Are You What You Eat?

Gene Lysko

Medical Writer

America’s “vast nutritional experiment” has failed. It began in the late 1970s with a new diet that vilified fat—red meat, eggs, cheese, butter, and whole milk. Ostensibly designed to protect people from heart disease, which was mistakenly attributed to fat, the fat calories were to be replaced with calories from breads, grains, and cereals—in other words, carbohydrates.

The result? The prevalence of adult obesity has more than doubled while diabetes has increased nearly fivefold. Obesity has also dramatically increased among children.

Cut the clutter, not the cake

Knowledge could help. Knowledge is disseminated through education, which empowers us to make healthy decisions that produce positive change. But what are the facts? Where’s the nutrition science? Where’s the knowledge?

Month after month new diet and nutrition books achieve best seller status. The information about what we should eat or not eat is endless. You might think there’s a best approach—one that is supported by science and clinical research. Follow the reasoning and all will be well. But that’s not the case.

When it comes to diet and nutrition, not enough scientific evidence exists and what’s available is often contradictory or too weak to refute extreme “theories.” What’s touted as fact one month is disparaged the next. The scientific vacuum is filled with advice from pundits, authors, celebrities, sports figures, and YouTube “vloggers.” In the midst of this noise, people continue to gain weight and lose their health. It’s a wellness and disease crisis, and it has a name.

  
“Syndrome X,” or metabolic syndrome

Obesity is related to several cardiovascular risk factors collectively known as the metabolic syndrome. The metabolic syndrome increases your risk for developing:

• Coronary heart disease

• Stroke

• Type 2 diabetes

• Cancer

• Alzheimer’s disease

The combined costs associated with these 5 conditions amount to $1 billion of healthcare spending and 4,000 deaths every day!

 

What went wrong?

It’s a complex issue. The answer to “what went wrong” may not yet be definitive (more on that later), but simply put, Americans didn’t replace “fats” with healthy alternatives. We replaced fat with carbohydrates. As it turns out, the recommended increased intake of carbohydrates that America has enthusiastically swallowed may be causing the “diabesity” epidemic. 

The problem with carbohydrates is that the body’s digestive and metabolic machinery doesn’t distinguish between bread, corn, and candy. It all turns to sugar in your blood. Sugar, as we are learning, is toxic. 

When fats were replaced with carbohydrates, we removed what turns out to be at least a neutral macronutrient (in terms of disease-causing potential) with one that is toxic and less filling. Because carbohydrates don’t satisfy us like fat does, we eat more—more sugar and more calories. 

Over a period of 40 years (1970 to 2010), American’s consumption has changed:

• 42% more calories from flour and cereal

• 23% more calories over all

Why did the experiment fail?

In his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, Michael Pollan advises, “Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.” That’s probably good advice. I try to follow it. But the scientist in me wants more. I want a strong hypothesis tested in well-thought-out experiments, a theory based on robust, unequivocal results that withstand peer review and, maybe in the end, solid advice. I’m dumbfounded that this isn’t the case.

Back to the question of what went wrong. America’s nutritional experiment failed because it was not based on science, but on associations and suppositions rather than irrefutable conclusions drawn from data generated by good science. 

We need good science to provide the facts that will be the basis of education initiatives for the population at large and for patients already trying to cope with chronic health conditions.

What’s next?

Answers. We must combine top-notch nutritional science with robust clinical research. That’s where the Nutrition Science Initiative (NuSI.org) comes in. It’s a nonprofit effort that is willing to take the financial and technical risks that are necessary to find the answers to “What should we eat?” Three clinical trials are already underway.

Once we have answers, we can educate and empower people, who will for the first time make decisions about what they eat based on fact.

Artcraft Health: We Stand for Health

Gene S Lysko

Medical writer and blogger 

What do you do more than anything else?

Work? Sleep? Did you consider sitting? Sitting is so integrated into our routines that it probably didn’t enter your mind. We eat, commute, work, shop, and relax all while sitting down. Some people even exercise while sitting. Drive-through conveniences like banking, car washes, and coffee shops count towards sitting time, too. You just may sit more than anything else you do.

So what?

Most people sleep less than 8 hours each day; however, we typically sit more than 9 hours a day. Much of that time is spent while we “work.” That’s a lot of inactivity.

Scientific papers exploring the effects of inactivity or sedentary lifestyles on health have been published sporadically through history. The work gained momentum in the early 1970s. About 25 years later, the field of inactivity research emerged when researchers at the Mayo Clinic asked why people who consume the same number of calories as other people gain more weight. Simply put, the difference came down to activity.

People who moved around didn’t gain weight; people who just sat did gain weight. In fact, the research revealed that the people who put on the pounds sat 2 hours a day more than those people who didn’t gain weight.

It could really be this simple

Our bodies evolved to stand and move. Some of our largest bones and muscles are intended to propel us. They’re not meant to be seat cushions. 

The gluteus maximus (your butt) is the largest muscle in the body. It’s large and powerful because it keeps the trunk of the body erect. It is the chief antigravity muscle that aids in walking and running, especially up stairs.

Sitting for long periods is known to be harmful. Dr James Levine (one of the Mayo Clinic researchers) says that sitting could be lethal. Sitting as well as general inactivity reduces the electrical activity in the leg muscles to almost nothing, resulting in a host of harmful metabolic effects:

• The metabolic rate immediately falls off a cliff, and as a result, you won’t need all of the calories that you’ve consumed, which can lead to weight gain 
• Fat metabolism can decrease 90% in an hour, substantially dropping your HDL cholesterol level (the good cholesterol) 
• Insulin’s effectiveness deceases markedly over the course of a day

So why not stand?  

Of course, all of our ills can’t be blamed on sitting, but some of them can. Standing is an easy alternative to sitting. So stand up. Frequently. 

And keep standing. Sitting at work hasn’t always been the rule. For most of our history, workers stood. And the machines and desks that we labored at were designed for standing. Much of that changed with advances in industry and technology, but the concept of Taylorism was most influential. Taylorism was a form of scientific labor management. 

It espoused efficiency through control and shaped the late 19^th century workplace. One way to control workers was to sit them at desks in large open areas where they could be confined and observed. Although Taylor’s methods have largely been resigned to the wastepaper basket, people continue to sit.

Reversing the trend

So many of us sit at work that work becomes a logical place to take a stand, but standing at work can be a challenge for both the employee and the employer.

Employees may not want to stand, and many of those who do may be incapable of doing it all day long. Others may feel odd and don’t want to stand out. Employers face the challenge of what to do with all those chairs and old-fashioned “sit” desks, and the cost of adjustable desks (sit-stand desks) can be substantial.

These challenges are not difficult to overcome. Employees who want to stand at work will, and they will add an hour of standing here and another hour there until sitting feels cramped and unhealthy. Sit-stand desks are critical, though, as they allow employees to change their habits as they grow accustomed to being on their feet. 

Employers will have to lay out the cash for new desks, but the benefits of standing have been shown to include increased creativity and productivity, so employers who look at new office furniture as an investment rather than a cost won’t hurt their bottom line.

Standing at Artcraft Health

Artcraft Health encourages employee well-being by offering an in-house fitness center and by promoting health-related activities, such as the Walking Club. Moreover, Artcraft Health discarded our sit desks in favor of adjustable desks more than a year ago. I’ve been standing ever since. I feel better standing than when I sat all day long; especially in the late afternoon, when standing helps keep me at 100%. There is a down side: I find myself getting antsy in long meetings at sit tables and sometimes on weekends, too. If only movie theaters would get rid of those seats.