Angiogenesis And Cancer

A friend recently sent me several articles and a Ted Talk video about how inhibiting angiogenesis might make it possible to stop the growth of cancer. So I figured it was worth taking a look at to figure out what it’s all about and if there’s any credence to the idea.

What Is Angiogenesis?

For starters, let’s talk about just what angiogenesis is. We’ll just take the concise Wikipedia definition:

Angiogenesis is a physiological process involving the growth of new blood vessels from pre-existing vessels.
…
Angiogenesis is a normal and vital process in growth and development, as well as in wound healing. However, it is also a fundamental step in the transition of tumors from a dormant state to a malignant one.

So on the one hand, we have “normal and vital” and on the other hand, we have cancer. Basically, tumors secrete several growth factors that promote angiogenesis, allowing capillaries to grow into the tumor and supply the essential nutrients the tumor needs to keep growing. Further, this blood vessel growth is essential to a tumor metastasizing.

Basically, it begs the question, “what if we could stop angiogenesis? Could we stop cancer?” Okay, that’s two questions.

Anti-Angiogenesis For Cancer Therapy

So if angiogenesis is the creation of new blood vessels, anti-angiogenesis is anything that stops the creation of new blood vessels. It could be food or drugs. There are already drugs out there that inhibit angiogenesis to starve cancer cells, some of which are FDA approved. It seems that the proof is there that inhibiting angiogenesis works to stop the unrestricted growth of cancer’s food supply. (One study even showed that it could stop fat tissue growth in mice.)

Can food do the same thing without the negative side effects of drugs?

Can We Eat To Stop Cancer?

Here is a video of Dr. William Li presenting at Ted Talks about using various foods to prevent angiogenesis. It’s a good 20 minute watch, but if you prefer, I’ll summarize after the video.

So if certain foods can promote cancer, it makes sense to me that certain foods can help fight it. Of course, as Dr. Li points out, food alone might not be enough once you’re actually diagnosed with cancer, but it certainly can’t hurt. The goal, though, is to do things that hopefully keep us from getting cancer in the first place. Luckily, it’s not the inevitability that so many think it is.

For those of us that are seemingly healthy, I don’t really think it’s something to obsess about though. Just eat a normal diet loaded with real foods. It’s really that simple. I think people don’t like to consider that lifestyle is a major component of cancer, but for most, it is. The reality is that people have been using food as medicine for a long, long time…long before there were anti-angiogenic drugs and chemotherapy.

Here’s a graph from the video showing the contribution of various lifestyle factors and genes into cancer.

A little back of the envelope math says that between 1/4 and 1/3 of the cause of cancer is diet-related. That’s big and that’s one that’s much easier to change than your genes. Stop smoking and lose weight and you knock off another huge chunk.

Anti-Angiogenic Foods

Take a look at this table from Dr. Li’s Ted Talks page. It shows a long list of foods that have been found to have anti-angiogenic properties.

What was interesting in the video was when he talked about how combining the foods made for an even stronger anti-angiogenic response. It looks like these foods have a symbiotic relationship in the body. Red, red wine and dark chocolate, anyone (while listening to UB40 perhaps)? I’m guessing that plenty of other natural foods also help the body combat cancer. No telling what’s in that “Others” category.

One thing is for sure…the fruit cocktail at your next family picnic sure looks a whole lot better.

Don’t We Need Angiogenesis?

So this question was on my mind while I was looking at all of this, but it seems that what Dr. Li proposes is that eating the right foods doesn’t stop normal angiogenesis completely. They keep angiogenesis at a normal level while stopping the unrestricted growth of blood vessels present in cancer and other diseases. They basically keep the body operating properly. At least, that’s my take from it.

Real Foods To The Rescue

In the past couple years that I’ve been running this blog (and my prior blog, The Modern Forager), I’ve kind of made it my mission to get people to stop obsessing about nutrition and just focus on eating real food. I mean, obviously I enjoy the science of it all as much as the next guy and gal, but I think some of us get a little too twisted up in it. There’s really no need to wear your diet like a “Hi My Name Is…” tag or a badge of honor.

The past couple years, I’ve realized that it’s not about low-carb and low-fat. It’s just about eating real foods. I doubt that someone with a normal, healthy metabolism is going to see any issues from eating all the fruit, sweet potatoes and other tubers, and rice (yes, even rice), they want as long as enough protein and fat is included for health. I am pretty sure that the healthiest, longest-lived people in the world eat all manner of real food (and none of them Zone). So really, stop freaking out about it and just learn to enjoy cooking and eating.

If you need help learning to make Real Food taste good, check out Naked Food Cooking to upgrade your cooking skills.

What do you think? Can food alone prevent or reverse cancer or are there other factors at work? Where do we take it from here?

Microalgae Oil

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Rhonda Perciavalle of Perciavalle Health about microalgae oil.

I’ve got some good news, and some bad news for you vegetarians and vegan types out there. First, the bad news: That flaxseed oil you’ve been relying on for your daily dose of omega-3? It’s not a good substitute for fish oil.

Omega-3 fatty acids consist of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), and alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). For most people, the main source of omega-3 in their diet comes from fatty fish, such as salmon.

EPA and DHA

Often, vegetarians, however, rely almost exclusively on flax oil for their omega-3 supplementation – this is a mistake because flax oil consists solely of ALA, which must first be converted into EPA, and then subsequently converted into DHA. In-so-far as meeting dietary requirements of omega-3, DHA and EPA are the only real players here that matter. At least in most respects. We’ll get to the exceptions on that in a minute. Although ALA can be converted into EPA and DHA in your body, several studies have shown this to be a very inefficient process. 1 In fact, the human body can only convert very small amounts of ALA into EPA and DHA. Studies have shown that only approximately 5% of ALA is converted to EPA, whereas, less than 0.5% is converted in to DHA. 2

DHA Conversion

The reason for this inefficiency is due to the rate limiting step: enzyme availability. This is because the enzyme responsible for the conversion of ALA into EPA, delta-6-desaturase, competitively binds to omega-6 fatty acids also. Hence, in order to get DHA from flax-derived ALA, your body must undergo not one, but two rate limiting enzymatic conversions: first from ALA to EPA, then from EPA to DHA. Clearly this is, as stated earlier, a terribly inefficient process that could be circumnavigated entirely simply by going right to the source and ingesting EPA and DHA directly.

The good news is there IS a source of omega-3 that qualifies as vegetarian, won’t offend your moral or dietary sensibilities, has a high grade of purity, and avoids depleting fish stocks…two words: microalgae oil.

Microalgae Oil Supplementation

Something many of you might not know is that algae, such as zooplankton and phytoplankton, are actually the primary source of EPA and DHA omega-3 fatty acids. Fish ingest these microalgae and store the DHA and EPA in their fat, which is why fish oil is high in both of these omega-3 fatty acids. 3 Some microalgae have already been shown to produce high levels of both DHA and EPA, such as Spirulina and Nannochloropsis sp., however, high-EPA microalgae supplements are still in short supply. Even so, switching to microalgae removes at least one enzymatic step – which, apparently, makes all the difference in the world.

In one study, vegetarians that were deficient in EPA and DHA, took 1 gram of microalgae oil daily. 4 After eight weeks, they significantly raised both their DHA and EPA levels. This is in stark contrast to another study that showed that ALA derived from flax oil did not significantly increase EPA and DHA levels. 5 In another, similar example lactating women supplementing with 10.7g per day with ALA derived from flaxseed oil, failed to increase DHA levels in their breast milk. 6 This is particularly alarming for any nursing mothers relying on flaxseed as their omega-3 source because DHA is the most abundant fatty acid in the brain, particularly during development — a time when the availability of all the essential building blocks of life are most important. 7 DHA plays a role in visual acuity 8 and deficiency in DHA during development leads to behavioral and functional deficits including smaller neurons in the cortex, hippocampus, and hypothalamus.9 Moreover, during fetal development in particular, DHA must be obtained through the mother’s circulation and reduced DHA levels leads to visual and learning deficits. 10

Now, with that said, ALA supplementation does have benefits that are distinct from DHA and EPA which, quite specifically, pertains to the skin

ALA Omega 3

Perhaps the most recognizable function of ALA that is separable from other omega-3 fatty acids is its role in the skin. More than 46% of ALA was found in the skin and fur of guinea pigs that were orally administered ALA. 11 Additionally, ALA was shown to promote fur growth in rats, indicating that ALA plays an essential role in hair growth. 12 The effects of ALA deficiency were studied in monkeys and resulted in skin lesions and fur loss, which was restored upon ALA supplementation. 13 Topical application of ALA has also been shown to lighten skin after UV-induced hyperpigmentation and this was due to decreased melanin production as well as increased desquamation of pigment in the epidermis. 14

The bottom line is that ALA derived from flaxseed oil is not an adequate vegetarian source for DHA and EPA, and those should ultimately be supplemented separately from ALA/Flaxseed Oil. Microalgae oil is a good source of DHA and EPA for vegetarians for this. Flaxseed oil, isn’t, however, without its own beneficial effects and might still make a good supplement in addition to whatever else you choose to make your primary source of EPA and DHA.

