While circumstances may have slowed the pace of our posting for a time, they cannot stanch the flow of MEDICAL PROGRESSS!
Therefore we bring unto you the gift of LINKS!
We are all doomed. See: Pimp My Snack (I can’t believe this site is not by an American!)
The Shangri-La Diet book goes on sale TODAY: The SHangri-La Diet by Seth Roberts
Don’t put staples in your ear to lose weight!
Add comment April 25th, 2006
Pancreatitis is a disorder wherein the body actually digests portions of the Pancreas. It is often caused by alchoholism, and has long been known to be inhibited by the consumption of coffee. A new study has finally found the reason for the coffee’s effect on the disease. This is as reported by the University of Liverpool in the publication TRENDS in Pharmacological Sciences and Gastroenterology.
A press release from U of L states:
Researchers at the University have now discovered that caffeine can partially close special channels within cells, reducing to some extent the damaging effects of alcohol products on the pancreas.
Professor Ole Petersen and Professor Robert Sutton, from the University’s Physiological Laboratory and Division of Surgery, have found that cells in the pancreas can be damaged by products of alcohol and fat formed in the pancreas when oxygen levels in the organ are low. Under these conditions, excessive amounts of calcium are released from stores within the cells of the pancreas. Special organelles, called mitochondria, also become damaged and cannot produce the energiser that normally allows calcium to be pumped out of the cells. The excess calcium then activates protein breakdown, destroying the cells in the pancreas.
Professor Petersen explains: “The primary cause of the build up in calcium ion concentration is movement of calcium ions from a store inside the cells into the cell water through special channels in the store membrane. We have found that caffeine, present in drinks such as coffee can at least partially close these channels. This explains why coffee consumption can reduce the risk of alcoholic pancreatitis. The caffeine effect, however, is weak and excessive coffee intake has its own dangers, so we have to search for better agents.
So, if you are a heavy drinker, think about switching to Irish Coffee, or making that hooch a chaser for a nice latte.
Add comment April 19th, 2006
We’ve mentioned Games For Health[gamesforhealth.org] before [Using Video Games to Promote Healing, October 10, 2005], so when we saw this video they produced, we knew we had to share it with you.
Enjoy!
Add comment April 14th, 2006
In an earlier post, a reader named Stephanie asked about research on “…a correlational study… about overweight and the subjects tendency to eat familiar or unfamiliar food.”
Dr. Roberts was kind enough to respond.
To answer your reader’s question: Not exactly. But there are two studies that are close.
1. Dr. Israel Ramirez did a study with rats where body weight was the main measure. He found that familiarity of the food had a big effect on the results. This is the reference:
Ramirez, I. (1990). Stimulation of energy intake and growth by saccharin in rats. Journal of Nutrition, vol. 120, pp. 123-133.
You can get a reprint from Dr. Ramirez by writing to ramirezi-a@verizon.net. This is not a simple study, but it is very relevant.
2. Dr. Alan Hirsch did a study in which overweight subjects sprinkled flavorants on their food–making their food taste less familiar (because although the flavorants were familiar flavors and the food presumably had a familiar flavor, the combination was new). You can read about the study at:
http://www.scienceofsmell.com/scienceofsmell/index.cfm?action=completedsprinkles
You can learn more about Dr. Hirsch’s work in general at www.scienceofsmell.com.
Add comment April 11th, 2006
For the last few months, I’ve been looking at both the No-S Diet and the Shangri-La Diet. I find that they compliment each other well. I’m actually doing both at the same time.
Over at the No-S forums, I’ve been discussing the Shangri-La plan. The No-Sers are skeptical to say the least. Although No-S has been working for me much better since adding in the Shangri-La Diet, I still feel somewhat absurd defending it because it sounds so - silly.
Even so, I will not be disuaded, as I am enjoying this diet combo far more than anything other than the Atkins plan, which I rate equal in effectiveness so far.
I had this humorous exchange with another No-S dieter:
Jan-Tz: This sounds both unappetizing, unhealthy, and unnatural. Are you actually doing this on a daily basis?
Mister Tut: Yes. I’m the Morgan Spurlock of dieting.
Read More on the No-S Diet:
2 comments April 11th, 2006
C0ca-C0la Blak is the newest beverage from the C0ke people. It is billed as a “Carbonated Fusion Beverage”, which mixes C0ke and coffee. This results in a slightly bitter, effervescent toffee-flavored drink that is most, umm, different.
The caffeine content is not specified on the label, beyond acknowledgement of its presence. It did not have me “bouncing off the walls”. It did actually make me vomit, though.
