<p>Charleston is a very pretty place. I did a sightseeing walk, about a mile, along the waterfront downtown on very hot July day when I was at my heaviest weight (250+). It was one of the things that made me realize I had to make some changes.</p>
<p>I love the Pat Conroy comment- a favorite author of my son. Sounds lovely!!</p>
<p>30 min combined indoor track/treadmill. I should have ran outside - it was cool but sunny and I just don’t love being inside yet!!</p>
<p>I got the bear this afternoon. Basement workout and went “heavy” on everything:</p>
<p>Rear foot elevated split squats (TRX) - 2 x 25 lbs on all three sets
Chin ups - 5 reps (yay!) on the last two sets
Hex bar deadlift - 140 lbs
Alternating DB bench press - 35 lbs on all three sets</p>
<hr>
<p>BTW, I can confirm that the Tabata TRX plank sequence is tough.</p>
<p>Wow. This Annie’s company must make some seriously healthy food for kids:</p>
<p>[Annie’s:</a> Parents Say No to Artificial Ingredients in Foods - YouTube](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJqFV_JO5Cw]Annie’s:”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJqFV_JO5Cw)</p>
<p>Like Annie’s Homegrown Organic Summer Strawberry Bunny Fruit Snacks…</p>
<p>Here’s what Dr. Michael Eades, author of the book Protein Power, has to say about these little gems:</p>
<p>[Organic:</a> Healthful or Hype? The blog of Michael R. Eades, M.D.](<a href=“http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/fast-food/healthful-or-hype/]Organic:”>http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/fast-food/healthful-or-hype/)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Speaking of CRP testing, it gets a couple of pages in the book I’m reading, pointing out all the media coverage about this breakthrough in testing when a 2002 study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine – media coverage the author finds somewhat misleading:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Idad, due to your hiking schedule, I’ve generally assumed you were retired, and don’t know what you did before. But I seriously think you should start a blog with maybe a subscription email because you’re a very awesome curator of meaningful content.</p>
<p>And then I think we should all write to the NIH to fund you :)</p>
<p>Back in the Stone Age when I edited a health magazine, I stayed much more informed on this kind of stuff than years since, but its been very gratifying to have the convenience of you pointing me in good directions to catch up on this “body” of work.</p>
<p>In the mid-90s I had written a then-controversial piece (although I thought it was even-handed) about the commodification of “organic” food and the ways in which a consumer might weigh the value.</p>
<p>Here in the US, Annie’s in particular drives me crazy because while I believe the company does legitimately engage in organic practices, it is still selling the equivalent of kraft dinner and gummie bears 
</p>
<p>If there was one lasting thing I’d like to communicate to young parents starting out it is that your child has a blank palette when born and if you just start with breast milk, homemade baby food, and a really good diet with local sourced products, and eschew products with a lot of salt and sugar, and NEVER participate in a school lunch program AND play outside with your kids you’d be giving them the greatest start ever :)</p>
<p>I am a busy person and for a time was a single parent, so I know how hard these simple-sounding tenants can be. But I was fortunate at the time to live in a country that gave a year’s maternity leave, which gave me time to get my son off to a good start nutritionally.</p>
<p>My son had been identified with a very high IQ at the age of 3 when in the daycare system, and it wasn’t until age 18 that we also discovered he (truly, not these half arsed dr dx, but a full neuropsych eval required at his U to give him any accommodations for Central Auditory Processing Disorder) actually had inattentive-type ADD and a bonafide processing speed disability. People wondered how it was that he still managed to do so well in school, both behaviorally and academically, without falling into the twice-exceptional gap.</p>
<p>A big part of that, I suspect, was nutritional. </p>
<p>I think better nutritional governance in society and in parenting would go a long way to ameliorate not just child obesity, but child intelligence and behavioral disposition.</p>
<p>But I’m preaching to the choir Glad to have a choir :)</p>
<p>I agree that iDad’s information is incredible. This thread is so valuable and everyone contributes meaningfully.</p>
