first produced by the developing embryo, and then the placenta during pregnancy. Promoters of the diet say that because hCG helps re-route calories from the mother to the fetus during pregnancy, injecting the hormone could help curb appetite and help dieters to get through the day on few calories.
Dr. David Katz says:
“This diet is appalling. It takes irresponsible diets to new heights.”
Beyond injecting the hormone, subsisting on just 500 calories per day is dangerous.
Restricting caloric intake to such a level makes for a real risk that you’re not providing your body with enough essential amino acids, so it scavenges itself. Sometimes, it can cause the body to scavenge from critical places, like the heart.
If you’re looking to lose weight, for the sake of your health, avoid this diet.
Click here for the full report from the Cleveland Leader
America’s “Healthiest” Fast-Food Breakfasts
March 2, 2011 by admin
Filed under News Stories
March 2nd, 2011
Health.com
By: Nicole DeCoursy
Used to be, when you grabbed breakfast on the go, it was a diet disaster: nothing but fat-and-calorie bombs like butter-soaked croissants and jumbo muffins. Now, it’s much easier to do right by your body: Fast-food legends like McDonald’s and IHOP, as well as newbies like Cosi and Panera Bread, offer surprisingly healthy options that are filling, light, and much easier on your arteries.
No. 1 Spinach Florentine Breakfast Wrap (Cosi)
“When you wake up, your body hasn’t had fuel for about 10 to 12 hours,” says Dr. Gerbstadt, one of our judges. So this standout refuels you and keeps you satisfied so you don’t overnosh the rest of the day. “With most other breakfasts, you would need to add another food to get this much protein,” Dr. Gerbstadt explains. “Plus, the fiber content is much higher than you’d usually find in such a high-protein meal.”
Calories 334; Fat 21g (sat 8g); Protein 24g; Carbohydrate 21g; Fiber 11g; Sodium 516mg
Room for improvement: The fat content is on the high side (since the wrap is made with eggs), so eat low-fat fare throughout the day—or split this hearty pick with a friend.
No. 2 Protein Artisan Snack Plate (Starbucks)
This Starbucks sampler scores high for having all the components of an ultra-satisfying breakfast—protein, fiber, whole grains, and fresh produce, says panelist Frances Largeman-Roth, RD, Senior Food and Nutrition Editor at Health. You get to nibble on yummy fare—hard-boiled egg, cheddar and apple slices, multigrain muesli bread, grapes, and honey peanut butter spread—in the right portions, Largeman-Roth explains.
Calories 370; Fat 19g (sat 6g); Protein 13g; Carbohydrate 36g; Fiber 4g; Sodium 470mg
Room for improvement: Along with all that protein and fiber, you get 19 grams of fat. Tip: Eat half of either the honey peanut butter spread or the cheese.
No. 3 Berry Topper Ideal Meal (Jamba Juice)
“It really is an ideal meal because it meets all of your nutrient needs,” judge and nutrition expert Robin Miller says. It’s made with yogurt and soy milk, great sources of calcium and vitamin D—two nutrients women often lack. Also blended in are vitamin C–packed strawberries, blueberries, and bananas. And the organic pumpkin flaxseed granola gives you a dose of healthy fats for heart health.
Calories 300; Fat 4.5g (sat 0.5g); Protein 9g; Carbohydrate 59g; Fiber 7g; Sodium 85mg (for 12 ounces)
Room for improvement: Stick to the small (12-ounce) size—larger serving sizes load on the calories.
Click here for the full report from Health.com
Can Drinking Diet Soda Help Me Lose Weight?
March 1, 2011 by admin
Filed under News Stories
March 1st, 2011
ThatsFit.com
By: Liz Neporent
The average 12-ounce can of cola delivers 150 calories, almost all of them from sugar. So it would seem the more virtuous choice would be to crack open a can of diet soda every time you have the urge for a little sweet fizz. Anyone watching his weight feels virtuous making this choice, because who doesn’t believe it protects one’s waistline — and overall health — from an assault of unnecessary, empty calories?
Maybe it’s time to think again. No study to date has ever shown diet soda to be especially useful in helping people prevent or shed unwanted pounds. In fact, there is a growing body of research that seems to suggest that high diet soda consumption is associated with a higher risk of obesity and may surprisingly carry an even greater risk of obesity than drinking regular, full-calorie and -sugar drinks.
In 2005, University of Texas Health Science Center researchers in San Antonio reported their findings culled from seven to eight years of data on 1,550 Mexican-American and non-Hispanic white American women aged 25 to 64. Of the 622 study participants who were of normal weight at the beginning of the study, about a third became overweight or obese during the course of the investigation. For those who drank half a can of regular soda on a daily basis, their risk of being obese was 26 percent; for those who drank the same amount of diet soda, their risk jumped to 36.5 percent. Women who drank one to two cans a day fared even worse: Their obesity risk rose to 47 and 57 percent, respectively. In fact, for each additional can of diet soft drink a woman guzzled per day, her risk of being overweight went up by 65 percent and risk of obesity shot up 41 percent.