Okay, so let’s look back at Monday’s post on Acidosis and Alkalosis. In my haste to go sit on the beach and stare at the ocean, I gave short shrift to covering how the body actually maintains normal blood pH.

Normal Blood pH

So to quickly recap, the body works hard to maintain a normal blood pH between 7.35 and 7.45, a fairly tight range. And pretty much nothing you do, at least in terms of food, is going to change that. So you can’t really “acidify” or “alkalize” your body. Your body requires a rather tight pH in the blood (and equally tight, though different pH in other systems) in order for your bodily functions to proceed as normal. If you were to “acidify” or “alkalize” your blood, you’d quickly run into some serious issues, regardless of which way you took it.

Basically, the foods you eat are digested and broken down into their components. These metabolites exhibit an acid, base, or neutral pH to the body. When you add them all up, you get the net-acid or net-base load of the overall diet. And then the body has to deal with this acidity or alkalinity to make sure the body stays at the proper pH in all of its various systems, particularly the blood.

Effects On Urine

One of the ways that the body deals with excess acid or base is to pass it off to the urine for excretion. According to this study:

In conclusion, a more alkaline diet, higher fruit and vegetable and lower meat intake were related to more alkaline urine with a magnitude similar to intervention studies. As urine pH relates to dietary acid-base load its use to monitor change in consumption of fruit and vegetables, in individuals, warrants further investigation.

But here’s an interesting observation from Dr. Jarvis, author of Folk Medicine:

By keeping logs, he was able to show that ill health went along with the alkaline urine, while good health went along with acidic.

An interesting observation indeed and, to be fair, I really have no idea what to make of it. Just throwing it out there for discussion. It makes sense though, since urine is typically acidic (5-6 pH).

Effects On CO₂ Exhalation

Unbeknowst to me (but knownst to others…name it!), Yael Grauer recently wrote a similar article over at The Performance Menu looking at this exact same issue. Great minds…

She pointed out that the body maintains proper pH in the blood by breathing out either more or less CO₂, depending on whether the blood is too acidic or too alkaline. Basically, when your blood is too acidic, your breathing increases to release more CO₂. Think about when you exercise…breathing increases due to increased acidity in the blood from the cells doing their thing as much or more than the need for oxygen.

Effects On Bones

Another claim is that the body buffers acidity largely by pulling from its largest reserve of alkaline material – calcium from the bones. Well, Yael’s article pushed me to go out to Pubmed and look for some work by Jane Kerstetter. According to Kerstetter,

We conclude that in rats, as in humans, acute increases in protein intake result in hypercalciuria due to augmented intestinal Ca absorption. BBMV Ca uptake studies suggest that higher protein intake improves Ca absorption, at least in part, by increasing transcellular Ca uptake.

But, it’s not quite so simple. That study shows that meat protein increases calcium uptake from the intestines. That’s not necessarily true of all protein though. In fact, (vegetarians take note) Kerstetter showed that soy protein is detrimental to calcium uptake:

These data indicate that when soy protein is substituted for meat protein, there is an acute decline in dietary calcium bioavailability.

Here is one more from Kerstetter regarding high-protein (which says “high acid” to me) diets and bone health:

The high-protein diet caused a significant reduction in the fraction of urinary calcium of bone origin and a nonsignificant trend toward a reduction in the rate of bone turnover. There were no protein-induced effects on net bone balance. These data directly demonstrate that, at least in the short term, high-protein diets are not detrimental to bone.

Of course, if you aren’t taking in enough calcium, perhaps this is an issue. Perhaps not. I’m guessing that, once again, the body is far smarter than we give it credit for. Maybe the increase in osteoporosis isn’t necessarily due to “an acidic diet,” but the particular types of acidic foods we eat, namely:

• the “healthy” soy protein to replace meat – see above
• lots of grains – contain phytic acid that binds with calcium
• high salt intake – may also bind with calcium
• sugar – depletes vitamins and minerals and has been shown (in rats) to throw off calcium/phosphorus balance

There’s also the severely detrimental effects on bone health of low vitamin D and low magnesium intake, both just as important as calcium for building bone.

It All Adds Up To…

Something I’m still not concerned about. If you’re not eating much in the way of grains, you can likely eat your meat and eat plenty of fruits and vegetables with impunity. You don’t need to calculate acid and base loads like John Berardi mentions in his article Covering Your Nutritional Bases.

As I said in my last article, this is mainly just “eat your vegetables” and anti-meat repackaged, because the people that are talking about it are usually promoting high whole grain diets, another acidic food.

As Yael said:

Don’t worry about meat robbing calcium from your bones. You’ll excrete calcium if your urine is more acidic (with hydrogen ions being secreted to balance the acid load), but your body will be getting it from elsewhere. And even though your urine can become more or less acidic, your blood is going to stay the same. Though eating vegetables is generally a good idea for a variety of reasons, it’s not because minerals are being robbed from the bones. And since it appears that half of the hunter-gatherer diets had high acid-load diets, and none of our caveman buddies had modern diseases, I wouldn’t lose sleep over the possibility.

We really can’t take things out of context, especially when talking about a highly complex biological machine like the human (or any mammalian) body, and expect to be able to distill things down to some excessively simple talking point. If you’re concerned, eat more plant matter. But I maintain that meat, fruit, vegetables, properly-prepared beans and non-glutinous grains (like rice), and some dairy are highly unlikely to harm you or your bones, especially if you’re active (which stimulates bone growth) and you have adequate intake of magnesium and a good vitamin D status.

Any additional thoughts on this matter? Anyone have additional supportive or conflicting evidence that I missed?

Acidosis and Alkalosis

Today, we’re going to talk about acidosis and alkalosis. I’ll explain just what I mean by that in a second. But first, what put this topic in my head?

In the past week, I’ve directly or indirectly read/heard two things that prompted me to write this. First, there was a comment by Shari on my Eat Real Food post lambasting me for promoting a “meat-based diet” because it “not only causes acidosis, but has also been unmistakably linked to increased incidence of colon cancer.” (Of course, most everyone that reads that post realizes that I promote a diet based on unprocessed foods, not necessarily meat, but that doesn’t stop people from seeing what they want to see.)

Second, as you all now know, I just moved to San Diego. Part of setting in has been finding a new farmer’s market since my old one is now about 2200 miles away and it’s just not feasible to pull that off on a Saturday morning. So I hit the weekly Wednesday farmer’s market in Ocean Beach and overheard a girl selling asparagus telling a couple other girls about how awesome asparagus is because it’s “the most alkaline vegetable and alkaline helps you be stronger for longer” (as she flexed). She went on about how you want to avoid acid foods like meat, dairy, and…citrus fruits.

A Quick Physiology Primer: Acid-Base Metabolism

So what exactly are these people talking about? “Acidosis” is quite simply when the pH of the blood falls below the bottom end of the healthy pH range (normal range is 7.35-7.45). “Alkalosis” is the opposite; the pH of the blood is out of bounds on the upper end of the scale. Neither is good. Both can cause serious health issues and/or death (which I suppose is a very serious health issue).

Now, here’s how they claim it works: everything you eat, once digested, exhibits either acidic or alkaline by-products for the body to deal with. Eating too many acidic foods causes your body to become “acidified” and, therefore, more susceptible to disease. On the other hand, eating good alkaline foods helps your body to get into an alkalized state where disease cannot exist. Dr. Mirkin points out at QuackWatch that:

Promoters of these products claim that cancer cells cannot live in an alkaline environment and that is true, but neither can any of the other cells in your body.

Just as an aside, some foods, while being acidic, leave an alkaline ash after digestion. Unfortunately for the girl selling the asparagus, lemons and limes are two of those, so even if she were correct about everything else, her advice to avoid citrus fruits is out.

