Vegan diet, the missing element

Of all the nutritional concerns that can plague vegetarians, nothing is more daunting than the specter of vitamin B12 deficiency (which can lead to anemia and neurological disorders). Conventional wisdom has it that this essential vitamin is virtually unavailable from plant foods. Surprisingly, Cow dung, is very rich in the vitamin.

Dr. Mozafar's investigation, showed that plants fertilized with cow dung have higher levels of B Vitamins including B12. Mozafar hypothesized that B12 produced by soil microorganisms might be absorbed through the roots into the plant itself. 

B12 Breakthrough - Missing Nutrient Found in Plants

High fructose, higher cravings

Dr. Ludwig and his colleagues recruited a dozen obese men and fed them milkshakes on two different occasions separated by several weeks. On one occasion, the shakes were made with high-glycemic corn syrup; on the other, a source of low-glycemic carbohydrates was used.

What they found was that four hours after drinking the high-glycemic shake, blood sugar levels had plummeted into the hypoglycemic range, the subjects reported more hunger, and brain scans showed greater activation in parts of the brain that regulate cravings, reward and addictive behaviors. 

NYT: How Carbs Can Trigger Food Cravings

Cutting cola can save you some serious pain

Those who have at least one sugar-sweetened soda every day have a 33 percent greater likelihood of developing kidney stones compared with those who drink fewer than one serving a week. The researchers from Boston and Rome analyzed dietary data from 194,000 participants over the course of a decade or more and found associations between certain beverages — such as fruit punch and sugary sodas — and increased kidney stone risk.

Boston Globe: Prevent kidney stones: drink coffee but not cola?

‘Diet’ Soda Increases Risk of Type II Diabetes

The risk of contracting diabetes is higher for ‘light’ or ‘diet’ drinks than for ‘non-light’ or ‘non-diet’ drinks. All sweetened soft drinks increase the risk of being overweight, itself a risk factor in diabetes.

Inserm: ‘Diet’ drinks associated with increased risk of Type II diabetes

Do We Really Understand Cholesterol?

According to one study, people in north India eat 19 times more fat (mostly butter and ghee) than in the south, yet the incidence of heart disease is seven times higher in the south.

There is a large amount of evidence from human as well as animal studies showing that mood and intelligence are depressed by lowering cholesterol.

Ray Peat: Cholesterol, longevity, intelligence, and health

• The Low-Fat Dogma 
• Difficult News To Swallow

Soft Drink - Prostate Cancer Link

Just a single sugary soft drink per day may raise a man’s risk of developing prostate cancer by 40%, according to a 15-year study. The study compared the dietary habits of the men who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer with those who remained healthy and found a clear link between sugary drinks and the disease. 
Experts believe that sugar triggers the release of the hormone insulin, which feeds tumours. Previous research has flagged up heart attacks, diabetes, weight gain, brittle bones, pancreatic cancer, muscle weakness and paralysis as potential risks. 

Deccan Herald: One soft drink daily ups risk of prostate cancer by 40 pc

High Caffeine Drinks Cited In 13 Deaths, Spontaneous Abortion

Since 2009, 5-Hour Energy has been mentioned in some 90 filings with the F.D.A., including more than 30 that involved serious or life-threatening injuries like heart attacks, convulsions and, in one case, a spontaneous abortion, a summary of F.D.A. records showed. 

NYT: Caffeinated Drink Cited in Reports of 13 Deaths

Caffeine During Pregnancy

Because caffeine is a stimulant, it increases your blood pressure and heart rate, both of which are not recommended during pregnancy. Caffeine also increases the frequency of urination. This causes reduction in your body fluid levels and can lead to dehydration.

Caffeine crosses the placenta to your baby. Although you may be able to handle the amounts of caffeine you feed your body, your baby cannot. 

Iodine Absorption and Cauliflower

Cauliflower consumption seems to be quite high in Indian diet these days.