Although this sounds like pretty damming evidence, few experts are jumping to the conclusion that there is a direct cause and effect between diet soda and weight gain. The study is flawed in that it didn’t track eating habits and total calorie intake or caloric expenditure, even though the two subject groups were notorious for their poor diet, exercise and other lifestyle habits, at least as demonstrated in other studies. Still, other investigations have come up with conclusions along the same lines.
One explanation could be that artificial sweeteners alter metabolism and brain chemistry in some way. They may tell the brain that the body has eaten something high in calories, but since it really didn’t, the brain directs the body to go in search of those calories elsewhere, like from a sizable slice of pie or a yummy candy bar. Another explanation put forth by the University of Texas researchers is that perhaps people who’ve already begun to gain weight in the first place switch over to diet soda to prevent further weight gain but don’t make the other corrections necessary to either lose weight or stop continued weight gain.
Click here for the full report from ThatsFit.com
The Kevin Trudeau Show: 2-28-11
Today, Kevin exposes the politics behind winning an Academy Award and what it takes to be successful in Hollywood.
Self Help:
Viral Detox
Invest Wisely
Health:
McDonald’s ‘Wholesome’ Oatmeal Not So Healthy
Americans are Loaded With Toxic Chemicals
Flame Retardants Found in Butter
Technology:
Ferrari Developing Mind Reading Car
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The Kevin Trudeau Show: 2-21-11
Today, Kevin delves deep into the obesity epidemic in America. Plus, find out how Kevin Trudeau would run The United States of America if he were president!
Self Help:
Loss Weight Right!
Emergency Preparedness
Trace Minerals
Health:
The Worst Food In America
Worker Dies at Cubicle, Found a Day Later
Light Bulbs Advertised as ‘Green’ Contain Arsenic and Lead
The Weight-Loss Industry Makes Huge Gains
111 Health Care Professionals Charged in $225 Million Medicare Scam
Wealth:
US Debt Clock
Danger! Falling Incomes!
First Premier Bank Removes Credit Card With 59.9% APR
Government:
Judge Found Guilty of Racketeering & Tax Fraud
TSA Screening Supervisor Admits to Stealing from Passengers
NWO:
Scientists Warn of Solar ‘Katrina’
Everything Kevin:
Become An Insider!
Kevin is on YouTube!
Sign Up For Kevin’s FREE Podcast
Follow Kevin on Twitter
Become Kevin’s Friend on Facebook
Kevin’s Film Club
Kevin’s Book Club
Take Trudeau on the Go! Click here to download this show to your iPod, mp3 player, or PC through iTunes!
Click Below to Watch the Kevin Trudeau Show LIVE!
Worst Foods in America
February 21, 2011 by admin
Filed under News Stories
February 21st, 2011
Slashfood
Two pieces of bread. That’s the bedrock of every hamburger on the planet. Here’s the caveat: With the power to create comes the power to inflate. In fact, the average cheeseburger has ballooned from 333 to 600 calories in the last 20 years.
Some burgers even top out at 2,000 calories. For this there’s no greater evidence than the greasy bread-boats being served at our most popular burger shops. Sure, there are decent options out there, but more often than not the junk that comes stuffed between the buns is enough to turn Jessica Simpson into Homer Simpson. Like these five burgers listed below. They’re gut bombs in the worst way. Luckily, Eat This, Not That! discovered healthier alternatives for each of them.
Number 20
Worst Kids’ Meal: California Pizza Kitchen Kids Curly Mac ‘n’ Cheese
Calories : 1,038
Saturated Fat : 38 grams
Sodium : 1,651 mg
This meal delivers as much saturated fat as an adult should consume over the course of 48 hours.
Number 18
Worst Healthy Sandwich: Blimpie Special Vegetarian (12-inch)
Calories : 1,180
Saturated Fat : 59 grams
Sodium : 3,540 mg
This sandwich gnaws through nearly an entire day’s fat allotment and more than 1 1/2 days of sodium.
Number 17
Worst Fast-Food Burger: Wendy’s Triple Baconator
Calories : 1,350
Saturated Fat : 90 grams
Sodium : 2,780 mg
It’s fat on top of fat on top of fat, 10 layers in all — a tower of nutritional terror.
Number 16
Worst Side: Five Guys Large Fries
Calories : 1,464
Saturated Fat : 71 grams
Sodium : 213 mg
You’re better off ordering two “little” sandwiches and skipping the fries
Number 14
Worst Fast-Food Breakfast: Hardee’s Loaded Biscuit ‘N’ Gravy with Large Hash Rounds
Calories : 1,530
Saturated Fat : 110 grams
Sodium : 3,020 mg
The biscuits and gravy amount to a full day’s worth of saturated fat before you tack on the side of hash browns.