To continue, you have to balance out your acids by eating more alkaline foods. And then there’s the requisite list of some common foods and whether they are acidic or alkaline (or neutral):

Acidic, Neutral, and Alkaline Foods

The Reality Of Acid-Base Balance

And now to reality…”eat more alkalizing foods” is the New Age, pseudo-scientific way of saying what Grandma said for centuries: “Eat your fruits and vegetables.” Not bad advice, in and of itself, though it seems to have been adopted by people that are especially anti-meat.

I think the reality is that the grand majority of the people talking about the idea are using it as a way to reinforce the “superiority” of a vegetarian diet over an omnivorous diet, much like Shari seemed to be doing on the Nutrition 101 post.

Slippery Slope Alert!

I mean, if alkaline is better than acidic* and animal foods (other than goat milk and human milk) are acidic, then obviously vegetarianism is better than meat-eating. Of course, carrying this to its logical extreme, we would want to avoid acidic foods completely (like the girl at the market recommended), like raw milk, and opt instead for an alkaline food, like soy milk (depending on which list you consult). All meat is out…but that’s okay cause you can eat tofu to your heart’s content.

Pecans and cashews? Out. Luckily you can eat almonds. Spinach as fine…as long as you don’t cook it. Bananas are okay…as long as there’s no green on them. Here’s my favorite…green beans, good; string beans, bad. Other than the strings that have been bred out of most modern green beans, it’s the same plant. Another “we’re not real sure which way is up” moment is that depending on which chart you consult, eggs and chicken breasts are either acidic or alkaline.

Oh, here’s another fun one: antibiotics are alkaline, while probiotics are acidic. Yeeaaaaahhhhh…

But here’s the icing on the cake of this run into ridiculousness. Please see the chart to the right. If alkalizing is what we want, why don’t we just balance it all out with a nice glass of ammonia or bleach. Or hell, sprinkle a little household lye into your next casserole! (Disclaimer: Since some people around here have a hard time picking up sarcasm, this is sarcasm. Please, please do not consume ammonia, bleach, or lye, no matter how much alkalizing you want to do.)

Obviously I’m just having a little fun here, but, as always, much truth is said in jest.

*And then there’s the flip side of the coin: if eating animal foods promotes acidosis, then eating plant foods promotes alkalosis. Of course, while both are definitely medical issues, neither are likely and neither dichotomy is the way it really works. Lucky for all of us, evolution equipped the body with a range of ways to keep blood pH in the proper range and you’re not going to outdo your acid-base metabolism by eating too much meat, dairy, grains, or anything else.

They Missed A Puzzle Piece: Vinegar

Another key piece of information left out by The Alkalizers** is that some acids, like vinegar, improve your blood sugar response, an element of your health that is most likely a bit more important than if your last meal contained 60% alkaline foods and 40% acidic foods (and in reality, were it to matter, there’s no way of measuring whether you’ve properly countered your acids and bases since it’s a continuum, though you could test your urine, a thoroughly pointless endeavor).

Here’s the study:

These data indicate that vinegar can significantly improve postprandial insulin sensitivity in insulin-resistant subjects.

As usual, when people try to complicate nutrition, they leave out some key pieces of the puzzle and ignore some pertinent facts to try to fit into a nice, easily digested little package.

A Nice Cold Bucketful Of Reality

There is no evidence in the real world that food changes the pH of the blood. I searched on Pubmed and I read plenty of stuff by others that had searched Pubmed. No one has come up with anything. And that’s a good thing because with such a narrow range of “healthy,” you wouldn’t want it moving either up or down depending on how much you decide to indulge at a party.

In fact, the stomach is so acidic (getting down towards battery acid and hydrochloric acid), that you can’t even significantly change the acidity of your stomach, much less your blood. And that’s also a good thing since that acid helps you digest things.

Dr. Mirkin again:

All foods that leave your stomach are acidic. Then they enter your intestines where secretions from your pancreas neutralize the stomach acids. So no matter what you eat, the food in stomach is acidic and the food in the intestines is alkaline. Dietary modification cannot change the acidity of any part of your body except your urine. Your bloodstream and organs control acidity in a very narrow range. Anything that changed acidity in your body would make you very sick and could even kill you.

I’ll Say It One Last Time (In This Post)

Seriously…who wants another set of diet rules to keep up with? It’s just repackaging dietary OCD in another way. There’s nothing wrong with eating more fruits and vegetables, but worrying about acids and bases is entering a whole new area of navel gazing.

For Pete’s sake, man! Just eat real food! It really is that simple. When you eat real food, low-carb and low-fat become less important. Glycemic index becomes unimportant. And acid-base balance, if somehow it were to actually matter, takes care of itself. Stop the paralysis by analysis and just cut out the processed garbage.

You can spend your life debating dietary minutiae on Internet forums or you can eat real food, then perhaps go outside and try talking to real people or maybe take up a hobby with your new-found time.

So is this something that we really need to be concerned with or is it, as I said, just another way of complicating nutrition with an unhealthy dose of pseudo-science thrown in for good measure?

** Believe it or not, there’s actually a product called The Alkalizer that promotes “a wetter water for a better body,” because, of course, even regular water is acid-forming. That’s right! It’s not the sugar, fake fats, or processed grains you’re eating that are making you fat and sick. It’s the water coming out of your tap. In other news, I walked out to the end of the Ocean Beach Pier today and saw a surfer jump a shark. If you want a debunking of “ionized water,” check out this site.

Preventing Breast Cancer

I think we all agree that preventing and treating breast cancer is a good thing. We all have moms, sisters, wives, friends, and girlfriends that we want to be as healthy as possible. As such, I think we can all agree that finding the best ways to go about keeping our loved ones healthy is the best solution, while finding effective and efficient treatments is also of high importance.

Let’s take a look at a few things that have been in the news lately.

KFC: Pink-Washing

So let’s take a look at the new KFC campaign to make a large contribution to the Susan G. Komen For The Cure Foundation. By selling pink “Buckets For The Cure,” KFC intends to:

“Help make the largest single donation to end breast cancer forever.”

And it’s drawn the ire of pretty much everyone, particularly Breast Cancer Action, a group that is working to improve knowledge about the disease.

Back to KFC…I think we should take a good deep look at the ingredients in KFC’s products. Let’s look at the ingredients for the grilled chicken, which one would presume is fairly healthy. One would be wrong. From KFC’s website:

Fresh Chicken Marinated With Salt, Sodium Phosphate, and Monosodium Glutamate. Seasoned With: Maltodextrin, Salt, Bleached Wheat Flour, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and Cottonseed Oil, Monosodium Glutamate, Secret Kentucky Grilled Chicken Spices, Palm Oil, Natural Flavor, Garlic Powder, Soy Sauce (Soybean, Wheat, Salt), Chicken Fat, Chicken Broth, Autolyzed Yeast, Beef Powder, Rendered Beef Fat, Extractives of Turmeric, Dehydrated Carrot, Onion Powder, and Not More Than 2% Each of Calcium Silicate and Silicon Dioxide Added As Anticaking Agents.

Remember, this is the supposedly healthy stuff! In fact, very few of the foods on KFC’s menu don’t have partially hydrogenated oils (oddly, one of them is the Extra Crispy Chicken). Between the high levels of omega-6 fats (tied to breast cancer) in KFC’s foods and the trans fats in the partially hydrogenated fats (also tied to breast cancer), it’s similar to selling cigarettes to help prevent lung cancer.

Donations Are Good!

I know at least one of you is starting to steam from the ears and getting ready to unleash holy hell on me to tell me that any kind of donations are good. Don’t get me wrong. I think donating to these causes is a great thing. I think groups that help spread information and understanding about diseases and help people cope with them are great things. But I also think it’s important that we care about where the money comes from. Think back to my comment about selling cigarettes to contribute to lung cancer prevention…would you care about that?

When it comes to making donations, I agree with The Consumerist:

Or, you could make a healthy meal at home and use the money you saved on eating out to make a direct donation to a cancer charity.

I’m willing to bet you can cook your own chicken at home and make a much larger donation than the 50 cents KFC is going to give to Komen and probably still save money. Just remember to not get sucked into corporate marketing when you’re thinking about how to go about donating or which companies to support. Think Before You Pink is another good resource to help you cut through the fluff.