<p>Did a “must do” run this morning over the Ravenel Bridge in Charleston. [Building</a> the new Cooper River Bridge: The Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge.](<a href=“http://ravenelbridge.net%5DBuilding”>http://ravenelbridge.net). It was gorgeous and worth the long, long climbs in each direction. Coming back the climb was shorter but steeper. Views at the top were stunning. The Charleston Harbor and city. 8.8 done. A little breezy, and I started in the dark from my downtown hotel, but it went well. I wonder if I’ll be sore from the long downhills.</p>
<p>That’s awesome MOWC. What a run that must have been, at dawn no less. Did you make it up on the bridge for sunrise?</p>
<p>I always drove the other way, south over the ugly old bridge, because my dad’s beach house was down near Beaufort. The low country is a unique place.</p>
<p>kmc:</p>
<p>This book I’m reading is fabulous and really hammers home that the massive spending in our health care system, driven by systemic commercial promotion of drugs and tests and procedures is boosting profits, while providing no improvement (and in many cases a decline) in outcomes. For example, we do several times more invasive heart surgeries (bypass etc) after heart attacks in the elderly than any other country, yet our heart attack patients outcomes (number who live a year after, etc.) isn’t one bit better.</p>
<p>Same thing with the drugs, like the push to put everyone on Lipitor or Crestor. You have to spend $580,000 on Crestor treating hundreds of women to statistically get one less case of coronary artery disease. The death rate would be unchanged or maybe go up. Diabetes would go up. </p>
<p>That’s insane (for everyone except the makers of Crestor!). Imagine if you spend $580,000 on fun neighborhood walking groups for women. You’d prevent a lot more corornary artery disease.</p>
<p>I did see the sunrise. It was a little before I was at the top, but still pretty.</p>
<p>Here’s one for the ladies. A discussion of the testing for bone density and World Health Organization guidelines that, overnight, defined over half of the women over fifty as having a disease, osteoperosis.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And, he continues on about the possible motivations for these new guidelines:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>There’s never been a study to test whether routine screening of women for bone density provides any improvement in outcome. The drugs have been tested. In the Fosamax studies, women with osteoperosis had their annual risk of a hip fracture improve by a seemingly dramatic 56% with the drug – from a risk of 0.5% to 0.2%. The actual change doesn’t sound quite so dramatic as 56%. Abramson calculates that you would have to treat 81 women with Fosamax for 4.2 years to prevent one hip fracture. The cost of the drug for this improvement: $300,000.</p>
<p>In a JAMA study, women with milder loss of bone density saw the risk of a hip fracture increase by 84% and the risk of a wrist fracture increase by 50% in the group taking the drug. Probably no big deal, because the risk of fracture among these women with relatively healthy bones is so small to start with, but hardly the stuff of a miracle drug!</p>
<p>How much more effective would it be to spend the billions that go into the testing and drugs on fun neighborhood TRX and kettlebell classes for women? Or a national PR campaign to promote such stuff with the same gusto that osteoperosis drugs are marketed? Now, that would improve bone density and quality of life.</p>
<p>The takeaway from this book is a very clear picture that we have to be skeptical consumers of the health care that is sold to us. The sleight of hand here is to establish some arbitrary number (like bone density or cholesterol) as a substitute proxy for actual health and then treat the number with a drug, without asking whether the actual health outcomes improve (fewer heart attacks, fewer broken hips, fewer hospitalizations, fewer deaths). Then, keep lowering the target number to double or triple the number of people with the “disease” who need the “treatment” – as happened with the lowering of the cholesterol targets in the 2000 guidelines, a change that tripled the percentage fo the population needing treatment for high cholesterol, a change by a panel of experts that almost all received pharma consulting dollars.</p>
