The truth about nutrition

Despite years millions of dollars the Government-sponsored (and industry-influenced) food guidelines are not changing food consumption patterns, as many people do not meet current dietary recommendations,¹ and fruit and vegetable consumption (which is linked to greater protection from chronic diseases) remains low.^2,3 Two in three people in Australia don’t eat the recommended intake of fruit and four in five are not consuming the recommended vegetable intake, with children consuming less fruit and vegetables today than a decade ago.⁴ A recent U.K. Food Standards Agency report found that, among adults between the ages of 19 and 64, only 13% of men and 15% of women eat the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables every day. At the present time only 32% of Americans consume five servings of fruit and vegetables per day with only 20% and adolescents meeting this goal.⁵ Instead, our diet is being replaced with significantly increased amounts of sugar,⁶ refined carbohydrates⁷ and processed fats.

While food guidelines aim to be simplistic to reduce confusion;  this often fails. The food guidelines are too general for chronic disease prevention; if the guidelines were adjusted to be more specific, chronic disease risk could be reduced.^8,9,10

A similar problem occurs within the food pyramid, which was developed in 1992 by advertising and marketing researchers to develop an image the consumer could identify with and easily understand. The pyramid was then widely distributed and has been used as an educational tool, basis for dietary assessment, and part of policy documents. It has succeeded in creating high levels of consumer awareness and is recognised by 67% or more of American adults.¹¹ This wasn’t the first time that government and industry had made attempts to influence how Americans eat: the first U.S. guide, “Food for Young Children,” dates back to 1916. And the “four food groups” developed in the 1950s were strongly influenced by the food industry—after all, the regulators invited the food industry to help shape the guidelines. To highlight the strong influence of industry on US food guidelines, in 2011 the US Department of Agriculture, the same organisation who created the food pyramid, labeled pizza as a vegetable because it has tomato paste. Any wonder the food pyramid was so wrong.

Figure 5. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Pyramid.

Source: Chiuve and Willet 2007.¹²

The 1992 food pyramid encouraged consumers to eat a huge amount of breads, cereal products and potatoes. This could very well have resulted in a greater risk of chronic disease (including CVD, obesity and type 2 diabetes), due to the fact it lacked emphasis and detail on the recommended type of carbohydrates.^13,14 This resulted in consumer confusion^15,16 and poor eating habits.¹⁷ Food guidelines, such as the food pyramid, advocate bread consumption numerous times a day.¹⁸ Bread is a contributing factor to a higher glycaemic load, promoting chronic diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.^19,20 Therefore bread consumption should be limited or even eliminated to promote better health. In the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating²¹ it is recommended to eat plenty of cereals (including breads, rice, pasta and noodles) but we did not evolve eating these foods.

In 2005 the food pyramid was revised into an abstract version of a pyramid called MyPyramid. This new pyramid still encouraged the consumption of grains; one of the differences was that it advised consumers to choose grains that have the word “whole” in front of the grain name. Sure it changed a little, but not enough to reflect what we should really be eating. The Harvard School of Public Health made a scathing criticism of this iteration of the food pyramid.²²

In 2011, the U.S. Department of Agriculture replaced MyPyramid with a new icon called MyPlate. The plate is divided roughly into quarters, with the largest section again being grains. Dr Andrew Weil, founder of the Arizona Centre for Integrative Medicine, wrote “there are some conceptual chips and cracks in this new dinnerware. Overall, I fear another opportunity has been lost to give Americans the best up-to-date information about what constitutes an ideal diet.”²³ Dr Weil offers as an alternative the Anti-inflammatory Food Pyramid, which promotes optimum nutrition and thus optimum health.²⁴

Another are of concern is the Recommended Daily Intakes/ Allowances (RDI/A’s) also known as the percentage of daily values on the side of your breakfast food packet depending on the country in which they are used. As nutritional research and knowledge evolves, food guidelines can become redundant if updates and revisions are not continually made. The Australian RDIs have been updated only a few times since 1954, yet the Japanese, Canadian and U.S. dietary recommendations are updated every five years to match the current scientific research.^25-28

By updating food guidelines in line with scientific research, chronic diseases can be reduced.²⁹ At the same time, not updating with current research may result in ineffective food guidelines that misinform and fail to protect the public. An example is the change in recognising the importance of omega 3 essential fatty acids for chronic disease prevention. In the 1960s it was thought that both omega 3 and omega 6 were equally important, however more recent research highlights the importance of omega 3 over omega 6³⁰ and that we are consuming far too many omega 6 oils in our diet. A food guideline that is updated regularly can make the necessary changes to promote omega 3 over omega 6; however, if updates are not made regularly, the health of consumers will suffer.

