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I was assigned to do a “media project” for school, so I wrote a blog post. I figured I’d use it for the project and figured I’d use it here too, to help people understand some of the nitty gritty of hangry. I’ll post soon about what do do about it. How to prevent it, or at least lessen the symptoms.

 

Do you get “hangry”? Some describe this as the feeling of “low blood sugar”, “grumpy hungry” or just plain irritable. You know that time of day when it’s just been too long since you last ate.  Huffington Post has an article describing the symptoms and the emotional component added when you get hungry. You’re brain and gut are intricately related and when one needs something, it talks to the other and vice versa. And they usually need the same things, so it works out perfectly.

The avoidance of “hangry” is the biggest argument to eating 5 small meals a day. This comes with the benefits of keeping your insulin levels stable, improving insulin sensitivity and helping prevent diabetes. You avoid the cravings and are less likely to lose your will power.  You may remember my previous post called 2 meals and your pancreas where I talked a little about why a few studies showed eating 2 meals might be better for your pancreas as well as weight loss, but if you are trying to avoid the “hangry.” 5-6 small meals is the way to go.

Your liver is supposed to release stored energy when you haven’t eaten in a while to prevent your cells from going hungry. So why do we get this “hangry” feeling? Food provides much more than just calories made from carbs, protein and fat. There are so many other things we get from food. Vitamins and minerals for sure, but eating (or not eating) also triggers the release of hormones and chemicals in the gut and brain.  You may have heard of ghrelin, which gives you the feeling of hunger, along with leptin, which is released from adipose tissue when the cells don’t need any more energy.

We have a very complex system of back and forth, push and pull, positive and negative feedback loops going on in our body that are constantly in flux, working to keep things in balance. Ghrelin tells your stomach it wants food, and your hypothalamus has a lot of ghrelin receptors, which causes us to become irritable. This irritability increases focus and determination to get food and used to keep us on track and in pursuit of food. It keeps distractions from getting the best of our body’s primary goal.

We’ve only recently (the last ~12,000 years) had a more constant supply of carbohydrates and food in general. Our relatively new position of having food readily available, and having all our other needs like shelter, warmth, medical care and social status essentially satisfied, allows us to more easily listen to our body’s feelings of hunger. We are no longer running from a predator or having to build shelter before a storm. Our modern day distractions, like paying bills, doing homework, and going to work, aren’t exactly life threatening. We have the time and resources to go to the store and buy food, and listen to our wants.

Most people know it’s a bad idea to go to the grocery store hungry. With all the super palatable foods, those oh-so-delicious dopamine and serotonin releasing foods, it’s no wonder why we get annoyed when we don’t have something to eat. We think it’s deprivation, we claim we’re starving, and we get into arguments about nothing. All because our “blood sugar is low.” That ghrelin can get your brain all fired up and focused, on that one ultimate goal of a satisfying meal. Don’t ignore it if you’re about to get into a heated argument with your spouse or boss. Have a snack, and then have a rational conversation, without the ghrelin induced “hangry”.

This article is well written and I found it very interesting. Along the same lines as the book “An Epidemic of Absence” I’m currently reading, this is about how we used to live differently, and mainly, with a lot more bugs. More microbes, more worms, more microscopic germs that gave our immune systems something to work with, as much as against.

It vivdly describes a successful hunt of an impala, and it’s subsequent “cleaning.” It gets a little graphic as a heads up. But it’s how we used to do things. I’m not anti-medicine, nor advocating a return to this type of living, but we should be able to learn something from their lack of auto-immunity, and lack of chronic diseases.

http://humanfoodproject.com/please-pass-microbes/

A little while back the news picked up on a new study that showed improved health markers in people that ate two large meals a day versus the study group that ate 6 small meals per day. The calories were the same, but the calories were consumed in different intervals. The two mealers lowered their BMI more so than the six mealers. Conventional wisdom has been that frequent meals stabilizes blood glucose and helps control cravings for those trying to lose weight. This has trickled down to normal weight folks too and it’s common knowledge that eating smaller frequent meals is ‘more healthy.’ This study, along with asimilar study in 2010begins to disprove this idea, but doesn’t talk about the mechanisms, or why it might help some people.

 

Today I read a post on Robb Wolf’s blog that focused more on Intermittent fasting (IF), but talked a little about the mechanisms of fasting which I think apply to these low frequency meal studies. I wrote up a short post on why IF might work for some folks a little while ago, and my post here adds to that thinking.