For purposes of this review, I’m torn as to whether the three-word review should be:
Take your pick, either is appropriate.
(45 calories, 30 mg sodium, 12g carbs, all sugar)
1 comment April 10th, 2006
Seth Roberts, whose Shangri-La Diet
Random Interviewer: How did a psychologist get involved in weight loss theory?
Seth Roberts: I had been lecturing to my introductory psychology class about weight control. My lecture contained some unconventional, science-based advice on how to lose weight – advice I had gleaned from reading many research papers. So when I wanted to lose some weight myself, I thought a good first step would be to see if that advice actually worked. It turned out that it did work. That little bit of success got me started. I began to wonder what else the experts didn’t know. And I realized I might find out by studying myself.
RI: You write that much of what we’ve been told by experts about weight loss is “doughnut truth”—that is, there’s a major hole in it. What would you say is the biggest misconception that sabotages weight loss?
SR: The biggest misconception is this: To lose weight you must try to eat less. That is so close to what people want to hear – they want to hear that the idea is false – that it’s almost embarrassing to say. But it is the biggest misconception. The reason that obesity has been such a difficult problem, so intractable, is that the standard ideas about what causes obesity are so wrong. Imagine trying to get out of a room with a closed door if you don’t know what a doorknob is. It’s really difficult. That’s the situation we’ve been in. Whereas if you know how a doorknob works, it’s easy to get out of the room. The correct idea about weight loss is that to lose weight you must eat more of certain foods – foods that lower your set point. When you do that, weight loss is easy. It’s easy to eat more.
RI: You say that associative learning plays a critical role in weight control. Can you explain that in lay terms?
SR: Associative learning is what Pavlov studied. Associative learning is learning to associate two events, like a bell and food. At the heart of my theory of weight control is the idea that we associate flavors with calories. If we eat something with calories, its flavor becomes associated with calories. The most obvious change when a flavor becomes associated with calories is that it tastes better. I think most people can remember their first sip of wine. It didn’t taste very good. As you drink wine again and again, it tastes better and better. This happens because the flavor of wine becomes better associated with calories. When I buy a new flavor of jam, it tastes better and better as I get towards the bottom of the jar. That’s the obvious effect of a flavor-calorie association: the flavor tastes better. A not so obvious effect is that the food becomes more fattening.
RI: According to your theory, the Shangri-La Diet works because it lowers the body “set point”. What does that mean?
SR: Your set point is the weight your body wants you to be. It’s like the temperature to which a thermostat is set. If your weight goes below your set point, you become hungry. Your weight control system is trying to push your weight up to your set point. It becomes hard to resist eating and gaining weight. If your set point is 150 pounds, you will probably weigh close to 150 pounds. One way to think about it is to think that the Shangri-La Diet lowers the weight at which you will become hungry. If your set point is 150 pounds you will become hungry if you go below that weight. If you weigh 150 pounds and your set point is lowered to 140 you’ll be a lot less hungry that usual until your weight goes down to 140 pounds – your new set point. That’s how the Shangri-La Diet causes weight loss without hunger. Because it removes hunger until you have lost weight.
RI: Why did you use your own body to test your weight loss ideas? What did you do?
SR: I wanted to lose weight. Also, it was a hundred times easier than doing an experiment where other people tried my weight loss ideas. Over ten years, I tried about a dozen different new ways of losing weight. I tried drinking vinegar. I tried eating very bland food. I tried standing a lot. I think I tried chewing lots of gum. The ways that worked were drinking lots of water, eating lots of sushi, eating less-processed food, eating food with a low glycemic index, and drinking sugar water. Drinking sugar water worked much much better than the other methods.
RI: The Shangri-La Diet is based on science that most obesity researchers are unaware of. How is that possible?
SR: The Shangri-La diet is based on a theory that depends on research on how animals learn. Most obesity researchers consider this topic irrelevant to understanding obesity. This is actually pretty common in science, that an accurate understanding of this or that turns out to come from an unexpected place. The most famous example is genetics. The key discovery was made by a monk – Gregor Mendel. Most biologists were unaware of his work for many years.
RI: Why is the Shangri-La Diet so different than other diets?
SR: It is based on quite different ideas. My background is I the study of animal learning. Because of this background, I know a great deal about associative learning – it is the main topic in the study of animal learning. And understanding associative learning turns out to be crucial for understanding weight control. Few weight-control researchers and doctors know much about associative learning. They would never think of the theory I came up with. The theory led to the diet.
RI: You say that “ditto” foods are the main cause of obesity today. What are they and how do they cause obesity?
