Men who drink sugar-sweetened beverages, including sodas and non-carbonated fruit drinks, may have a higher risk of heart attack, a new study shows.Read he rest here.
Harvard researchers found that men who drank one sugar-sweetened beverage per day had a 20 percent increased risk of heart attack compared to those who eschewed the sugary drinks, according to the study published in the journal Circulation.
And the risk rose with increasing consumption: Two sugary drinks a day was linked to a 42 percent increase in risk, while three was associated with a 69 percent increase.
The researchers also found that sugary drinks were associated with higher levels of inflammatory factors, such as CRP, that are thought to be involved in the development of heart disease.
And...
It is far from a shocking revelation that red meat is not health food. But a new study from the highly respected researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health offers some of the best and most detailed evidence yet that a daily serving of meat can increase risk of heart disease or cancer.Read the rest here.
The Harvard scientists followed almost 84,000 women and 38,000 men in the Nurse’s Health Study and Health Professional’s Follow-Up Study for 28 years. It found those eating a daily serving of red meat were 13 percent more likely to die in the study period, and approximately 14 percent more likely to develop heart disease or cancer. Those numbers go up to 20 percent more deaths and an estimated 18 percent more heart problems and cancer for those who reported eating a daily serving of processed meats such as hot dogs, salami and bacon.
They say there is nothing quite so annoying as the preachings of a reformed drunk or ex-smoker, so I won't berate the point. But I can confirm from personal experience that this stuff is really not good for you. Late last year I started noticing things that were rather alarming like the fact that I could not climb the stairs to my room without getting winded and was suffering from poor circulation in my limbs. I don't want to say that I was fat or out of shape. So I will instead say that I was in (a) shape, and it resembled a dirigible.
Anyways right after the New Year (coincidence only, I'm not a News Years resolution guy) I swore off the three really bad things that pretty much doom any battle of the bulge before the campaign begins. Those being soda, junk food and fast food. And I started walking again. I've been doing six miles a day, weather permitting, since the end of January. It took me a few weeks to work up to that distance. And yes I do feel MUCH better.
Thus endeth the sermon.
No surprise about the sugar findings. Naturopaths have been saying that refined sugar consumption is a key component in arteriosclerosis and the position has been widely defended by Sally Fallon and before her Weston Price.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to the meat study, i'm extremely suspicious. Meats with RANCID fat is really bad for you, and that includes most corn / stock-feed fed cows, mostly because you body cannot extract nutrients from a food stock where there is none. Moreover, most people way overcook their meat for fear of ecoli, but if you're eating grass fed humanely fed meat, there's little chance of infection. When lightly cooked, organic red meat is some of the most nutritionally dense food on earth. Moreover, the array of B vitamins in such food are essential for nerve are cardiovascular health and such vitamins are best absorbed via fat soluble substances, such as meat. See Sally Fallon and Weston Price
A word from the amen corner:
ReplyDeleteIt is annoying to have people talk about their diet. But for those, like myself, in their middle fifties, it does become an important issues. I was unforturnately alarmed into it, found to have high blood pressure at a time when a number of my contemporaries were suddenly having health problems, with one dying unexpectedly of a heart attack at my very age.
I got off the junk food and candy, moderated the amount of meat I ate, got in some walking, and lost forty pounds. I feel better, I actually enjoy food more, now that I eat less of it, and I have less anxiety about leaving my childen in the lurch.
This lent I have given up meat, and I haven't found it that difficult, surprisingly. I don't intend to stay a vegetarian, but I am pleased that I am less a slave to food than I was. Looking back, I did have a problem with gluttony that I didn't really recognize. I am now probably inordianantly proud of myself, but I think, in a generally prosperous society, it is good to be reminded that restraint is not only a virtue, but a virtue that, like most, turns out to lead to happiness.
(In the meantime I will continue to indulge the other six.....)