Recommended Daily Intake/Allowance (RDI/A)

Many professionals suggest that our food is o.k. because it provides the RDI. This argument has probably led people to eat poor quality food and think that’s o.k. The Recommended Dietary Intake (RDI) values were established by authorities more than 50 years ago with the aim of preventing gross nutrient deficiency diseases such as scurvy and beriberi. They provide the equivalent of the nutrient bare minimum, the lowest common denominator for health, and have no relevance at all for optimum health and the avoidance of chronic illness. Optimum health cannot be obtained by following the RDI/A. These were passable as a guideline 50 years ago but were never meant to protect us from chronic illness. Yet authorities now repeatedly refer to them as the definitive levels to achieve. They are in fact the lowest common denominator of nutrition and aiming just to achieve them is likely a major contributing factor to chronic illness in Australia.

The RDI system shows a serious lack of sensitivity toward individuals with elevated nutrient demands.³¹ It does not allow for differences in people’s nutritional needs. Various groups, including the elderly, people who experience increased physical or emotional stress, people who are of above average body weight, or pregnant women may exhibit elevated nutrient demands. The recommendations also fail to take into account geographic differences such as living in areas with nutrient-deficient soils or high levels of environmental pollution.³²

Socioeconomic factors may also affect the adequacy of RDI/A values for certain groups. For example, the U.S. Recommended Dietary Allowances (U.S. RDAs) claim to represent the daily intake levels sufficient to meet the nutritional needs of 97% to 98% of all healthy individuals in a group. However, the homeless and poor are not healthy as groups and inadequate dietary quality has been documented in these sectors of society.³³

Recommended intakes don’t take into account the interactions of nutrients or toxins—in particular, the synergy and the fact that a shortage of one nutrient may bring about inefficient use of other nutrients. While most people know of vitamin C’s antioxidant effects, very few are aware of the benefits of it consumed with other antioxidants. Extra vitamin C spares the destruction of other nutrients in the body.

Professor Bruce Ames, one of the most respected names in modern nutrition and one of the early developers of toxicological standards, suggests that we need to move beyond the RDI and that age-related diseases like heart disease, cancer and dementia may be unintended consequences of mechanisms developed during evolution to protect against short-term nutrient shortages. In what he calls the “triage theory,” he suggests that because natural selection favours short-term survival—to escape from a bear or survive a cold winter—over long-term health, short-term survival was achieved by prioritising the use of these scarce nutrients that are also necessary for less urgent, but just as important, functions including healthy ageing. The nutrients are allocated to short-term essential (urgent) tasks versus keeping you healthy in the long term and avoiding chronic illness. The triage theory proposes that modest deficiency of any vitamin or mineral could increase age-related diseases. This theory has important implications for determining the optimum intake of all vitamins and minerals, as well as major implications for preventive medicine.³⁴ Current RDAs and RDIs provide for urgent short-term requirements only and not the nutrients for important tasks and optimal health.

In his recent study of vitamin K, Professor Ames and his colleagues showed that current recommendations for vitamin K, which are based on levels to ensure adequate blood coagulation, fail to ensure long-term optimal levels of the vitamin and may accelerate bone fragility, arterial and kidney calcification, cardiovascular disease and possibly cancer. So the levels approved for the short-term do not help us to avoid chronic illness, which is the biggest burden we face in the 21^st century. In another study the same group investigating selenium, reported that the same set of age-related diseases and conditions, including cancer, heart disease, and immune dysfunction and an increase risk of diseases of aging are associated with modest selenium deficiency ³⁵. The overall conclusion of this growing body of evidence is that optimizing nutrition and metabolism will delay aging and the diseases of aging in humans ^36,37.