It’s Lifestyle Choices, Not Fast Food

Now that I’ve pointed out the fact that it’s unlikely KFC is going to do one iota of anything to help solve breast cancer, let’s face another fact: KFC is a corporation and, therefore, has one primary goal…making money. We shouldn’t really expect fast food companies to help solve our problems. We have to take that burden on ourselves, individually. I don’t expect anything different out of KFC, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, or any other food manufacturer.

In fact, as a proponent of capitalism, I think for a corporation to not do what makes it the most money is a disservice to its owners (shareholders). I can’t even be mad at KFC about this. And as an even bigger proponent of personal responsibility, our own individual actions have to go to showing companies that we aren’t duped by their marketing or seemingly false shows of concern.

We have to understand that lifestyle can increase the risk of getting certain diseases. Only by recognizing that can we start to make progress. I drive past numerous fast food restaurants daily without ending up with a load of French fries in my hands. It’s all about conscious choices. Of course, there are some genetic variations and certainly there are illnesses that have nothing to do with lifestyle, but for the most part, cancer isn’t one of them. In fact, according to The Mayo Clinic:

Can healthy eating and regular exercise really contribute to breast cancer prevention? So far, the evidence says yes. What’s more, if you combine these risk-reducing habits with limiting your exposure to substances that promote the disease, you’ll benefit even more.

Do you want a shocking statistic? How about this one?

Up to a third of breast cancer cases in Western countries could be avoided if women ate less and exercised more, researchers at a breast cancer conference said today

KFC (or any other fast food), in and of itself, is relatively harmless, so long as it’s a rare occurrence. It’s when your lifestyle revolves around highly processed foods that the damage is insurmountable. Now, we could look at what passes for healthy eating advice to see more ways to solve breast cancer and so many other diseases. The omega-6 thing is a big one…how many people have given up real fats for vegetable oils and vegetable oil-based margarines?

Still don’t believe me that the omega-6 fats are detrimental in the quantities we eat them? What women eat may affect kids, grandkids. Of course, they focus on the term “high fat” (and even throw in “bacon cheeseburger” at the end for good measure), but what they really mean is this:

The risk associated with high-fat diets, especially those high in omega-6 fatty acids….This imbalance has previously been linked to a host of health problems, including depression, infertility, heart disease and, yes, cancer.

Prevent First, Then Treat

“He who cures a disease may be the skillfullest, but he that prevents it is the safest physician.” ~ Thomas Fuller

As with all diseases, the first and best course of action should be prevention. In the instances where it’s too late for prevention, then choosing the best treatments is paramount. That’s where I think groups like Komen come in; first, educate people on how to live to avoid specific diseases and second, help find more effective, less invasive treatments.

Of course, remember that none of what I’m writing today is truly about KFC or breast cancer. KFC just happens to be an easy target and breast cancer is their chosen cause right now. It’s not about blaming people or pointing fingers. It’s about figuring out the best way to spread the information that people need to be healthy and vibrant.

What I’m really getting at is that preventing and treating disease isn’t about expecting a corporation to handle it for us. It’s about making conscious decisions to reduce our risk, as well as taking action ourselves to help treat those that are affected. To expect a corporation to take on that job is naive.

Real Prevention

Maybe some diseases aren’t 100% preventable, but we can and should do everything we can to reduce our risk as much as possible. As The Mayo Clinic pointed out, lifestyle is the best way to reduce your risk of getting any disease. And that comes from eating plenty of Real Food (and even enjoying yourself occasionally with not-so-real food), exercising, getting sun exposure to keep your vitamin D levels high, and getting plenty of sleep.

What do you think? Are we really taking the best course of action available to prevent diseases, not just breast cancer? How can we improve the ways we help people stay healthy and also how we treat those that fall ill?

Less is more in my book. Sometimes in a world full of massive information overload we need to step back and find more wisdom from within.

If you have seen my attempts at daily wisdom and wit on my Facebook status (as I know no one gives $0.02 about where I am and what I am really doing), I try to find quotes to inspire people to think about a deeper message, and apply to their life. Little words that pack a bigger punch.

So here are many of the top health and fitness quotes out there for you to read, ponder over and spread to others as well. Note that even without many of the modern advances in understanding through science/medicine, how true some of these quotes were from long ago.

You may agree with some, disagree with others, and others may just be funny…but if they make you think, then they have done their job. Enjoy!

• “So many people spend their health gaining wealth, and then have to spend their wealth to regain their health.” ~ A.J.Materi

• “To lengthen thy Life, lessen thy meals.” ~ Benjamin Franklin

• “If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.”  ~ Hippocrates

• “Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

• “He who cures a disease may be the skillfullest, but he that prevents it is the safest physician.” ~ Thomas Fuller

• “Health is the greatest of all possessions; a pale cobbler is better than a sick king.” ~ Isaac Bickerstaff

• “A man’s health can be judged by which he takes two at a time – pills or stairs.” ~ Joan Welsh

• “The ingredients of health and long life, are great temperance, open air, easy labor, and little care.”  ~ Sir Philip Sidney

• “He who enjoys good health is rich, though he knows it not.” ~ Italian Proverb

• “Be careful about reading health books.  You may die of a misprint.”  ~ Mark Twain

• “Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

• “The best of all medicines is resting and fasting” ~ Benjamin Franklin

• “Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.”  ~ Edward Stanley

• “Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it.”  ~ Plato

• “The greatest wealth is health.”  ~ Virgil

• To keep the body in good health is a duty… otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.” ~ Buddha

• “Health is the first muse, and sleep is the condition to produce it.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

• “An hour of basketball feels like 15 minutes.  An hour on a treadmill feels like a weekend in traffic school.”  ~ David Walters

• “Many so-called spiritual people, they overeat, drink too much, they smoke and don’t exercise. But they do go to church every week and pray ‘Please help my arthritis. Please help me bring up my strength, make me young again.’” ~ Jack LaLanne

• “To insure good health: eat lightly, breathe deeply, live moderately, cultivate cheerfulness, and maintain an interest in life.” ~ William Londen

• “As a child my family’s menu consisted of two choices:  take it or leave it.”  ~ Buddy Hackett

• “The more you eat, the less flavor; the less you eat, the more flavor.”  ~ Chinese Proverb

• “As for butter versus margarine, I trust cows more than chemists.”  ~ Joan Gussow

• “If you are surprised at the number of our maladies, count our cooks.” ~ Seneca

• “Most diseases are the result of medication which has been prescribed to relieve and take away a beneficiant and warning symptom on the part of Nature.” ~ Elbert Hubbard

• “The physically fit can enjoy their vices.” ~ Lord Percival

• “In general, mankind, since the improvement in cookery, eats twice as much as nature requires.”  ~ Benjamin Franklin

• “Most of the food allergies die under garlic and onion.”  ~ Martin H. Fischer

• “I think you might dispense with half your doctors if you would only consult Dr. Sun more.”  ~ Henry Ward Beecher

• “It’s not food if it arrived through the window of your car.” ~ Michael Pollan

• “Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing” ~ Voltaire

• “The word aerobics comes from two Greek words: aero, meaning “ability to,” and bics, meaning “withstand tremendous boredom” ~ Dave Barry

• “The doctor of the future will no longer treat the human frame with drugs, but rather will cure and prevent disease with nutrition.” ~ Thomas Edison

• “The deviation of man from the state in which he was originally placed by nature seems to have proved to him a prolific source of diseases” ~ Edward Jenner

• “There’s lots of people in this world who spend so much time watching their health that they haven’t the time to enjoy it. ” ~Josh Billings

• “Our food should be our medicine and our medicine should be our food.” ~ Hippocrates

• “I fear not the man who has practiced 10000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10000 times.” ~ Bruce Lee

• “Too many people confine their exercise to jumping to conclusions, running up bills, stretching the truth, bending over backward, lying down on the job, sidestepping responsibility and pushing their luck.” ~ Author Unknown

If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy my own personal quotes on Trainer Tells All about Health and Fitness here.

References: Thanks given to sites like Think Exist,  Brainy Quote, and Quote Garden for making many of these available.

Today, let’s talk about something that bugs me constantly. Far too often, I hear people talk about their ailments. First of all, people seem to wear them like a badge of honor, as if they’re trying to prove that they’re sicker and they have it worse than anyone else. Second, contrary to popular belief (or so it seems), it’s not normal to have various minor ailments that you deal with on a daily basis. I just have trouble believing these daily annoyances are how our bodies are intended to work.

So now we’re going to look at the lifestyle factors that influence some of the daily ailments that don’t get much press. Oh, sure, we all talk about cancer, heart disease, auto-immune diseases, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s. But what about the things that sufferers take for granted, like gastric reflux, migraines, and canker sores? Those ain’t normal either. Here are some dietary ways that you’re accidentally messing yourself up and making these things worse.