 

“There are two phases for insulin secretion.” During phase 1, stored insulin is released and lasts around 10 minutes.  In phase 2 the pancreas produces more insulin to shuttle glucose into your cells after your guts have broken things down enough to be absorbed.  This insulin is present in the bloodstream for 2-3 hours after the meal is consumed.  Eating very frequently ends up taxing the pancreas as it’s unable to store more insulin for the first phase of the next meal. This is most likely why the type 2 diabetics in the aforementioned studies did better on the low frequency meal plans. Their pancreases were able to take a break and prepare for the next meal.

 

I imagine the food the participants were given were more healthful than the meals they were eating prior to the study and we have to assume there are more variables here than just food frequency. It’d be great if they could do a study where people ate the same healthful diet at the same frequency for a month or two before the food frequency difference began. This would minimize the impact of a drastic diet change on the outcome. Besides eating a healthier diet, the reduced food frequency allows the pancreas a break between meals and improves insulin sensitivity since your cells get a break from the constant supply of insulin.

I heard a news report about Intermittent Fasting on NPR this morning. I wrote a short post about IF a little while back.

 

This NPR article focuses more on the fact that your liver depletes its glucose storage after about 12-18 hrs, and then your “fat burning ‘switch’ gets turned on.” While this is true, eating healthfully and weight training will get you most of the way there. IF can be beneficial during a weight loss plateau, and it could be a good way to reset your true hunger feelings, rather than relying on what time of day it is to eat. Eating no carbs for a short period of time can have similar effects as IF without the hunger pangs. No carbs means no incoming sugar and forces the liver into gluconeogenesis, which uses fatty acids and amino acids.

 

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/07/29/205845319/two-day-diets-how-mini-fasts-can-help-maximize-weight-loss?

I’ve recapped 3 studies that I read recently related to protein and bone density. They are showing animal protein is associated with less bone loss. These conclusions were based on studies that asked people what they ate (not the ideal form) and seeing how many people broke hips, or who had bone density measurements done.  Instead of popping calcium pills, we may be better off popping protein pills (just kidding!).  Just eat your turkey breast, salmon, sardines, eggs, and pork loin and liver. Along with your veggies, of course!

Milk has a strangle hold on the strong bones campaign. You don’t have to believe the hype though. They just have really good marketing. Real science is starting to shed light on the facts.

The first study goes as far to say that “the risk of hip fracture was not related to intake of calium or Vitamin D, but was negatively associated with total protein intake.” Meaning the more protein, the less risk of hip fracture.

The second study specified that “for every 15g/day increase in animal protein, bone mineral density increased,” and continues on to point out “a negative association between vegetable protein and bone mineral density was observed.”

Lastly, the third study states that “lower protein intake was significantly related to bone loss,” and “higher intake of animal protein does not appear to affect the skeleton adversely” since they were studying the idea of whether or not excess protein “may be associated with negative calcium balance.”

Recap:
Study 1 says more protein is associated with less hip fractures.
Study 2 says more animal protein is associated with better bone mineral density and more vegetable protein wasassociated  with lower bone density.
Study 3 says less animal protein was related to significant bone loss and doesn’t effect calcium balance.

Maybe the milk people will switch gears and tell us it’s the whey protein in milk that really helps bones. I could almost get behind that idea. Almost.

For the nerds like me out there who like to read the studies themselves, here you go:

1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9925137
2. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11914191
3. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11127216

I just wanted to link to a post by Examine.com that talks about fish oil and prostate cancer. There’s been a bit of news claiming fish oil my raise prostate cancer risk.

What the traditional news feeds fail to talk about is how men who have been diagnosed with prostate cancer are usually instructed to take a supplemental fish oil. Examine does a good job of sorting this confusion out and explaining why the traditional media sources are jumping to conclusions they shouldn’t be.

Don’t be afraid of eating good quality fish a few times a week.

As I read the summary of a study today, I couldn’t help but be a little discouraged. The title “Dietary Fructose Causes Liver Damage in Animal Model” sounds like it’d be right up my alley. It sounds great at first, as the study tries to isolate the effect of fructose from a previous study. The first study had one group of monkeys eat all they wanted with fructose added, and another group had a limited amount of food. (1) The article from today is a follow up study questioning if the liver disease that was seen in the “all you can eat” monkey group from study 1 was caused by the extra food intake, leading to obesity, or if fructose was the main cause.  So in this second study (summarized here), two groups of monkeys were fed the same amount of calories to keep weight the same, but one group had 24% fructose while the other had 0.5% fructose.

