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Can a children's heath drink have more sugar than a coke? Can one fresh baked bread cause more obesity than another with the same calories? The answer is unfortunately YES to both of the above. Next time you see TV I want you to look for something. Find an old music video from the 1970's. Look at the people in it. Hardly anyone is obese or super muscular- they were thin naturally. Fast forward to today and any mall in any city - it seems like we have just changed. Compared to 1970's, you will scarcely find naturally lean and thin people any more. What is driving this change? In USA the rate of obesity has tripled since 1970(see chart below), and in some Indian states recent studies show that 30% of school going children are now diabetic. New diseases like PCOS are creeping up which were almost unheard of few decades ago. Obesity is growing everywhere.  So what has changed about our food ? Grab a packet of food, like a biscuit or instant noodles. Can you identify everything you read on the ingredients list? What are these things we cannot understand, like inverted sugar, edible vegetable fat, permitted food colors, soy lecithin, maltodextrin and a million more. Most articles will say all these new added chemicals are safe to eat. But who pays for these articles? When I was a kid: - bread from the grocery store used to go bad within a week, now it stays fresh for weeks. - the fresh fruits were not as sweet as they are today. - There was no fruit juice that could stay unspoilt at room temperature and still be "without preservatives and 100% natural". In his book "Salt, Sugar, Fat" by Michael Moss highlights how the industry's sole focus is on making you eat more of their product, that is what drives their whole processed food business. How do processed foods harm us? Processed foods will usually:
 6 year old McDonald's burger has still not rotted Above: 6 Year Old McDonald's Burger Story From Iceland
HOW CAN YOU EAT HEALTHIER It is challenging to eat healthy. There are always new products coming out and new chemicals which we are unfamiliar with. Here are some simple tips : 1. Avoid fast food, or eat it once a month, in a normal portion size. 2. Avoid packaged food, instead eat nuts, seeds or roasted foxnuts (makhana). Keep them handy in a small plastic bag when traveling or going to a meeting 3. Avoid desserts, specially mass produced ones, and have dates, raisins, dried figs or nuts and honey instead 4. Make a plan when traveling, know what is the healthiest option amongst all the bad options I hope this article helped you see some information on obesity and processed foods. Leave your feedback in the comments below. REFERENCES FOR THE FIRST 2 QUESTIONS: 1. Kids health drink 24% sugar 2. Subway bread has too much sugar
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 Most people in their 40’s- 60’s will find that as you get older, the focus of medical care is on managing symptoms of your disease.
Whereas medical care is amazing in so many ways, in most cases I find that the focus of doctors is on which medications to adjust, but there is no focus on healing. To slow down or reverse the need of medications. Perhaps there is not enough time in the short 10 minute session to go into this, and sometimes early stage patients just want a pill; but is the patient being informed of their options? It has been proven that cardiac disease, fatty liver, diabetes and most metabolic diseases can either be partially or fully reversed. So why don’t we do that? Sometimes it seems like until this can be packaged into a pill, it will be hard for the current medical system to deliver this product. All the money of the business is in selling the pills, and all the pharma reps at doctor's offices are selling medicines, not healing. The reps obviously are only focused on their pill getting sold. So where is disease reversal going to fit in ? When and how will the current medical system create the eco-system where doctors spend more time on healing and reducing medications ? Would love to hear your comments. I have been visiting my parents lately. Being older their immunity is of huge concern. So I asked them to start making the traditional Indian drink Kaanji at home (recipe below)
So how do ProBiotics help immunity? All our infections come from 2 main points : 1. Breathing (Respiratory) 2. Eating (Ingestion) And the above 2 areas is where your immune system has to focus on. When we take probiotics we help improve the "good bacteria" in our gut. This improves the gut lining quality. What this means is that your chances of getting sick from eating goes down. This takes pressure off your immune system. They say 80% of your immune system is in your gut. So when you take pressure off that part, it allows the immune system to focus on your breathing parts - your nose, your throat, your lungs. This is how Probiotics help the immune system and I highly advise everyone to have good, homemade probiotics this time. Examples are : Sauerkraut, Kimchi, Kombucha and Kanji. Other benefits we have seen from Kaanji is a reduction in dryness. So my Dad is having dry eyes and I hope this will reduce that. I have had post-menopausal women report benefits in dryness so I hope this will help my Dad. Here is a link to a kaanji recipe https://youtu.be/1iuq6dhtrT8 "Diabetes is Reversible" - these are the words which I had never heard. They changed the course of my life.