Gastric Reflux

This is probably the most common of all of them in this post. I mean, you can’t turn on a TV (or so I recall when I owned one) without seeing an advertisement for some drug meant to “cure” your reflux. Of course, their idea of “cure” is “manage by taking our little pill daily.” The other unfortunate piece of the puzzle is that those pills rarely fix the real problem (poor digestion), aiming instead at the suppressing acid production, which only makes digestion worse. Check this out from Dr. Briffa:

This week’s British Medical Journal carried an interesting editorial which suggests that proton pump inhibitors are massively over-prescribed. According to this editorial, between 25 and 70 per cent of individuals on these medications have no appropriate indication to be taking them.
….
My experience in practice is that many of these individuals are suffering from what might be described as ‘poor digestion.

So first of all, fix your digestion. Eat slower. Chew better. Add use some probiotics to reset the bacteria in your intestines.

And second, avoid these dietary factors that are known to make reflux worse.

• Our old friend, gluten
• Sugar
• Refined carbohydrates

Asthma

This one is a bit squishier, in that there’s less known about whether nutrition directly impacts asthma or not.

There’s no special asthma diet. We don’t know of any foods that reduce the airway inflammation of asthma. …However, a good diet is an important part of your overall asthma treatment plan. …What’s more, many doctors suspect that the specific foods you eat might have a direct impact on your asthma. But further research needs to be done before we understand the exact connection between asthma and diet.

What is known is that people that eat healthier diets have a lower incidence of asthma, so something somewhere is affecting the way the body works.

There’s evidence that people who eat diets higher in vitamins C and E, beta-carotene, flavonoids, magnesium, selenium, and omega-3 fatty acids have lower rates of asthma. Many of these substances are antioxidants, which protect cells from damage.

One recent study of asthma and diet showed that teens with poor nutrition were more likely to have asthma symptoms. Those who didn’t get enough fruits and foods with vitamins C and E and omega-3 fatty acids were the most likely to have poor lung function. A 2007 study showed that children who grew up eating a Mediterranean diet — high in nuts and fruits like grapes, apples, and tomatoes — were less likely to have asthma-like symptoms.

So foods may not trigger an asthma attack, but it definitely looks like eating Real Food is a good way to help prevent them.

Canker Sores

Ever had one of these suckers, more technically known as aphthous ulcers, in your mouth? I haven’t in ages, but I sure do remember gargling with salt water and the burn. Oh the burn! I have known people that get these pretty religiously and they certainly don’t enjoy it. Unfortunately, they also shrug it off as part of life instead of taking steps to fix it.

Good news…you can avoid these too. Food intolerance seems to be the biggie with these sores, as celiacs tend to have higher canker sore incidence, and gluten removal has shown some promise for people that get these commonly.

Supposedly, citrus fruits are thought to be a cause, but I’m inclined to think it’s something more like nutrient deficiencies which allow the acidity of the citrus fruits to damage the cells of the mouth. Deficiencies of the B-vitamins, along with some others like zinc and selenium have been positively correlated with canker sore incidence.

Of course, there’s also a known genetic correlation as well, so this one might not be completely preventable, but I’m inclined to think that a good diet is a great start. I know I haven’t had one in years and I used to get a couple per year when I didn’t eat quite so well.

Migraine Headaches

Oh boy, I used to get migraines a lot during puberty. About once a month, I’d get a crusher that would send me to a dark room because light and sound were like knives in my eyes and ears. Sometimes they made me vomit. The only cure was sleeping. Luckily, those subsided as I got older.

I still occasionally get one, but it’s rare and they aren’t as bad as when I was in a growth spurt. Now, the thing about migraines that’s different than the other ailments we looked at is that it’s not always unhealthy foods that trigger these. It can just be certain amino acids in foods and there are actually some very healthy foods that can trigger migraines. For instance, avocados, oranges, and bananas are trigger foods for some people. I can vouch for avocados…normally, I can eat avocados with no concerns. But if I have a minor headache, eating an avocado is a sure-fire way to take it up several notches.

Apparently, these can also exacerbate the issue (not that these are all “healthy”):

• Alcohol, particularly red wine and beer (another one I can vouch for)
• Chocolate
• Fermented foods, due to high tyrosine content
• Nuts
• Dairy
• MSG

And of course, there’s a good bit of evidence linking our favorite culprit in…well, dang near everything, to migraines: gluten. Food intolerance, in general, is thought to be a culprit and gluten is one substance that is poorly tolerated by many people.

You Don’t Have To Be Sick

So while these ailments might not get the exposure that the less “glamorous” diseases, for people that deal with them, they definitely range from irritating to downright debilitating. Rest assured, none of this stuff is the way the body should work and you don’t have to just shrug your shoulders and say “I guess that’s the way it is for me.”

Of course, diet alone isn’t the only culprit for these, especially for things like migraines, which can also be triggered by long periods of time staring at a TV or computer screen or any number of other things. But just as in other areas of health, it’s a huge piece of the puzzle and always a good place to look for initial steps to resolve the issue.

Any other thoughts on these ailments and how lifestyle factors affect them?

So here they are (with the original articles linked as well) in no particular order for you to enjoy!

Best Quotes/One liners of 2009:

The point being in your battle against weight loss, you need to start where it matters the most…in how and what you eat. From there you compliment your efforts with “effective” exercise…and not “excessive” exercise. Too many people are being excessive in what they do, expecting faster results somehow.
- Aerobics (Cardio) is Not Your Priority in Lasting Weight Loss

With the caveat that sugar intake should be VERY minimal, I’d rather go ahead and give my body the substance that it can process rather than some unknown chemical. … Again, better is a relative term. It’s better to smoke one pack of cigarettes than to smoke two packs. Cocaine is probably less harmful than crack. That doesn’t make it healthy. It’s even better to do neither.
- Real Sugar Vs. Artificial Sweeteners: Which Is Better?

I eat clean 90% of the time so that the other 10% of the time, I can relax and do whatever. I can eat sushi without being concerned about the rice. I can dig into the chips and guacamole at a Mexican place before my plate-load of carnitas. I can have a drink or two while watching football with friends.
- Cheat Meals, Flexible Eating, and Dietary OCD

“Stimulate and don’t annihilate”
- Get Bigger Muscles by…Walking?

In the end, we all just need to go back to the basics. Eat Real Food! Do that and you can forget worrying about the cardiovascular protection of omega-3s or how many egg yolks you should eat to lower your blood pressure.
- How A Paleo/Primal Eating Plan Improves Your Health; And Why None Of It Matters

Along with trans fats, sugar is the worst thing you can put in your body.
- Marketing Lies: There Is No Such Thing As “Healthy Sugar”

Perfection is an illusion, it means there is some final destination to be achieved (and disappointment to be had if you don’t get there). Strive for living daily instead, not trying to achieve a goal that your happiness is depending on. Your happiness is now.
- Deep Thoughts……More on Weight Loss, Health, and Living

So many people accept illness as a regular part of being alive. But is it really? Is illness the normal human life, an inevitable part of drawing breath? I don’t think it is.
- How Do You Repair Your Immune System?

Many people are overweight despite eating hardly any food…so while calorie deficit is needed to lose weight, it’s only in relation to how optimal the overall metabolism is running in the first place. Have a hampered liver and it will also negatively affect your fat burning metabolism.
- Speed Up Your Metabolism – Fatty Liver Disease

You probably noticed I left one off. Here’s a statement to ruffle some feathers: Do not drink soy milk. If you want to know why, go back to the anti-nutrient section. Add to that very high levels of omega-6 fatty acids in soy fat. It’s really not good for you.
- Nutrition In Milk And Milk Substitutes

We have seen healthy societies with various %s (high and low) of carb intake but they all have one big thing in common…they all eat natural “real foods”. They also have another thing in common, once people from their culture move into a more “modernized” food environment, then the health benefits seen previously decrease dramatically.
- Are Low Carb Diets Over-rated for Health and Longevity?

The reality is that humans started cooking food because it makes food more easily digestible, rather than making it more difficult to digest. There are some exceptions, but for the most part, this is true. And the only measure of how nutritious a food is is how well the body can digest it.
- Are Raw Vegetables Healthier Than Cooked Vegetables?