They had good intentions, but when describing the two groups’ food intake, things start to fall apart.  The study says “both diets had the same amount of fat, carbohydrate and protein, but the sources were different… The high-fructose group’s diet was made from flour, butter, pork fat, eggs and fructose…, similar to what many people eat, while the control group’s diet was made from healthy complex carbohydrates and soy protein.” This statement implies an inherent bias that butter, pork fat and eggs are bad, and grouping these food items with fructose exacerbates the feelings (and that’s mostly what they are, emotions, not science) of fear about fat and animal products. It also less subtly highlights “complex carbohydrates and soy protein” as healthy alternatives. It appears to me that they tried to give the fructose group an unhealthy diet and the other group a healthy diet. In doing so, they failed to isolate the fructose as the lone variable of the study.

The fructose group that was given eggs, butter, and pork fat (all good things in my mind) along with flour (not so good) went on to develop liver disease and the other group that was given “healthy complex carbs and soy protein” fared much better even at the same weight. There are lots of questions not mentioned in the study which are important in my mind.  Here’s a few:

• What did the complex carbs consist of? Brown rice, wheat bran, milled corn, oats, bamboo shoots? This makes a difference.
• Was the soy protein a highly processed isolate which damages fats and proteins, or was the soy fermented to make tempeh (I’m doubtful)?
• What was the quality of the butter, pork fat, and eggs?
• How much flour was given to the fructose group?

What they propose is that the two groups had the same macronutrient ratio and same calories and therefore, essentially an equal diet, but I would argue that that is not true. Fat is not just fat. Fats from different sources contain different micronutrients, different vitamins, different ratios of omega fatty acids, different oxidation rates, and so on. I think a better substitution would’ve been to replace the fructose with glucose in the non-fructose group, and have both groups eat the same amount of butter, pork fat and eggs. Different carbs have different nutrients as well, but replacing one sugar for another would be a better and easier substitute than soy and complex carbs.

The interesting thing to me about the article was that the bacterial escape from the intestine was the major cause of liver damage. The fructose wasn’t the actual damaging factor to the liver. It appears that the higher the intestinal permeability, the worse the liver fared. So why did the fructose group have higher permeability? Was it the gluten in the flour, or was it the fructose or maybe even the eggs? These aren’t normal dietary foods for monkeys and any one of them could have caused an auto-immune reaction leading to the gut permeability, or perhaps the monkey intestines are not used to dealing with the particular anti-nutrients these foods have. You could argue that monkey intestines are more suited to something akin to complex carbs and soy for food which would’ve prevented the same degree of gut permeability.

 

The title of this study highlights a focus on the effects of fructose but fails to isolate fructose among other controls. The flawed structure of this study doesn’t clear up any long standing myths or bring to light whether fructose is good or bad, but I thought I’d share my thought process as I read through the article to help you view studies through a different lens.

As always, post any comments or questions you might have in the comments section. Thanks for reading!

Thinking about intermittent fasting? It might help Type 2 Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease, but let’s discuss how and why.

Intermittent fasting (IF) has been gaining popularity in the last few years. Based on this study, it seems to help folks with diabetes (DMII) and cardiovascular disease (CVD). The question is, does it help with DMII and CVD because of the weight loss, or because of improved hormonal response and reduced inflammation? The answer is it probably doesn’t matter. Most of the time, when people start an IF protocol, they reduce calories and eat healthier. By eating healthier, we reduce the empty calories, reduce the sugar, and reduce unhealthy oils, thereby reducing inflammation and increasing nutrients. You could do all these same things by just eating healthier, and then you don’t have to go hungry.

Is there a place for IF? Absolutely. Once you’ve got your healthy diet squared away, your exercise regimented, and your sleep dialed in, introducing IF may improve performance and get you to that next level. And it can be done in as little as 18 hrs, which really just means skipping breakfast. Dinner at 6pm, and lunch the next day at 12pm will give the hormetic stress your body needs to initiate the benefits of fasting. Would I recommend treating Type 2 Diabetes (DMII) with IF. Not until long after the big 3 have been dealt with (diet, exercise, and sleep).

