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Category Archives: Cholesterol
Yes, Eggs Are High in Cholesterol, But Why Should We Care?
Cholesterol – is there a more controversial topic in the world of nutrition? For years, we were told that cholesterol is one of the most important biomarkers of health, particularly cardiovascular health. Prominent government- and health-related institutions have traditionally recommended upper limits on dietary cholesterol of 300 mg/day (effectively limiting egg consumption to 1 egg per day.) A recommendation based on the theory that dietary cholesterol – the cholesterol contained in food – negatively impacts cholesterol found in the blood, called serum cholesterol. With the emergence of more and more scientific evidence, however, this theory has become increasingly untenable, causing…
Ditch the Diets, Focus on Food!
How following a Paleo-inspired eating regime can be your ticket to permanent fat loss once and for all. How are those resolutions you made for 2016 coming along so far? Are you on track, or are you part of the nearly 80 million Americans who don’t even stick with their goals for a single week?1 From losing that extra weight you’ve put on during the holidays, making regular exercise a higher priority or just trying to make healthier food choices to feel better, chances are strong that you’re one of the 45% of Americans who have resolved to take charge…
Reversing Nutritional Deficiencies by Eliminating Entire Food Groups
Do you believe that “our modern lifestyles, including nutrition, are the cause of current health problems?” If so, you could be susceptible to “fad diets,” according to the United Dairy Industry of Michigan (UDIM). Last week, the organization’s Technical Advisor for Nutrition, Lois McBean, wrote that those who follow the Paleo diet “are likely setting themselves up for nutritional deficiencies by eliminating entire food groups such as dairy, grains, and legumes.”1 McBean went on to observe, “Such restrictive diets are not consistent with current dietary recommendations including USDA’s MyPlate or the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.” It’s interesting that she…
Charismatic Paleo Bloggers: Rigorous Caution Required
INTRODUCTION Some of the most well recognized names in the “Paleosphere” surprisingly maintain few professional, academic, or even experiential credentials which would qualify them as scientists, researchers or even lay experts in the discipline. These self proclaimed, charismatic authorities have influenced and continue to influence hundreds of thousands of people based upon nothing more than their untested subjective opinions and limited understanding of the scientific, peer review literature. Most have never been trained in the research process, few maintain anything more than a bare bones understanding of the scientific method and don’t have even the slightest inkling of the statistical…
New Financial Study: The Smart Money’s On Paleo
For a nutritional concept to gain traction and remain relevant, nothing matters more than its ability to generate cold, hard cash. In the past, this usually meant governments (and their allied health institutions) would promote certain theories (e.g. the low-fat theory of cardiovascular disease), thereby creating consumer demand, and food manufacturers would respond, formulating products to meet that demand. Whether or not the theories were scientifically sound was relatively unimportant. In the future, this demand creation model will reverse. Consumers will access scientifically sound nutrition advice, either directly through scientific journals or via independent health advocates, educators, and journalists. This…
First Systematic Review of the Paleo Diet
The Paleo diet is the hottest diet in the world. It was ranked as the top diet related term searched in Google for 2013 and 2014. Celebrities are on it. Politicians are on it. It’s on the news. It’s what people are talking about. It’s also controversial. Paleo advocates selecting foods based on evolutionary theories and principles. This doesn’t make sense to everyone. Some have argued that it’s impossible to know what our ancestors from the Paleolithic era ate. Others have argued that there is no clinical evidence to support Paleo. A 2014 US News and World report ranking popular…
The End of the Low-Fat Era?
The year was 1977. The US Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, led by Senator George McGovern, issued the first Dietary Goals for Americans, thereby marking the beginning of the low-fat era of dietary nutrition, arguably the most misguided period of government-led nutrition ever. After 38 years, however, the low-fat era might officially end later this year. The Dietary Goals evolved into the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) and Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Dietary Guidelines for Americans, later represented as the Food Pyramid and, currently, as MyPlate. The Guidelines’ dominant theme has been that calories consumed…
Easy With That Salt Shaker: The Effect of Dietary Salt On Sleep
INTRODUCTION Got sleep? Fact is many of us have a problem sleeping. You probably fall into one category, either being unable to sleep, or not getting enough sleep. In actuality, “counting sheep” and staring at the clock may be the favorite pastimes of many adults. Poor sleep quality, and associated sleep disorders like insomnia remain at the foremost of global health issues. For many, a common solution to tiredness entails having a daily fix of caffeine. Yet, the negative effects of caffeine on the heart, as well as the importance of sleep in regulating chemical imbalances within the brain, cannot…
New Research Highlights Health Benefits of High Protein Diets
There’s no such thing as an inherently high protein diet. What we commonly call high protein diets are simply diets containing more protein than those recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Institute of Medicine (IOM), and other institutions. But institutions, of course, can and have been wrong. We have seen this, for example, with respect to trans fats, dietary cholesterol, and other important areas of nutrition. So what if so-called high protein diets are actually an optimal-protein and what if the diets recommended by the aforementioned institutions are actually suboptimal? A new study, recently published in the American…
Evolution and High Protein Diets Part 3
Did you miss Evolution and High Protein Diets Part 1? Click Here to Read It! Did you miss Evolution and High Protein Diets Part 2? Click Here to Read It! DIETARY PROTEIN: HEALTH AND WELL BEING Establishing Cause and Effect between Diet and Disease One of the challenges faced by nutritional scientists when they ultimately make recommendations regarding what we should and should not eat is to establish cause and effect between a dietary element and the subsequent development or prevention of disease. Some foods and some dietary habits promote good health whereas others promote disease. No single procedure alone…
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