Coming from a very diabetic family I grew up around the disease. Between India, Sweden and my boarding schools the disease was always there. But nobody had ever said it was reversible. It was always a one way street. Once it comes, it doesn’t go. But, that was then….. The world has changed. Today there are 3 medically proven ways to reverse diabetes :
Science has advanced so much that major health insurance plans now cover diabetes reversal programs in USA. No, it doesn't come from a new pill or a new injection, it comes from FOOD ! Scientific, measured, body nourishing food. More and more clinical studies are coming to show food can reverse diabetes, heart disease, fatty liver, blood pressure, obesity and a host of other diseases.  It has now been 1 year since I was diagnosed with depression and have largely come out of it. I want to talk about what I did and what I currently do. BACKGROUND: I was diagnosed with depression around June of 2018. Its hard to say if it was mild or severe as it was my first time with it. I was put on an antidepressant, Flunil, which is a class of drugs called an S.S.R.I., similar to Prozac in USA. Though it went great at first I very soon started having all the side effects possible for this drug. My mood was also not perfect : I became good at home but stopped caring about work ! WHAT I DISCOVERED : The side effects got me going on research. What is an S.S.R.I. ? Turns out these drugs helps increase the Serotonin level in my brain, where 10% of the body's Serotonin lies. However, with a lot of other research I also discovered that 90% of the body's Serotonin resides in the human gut. It is produced by eating certain types of foods. So I started eating these foods. I also stopped flunil and switched to a natural SSRI called St. John's Wort*.  St. John's Wort Natural S.S.R.I. WHAT I DO FOR DEPRESSION TODAY : I feel really good. I don't take the St. John's wort everyday, but whenever I remember to. With all my intermittent fasting and other experiments I can't always take this with breakfast like I used to. However there is one thing I do take religiously - my probiotics. In particular - KEFIR  WHY KEFIR? Turns out that Serotonin is made from a amino acid called Tryptophan. What has one of the highest concentrations of Tryptophan? It is KEFIR, a probiotic drink with roots in Turkey and Central Asia. Though there is no scientific measure, as with all things natural, you just have to try. I take about 200ml everyday. I feel really good and I'd have to say that Kefir is a part of that. As with all probiotics it also boosts my immunity so I am wondering if I'll catch a cold this winter :) RESEARCH PAPERS AND DISCLAIMERS : I want to point out that this is cutting edge nutrition science. This is not yet accepted by mainstream doctors. There are research studies on this as of now and that's why this is called "cutting edge". I am listing here some articles and research papers you might find interesting : HOW YOUR BELLY COULD HEAL YOUR BRAIN - BBC Article MICROBES HELP PRODUCE SEROTONIN IN GUT - Caltech HOW TO INCREASE SEROTONIN IN THE HUMAN BRAIN WITHOUT DRUGS - Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience * St. JOHN'S WORT
Please note that the only negative about St. John's wort is that it has a lot of drug interactions. But since I am on no other drugs I went ahead and took it. In case you are on other drugs whether it be for diabetes or blood pressure or any other symptom then I would strongly advise you to be very very precautious. You want to have minimal insulin resistance. Since insulin signals your body to store fat, you want your body to function with the least amount of insulin required.
This will help you stay thinner. It is many times more effective than exercising. Here are ways to reduce insulin resistance in your body.
All of these steps have an amazing effect. We see this all the time through our advanced glucose monitoring chips. As people change their diet their glucose levels come down, within hours, and therefore their body needs less insulin. Less insulin means less insulin resistance. The conventional weight-loss advice to eat fewer calories carries an estimated failure rate of 99.4%. For morbid obesity the failure rate is 99.9%
So what happened? Why does this fail? Are we not following the advice given ? Or is this advice wrong ? One thing the calories-in vs calories out model assumes is that the basal metabolic rate stays constant. But a 40% decrease in calories can also be met with a 40% reduction in the basal metabolic rate. We are not like goldfish, that we cannot control how much we eat. Similarly, when we eat less, the body has many survival mechanisms; it won't keep burning the same amount of fuel. It will downregulate fuel burn, so that we may survive. Calories in - Calories out simply ignores this fundamental physiology of our inbuilt survival mechanism. The thyroid, respiratory, circulatory, hepatic, renal, gastrointestinal, and adrenal systems are all closely regulated by hormones. Body weight and body fat are also strictly regulated by hormones, with multiple overlapping systems of body weight control. Body fat, one of the most important determinants of survival in the wild, is simply not left to the chances of what we put in our mouths. So what controls body fat accumulation ? Fat accumulation is not simply a problem of eating too much. It also is a problem of energy distribution. If energy is diverted to storing fat vs burning fat, we will accumulate fat. How is this controlled - hormones. We cannot "decide" to feel less hungry, or to increase our metabolic rate. If we eat fewer calories our body will often decrease the metabolic rate. So if calories are not the main reason for weight gain, how can you reduce weight by eating less calories? The most important factor for controlling weight is controlling the hormonal signals we receive from the food, not the total number of calories. Obesity is a hormonal imbalance, not a caloric one. As we see in diabetes, when we prescribe insulin we usually see weight gain. The no.1 side effect of the drug prednisoneis weight gain. Anti-biotics cause weight gain (and why they are used in animal meat production). Thus, obesity is a hormonal imbalance, not a caloric one. Thus, type 2 diabetes can also be called a disease of insulin imbalance rather than caloric imbalance. This blog post is part of my series looking at Dr Jason Fung. A leading nephrologist and author who is changing how we look at diabetes. We've all grown up eating cookies and Marie biscuits. Do you want to know what are bad ingredients for health how to avoid them?
