The Best Diet in Town?

The Best Diet in Town?
By: Farah Shamolian

Not sure if you have heard about the breaking news in nutrition research, but a new study published in The New England Journal of Medicine revealed that about 30 percent of heart attacks, strokes and deaths from heart disease can be prevented in people at high risk if they switch to a Mediterranean diet rich in olive oil, nuts, beans, fish, fruits and vegetables, and even drink wine with meals. Does any of this look or sound familiar to you? That is because the traditional Persian- Jewish cuisine has many close ties with the healthful aspects of the Mediterranean diet. Traditional Mediterranean food consumption includes many of the Persian- Jewish stables such as sabzi khordan (a medley of mixed greens), adasi (cooked lentils), choresht (stews that are based on tomatoes, greens, and beans), to name a few. The Persian diet has been applauded by its greatness, however we have been seeing an increase in the rates of overweight and obesity around the world. In Los Angeles County, the prevalence of obesity increased from 13.6% in 1997 to 22.2% in 2007, while obesity rates among school-aged children increased from 18.9% in 1999 to 23.0% in 2008. Why is this? You don’t need to be a doctor or nutritionist to be able to answer this question. It’s simple, if you eat more than your recommended daily needs, fat will accumulate which equals to weight gain. How does this affect you? Well, with all of the amazing festive holidays and meals it is sometimes hard to keep track of your health. From one Shabbat meal to weddings and all other Jewish Holidays in between, there is almost always an abundance of tasty food. In midst of all this greatness, it is always important to get back to your roots and reap some wisdom from our ancient ancestors. One of the greatest ancient physicians and philosophers in history does just that. He gives us the means to make living a healthy lifestyle a reality. I am referring to Rambam, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (1135/1138 to 1204). The Rambam writes the following mind-boggling guarantee: "Whoever conducts himself in the ways we have set forth, I will guarantee that he will not get sick throughout his life…. He will not need a doctor and his body will be in perfect shape and remain healthy all his life." (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot De'ot 4:20.) Excerpts from Rambam's writings display that while many health and nutritional concepts have only become popular in the last decade or so, Rambam already wrote about these concepts almost a thousand years ago. Some examples include many amazing excerpts from his medical works on exercise, fiber foods and fats. Although all of this great news about the Mediterranean Diet might seem compelling for many around the world, it is no news to the Persian Jewish community. Get back to your roots and use it to guide your utmost potential in terms of health.

Healthy Infant Feeding Education Integrated in Traditional Indian Practices

In the Indian culture, there is a celebratory tradition called Anna-Prashan (food feeding or initiating of food other than milk), which marks the first time that an infant eats cereal/semi-solid food. On Tuesday July 17, 2012, mothers and their six month old infants from the Basti (slum) New Jagdish Nagar gathered together to part take in this rite of passage. For families living in slum neighborhoods under poor conditions, there is very little education or awareness about the importance of nutrition and supplementary feeding after six months of age. This community event serves as an example of how education and tradition can come together to motivate appropriate nutrition behaviours. Sampoorn Mahila Samiti, is a networked federation of 16 groups formally linked with 28 other groups newer groups that are less formally linked. Sampoorn, with guidance and support from Urban Health Resource Center (UHRC) and in close partnership with basti-level women’s groups, organize such “Annaprashan” events periodically in different clusters of Baanganga area in order to utilise this traditional ceremony into an educational and behavior promotion event for the young children of that cluster of bastis.

                                              

The topics discussed during the event is focused on weaning practices and how to properly feed their children, what kinds of foods are vital when weaning, hygiene, sanitation, proper hand washing, and general suggestions for maternal health. 

With their children at hand, mothers were seated in a circle with a bowl of kheer (boiled rice, milk & sugar) in the center ready to feed their children solid food for the first time. Before the children started eating their delicious kheer, Shabnam Verma a UHRC staff member, discussed the importance of proper nutrition practices that were imperative for these mothers to take into consideration. She was actively engaging with these mothers by showing them pictures, asking questions, and making sure they were included in the dialogue.  All of the mothers were sitting eagerly to learn the proper ways to take care of their children. This sparked interest in the eyes of these women because it brought clarity to their traditional somewhat unclear ideas about infant feeding.