You might ask why this looks like it’s helping. I’d venture to say that on average, the carbohydrate intake with people IF is lowered. And as part of a study, people would be recommended to eat more healthfully. More veggies, nuts, seeds, along with fruits and increased fiber are going to improve most people’s diets which will help DMII. The correlation between IF and improved DMII and CVD could be a result from reducing calories and therefore losing weight, or just improving the calories that are consumed. Don’t get caught in the hype. Someone who’s metabolically deranged will see improvements, but it’s adding another stress and may be detrimental if done for a long time without dealing with the other stressors.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130426115456.htm

http://dvd.sagepub.com/content/13/2/68.full

First, my apologies for neglecting you and the site for too long.

I’ve been busy with school projects, studying, and a big conference. Along with full time work, prepping to move, slowly attempting to revamp the site and a mini weekend vacation, there’s not as much time to look for and write about interesting (at least I hope you find them interesting) articles. This semester will finish up in a few weeks and I hope to use the short break between spring and summer semesters to work on the second part of “The Artery Clogging Myth” which has been set aside for far too long.

I have a few recipes in the lineup that I’ll post as soon as I get some pictures of the dishes, and a school paper I’ll share with you about how beetroot juice may help athletic performance.

For now, here’s a TED talk about the tests and studies on medications, and why we can’t get the whole story. Thanks Tyler.

What Doctor’s Don’t Know About the Drugs They Prescribe

If your kids drink cow’s milk, you might want to stick to the full fat version. This new study shows children drinking low-fat milk tend to be heavier.

Another study shows women who “consume high-fat dairy products following breast cancer diagnosis increase their chances of dying from the disease years later.”

So you might think, I’ll just avoid the whole low-fat/high-fat issue and skip the dairy. But then this study says college kids who don’t drink the recommended three servings of dairy per day, are more likely to have metabolic disorder, which is defined as a person with three of the following: abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar and unhealthy cholesterol and lipid levels.

All of these articles have recently been in the news and freely accessible to anybody who searches for anything related to milk, cancer, metabolic disorder, or childhood obesity.

We have three reports; one says drink whole milk (as a child for proper weight), another than says high-fat dairy causes increased mortality in breast cancer patients, and a third that says if you don’t drink your milk, you’re more likely to have 3 of several serious risk factors to poor health. It might be easy over simplify it to this: low-fat dairy cause’s obesity, high-fat dairy cause’s cancer, and you definitely need to drink your milk. So which milk would you choose after reading these three studies?

Let’s break it down a little bit. In the first study, the children who drank whole milk tended to be less hungry after consuming the higher calorie milk and therefore apparently ate less snacks. Getting real calories from a decent quality food source full of its original vitamins and minerals is definitely going to lead to a healthier body weight.

The second study delves a little into why high-fat dairy could be the cause of cancer, with its estrogenic and growth hormones. Milk naturally has growth hormones because it’s supposed to help calves grow. Imagine that! This study had a decent sample size (1,893 women at the start) and followed them for 6-12 years. But there’s no information on how well women who didn’t consume any dairy, or how they fared. It was also based on a food questionnaire which have a history of not being very accurate. Some of the patients could have fudged the numbers, or they may just forget how much high-fat dairy they ate. Do you remember what you ate last Tuesday?

The study about increased incidence of metabolic disorder is pretty poorly done. They took a small sample of a homogenous population who has a higher frequency of poor lipid profiles and obesity, isolated the fact that they don’t consume a lot of dairy, and made a conclusion for the masses. Milk isn’t a big part of Mexican culture, some have a genetic predisposition to poor lipid profiles and obesity, and college kids tend to drink more soda and sugar sweetened beverages. It’s pretty easy to blame their metabolic syndrome on a lack of milk. Or anything else you might replace milk with, like: lack of exercise, lack of vegetables, increased stress from college and leaving their home country, poor food choices from a school cafeteria, or a host of other factors.

If you tolerate milk without developing acne or getting gas and bloating, drink some milk. I’d recommend getting milk as unprocessed as you can. Straight from the cow would be ideal, but if you can find organic, grass fed, full fat milk in the store that’d be good too. It’s a good source of calories, Vit D, calcium, and goes great in some coffee or tea. Avoid the ultra-homogenized, uber-pasterized fat free stuff as it’s practically white water and not worth your time. Don’t be afraid of dairy, but it should be more of a treat or supplemental calorie source, and not the backbone of your diet.