Lets begin with the fact that I was SHOCKED! when I read the ingredients list. So many of the things which are bad or are banned in other countries were found on the ingredients list. When we look at childhood obesity and diabetes at younger ages I am sure these have a big part to play. I reviewed a few popular brands : Oreo's, Nestle, xxxxxxx and these are brands that are very popular with our kids and looked very appealing. They are sold very often near schools and our kids have no idea what's in them ! Here are the ingredients which shocked me :
Here are brief reasons why they are considered bad :
Guys these are MY OPINIONS. Lets keep it as that. How can you avoid this? Buy from a local baker. Chances are they don't know where to buy Palmolein oil, edible vegetable oil or invert sugar. Generally will cut back on a lot if not all of these very poor and cheap cousins of real food. American Diabetes Association's highest award is the Banting Medal. "HYPERINSULINEMIA is the ROOT CAUSE of insulin resistance, OBESITY and DIABETES". was The Banting Medal Winner of 2011, Dr. Barbara Corkey. So this is why you need to understand HyperInsulinemia - if you have obesity or diabetes As I have explained earlier when we get too much exposure to insulin we get insulin resistance Now, as we develop insulin resistance the body needs more insulin to do the same job. This insulin resistance leads the body to start producing more and more insulin. This is medically referred to as being "hyper". So when the body is producing too much insulin is it hyper-insulin-emia. However with this condition we will wake up with a higher fasting insulin. And when we eat food we will go even higher because of resistance. All of this will increase even more insulin resistance. So Insulin Resistance leads to HyperInsulinemia leads to greater Insulin Resistance and the cycle repeats itself. Since insulin also tells the liver to store fat it also means that the body will keep storing more and more fat. This process is called De Novo Lipogenesis (De Novo means new, Lipo means fat and Genesis means creation). The hormonal approach to obesity says that it is this increased levels of insulin and also having insulin in our body for far longer means that we are in fat storing mode for longer, and it keeps getting longer and longer fat storage periods as our insulin levels go up. Find this hard to believe?Look on this picture of a Type 1 diabetic without insulin.  Type 1 diabetics used to be super skinny. One of the reasons is without insulin they are unable to store fat.
The other way to see it is that very often, as people take more insulin, they gain weight. They are surely not eating more if the doctor has just prescribed taking insulin. They are gaining weight because the body is storing more away as fat. To stop storing fat in your body you must also look at reducing the insulin resistance in your body which in turn will lower & eliminate hyperinsulinemia. To See Dr Corkey's talk on this click this link.  Have you heard of Insulin Resistance ? I am not sure if you and your doctor have discussed insulin resistance but it is critical to both obesity and diabetes..
INSULIN RESISTANCE IS WHEN YOUR BODY HAS DEVELOPED A RESISTANCE TO INSULIN. IT NEEDS MORE INSULIN TO DO THE SAME JOB How do we get insulin resistance ? Through Exposure. Exposure to anything creates resistance. Let me explain with some examples :
This is how life works. Exposure creates resistance. When people get exposed to too much insulin, they develop insulin resistance. Reducing Insulin Resistance brings incredible changes within days and we see this every time with the Cure My Diabetes program. The effect is so dramatic that in heavy insulin users we can reduce insulin dosage by 50% - 80% within 5 days! Why does Insulin resistance matter ? Insulin resistance will lead to a vicious cycle in your body which will drive up obesity and create more insulin resistance. This leads to a condition called hyper insulinemia. |
AuthorThe Life Heal team explores the emerging science of weight loss and disease reversal with a special focus on Diabetes. We discuss nutrition, food and ways to become healthy Archives
June 2020
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