  

Similarly, this initiative has the capacity to help many women in need that are not able to obtain the proper knowledge otherwise. In particular, there was one mother who was able to gain information to potentially save her child’s life. She was new immigrant to the Basti New Jagdish Nagar and was unfamiliar with what was going on. Her one year old child was severely malnourished and was in dire need of care.  With great concern and care, all of the other mothers turned to her and gave her advice on how to help bring her child back to normalcy. The gathered women and UHRC staff members spoke to her about the proper infant feeding practices as well as providing her with helpful information for her child’s immunizations. She didn’t have the necessary information to keep her child in a healthy state and this event helped create an internal awareness for herself as well as for her infant. One of the mothers offered to help her by making frequent visits and UHRC has made sure to have an eye out for her.  She was open to learn about her child’s condition and with the new learned information and guidance she will now be able to help her child.

This cultural event was a successful combination of traditional forethought and educational guidance. The messages given to these women reinforce healthy behaviors, in turn, leading to better health outcomes for mothers and their children. These children were not only given real food for the first time, but they were given the knowledge that will support a lifetime of healthy upbringing. 

Namaste from India,

Farah 

Me in pink playing with a very cute Indian baby!

Hygiene & Hand Washing in Indian Slums

The Monsoon season is here in India and in full force. Indians all over are celebrating this beautiful season. However, this is a time where sickness is widespread and people are prone to air borne diseases and sickness.  Specifically, slum neighborhoods are among the most vulnerable populations to experience the most unhygienic conditions—poor sanitation, lack of access to clean drinking water, and poor infrastructure. In most slums, there is a lack of a proper drainage system, which means that flooding is prolific.  Similarly, the slums do not have paved roads and water puddles can eventually form into a sea of swarming mosquitoes and pests.  One of the most important Public Health principles within these populations is proper hygiene practices and sanitation promotion. Children are an especially important age group because educating them early on proper techniques can prevent diseases and keep them healthy. Generally, children living in slums do not have the knowledge of the proper ways to wash their hands and when to wash.  There is little to no awareness about the use of soap and its importance for preventing diseases. Slum dwellers only knowledge of soap use is that it is only customary to wash their hands after defecation. Educating children about the importance of staying healthy during the monsoon season enlightens them about germs, bacteria, how illness spreads, and ways they can keep themselves healthy this monsoon season.  

I prepared a lesson plan for the children’s groups so that they can gain awareness and knowledge about imperative principles of sanitation and hygiene. I visited two children’s groups Bal Ganesh and Ektah Bal Samu to administer the lessons. Since germs are not seen to the human eye, I thought that showing the kids how many germs do in fact exist on their hands on any given moment would be the best way to educate them. With a dab of glitter on each child’s hand, they were able to see that germs are like glitter, in that, although we can’t see them they are still there. We called up one volunteer to show us how to properly wash his hands. He told us how he would wash his hands and then we explained the proper way of doing it. Shabnam explained the statistic that there are about 50,000 germs on our hands and the kids were shocked. They we stunned to learn the impact germs can have on one’s health and what they could do to prevent themselves from illness.  Although soap is available in slum households there is a lack of its use during important periods of disease transmission. Specifically, children do not see washing hands as an important task before eating food, before cooking food, after defecation, etc. These children now have the proper knowledge to guide them to positive health behavior habits this monsoon season.

                                                  

Do you really know what a calorie is?

From the NYTimes 

“The human body does a superb job of making sure that it gets enough calories to meet biological needs but is much less effective at knowing when calories are in excess,” they wrote. “The result is that it is much easier to overeat than to stop eating when you are no longer hungry.”
“The human body does a superb job of making sure that it gets enough calories to meet biological needs but is much less effective at knowing when calories are in excess,” they wrote. “The result is that it is much easier to overeat than to stop eating when you are no longer hungry.”

Americans are having a passionate love affair with something they cannot see, hear, feel, touch or taste. That something is calories, billions upon billions of which are consumed every day, often unwittingly, at and between meals. 

Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University; and Malden Nesheim, professor emeritus of nutritional sciences at Cornell University. Together they have written a new book, “Why Calories Count: From Science to Politics,” to be published April 1, which explains what calories are, where they come from, how different sources affect the body, and why it is so easy to consume more of them than most people need to achieve and maintain a healthy weight.

Out of Control

People living in affluent societies today swim in a sea of redundant calories. Food is everywhere, and it is relatively inexpensive, accounting for about 10 percent of Americans’ disposable income on average, Dr. Nestle said in an interview.

“When did it become O.K. to eat in bookstores?” she asked. “Or in Staples? Bed, Bath and Beyond, or drugstores?”

Portion sizes — especially restaurant portions — have mushroomed out of control, she noted.

“People who pay attention to calorie labels on menus are shocked, for example, to discover that a single cookie contains 700 calories,” Dr. Nestle said. “You may want that cookie, but then you can’t eat anything else. Cookies didn’t used to be this big.”

Nor were bagels, now 500 or 600 calories each, or sodas, available in sizes as large as 64 ounces.

