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If you have stopped by here more than once, you must have thought I was lost in a time warp. That was the longest three weeks ever.
South Africa was wonderful! I’d love to go back sometime soon. We were gone three weeks, but I’ve been slow at getting back into the blogging thing. Sorry about that. I have a stack of material and I hope I can get through it during the next few weeks.
I hope you find this blog helpful. If you would like to see different content, I’d love to receive your comments. If you take antioxidant products, I’d like your comments on what you take and if/how they have benefited you. I hope that isn’t spam bait – I will monitor the comments & not accept ones that appear to only pitch some product without personal experience from using the product.
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My wife and I are headed off to South Africa for a few weeks, so I won’t be able to post anything for that time. I have several things in the queue to post when I return. Even though it’s not related to antioxidants, I might post a few pics too.
My personal feeling has been that eating a food, as close to nature as possible, is better than taking a pill of concentrated essence of whatever. The article below lends credence to that view.
CTV.ca | Antioxidant pills don’t prevent heart disease
The study, done at Brigham & Women’s hospital, followed 8,171 women with three or more risk factors for CVD for over 9 years. Over the course of the study, the women were given either:
- 500 mg vitamin C or a placebo every day
- 600 IU vitamin E or a placebo every other day
- 50 mg beta carotene or a placebo every other day
The researchers found that “There were no overall effects of ascorbic acid, vitamin E, or beta carotene on cardiovascular events among women at high risk for CVD.”
Here’s a link to the abstract of the study.
We’ve seen many studies that show antioxidants have health benefits. However, many of those studies were done in vitro, rather than in vivo. It seems that people are more complex than test tubes!
Many of the clinical trials involving cacao or dark chocolate show health benefits. My own personal experience, while anecdotal, bears out many of the findings. I still plan on posting my experience and results, but not today. One of the reasons I like minimally processed dark chocolate as a “supplement” is that it is a food, rather than a pill that someone has made by attempting to pull out the “good stuff” in the cacao (flavonoids in this case).
Here’s another article that addresses pills v. foods:
The antioxidant myth: a medical fairy tale – health – 05 August 2006 – New Scientist
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According to the research cited in the article below, we look like our friends. Our best friend has even more influence on our weight than our spouse! Distance doesn’t even matter. Hmm… I guess we should choose our friends carefully. They say if you want to get rich, associate with rich people. I guess if you want to get skinny, associate with skinny people. Or does it work that way? Maybe the skinny ones gain weight, but the overweight ones don’t loose weight.
NEJM — The Spread of Obesity in a Large Social Network over 32 Years
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I came across another blog with some interesting info regarding Omega 3 fatty acids. Take a look.
http://mdonly.wordpress.com/2007/09/03/exploring-alpha-lipoic-acid-as-anti-aging-compound-4/
Here’s a link to the speaker abstracts from the most recent Diet and Optimum Health Conference at the Linus Pauling Institute to which the blog refers. The Institute has some excellent reference information on diet and nutrition.
Nutrition & Metabolism | Full text | Chocolate and Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease: A Systematic Review
I came across the study above a while ago, but am just getting around to mentioning it in this blog. This study is not primary research, but rather a review of all MEDLINE publications from 1966 through January 2005 looking for “relations between cocoa, cacao, chocolate, stearic acid, flavonoids (including flavonols, catechins, epicatechins, and procynadins) and the risk of cardiovascular disease.”
One of the things they looked at was whether or not the stearic acid content was detrimental to cardiovascular health. Stearic acid is the type of saturated fat found in cacao. The evidence suggests that it is neutral, unlike other saturated fats, which raise total cholesterol levels.
To quote the results of the study:
The body of short-term randomized feeding trials suggests cocoa and chocolate may exert beneficial effects on cardiovascular risk via effects on lowering blood pressure, anti-inflammation, anti-platelet function, higher HDL, decreased LDL oxidation. Additionally, a large body of trials of stearic acid suggests it is indeed cholesterol-neutral. However, epidemiologic studies of serum and dietary stearic acid are inconclusive due to many methodologic limitations. Meanwhile, the large body of prospective studies of flavonoids suggests the flavonoid content of chocolate may reduce risk of cardiovascular mortality. Our updated meta-analysis indicates that intake of flavonoids may lower risk of CHD mortality, RR = 0.81 (95% CI: 0.71–0.92) comparing highest and lowest tertiles.
It’s a good article. Got a lot of big words, but they do a good job of explaining and referencing the research.
I think I’ll go have some healthy dark chocolate.