If you don’t like something….change it or quit whining about it. Anyone can change their job, anyone can move to a different state, anyone can stop doing so much inorder to spend more time with family, anyone can make time for simple exercise, anyone can find ways to eat healthier. Dump the excuses and just take action to make a change now.
- Urgent Changes to Make in Your Vocabulary Today (for Health and Happiness)

Proteins and fat lowered a bit % wise, but carb% increased dramatically (primarily thanks to the whole “low fat” movement that could turn out the be the worst advice ever given). We are not saying carbs are the enemy, but we know that quality matters…..so let’s see where we are getting our carbs from. While fruits and vegetables have marginally increased, cereal grains and sugars have skyrocketed.
- Obesity, Diabetes, and Other Diseases vs Food Trends in Pictures

So knowing that pastured eggs are markedly more nutritious than conventional eggs, along with being more flavorful and safer, you have another reason to support your local farmers. Pastured eggs are more expensive, but they are also more nutritious. Check out your local farmer’s markets and buying clubs.
- The Truth About Free Range, Organic, Cage Free Eggs Nutrition

“If you told me you were going to jail and only had a barbell and didn’t want to get raped in the showers and could only do one exercise to put mass and strength on, then I’d tell you to do the snatch deadlift on a platform.”
- The Best Muscle Building Exercise…If You Had to Pick One

If you’ve been around here for any length of time, you already know that I’m no fan of grains, whether processed or whole. Unfortunately, those of us that think such blasphemous things against those “wholesome” grains are an anomaly. So for those that still think whole grains are an important, healthy, wholesome, and necessary part of the diet, let’s look at just a few of the issues.
- The Real Truth About Those “Healthy Whole Grains”

It all boils down to the simple equation that if you put your feet in a stiff shoe, you are not going to use all the muscles in your feet. What happens when you don’t use muscles? They get weak. Add an addition unnatural stride (heel striking) with weak feet and you create instability at the base of your body (your feet hitting the ground). That translates up your knees, legs, back and creates compensatory movements (such as overpronation) and injuries.
- Cure all Running Injuries (and Pain) with One Simple Fix….Barefoot Running

Instability of the scapula is a major cause of shoulder issues, so my goal is to teach the muscles to work together to make sure my scapula is moving within the joint as it should be. And there are a load of muscles that connect to this bone: deltoid, traps, biceps, pectoralis minor, rhomboids, serratus, and rotator cuff to name a majority.
- How To Improve Scapular Stability For Healthy Shoulders

IF is not about starvation, it’s not about crash dieting, and it’s not about quick weight loss (even if results may happen quickly for some). To me it’s all about a lifestyle and lasting approach to improving your health, redefining your relationship with food, to reduce unnatural cravings, get back in tune with the natural survival design of our bodies, optimizing your glucose energy metabolism and just an easy and simple approach to lasting results.
- Intermittent Fasting has a New Name….Intermittent Feeding

As you can see, I don’t think that you need to 100% give up coffee or alcohol to be healthy. I enjoy both and am unlikely to go completely clean from either. If you stick with the a low intake of both and pay attention to how you feel after having them, there’s no reason that you have to be completely ascetic.
- Caffeine, Alcohol, And Health – How Much Is Too Much?

The bottom line is that humans have been eating eggs, meat, and butter for a really long time without heart disease and cancer. Yet somehow, now heart disease and cancer run rampant and the food industry is always there to protect us from eating these wholesome foods.
- Real Foods Take On Fake Foods: Butter, Bacon, And Eggs

Wrapping up the year, we mainly want to thank YOU the readers for making this a great 2009 at Fitness Spotlight (with all your contributions/comments). We look forward to more great things to come in 2010!

- Mike and Scott

PS. If you have any great quotes or one liners you heard this year, please feel free to share them in the comments below as well.

It’s nearly Jan 1st, time for the dreaded “New Year’s Resolution” (a topic for another day). That means lots of people you know, and possibly you yourself, are going to be making a commitment to making positive health changes. So today is going to be one of those high-level posts that brings together lots of disparate pieces of information to build a complete view of what we really propose around here. I’m going to link to several of our old posts for you to use to dig a bit deeper. Pass this along to anyone you know that is looking to make a change.

Why It Matters

But first, let’s take a look at why it even matters. Check out this article I came across a couple days ago: U.S. diabetes cases to double, costs triple by 2034

By 2034, nearly twice as many Americans will have diabetes and spending on the disease will triple, further straining the U.S. health system and testing the viability of Medicare and other government health insurance programs, U.S. researchers said on Friday. …. will rise from approximately 24 million people to 44 million people by the year 2034 …. “We anticipate that the cost of taking care of those people — and these are direct medical costs — will triple over the same period of time, going from $113 billion today to $336 billion (per year),” Huang said in a telephone interview.

Ouch! Today about 11% of Americans are diabetic, about 95% of those being Type II diabetic, the kind that comes from your lifestyle. That means it’s preventable. And even if you aren’t full-blown diabetic, there are plenty of other issues that come from an unhealthy lifestyle. You could say that this is my proposal to fix the healthcare system by keeping you from needing it.

So here are eight tips that will accomplish two goals for you: they’ll make you healthier. You’ll be sick less often. You’ll feel better. And more importantly, what we all really care about, you’ll look better. Your bulges will bulge less. Your clothes will fit better and you’ll need less of them to look great. Your confidence will go up. You’ll have fun in the process instead of trudging through more flavorless “healthy” meals and another boring workout.

1. Eat Real Food 90% Of The Time

To beat a dead horse once again, the cornerstone of your health is what you eat (and what you don’t eat). Most of your results come from what you eat. So start with just eating real food. What is real food? As I discussed before,

• Food grows and dies. It isn’t created.
• Food rots, wilts, and becomes generally unappetizing, typically rather quickly.
• Food doesn’t need an ingredient label (and probably isn’t in a package either).
• Food doesn’t have celebrity endorsements.
• Food doesn’t make health claims.

You might be thinking that eliminates a lot of foods, but really all it eliminates are food imposters, things designed to look, taste, and smell like food, but that destroy your body. Here’s a not-so-brief list of the foods you’re left with:

beef, chicken, turkey, pork, salmon, shrimp, crab, lobster, eggs, cheese. Spinach, kale, cucumbers, carrots, turnips, squash (spaghetti, butternut, and acorn to name a few), sweet potatoes, collard greens, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, onions, radishes, bok choi, olives, cabbage. (Deep breath.) Apples, bananas, cherries, melons, berries (straw, black, rasp, and blue), pears. Almonds, walnuts, pistachios, Brazil nuts. Coconut oil, palm oil, butter, olive oil. And let’s not forget herbs and spices like parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme (thank you Simon and Garfunkel), garam masala, curry powder, paprika, cumin, cinnamon, garlic, ginger, and nutmeg.

Inevitably, there are a few gray areas like packaged bulk products, such as nuts and olives. I think you can probably figure these out on your own. If it is a natural product, something that doesn’t come from a laboratory, it’s fair game. Olives are fruits and nuts are…well, nuts. Don’t over-think things. You know what foods will make you healthier and what won’t.

If you need some help figuring out how to cook all of these new foods that have probably never been in your kitchen before, check out Naked Food Cooking.

2. Eat What You Want 10% Of The Time

I touched on how I handle treat meals a few weeks ago. Basically, I don’t schedule them, but just allow them to happen, knowing that the way I live the rest of the time pretty much keeps them from being any big deal.

But pick vices that you really enjoy. If chocolate cake isn’t your thing, don’t eat it. Wait for the pumpkin pie or whatever really tickles your fancy. Don’t eat junk just because it’s there. On that note, pick smart vices, like good dark chocolate or high-quality ice cream. Limit caffeine and alcohol, but you don’t have to completely eliminate them.

3. Train Hard, But Short

Next up, be active. Make movement a normal part of your lifestyle. You don’t have to train like you’re in the Olympics to be healthy and active. However, I do recommend some level of short-duration, high-intensity training. There are any number of things you can do. Ross Enamait has quite a few books for intense home-based exercise. I really like his old-school style, complete with sledgehammers, kegs, sandbags, and tires. Vic Magary at Gym Junkies has a site jam-packed with good info.

Charles Staley is another old-school guy that has lots of good material out there. Escalating Density Training is one of his books on building muscle and losing fat. I was actually watching a few of his videos yesterday morning from a talk he gave called Your Workout Sucks. If you have 45 minutes or so, it’s worth a watch/listen.