Perhaps easier to understand a well-known and good example of the triage system is the pH (acid/alkali levels) of the blood and mineral balance. The optimal pH of the blood is around 7.35. If the pH varies slightly from this level, as a result of eating processed foods which increase the acidity of the blood, it dramatically affects many of the 90 or so enzyme functions in the blood. These enzymes literally do all the work, repair, cleaning up, transport etc in the blood. If they slow down too much we get very sick and die quickly. To make sure this doesn’t happen the body has a few mechanisms to keep the pH in perfect balance. The main mechanism is to allocate or triage alkali minerals like magnesium and calcium from where they should be working in optimal conditions, such as in the cells and in bones, to balance the pH in the blood. While this protects our urgent health requirements it increases our long risk of chronic health conditions such as heart attack, cancer and osteoporosis as a result of the shortage of these minerals. The body allocates the nutrients for short-term survival, the “essential” functions are protected from nutrient deficiency over other “nonessential” functions  needed only for long-term health.

It is time we rethink our nutritional advice to eliminate the vested interests and to come in line with the tens of thousands of nutritional studies that have been done over the past decades. The current standards do not represent the scientific evidence that is currently available.

1.     Ball et al. 2004

2.     Ziegler 1991

3.     AIHW 2002

4.     Magarey et al. 2001

5.     Ames 2001

6.     Cook et al. 2001

7.     Jenkins et al. 2004

8.     McCullogh et al. 2000a

9.     McCullogh et al. 2000b

10.  McCullogh et al. 2000c

11.  Nestle 1998

12.  Chiuve and Willet 2007

13.  Willet 1998

14.  Weinberg 2004

15.  Cotugna et al. 1992

16.  Ferrini et al. 1994

17.  Grifford 2002

18.  Nutrition Australia 2005

19.  Davis et al. 2004

20.  Villegas et al. 2004

21.  NHMRC 2003

22.  http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/pyramid-full-story/index.html

23.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-weil-md/myplate-nutrition-plate_b_871045.html

24.  http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/PAG00361/anti-inflammatory-food-pyramid.html

25.  Kris-Etherton et al. 2000

26.  Cobiac et al. 1998

27.  Bush and Kirkpatrick 2003

28.  Guthrie and Smallwood 2003

29.  Jacques and Tucker 2001

30.  Holman 1998

31.  Gopalan 1997

32.  Kirchheiner nd

33.  Wiecha et al. 1991

34.  McCann and Ames 2009

35.  McCann and Ames, 2011

36.  Ames 2010

37.  Ashutosh and Ames 2011

Feed Your Brain

Children have lots of study to do but are rarely shown effective study techniques, let alone how to study without stress. As an ex- school teacher, academic and a life long student, I've spent a great deal of time refining my study habits to make them not only effective, but good for my health! I've also spent time teaching myself learning skills such as speed-reading and improving my memory and note taking skills using mind maps and another technique a friend of mine taught me called CapMaps. The little bit of time I've spent learning these techniques has been repaid many times over. I now teach these skills to my students, pensioner groups and corporate executives.

So to begin, let's get rid of words like home work and make it home play. We'll do a whole lot more and a lot more easily if we enjoy doing it, so let's make it as pleasurable as possible - starting with the words we use.

To study effectively you need good health and a good blood supply. Your brain uses more than 20 per cent of your body's energy, so it has to have the right nutrients all the time. When you study, don't scrunch up over the desk. It stops you breathing deeply and slows oxygen getting to your brain. Remember to stretch frequently, put your shoulders back and take a deep breath. This will help feed your brain.

Food for Thought

A nourishing diet is essential to give your brain the right nutrition and will increase your levels of concentration. Even small decreases in glucose can cause significant "brain fog", while shortages of antioxidants and excess bad fats lead to short-term and long-term memory problems. Not good for study. Here are some useful pointers to ensuring you eat well to make your study time effective:

* Eat breakfast. It provides glucose for your brain. In fact, not eating breakfast causes you to be 20 - 40 per cent "dumber" in studying and exams. People who don't eat breakfast also put on more weight and are unhealthier than people who do.  Raw muesli or porridge with nuts is a terrific way to fire up your brain. Add a piece of chopped fruit. Don't add sugar, but add as much fruit and crushed nuts and seeds as you like. Or maybe even an old fashioned cooked breakfast with some tomato, mushroom, spinach and beans thrown in.

* Don't eat and study at the same time. Take a break. Focus on one task at a time.

* In between meals nibbling on raw (not cooked) nuts and dried fruit will feed your brain. Leave the chocolate for after the exams and forget the potato chips.