Cruciferous vegetables like cauliflower can interfere with iodine absorption if you eat too much of them. Since iodine plays an essential role in thyroid functioning -- it's why salt has added iodine -- low iodine levels can lead to hypothyroidism, characterized by decreased metabolism, cold sensitivity, dry hair and skin, difficulty thinking and weight gain.

Can You Eat Too Much Cauliflower?

The Low-Fat Dogma

The food industry had its eyes on the creation of a new genre of food, something they knew the public would embrace with huge enthusiasm, believing it to be better for their health – "low fat". It promised an immense business opportunity forged from the potential disaster of heart disease. But, says Lustig, there was a problem. "When you take the fat out of a recipe, food tastes like cardboard, and you need to replace it with something – that something being sugar."

Overnight, new products arrived on the shelves that seemed too good to be true. Low-fat yoghurts, spreads, even desserts and biscuits. All with the fat taken out, and replaced with sugar. By the mid-80s, health experts were noticing that people were getting fatter and no one could explain why. In 1966 the proportion of people with a BMI of over 30 (classified as obese) was just 1.2% for men and 1.8% for women. By 1989 the figures had risen to 10.6% for men and 14.0% for women. And no one was joining the dots between High Fructose Corn Syrup and fat.

Moreover, there was something else going on. The more sugar we ate, the more we wanted, and the hungrier we became. At New York University, Professor Anthony Sclafani, a nutritionist studying appetite and weight gain, noticed something strange about his lab rats. When they ate rat food, they put on weight normally. But when they ate processed food from a supermarket, they ballooned in a matter of days. Their appetite for sugary foods was insatiable: they just carried on eating. Other studies have found that sugar may even coat semen and result in obese men becoming less fertile.

The Guardian: Why Our Food Is Making Us Fat

Difficult News To Swallow

Statins are the most prescribed drugs in the world. Nearly 21 million patients in the United States were prescribed statins last year, but nobody knows how many of them have experienced cognitive side effects. Doctors have too often dismissed the complaints, writing off the memory lapses and muscle pain, in particular, as a normal sign of getting older.

NYT: A Heart Helper May Come at a Price for the Brain 

Q: What fats are recommended by Maharishi Ayurveda?

A: The two fats recommended by Maharishi Ayurveda are ghee and olive oil. Ghee provides essential fatty acids (fats that cannot be produced by the body and must be obtained from food). Ghee is the most easily digestible fat, and it contains Vitamin A and E and acts as an antioxidant. It is also highly intelligent type of fat, because it is a food that converts quickly into ojas, the master coordinator that integrates consciousness, mind and body. Ojas is another word for nature's intelligence in the body.
Both ghee and olive oil are recommended, because nature’s intelligence has not been destroyed in their processing. Ghee contains smaller, highly intelligent fat molecules that pass through the lipid barrier and nourish the brain, which needs a higher proportion of intelligent fats than the rest of the body to function properly. That is why ghee is known as medhya, a substance that nourishes mental functioning and improves learning, retention and recall, in the same way that certain herbs and rasayanas nourish the mind.

The srotas, too, are a highly intelligent part of the body, and thus need a highly intelligent or healthy fat to nourish them. Lack of nourishment from intelligent fats can cause many problems in the coordination of heart and mind.

The Ayurvedic Approach to Balancing High Blood Cholesterol

Sunshine For Health

Dark skin pigmentation blocks ultraviolet radiation, meaning that people with dark skin need far more time under the sun to generate the same amount of vitamin D as someone with white skin. Not surprisingly, black women suffer extremely high rates of breast cancer while black men show similarly high levels of prostate cancer.

Sunlight Research 

Sun 'stops chickenpox spreading'

the down side of "progress"

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/24/world/europe/24diet.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Sadly this is true for Indians as well - I was in Bangalore last year and the kids are distinctly fatter than before. There is better exercise culture in some parts - with swanky new gyms and world class equipment - but the junk food and colas are taking their toll.

Perhaps the future is in Dr. Joshi's (of the Prayog Parivar fame) pioneering city farming techniques. Eat what you can grow is the mantra