The shock extends to those supposedly in the know. Recently Lisa Young, a colleague of Dr. Nestle at New York University, asked the students in her nutrition class how many calories were in a Double Gulp, a 64-ounce soda available at 7-Eleven convenience stores. She’d already told them that an eight-ounce soda has 100 calories, but the students guessed a Double Gulp contains less than 400 calories.

When Dr. Young asked why their estimate was off by 100 percent, they simply said, “800 calories — that can’t be!”

People who do check calorie information on nutrition labels often fail to note the size of the serving it applies to. A serving of ice cream is just a half-cup, a burger is three ounces, and uncooked pasta is merely two ounces. A pound of pasta, therefore, should feed eight people, not two or four; two ounces per serving is about what Italians consume as a first course.

A typical American restaurant meal is more like dinner for two. Dr. Nestle said restaurants have resisted her suggestion to serve half the amount of food for about a third the price. She recently found at one New York restaurant that a “personal-size pizza” contained 2,100 calories, the amount the average woman needs in a day.

“And that didn’t include the soda and dessert,” she said. “Unless you’re in the kitchen watching what the chef is doing, you have no idea how many calories are being packed into a given dish.”

Health claims for foods are another seductive factor encouraging overconsumption, Dr. Nestle said. She’s found that words imparting “a health aura — like ‘organic’ or ‘low-fat’ or ‘heart-healthy’ — can prompt people to forget about calories.”

Ending Excess

The human body has a very complex and redundant system to make sure the brain gets the sugar calories it needs to function, Dr. Nestle and Dr. Nesheim explain in their book. At least 100 different hormones, enzymes and other chemicals — with more likely to be discovered — act to regulate appetite and to assure that people eat enough to maintain brain function.

But it is these very systems that go into overdrive during starvation (translation: a reduced-calorie diet), making it so difficult for people to lose weight.

As seductive as the current food environment is, it is still easier not to gain excess weight in the first place. Most people seriously underestimate how much they eat. For example, participants in the Nurses’ Health Study report consuming 1,600 calories a day, but their body mass index on average is 26 or higher — well into the overweight range and supported by many more calories than the women seem to think they are eating.

“I don’t count calories, and I don’t recommend counting calories,” Dr. Nestle said. “I recommend eating food. You have to pay attention to eating better and in moderation: plenty of fruits and vegetables, lean meats, and whole grains in reasonable portions, and not too much junk food.”

She applauded the current campaign by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to get people to stop “pouring on the calories” by consuming fewer sugar-sweetened soft drinks.

Dr. Nestle and Dr. Nesheim also review the weight-regulating effects of different sources of calories. Is it high-fructose corn syrup that makes so many people fat? Are other carbohydrates to blame, or fat — or what?

They found scant evidence to support the popular notion that any one nutrient is responsible for our obesity, or that a low-carbohydrate diet is everyone’s secret to success.

Although a diet low in carbs and high in fats and protein may enhance satiety and curb snacking, few people seem able to refrain indefinitely from the carbohydrate-rich foods they love. The long-term effectiveness of low-carb diets for a vast majority of people who try them has yet to be assessed.

“The source of the calories may make a small difference in weight maintenance or loss, but it appears to be much less important than the ability to resist pressures to overeat calories in general,” the authors wrote.

And since most people cannot come close to estimating how many calories they consume or expend in a day, a better way to monitor intake and output, Dr. Nestle said, is to regularly check the notches on one’s belt or numbers on the scale.

“It’s much easier to lose a pound or two than 20 or 30,” she said.

Of course, the amount of calories consumed is not the only factor influencing weight. Calories expended count as well, and the more active people are, even if they are simply fidgety, the better able they are to balance intake with output.

Israelis pose a no-skinny-models plan to target eating disorders

The Israeli Parliament's move to ban skinny models from appearing in that nation's media may be less momentous than its efforts to thwart Iran's bid to build nuclear weapons. But to the Israeli politicians who sponsored the measure, which won approval in Tel Aviv on Monday, and to American experts oneating disorders, the measure is a clear step toward a key goal: promoting more realistic body images among girls and women.

Less clear is whether such a measure can drive down eating disorders, which are thought to afflict some 7 million American women and 1 million American men, and as many as 2% of Israeli girls ages 14 to 18.

The Israeli measure would ban the use of models on catwalks or in advertising destined for the Israeli market if they "look underweight" or if their body-mass index falls below 18.5 — the World Health Organization's definition of underweight. If Israeli media outlets alter photographs to make models appear thinner, the measure requires them to disclose that fact.