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Sounds kinda gross. And wow, would the sand ever stick to you at the beach! Not really:-) This article says the preliminary results of a German study show that eating chocolate rich in cocoa solids and flavonoids (in other words, dark chocolate) can fight skin cancer. Subjects were given cocoa to drink. Half the group got cocoa high in flavonoids, the other half got cocoa that tasted the same, but was much lower in the flavonoids.
All subjects were then exposed to UV light. The subjects that received the cocoa high in flavonoids did not redden as much as the other group and their skin was smoother and moister.
Here’s a link to the article:
Food for Thought: Chocolate as Sunscreen, Science News Online, June 10, 2006
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Norman Hollenberg, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School says that epicatechin, one of the flavonoids in cacao, has such powerful health benefits, it “may rival penicillin and anaesthesia in terms of importance to public health.” He thinks it is so important it should be considered a vitamin.
He has spent years studying the Kuna people in Panama, who drink large amounts of cocoa. He found that four of the five most common killer diseases in the industrialized world are significantly reduced. He attributes that reduction to the high levels of epicatechin in cocoa.
As usual, a link to the article is found below.
ScienceDaily: Cocoa ‘Vitamin’ Health Benefits Could Outshine Penicillin
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I subscribe to a newsletter from Harvard Medical School. The most recent issue reminds us that inflammation, while an important part of our body’s healing system, can be dangerous, if there is too much of it. Inflammation is involved in atherosclerosis, heart disease, strokes and even some types of dementia. Below is a link to the on-line version of the article.
Harvard Medical School: 7 simple steps to fend off harmful inflammation
The article lists seven dietary steps that will help fight inflammation. Quoting from the article -
Simple changes
What you eat may fan the fires of inflammation. With some small changes — no crazy new foods involved — you can douse them. Here are some suggestions:
- Get an oil change. Eating a lot of saturated fats and/or trans fats is linked with higher levels of inflammation. Swap them for olive oil, which has potent anti-inflammatory properties, or polyunsaturated fats, especially omega-3 fats from fish.
- Don’t be so refined. The bolus of blood sugar that accompanies a meal or snack of highly refined carbohydrates (white bread, white rice, French fries, sugar-laden soda, etc.) increases levels of inflammatory messengers called cytokines. Eating whole-grain bread, brown rice, and other whole grains smooths out the after-meal rise in blood sugar and insulin, and dampens cytokine production.
- Promote produce. The more fruits and vegetables you eat, the lower the burden of inflammation. Why? They contain hundreds, perhaps thousands, of substances that squelch inflammation-rousing free radicals; some act as direct anti-inflammatory agents.
- Go nuts. Adding walnuts, peanuts, almonds, and other nuts and seeds to your snacks and meals is another tasty way to ease inflammation.
- Cocoa lovers rejoice? In laboratory studies, cocoa and dark chocolate slow the production of signaling molecules involved in inflammation. The trick is to get them without too much sugar and fat.
- Alcohol in moderation. A drink a day seems to lower levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a powerful signal of inflammation. Too much alcohol has the opposite effect on CRP.
- Spice it up. Herbs and spices such as turmeric, ginger, garlic, basil, pepper, and many others have anti-inflammatory properties.
If you adopt an anti-inflammatory diet, you probably won’t see or feel any different. Angina won’t suddenly disappear or heart failure reverse itself. But you will be doing your heart, arteries, and the rest of you a huge favor that will pay off in many ways.
If you are interested in subscribing to the newsletter, here’s a link to the subscription form:
www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat
Just a warning – each issue of the newsletter will hit you up to buy a report regarding the subject matter of the newsletter.
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Recently I found an article on RealAge that lists the 10 top veggies for phytochemical and antioxidant content. You can find the article at the link below.
Top 10 Veggies List – RealAge Tip of the Day
From a list of the most widely consumed vegetables, the order was:
- Broccoli
- Spinach
- Yellow onions
- Red peppers
- Carrots
- Cabbage
- Potatoes
- Lettuce
- Celery
- Cucumbers
If you look at that list, you’ll realize that those are the 10 most widely consumed veggies. You’d probably have to eat an awful lot of cucumbers to get a useful dosage of anything other than water. The top six are pretty decent, but nowhere near the antioxidant levels in cacao.
The researchers also rated fruits for phytochemical content. Here’s how that list came out:
- Cranberries
- Apples
- Red grapes
- Strawberries
- Peaches
- Lemons
- Pears
- Bananas
- Oranges
- Grapefruit
My personal feeling is that one shouldn’t rely on any one source for phytochemicals or antioxidants. There are so many different kinds and many of them operate in conjunction with other food components and operate on different internal systems in our bodies. We need to make sure our diets are varied and have many sources of healthful and helpful foods.
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Or, if you’re feeling really generous,
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