* Decrease bad oils including butter and margarine, oils in bread and greasy foods such as takeaways. They block your arteries and thicken your blood, slowing the amount of fuel getting to your brain (ie oxygen and glucose). They also contribute to some long-term damage in the brain.

* Decrease sugar and processed foods. They create a short-term glucose high in the blood and a long-term glucose low, causing foggy thinking.

* Increase good oils high in Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs) and include fish oils and flaxseed. Sixty per cent of your healthy brain is made up of fats and these EFAs are the biggest part.  Good fats = good thinking. They provide the building blocks for the brain, the infrastructure for you to be smarter.

* Increase dark green vegetables such as spinach, silver beet, broccoli and bok choy. They provide essential vitamins and minerals for your brain to function and think clearly. One study found better memory results from eating greens. They put muscles in your brain.

* Eliminate over processed grain products.  Eat only wholegrain and wholemeal grains; they contain essential minerals and vitamins for your brain. Rye bread gives you the lowest sugar hit. Even better go for the new range of sprouted breads.

* A little coffee or tea is okay, but don't have it after 4 pm to keep you awake and certainly don't have it at night to keep studying. If you need coffee to keep you awake at night in order to keep studying, you're fooling yourself about your level of effectiveness. Good sleep is the best way of dealing with exams. If you have a deadline, wake early and start when your mind is really alert.

* Drink lots of water

* Avoid sugary soft drinks, particularly just before an exam.

* Supplement with brain vitamins and minerals (speak to your naturopath or health food store), especially Vitamin C for it's antioxidant action

* Gingko Biloba taken for two to three weeks has been shown to improve memory and thinking.

* Vitamin Bs are very good for feeding your nervous system, especially if you're feeling stressed.

During  periods of study, exercise at least 45 minutes each day. Exercise gets blood flowing to your brain, supplying oxygen, antioxidants and glucose.  It also releases substances such as noradrenalin in your body to prepare you for exams and reduce stress. Research shows that small bouts of exercise in between study and before exams can make a significant difference in performance.

During periods of intensive study you need hourly breaks (or even 30 minute breaks). Make your break a brisk 10 minutes walk. It will help everything you have done sink into the powerful, subconscious part of your brain.  After two hours, take a 20 minute brisk walk and give yourself a good break. Don't fool yourself that you're still working well. You're probably functioning at around or less than 50 per cent. It's okay for mundane tasks, but not if you need really focused concentration.

Set regular study patterns. Don't do everything late at night.  Your brain is already getting tired. The morning is the best time to study and that is not just after midnight. Learn how to use your brain effectively.

Do a memory course or a mind-mapping course. It can make remembering specific information so much easier, and will improve your general memory as well. After a memory course you can learn more than a hundred facts and figures in less than an hour, have fun doing it and have perfect recall.

Talk about the ideas and information you have learnt with friends, a study buddy. It will help lock it into your long-term memory and you'll learn new information from each other.

Learn to Relax

Taking deep breaths is an important start, because it sends relaxation messages to your brain. There are many other things you can do. Best learning occurs in the alpha and theta brain wave states. These are when you are most relaxed and not stressed. When you are in a stressed busy state you are in an beta state and you cant learn well. A simple meditation can take only five to ten minutes and can prevent you stressing and get you into an alpha brain wave learning state. Try sitting still, and slowly, with each breath, count from 50 to one. Focus on the numbers only. If you get distracted, go back to the last number and keep going.

Be aware of your posture while you're studying - don't hunch over the desk. It stops you breathing deeply and slows down the flow of oxygen to your brain. Remember to stretch. Put your shoulders back and take a deep breath regularly. Being hunched over a desk also tells your brain that you are tired and not very positive, so that's how it starts to respond.

I always tell my students to start studying and exams with the biggest smile you can make. Sounds strange, maybe even funny, but it sends positive messages to your brain. It increases the feel good chemicals in the brain, increases blood flow to the brain and immediately reduces stress. Research shows it also increases your creativity, and it's fun.

Plan your study and plan to study well.  By having the right attitude and planning your study, you can save hours and hours of what may otherwise be wasted time.

* Set goals for the amount of time and the quality of time for your period of study. 

* Set goals for each study period, the exams and for the year. These will help to focus and motivate you.

* Write down your goals - what you want to achieve, how you are going to achieve it and why it's important to achieve it.

* Put your list of goals on the wall in your study.

* Don't wait for deadlines to motivate you, get in early.

* Visualise yourself being successful when you study.