<p>Great information, Idad. Thanks for posting. Interesting comments on the media reporting of the CRP study. I always have questions when I hear a report about the results of new medical studies. It seems to me that the news reporting leaves something to be desired in that one never gets all of the relevant information that one would need to evaluate the study.</p>
<p>Went to a spinning class at 8 am this morning. Got to the class and the buzz among the women on the bikes next to me was that the new instructor in the class really “kicked butt”. She was definitely tough (and relatively young, i.e. 35-40). I managed to keep up and did the hills, flats, and the jumps with everyone else, but was pretty wiped out once it was over. I’m feeling a better this afternoon. Making veggie and chicken stock for soups.</p>
<p>More evidence of the benefits of weight training, regardless of your weight:</p>
<p>
[Muscular</a> Fitness More Important Than Body Weight for Heart Health in Young Men](<a href=“http://www.brinkzone.com/bodybuilding/muscular-fitness-more-important-than-body-weight-for-heart-health-in-young-men/]Muscular”>http://www.brinkzone.com/bodybuilding/muscular-fitness-more-important-than-body-weight-for-heart-health-in-young-men/)</p>
<p>Here’s the PubMed link for those smarter than me:</p>
<p>[Untrained</a> young men have dysfunctional HDL compared with strength-trained men irrespective of body weight status. [J Appl Physiol (1985). 2013] - PubMed - NCBI](<a href=“Untrained young men have dysfunctional HDL compared with strength-trained men irrespective of body weight status - PubMed”>Untrained young men have dysfunctional HDL compared with strength-trained men irrespective of body weight status - PubMed)</p>
<p>Okay, thought I’d bring this one to the experts! Maybe I should start a thread on this, but probably the people I want to ask are on here…</p>
<p>My husband (fit, healthy, feels great), just got all his blood work back from his physical. Everything fine, except cholesterol high (244, because of high LDL) and a couple of liver readings fairly high. No hepatitis, these readings have been high for years, last doctor said not everyone is in the normal range. His current doctor ignored the cholesterol being high, and said to stay away from alcohol and pain relievers for two months, then retest. His concern is the liver readings.</p>
<p>I just watched a program on the liver, and thought about maybe going more extreme. Like some sort of liver cleanse diet, fiber pills, non-alcoholic beer/wine (is that even good?). Right now he’s trying to eat cholesterol lowering foods and decreasing the foods that raise it, plus psyllium husk and oatmeal. Does anyone have a program that they follow, or a product that they use, that they recommend? I figure a liver cleansing program would probably reduce the cholesterol too.</p>
<p>I had elevated liver enzymes on a routine blood test and the short story is I have autoimmune hepatitis with biopsy proven cirrhosis. More women than men are dx with autoimmune diseases but I would suggest some labs like anti nuclear antibody. I was never a heavy drinker but now I am a non drinker.</p>
<p>busdriver:</p>
<p>244 total cholesterol used to be “normal” before the guidelines were changed in 2000 to triple the number of people with diagnosed “high cholesterol”, making them eligible for insurance coverage of a statin prescription to lower their “high cholesterol”.</p>
<p>It’s a pretty meaningless number in and of itself. There is no evidence, in any study, ever, that lowering cholesterol reduces mortality in women of any age, men over 65, or men under 65 who have not had a heart attack or existing coronary artery disease. Based on everything I know, I would say that your husband has a good doctor, not being concerned about that cholesterol number at all.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t necessarily jump on “cholesterol lowering” foods. Many of the “low fat” foods substitute sugar (under various names) for fat. Those foods might lower LDL, but the sugar will make the overall cholesterol profile (and health) worse. For example, the classic profile of someone with metabolic syndrome (insulin resistance, abdomina fat, diabetes, high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, etc.) is high triglycerides and low HDL. So I wouldn’t jump into dietary changes without knowing the complete cholesterol profile. It is quite possible that his overall profile is extremely low risk if his HDL is high and his triglycerides are low. </p>