It can even be as simple as bodyweight exercises that you do in your living room or hotel room. Mike and I have a random workout generator that’ll get your heart pumping and help burn some calories. You can be completely done with an intense workout in less than thirty minutes. There’s really no more needed for just being healthy. I like all of these workouts here because they are short, intense, and fun.

4. Have An Active Lifestyle

The 45 minutes every day or two that you spend intensely training doesn’t mean you should sit around the rest of the time. Take a walk, go for a hike, ride a bike, throw a Frisbee or football, ski or snowboard…the possibilities are endless. Just turn off the TV and get outside for some fresh air and sunshine (see #6).

I think this is a key difference between people that struggle to make their life health-oriented and those that don’t. If you enjoy getting outside, enjoy walking around in nature, enjoy a bike ride (whether a leisurely ride or tearing it up on some trails), you won’t need to worry too much about whether you’re active enough. You’ll find reasons to get up and move just because it feels good.

5. Compete

I bet there are a lot of people that are going to disagree with me outright on this one. Competing often takes on a negative connotation and some seem to think we should avoid it for the most part. There’s no reason that it needs to be a negative. Competition can be quite the motivator and increase your enjoyment as long as it doesn’t become an obsession or keep you from enjoying what you’re doing.

Recreational sports leagues are great for getting a bit of competition, but keeping it fun. In the past 6 months, I’ve been in a co-ed softball league, a kickball league (yes, kickball!), and a flag football league. It’s not “exercise”…it’s being active without feeling like you’re “working out”. It’s competing, but it’s just for fun. There’s nothing on the line. I had a blast playing in all three of these leagues, though I think we only won 4 softball games, 3 or 4 kickball games, and 2 football games, which just shows that you don’t have to be great and win to have a great time.

Along with rec league sports, you can join any number of Master’s sports, from Track and Field to swimming, from Olympic weightlifting to powerlifting. I can vouch for Master’s Track and Field…it’s fun and there’s a competitive, but supportive, spirit of people with similar interests and camaraderie.

6. Embrace The Great Outdoors

I’m not talking about the John Candy movie. Anyone that’s been around here for more than a month has already been beat over the head with this information a few times. For the newcomers, here’s a tip: you need sunlight to be healthy. That’s not sunlight while slathered in chemicals to “protect your skin,” but sunlight on exposed skin.

Your body needs sunlight to make vitamin D. It drives your immune system. It staves off dementia. It helps your body fight off cancer. It looks like it might even improve muscle power. Read more in-depth on my previous posts about vitamin D here and here.

That doesn’t mean to go sit in the sun for 8 hours with no clothes on. Just get some sun on exposed skin.

7. Sleep More

In today’s hard-charging, get-ahead, “success-oriented” society, sleep is one of the first things to go. It’s funny that sleeping less is viewed as a hallmark of success. Nutrition may be #1, but sleep is a close second place when it comes to how healthy you are.

How much should you sleep? 7.5 to 9 hours per night. Unfortunately, most of us have to get up early to get to work. That means you need to go to bed earlier. In the winter especially, when the sun is down early, you should be going to bed earlier. Rise and fall with the sun…okay, maybe not at 6pm, but try to be in bed by 10:30.

8. Relax

My final tip is to find simple ways to relax. We spend most of our time very wound up and stressed. Jobs, commutes, crazy bosses and coworkers, running to and from soccer and cheerleading practice…the list goes on. Add in a recession, possible money issues, “flu pandemics”, and the nightly news full of worldwide stressors and it’s no wonder we’re always so tense. With all that we have going on, few of us actually take the time to just chill out.

In the past couple years, I’ve come up with several things that help me to relax and unwind.

• Playing Drums – I’ve talked before about the importance of having a hobby. Find a hobby that is both challenging and stress-relieving.
• Reading Fiction – As much as I love reading and researching nutrition, fitness, and health, a good novel really helps me fall asleep. I’m currently about 1/3 of the way through The Count Of Monte Cristo. It’s always great to find a good page-turner.
• Crossword Puzzles – It’s a challenge, it works my mind, and it’s fun.

Your relaxation may be different, but I think it’s key to come up with something that works for you. It might be yoga or cooking or knitting sweaters for your dogs. Stamp collecting, wood working, building marble rollercoasters (I had this when I was young and it was uber-cool!)…the possibilities are limited only by what you find fun.

I’ll tell you something else that I’ve done in the past few years…simplifying my life. I got rid of the superfluous items and kept only what I need and use. I don’t own a TV (which thoroughly confused the guy that showed up at my door to try to upsell me cable to go with my net connection) because I don’t watch it and don’t see a need to pay for cable TV that I don’t use. I don’t necessarily advise that for you, but it works for me. My residence is very uncluttered…enough furniture, a drum set, a few pictures that I really like, a well-stocked kitchen, and plenty of open space. It’s not all feng shui or anything, but it’s simple, yet sufficient.

Leo Babauta of Zen Habits is the king of simplicity. There’s a lot that we can all learn from him. I recommend checking out his three books on learning to live simply and get more enjoyment out of living.

(The link takes you to the special purchase page for a package Leo put together for Fitness Spotlight readers, which includes instant downloads to all three of his ebooks in a single discounted package: The Simple Guide To A Minimalist Life, Zen To Done, and The Handbook For Life.)

Keeping “The Stool” Upright

I came up with an analogy awhile back that, while not perfect, works to illustrate how the various puzzle pieces fit together. I like to view health as standing on a stool and sickness as falling off the stool. The four legs are the major categories of Nutrition, Lifestyle (sleep, sunlight exposure), Environment (toxin exposure), and Activity (training and general active lifestyle).

If you think about the stool, it’s obviously easy to stay on top of it if all four areas are in place. If three areas are solid, you can probably stay upright most of the time. For instance, maybe you are a firefighter or doctor or EMT that works a non-traditional schedule. Your sleep is probably disrupted, so focusing on the other elements is even more important. You might get sick now and again, but for the most part, you’ll be healthy. Neglect two areas and that stool is very wobbly. Neglect three or more and you can forget about it.

Like I said, it’s not a perfect analogy. For one, I think the Nutrition “leg” is the most important one. Second, I find the various categories to be interdependent. The better I eat, the better I sleep. The more I sleep, the easier I find it to eat well. The better I eat and sleep, the better I recover from exercise. Regardless, it’s illustrative enough to work for me. Thoughts?

Let’s round out a full ten tips. I gave 8. If a friend asked you for ten tips to help them look and feel better, what would you add to this list? What would you drop?

Today, I want to look at what I consider to be a couple of minor vices, provided their consumption is “moderate”. Moderate…how’s that for a word that has a million meanings? One person’s “moderation” is another person’s “excessive”. So today, we’ll look at two very common “drugs” used by the general populace, myself included, and try to figure out what is a “moderate” intake that won’t cause any health problems for most people.

Coffee, Coffee, Coffee

Sleep is a symptom of caffeine deprivation. ~Author Unknown

Coffee smells like freshly ground heaven. ~Jessi Lane Adams

First things first, obviously there are many other sources of caffeine besides coffee, but tea has very little and you already know I can’t get with energy drinks. So for me (and most other healthy folks), my only real source of caffeine is coffee. Sure, I drink some green or white tea, but the overall caffeine content is low (we’ll discuss that further in a couple sections).

The Effects Of Caffeine

At its heart, caffeine is a stimulant. It causes an increase in three stress hormones: cortisol, adrenaline and norepinephrine. This basically causes a “fight or flight” response – elevated heart rate, increased blood pressure, decreased blood flow to the digestive tract, and a general energetic feeling.

Caffeine binds to adenosine receptors in the brain, decreasing the action of adenosine, as well as decreasing the release of GABA (Gamma-Amino Butyric Acid). When adenosine binds to receptors, it causes drowsiness. GABA inhibits nerve transmissions, so this decrease explains the jitters that comes with too much caffeine, as well as the extra energy boost you get from a normal amount of caffeine.

Caffeine also stimulates the secretion of stomach acid. Combine that with the effect of decreasing lower esophageal sphincter pressure and it could exacerbate acid reflux.

Further, caffeine increases urinary calcium and magnesium loss.

The results of this study indicate that renal conservation does not fully compensate for the effect of caffeine on calcium and magnesium excretion. Regular consumption of caffeine may contribute to the causation of osteoporosis by promoting depletion of these two important minerals.

As you can see, this little alkaloid causes a host of effects in the body. It has broad reach in terms of waking you up. Somewhere in the chain of effects, it stimulates the release of dopamine, a “feel good” hormone, making you generally more upbeat, along with being more awake.