* Visualise yourself in the exam feeling positive and writing the right answers. See yourself coming out of the exam and feeling really positive.

* After your exams or long periods of study reward yourself (but not with junk foods).

* There are many other things you can do to improve your thinking but the best one is to use your logic and commonsense.

To learn effectively you need to have a study environment that's positive, enjoyable and free from distractions. It also has to be a healthy environment.

* Study in an enjoyable environment. 

* Put on some gentle music. Baroque music, such as Bach and the music of Mozart has a very positive effect on brain waves and helps you to learn. It may not be cool but you will be smarter.

* Open the doors and windows to the study. Fresh air is critical to good brain function. Stuffy air or chemical smells will affect your brain's ability to focus. One gas in particular, carbon monoxide, reduces the oxygen available to the brain. Carbon monoxide is found in high concentrations in car exhaust and tobacco smoke.

* Don't smoke, and especially don't smoke in your study.  It has hundreds of chemicals that attack your brain cells.

* Get rid of distractions. Despite what you may think, you can only concentrate on one thing at a time. Don't waste your time by studying at 10 per cent. Turn off  the phone, television and all other distractions, with the exception of quiet, light background music.

* Wherever you study, make it a positive place. Decorate it in pleasing colours, have good light, pictures and photographs on the walls, and put up messages, quotes and photographs that inspire you.

Junk food increases depression

In the latest study (Public Health Nutrition March 2012 15 : pp 424-432) consumers of fast food were 51% more likely to develop depression compared to those who eat little or none. Even more convincing the study found a dose-response relationship. That is, the more fast food you consume, the greater the risk of depression. The study looked at the consumption of fast food (hamburgers, sausages, pizza) and processed pastries (muffins, doughnuts, croissants) of  8,964 participants with a median follow-up of 6·2 years. In their normal conservative mode the scientists concluded that fast-food and commercial baked goods consumption may have a detrimental effect on depression risk. Not just fast food (take-aways), the study found that even eating small quantities of commercial baked goods was linked to a significantly higher chance of developing depression. In an earlier study by the same authors they found a 42% increase in the risk associated with fast food

Depression is a serious and debilitating condition that can affect anyone. It is estimated that around 35% of the population will develop mild to severe depression in their lifetime. Australian Bureau of Statistic indicate that on average one in every five females and one in eight males will experience depression during their lifetime. Moreover, there are around one million of Australian adults and 160000 adolescents who live with depression each year.

Adding to the weight of this study a large number of studies have shown that particular components of the diet such as n-3 fatty acids and B-vitamins as well certain minerals supplements, can decrease the rate of depression.

           

Many studies have shown Omega-3 fatty acids to significantly reduce depression levels. Countries where there is large fish consumption among the people tend to have a lower rate of depression than societies where fish is not a prominent staple in the diet. Western countries with a low to moderate per capita fish intake of 11-32kg had an annual prevalence of depression in the range of 3-6%.  Countries such as Japan who have a high per capita fish consumption of 68kg had a depression rate of 0.12%. The more omega-3s in your blood, the more serotonin you are likely to make and the more responsive you become to its effects. It also reduces your risk of heart attack, storke and so many other chronic illnesses.

The research consistently shows that people with either low blood levels of the B-vitamins especially folic acid are more likely to be depressed. In a study of hospitalised older people participants who received a normal hospital diet plus multivitamin and mineral supplements for six weeks found lower levels of depression regardless of the initial level of depression of the individual. The authors wrote, “Many epidemiological and case-control studies have shown associations between folate and vitamin B12 deficiency and depression. In a study of 3,500 over-65-year-olds in Chicago over an average of 7.2 years of follow-up, the researchers noted that increased intakes of vitamins from food and supplements B6 and B12 were associated with a ‘decreased likelihood of incident depression.’ For every 10-milligram increase in the intake of vitamin B6 and for every 10-microgram increase in vitamin B12, the risk of developing symptoms of depression was decreased by two percent per year.

A number of studies have found lower levels of zinc and chromium in depressed patients. In one study seven out of the ten depressed patients taking chromium showed a big improvement, versus none on the placebo. A larger study of 113 patients found that after eight weeks 65% of those on chromium had had a major improvement, compared to 33% on placebos

Unfortunately most processed foods are low in nutrients including omega 3 fatty acids, B vitamins and the minerals like zinc and chromium.