<p>If he’s the kind of guy who likes to study, I can probably come up with a few good references for this stuff. The popular media and health website coverage of “cholesterol” is a disaster. It’s such a mess that the National Heat Lung and Blood Institute, that has issued three rounds of cholesterol treatment guidelines for physicians and is years overdue for an update and has completed all the expert reviews of the latest science for an update, announced last March that they won’t be issuing new guidelines. The hunch is that the experts had no choice based on the science, but to back off from the hysteria over cholesterol/low LDL (the VA has already relaxed their guidelines using the same reviews). Statins are the biggest selling drugs in the world. There is tremendous political pressure to not relax treatment guidelines. Solution: no new guidelines. The government agency said maybe the American College of Cardiology or somebody else could take their completed reviews and issue new guidelines if they want too…</p>
<p>On the liver front, there are many things that could result in mildly high numbers. Sounds like the doc has a reasonable approach on that one, too. Two common possibilities that are related are the two prongs of “fatty liver disease” or the accumulation of excess fat in the liver. One is alcoholic fatty liver disease, caused by the metabolism of alcohol in the liver. The second is non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, caused by the metabolism of fructose in the liver. Sugar (table sugar, honey, all the sugar in prepared foods, etc.) is half glucose, half fructose. The end result is the same. Alcohol and fructose are metabolised in nearly identical ways by the liver and too much of either will result in the production of fat in the liver. Fructose is probably worse. So if I were trying to rule that out through dietary changes, I would cut out sugar and alcohol. Sugar beverages, including all fruit juices, are a nightmare from this standpoint. </p>
<p>This lecture in a UCSF medical school series, explains the whole liver metabolism mechanism in a way that is comprehensive enough to have been viewed 4 million times on YouTube and made the doctor, Robert Lustig, a very well-known figure:</p>
<p>[Sugar:</a> The Bitter Truth - YouTube](<a href=“Sugar: THE BITTER TRUTH - YouTube”>Sugar: THE BITTER TRUTH - YouTube) </p>
<p>Btw, excess consumption of sugar or alcohol to the point of fatty liver will almost always result in high triglycerides on the cholesterol test. Triglycerides are fat molecules that are dumped into the blood stream from the liver in an effort to get rid of the surplus. The official guidline for high triglycerides is anything over 150 on the cholesterol test. But, in reality, anything over 100 probably suggests that the liver is producing excess fat as it metabolizes fructose and/or alcohol.</p>
<p>Thank you for the info, busyparent. I hope you are okay and you are able to deal with that. That sounds kind of scary to me. Are you suggesting that lab to check for autoimmune liver disease? He has high ALT and AST readings. I wonder if we really should go to a specialist, as this has been this way for a long time, and I think this GP is just reinventing the wheel, as this has happened before, he obstained from alcohol, and the reading didn’t change.</p>
<p>I will pass that info to my husband, idad, thanks. He does drink OJ now and then, probably thinking he’s doing something good. He is avoiding sugar, and trans fats in particular, upping fiber and replacing beef and pork with chicken and fish. His HDL is 66, Triglycerides are 91, and the LDL is 160, ratio is 3.7. Maybe we are getting too concerned over this, and the liver is more the thing to be concerned with.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The usual guidelines <a href=“http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/cholesterol/atglance.pdf[/url]”>http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/cholesterol/atglance.pdf</a> says that, with 0-1 risk factor, LDL<160 would be the goal. With 0-1 risk factor, drug therapy is only indicated at LDL>=190. So even if you believe that the usual guidelines are a conspiracy by statin-selling drug companies, even they do not indicate drug therapy for your husband if he does not otherwise have risk factors (listed in the guidelines). Note that HDL>=60 counts as -1 risk factor in these guidelines.</p>
<p>But I would suggest eating oranges instead of drinking the juice.</p>
<p>That’s an interesting chart, ucb. His only risk factor is being >45. I’m glad his doc didn’t suggest medication then, so many doctors do. But yeah, a reason to change the diet from steak and ff, to chicken and vegetables, no sugar, no juice…why not. There’s so many reasons to eat right, sometimes we just need a little incentive.</p>