SR: Ditto foods are foods that taste exactly the same each time you eat them. For example most packaged foods, fast food, a Starbucks Mocha Grande, homemade cake from a mix and granola from the bulk section of the supermarket. These foods have replaced homemade food in our diet. And homemade foods vary more in flavor from one time to the next than ditto foods. For example, meatloaf you buy from a deli will taste more similar from one time to the next than the meatloaf you make yourself from scratch (not using a mix). When a food’s flavor is exactly the same each time, eating the food repeatedly will produce a much stronger flavor-calorie association than repeatedly eating a similar food whose flavor varies a lot. So ditto foods produce much stronger flavor-calorie associations than similar homemade foods.
RI: What effect has the Internet had on this diet?
SR: After it was written about in a Freakonomics column in the New York Times, someone started a log with a comments section in which people could report their success or failure with the diet (annhendricksshangrila.blogspot.com). There were eventually many postings and they gave me a better idea of what does and doesn’t work. Mostly peopled succeeded; that was very encouraging. I was pleased to see my ideas had a kind of life of their own – people could use them to lose weight just by reading them. This hadn’t happened before everyone who had tried my diet, I had it personally explained to them. The New York Times article happened because a friend of mine, a professor at Columbia, mentioned a paper about my diet in his blog. This was noticed by someone who had a blog with a bigger readership (Marginal Revolution). He wrote about my paper and that’s how it came to the attention of the Freakonomics guys.
RI: How can I tell what my set point is?
SR: For most people, their set point is close to their weight. If you are hungry all the time, your set point is above your weight. If you have little appetite, get full very quickly, or never feel hungry, your set point is below your weight.
RI: You write that sprinkling cinnamon on pizza will make it less fattening. Why?
SR: Cinnamon makes the pizza taste less familiar. My theory says that food becomes more fattening as it becomes more familiar. A Chicago doctor did an experiment where people added flavors to all of the foods. The flavors they added changed every month. They lost quite a bit of weight. So it’s not just theory, there’s evidence, too.
RI: What makes this diet not a fad diet?
SR: It’s based on accurate ideas about weight control. The truth doesn’t go in and out of fashion. I like to think the Shangri-La diet will slowly be rendered unnecessary by changes in how we eat – so that no one gets fat in the first place. I think real prevention of obesity is coming but I’m not sure what form it will take. One possibility is that people will be careful to avoid ditto foods. Anyone can do this; you just have to randomly flavor your food. Or never buy the same food twice. Another possibility is that food companies will stop making ditto foods. They will make foods that intentionally vary in flavor. Real prevention of obesity won’t be based on getting lots of exercise. In the 1950’s, 50 years ago, Americans were much thinner than now. They got less exercise, too. They weren’t in good shape. They weren’t eating a low-fat diet. They weren’t eating a low-carb diet. They were much thinner because they ate much less ditto food.
6 comments April 7th, 2006
I was rather surprised that a major player in the current dietsphere was one I had not previously heard of - The Cabbage Soup Diet
It is not one that we are recommending, but for the sake of completeness, here it is. The basic idea seems to be that you zero out your metabolism over the course of a week or so by limiting yourself to a specific recipe for cabbage soup, along with a regimen of specific other food items on specific days. It is a crash diet that some claim will cause the loss of 10-14 pounds in a week. The recipe:
In order to cook, slop everthing together in a soup pot or crockpot and, on low heat, cook the heck out of it.
The daily regimen: (assume on each day unlimited quantities of soup)
You must avoid all bread products, booze and soda (including diet varieties).
Let us know your results if you’ve tried it.
Technorati Tags: diet, cabbage, cabbage soup diet, crash diets
Add comment April 6th, 2006
Sidedish is running an article on the benefits of fat. Fat is the much-maligned, though quite necessary cousin of the popular dietary celebrities Protein and Carbohydrate.
The healthiest fats tend to be Olive Oil, Canola Oil (somewhat controversial lately), and Fish Oil. Fish Oil is perhaps best found in Salmon, Tuna, Mackerel and other oily fishes, but is also in Cod Liver Oil, which I take in capsule form myself.
From the article [excerpted]:
Read the whole story :
Fat is Phat [sidedish.typepad.com]
Add comment April 6th, 2006
For those of you who simply cannot abuse your sleep-deprived bodies enough, we present the Buzzaire Caffeine inhaler. This unbelievable item has 120 mg of caffeine per puff, roughly equivalent to two 12 oz. cans of Jolt Cola or a regular cup of coffee plus a 12 oz. Coke. Available from ThinkGeek Caffeine.
Found via Medgadget.
Add comment April 5th, 2006
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