Caffeine Metabolism

The body metabolizes caffeine into three substances:

1. Paraxanthine: promotes the release of glycerol and free fatty acids into the blood stream (which likely causes caffeine’s performance-enhancing effects)
2. Theobromine: dilates blood vessels and increases urine volume
3. Theophylline: smooths muscles of the bronchi

Just like every other substance, caffeine has a half-life, or the amount of time it takes the body to eliminate half of it. The half-life of caffeine…

…varies widely among individuals according to such factors as age, liver function, pregnancy, some concurrent medications, and the level of enzymes in the liver needed for caffeine metabolism. In healthy adults, caffeine’s half-life is approximately 3-4 hours. In women taking oral contraceptives this is increased to 5-10 hours, and in pregnant women the half-life is roughly 9-11 hours. Caffeine can accumulate in individuals with severe liver disease when its half-life can increase to 96 hours. In infants and young children, the half-life may be longer than in adults; half-life in a newborn baby may be as long as 30 hours. Other factors such as smoking can shorten caffeine’s half-life.

When it comes to “drugs,” it really doesn’t get much safer than caffeine. The effective dose is low (25-50mg) and the lethal dose is very high, between 150-200mg/kg of body weight. So unless you quaff 80-100 cups of the stuff in a short time frame, you’re not going to keel over. Of course, you could probably pull that off with concentrated caffeine pills, but you don’t need me to tell you it’s a bad idea.

How Much Caffeine Is In…

I mentioned that coffee is my only major source of caffeine (and also the main stimulant used worldwide). Let’s compare it to some other caffeine sources, just for grins. (Source: Energy Fiend)

• Drip Coffee – 145mg
• Single-shot Americano – 77mg
• Green Tea – 25mg
• White Tea – 15mg

So from that, you can see my point about tea. You’d have to drink 48oz of green tea to equal 8oz of coffee in terms of caffeine content.

How Much Caffeine Is Healthy?

Going back to that bit about cortisol, it’s interesting that the body adapts to morning caffeine consumption by reducing the cortisol effect, but it doesn’t adapt to afternoon coffee and cortisol release remains high.

In contrast, 5 days of caffeine intake at 300 mg/day and 600 mg/day abolished the cortisol response to the initial 9:00 AM caffeine dose, although cortisol levels were again elevated between 1:00 PM and 7:00 PM (p = .02 to .002) after the second caffeine dose taken at 1:00 PM. Cortisol levels declined to control levels during the evening sampling period.

My thinking after looking at all this is that being a non-user is healthier than being a user. I’d never really dug into all of the effects of caffeine other than “energy” and “diuretic,” so this was all pretty interesting. So here’s my take on it all:

• No more than 2 cups per day (that’s 6-8oz cups, not 12oz or larger mugs). Even better if you don’t drink it daily.
• Keep your caffeine consumption to the morning. When I have coffee, I’m usually done by 10am.
• Do not use caffeine to fuel an unhealthy, low-sleep lifestyle. This sets up a feedback loop of disrupted sleep, more caffeine to compensate, and even further sleep loss.
• Cycle on and off. I go caffeine-free for a couple weeks when I notice that I’m getting immune to the effects of my 2 cups.

Basically, I doubt a cup or two in the morning is going to do any real damage. In fact, timed properly, it may increase sports performance, especially for endurance type activities. If you’re downing a pot everyday, you’re probably excessively stressing your adrenals, keeping your body in a constant state of stress (which we know we don’t need more of in our modern lifestyle), and possibly causing other health issues, such as immune system suppression and vitamin/mineral depletion.

Obviously, if caffeine is affecting your sleep, you’re doing something wrong. And it goes without saying that sugar in your coffee is not doing you any favors either.

Coffee Alternatives

While searching for info for this article, I came across a coffee substitute that supposedly brews and tastes just like coffee. It’s called Teeccino. Anyone ever tried it? If so, what are your thoughts? I’m thinking of checking it out to see what it’s all about.

Teeccino Caffeine-free Herbal Coffee is a delicious blend of herbs, grains, fruits and nuts that are roasted and ground to brew and taste just like coffee.

I think part of the allure of coffee is the morning ritual of making it, smelling it, and drinking it. So perhaps this is a good caffeine-free alternative.

Decaffeinated coffee is another option, but I’m not sure about the process they use to take the caffeine out. I was looking at the Wikipedia page about the decaffeination process…some sound pretty benign, using just hot water or coffee oils. Others use chemical solvents. And I’m not sure how you figure out which method your favorite decaf uses, so I think I’ll either go with regular coffee or no coffee.

How Much Alcohol Is Healthy?

What prompted me to write about alcohol again? Two things actually…first, it’s the holidays and there are a lot of parties and a lot of opportunities to indulge. Second, I’ve seen some talk that all alcohol does is cause problems from some members of the fitness community. So let’s quickly take a look.

I’m not going to go real in-depth with alcohol here. I’ve touched on alcohol three times before, so here are those three articles if you want a bit more information:

• Does Booze Have A Place In A Healthy Diet?
• The Detriments Of Heavy Drinking
• More Information On Drinking

To summarize those three articles, alcohol is a substance that can damage your liver, cause short-term hypertension, decrease testosterone production, increase estrogen production, and cause vitamin deficiencies. But there’s a major caveat to that. You have to drink excessively to do that kind of damage.

Basically, there is a major difference between getting drunk and having a glass of wine with dinner. There’s a major difference between joining friends for a couple beers (and pizza perhaps?) and staying up till 4am taking Jagermeister shots and playing beer pong. And there’s even a major difference between throwing down once or twice a year (complete with waking up hating life and dragging through the next day) and going out like a frat boy every weekend.

Obviously, I don’t advise getting drunk, especially to the point of a hangover. But it happens, even to me. You get to hanging out with friends, things get a little loose, and the next day, you realize that you had about 3 too many. What I’m advising is exactly like what I advised with cheat meals…don’t do it all the time, and if it happens, get back on the wagon and don’t beat yourself up. If you’re hungover every Saturday or Sunday, you should probably re-examine your commitment to treating your body right though.

Don’t Forget The Holiday Survival Guide

The holiday season is upon us, starting Thursday (at least here in the States) with Thanksgiving. The holidays are a time filled with family, friends, and parties. You’ll likely be drinking more, eating worse (and more), and sleeping less. In the interest of not blowing all your hard work, while still enjoying your holidays and the time with relatives and friends you rarely see, check out our Holiday Survival Guide. Don’t let the holidays be a 6 week backwards slide.

My Caffeine And Alcohol Recommendations

As you can see, I don’t think that you need to 100% give up coffee or alcohol to be healthy. I enjoy both and am unlikely to go completely clean from either. If you stick with the a low intake of both and pay attention to how you feel after having them, there’s no reason that you have to be completely ascetic.

So here are a few additional tips:

• Don’t drink bad coffee. Skip the swill at work and find a local roaster. As with all other vices, make sure you really enjoy it. You’ll pay more, but it’ll taste much better. Better yet, get a good grinder and grind the beans from your local roaster at home just before you make the coffee. Good coffee for less money.
• On that note, don’t drink bad beer either. If you are a beer drinker, find good microbrews with some flavor instead of the watered-down brews so many are convinced is “beer”.
• Opt for wine or distilled spirits to avoid the gluten load of beer. When I drink, it’s typically a good bourbon like Woodford Reserve (hey, I’m from Kentucky…it’s in my blood), vodka (either an infused vodka with club soda or plain vodka with club soda and lime), or wine.
• Pay more, drink less. Just to reiterate once again…whether it’s alcohol, coffee, chocolate, ice cream, or any other treat, spend more on good stuff that is more flavorful and more satisfying. I’d rather have 1 glass of Woodford Reserve on the rocks than 3 shots of Jim Beam.

While there’s no need for either caffeine or alcohol, there’s also no drawback to a little caffeine or a drink or two sometimes if they tickle your fancy. If you don’t drink either, there’s no reason to start. If you drink one or both, keep it reasonable and you’ll be fine.

And if you’re running around telling people that the lone glass of great single malt scotch is going harm them, you’re a) talking nonsense and b) probably just trying to make yourself feel better about your ascetic lifestyle by showing how much “better” you are than others and how “pure” your “temple” is. Get over yourself.

How much caffeine do you drink? How much alcohol? Do you think either one has a place in a healthy lifestyle?