Why It’s SO Important to Keep Moving

From the New York Times

Hoping to learn more about how inactivity affects disease risk, researchers at the University of Missouri recently persuaded a group of healthy, active young adults to stop moving around so much. Scientists have known for some time that sedentary people are at increased risk of developing heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. But they haven’t fully understood why, in part because studying the effects of sedentary behavior isn’t easy. People who are inactive may also be obese, eat poorly or face other lifestyle or metabolic issues that make it impossible to tease out the specific role that inactivity, on its own, plays in ill health.So, to combat the problem, researchers lately have embraced a novel approach to studying the effects of inactivity. They’ve imposed the condition on people who otherwise would be out happily exercising and moving about, in some cases by sentencing them to bed rest.But in the current study, which was published this month in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, the scientists created a more realistic version of inactivity by having their volunteers cut the number of steps they took each day by at least half.They wanted to determine whether this physical languor would affect the body’s ability to control blood sugar levels. “It’s increasingly clear that blood sugar spikes, especially after a meal, are bad for you,” says John P. Thyfault, an associate professor of nutrition and exercise physiology at the University of Missouri, who conducted the study with his graduate student Catherine R. Mikus and others. “Spikes and swings in blood sugar after meals have been linked to the development of heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.”So the scientists fitted their volunteers with sophisticated glucose monitoring devices, which checked their blood sugar levels continuously throughout the day. They also gave the subjects pedometers and activity-measuring armbands, to track how many steps they took. Finally, they asked the volunteers to keep detailed food diaries.Then they told them to just live normally for three days, walking and exercising as usual.Exercise guidelines from the American Heart Association and other groups recommend that, for health purposes, people accumulate 10,000 steps or more a day, the equivalent of about five miles of walking. Few people do, however. Repeated studies of American adults have shown that a majority take fewer than 5,000 steps per day.The Missouri volunteers were atypical in that regard. Each exercised 30 minutes or so most days and easily completed more than 10,000 daily steps during the first three days of the experiment. The average was almost 13,000 steps.During these three days, according to data from their glucose monitors, the volunteers’ blood sugar did not spike after they ate.But that estimable condition changed during the second portion of the experiment, when the volunteers were told to cut back on activity so that their step counts would fall below 5,000 a day for the next three days. Achieving such indolence was easy enough. The volunteers stopped exercising and, at every opportunity, took the elevator, not the stairs, or had lunch delivered, instead of strolling to a cafe. They became, essentially, typical American adults.Their average step counts fell to barely 4,300 during the three days, and the volunteers reported that they now “exercised,” on average, about three minutes a day.Meanwhile, they ate exactly the same meals and snacks as they had in the preceding three days, so that any changes in blood sugar levels would not be a result of eating fattier or sweeter meals than before.And there were changes. During the three days of inactivity, volunteers’ blood sugar levels spiked significantly after meals, with the peaks increasing by about 26 percent compared with when the volunteers were exercising and moving more. What’s more, the peaks grew slightly with each successive day.This change in blood sugar control after meals “occurred well before we could see any changes in fitness or adiposity,” or fat buildup, due to the reduced activity, Dr. Thyfault says. So the blood sugar swings would seem to be a result, directly, of the volunteers not moving much.Which is both distressing and encouraging news. “People immediately think, ‘So what happens if I get hurt or really busy, or for some other reason just can’t work out for awhile?’” Dr. Thyfault says. “The answer seems to be that it shouldn’t be a big problem.” Studies in both humans and animals have found that blood sugar regulation quickly returns to normal once activity resumes.The spikes during inactivity are natural, after all, even inevitable, given that unused muscles need less fuel and so draw less sugar from the blood.The condition becomes a serious concern, Dr. Thyfault says, only when inactivity is lingering, when it becomes the body’s default condition. “We hypothesize that, over time, inactivity creates the physiological conditions that produce chronic disease,” like Type 2 diabetes and heart disease, regardless of a person’s weight or diet.To avoid that fate, he says, keep moving, even if in small doses. “When I’m really busy, I make sure to get up and walk around the office or jog in place every hour or so,” he says. Wear a pedometer if it will nudge you to move more. “You don’t have to run marathons,” he says. “But the evidence is clear that you do need to move.”

Cheer up! Eat your mushrooms...

Good Morning, 


The mind-altering ingredient in “magic mushrooms”—helps combat depression. 

The implication of the research into the mysteries of the human brain is that psychedelic drugs such as LSD could have a therapeutic value—but the obvious snag is that they are illegal. In which case, perhaps drugs should be legalised? Why not treat narcotics as an issue of public health—rather like smoking—than a matter of criminality?  


Fungi away!
Farah D




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