Click here for the full report from Slashfood
Why Almost Everything You Hear About Medicine Is Wrong
February 8, 2011 by admin
Filed under News Stories
February 8th, 2011
NewsWeek
By: Sharon Begley
If you follow the news about health research, you risk whiplash. First garlic lowers bad cholesterol, then—after more study—it doesn’t. Hormone replacement reduces the risk of heart disease in postmenopausal women, until a huge study finds that it doesn’t (and that it raises the risk of breast cancer to boot). Eating a big breakfast cuts your total daily calories, or not—as a study released last week finds. Yet even if biomedical research can be a fickle guide, we rely on it.
But what if wrong answers aren’t the exception but the rule? More and more scholars who scrutinize health research are now making that claim. It isn’t just an individual study here and there that’s flawed, they charge. Instead, the very framework of medical investigation may be off-kilter, leading time and again to findings that are at best unproved and at worst dangerously wrong. The result is a system that leads patients and physicians astray—spurring often costly regimens that won’t help and may even harm you.
It’s a disturbing view, with huge im-plications for doctors, policymakers, and health-conscious consumers. And one of its foremost advocates, Dr. John P.A. Ioannidis, has just ascended to a new, prominent platform after years of crusading against the baseless health and medical claims. As the new chief of Stanford University’s Prevention Research Center, Ioannidis is cementing his role as one of medicine’s top mythbusters. “People are being hurt and even dying” because of false medical claims, he says: not quackery, but errors in medical research.
This is Ioannidis’s moment. As medical costs hamper the economy and impede deficit-reduction efforts, policymakers and businesses are desperate to cut them without sacrificing sick people. One no-brainer solution is to use and pay for only treatments that work. But if Ioannidis is right, most biomedical studies are wrong.
In just the last two months, two pillars of preventive medicine fell. A major study concluded there’s no good evidence that statins (drugs like Lipitor and Crestor) help people with no history of heart disease. The study, by the Cochrane Collaboration, a global consortium of biomedical experts, was based on an evaluation of 14 individual trials with 34,272 patients. Cost of statins: more than $20 billion per year, of which half may be unnecessary. (Pfizer, which makes Lipitor, responds in part that “managing cardiovascular disease risk factors is complicated”). In November a panel of the Institute of Medicine concluded that having a blood test for vitamin D is pointless: almost everyone has enough D for bone health (20 nanograms per milliliter) without taking supplements or calcium pills. Cost of vitamin D: $425 million per year.
Ioannidis, 45, didn’t set out to slay medical myths. A child prodigy (he was calculating decimals at age 3 and wrote a book of poetry at 8), he graduated first in his class from the University of Athens Medical School, did a residency at Harvard, oversaw AIDS clinical trials at the National Institutes of Health in the mid-1990s, and chaired the department of epidemiology at Greece’s University of Ioannina School of Medicine. But at NIH Ioannidis had an epiphany. “Positive” drug trials, which find that a treatment is effective, and “negative” trials, in which a drug fails, take the same amount of time to conduct. “But negative trials took an extra two to four years to be published,” he noticed. “Negative results sit in a file drawer, or the trial keeps going in hopes the results turn positive.” With billions of dollars on the line, companies are loath to declare a new drug ineffective. As a result of the lag in publishing negative studies, patients receive a treatment that is actually ineffective. That made Ioannidis wonder, how many biomedical studies are wrong?
Click here for the full report from NewsWeek
Half the Calories Consumed By Kids In the US Come From Junk Foods
December 30, 2010 by admin
Filed under News Stories
December 30th, 2010
Natural News
By: David Gutierrez
Nearly half of the calories consumed by the average US child are empty junk food calories, according to a study conducted by researchers from the National Cancer Institute and published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.
Researchers evaluated the diets of children aged two to 18 using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. They found that the average child consumes 2,200 calories per day, more than that recommended for an adult woman. An astonishing 40 percent of these calories come from added sugars (365 calories) or solid fats (433 calories).
The top sources of overall calories were grain deserts, providing 138 calories per day; pizza, providing 136; and soda, providing 118 calories per day. Fruit juices supplied another 56 calories from sugar each day.
Beyond contributing to obesity and all its related health problems, high consumption of empty calories can also produce another serious health problem: malnutrition in the form of nutrient deficiency.
“Some people ask, ‘How can we be malnourished if we’re eating so much that we’re all overweight?’ ” writes Mike Adams in his book The Seven Laws of Nutrition.
“The answer is simple. We’re eating empty calories,” Adams writes. “We’re eating plenty of food if you just count the calories, but not nearly enough of the right kinds of foods that provide nutrition in the form of phytonutrients, minerals, enzymes, healthy oils, vitamins, and other important nutrients. ”
Mary Story of the University of Minnesota, who was not involved in the study, said the results were “alarming” but not surprising.
“If you go to convenience stores or corner stores that are close to schools, [these foods] are really cheap and plentiful,” she said. “We should not be surprised by this — we should be outraged.”
