Certain foods may be the best medicine for lowering 'bad' cholesterol - latimes.com

Certain foods may be the best medicine for lowering 'bad' cholesterol - latimes.com:

"...new research has found that when it comes to lowering artery-clogging cholesterol, what you eat may be more important than what you don't eat.

Released online Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., the study found that incorporating several cholesterol-lowering foods — such as soy protein and nuts — into a diet can reduce bad cholesterol far more effectively than a diet low in saturated fat.

In fact, the authors assert, levels of LDL, the "bad" cholesterol, can drop to half that seen by many patients who take statins..."

Read more here

The 'heart attack proof' diet? - CNN.com

The 'heart attack proof' diet? - CNN.com:

" For more than 20 years, the Cleveland Clinic doctor has tried to get Americans to eat like the Papua New Guinea highlanders, rural Chinese, central Africans and the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico.

Follow his dietary prescription, the 77-year-old Esselstyn says, and you will be "heart attack proof" -- regardless of your family history.

"It's a foodborne illness, and we're never going to end the epidemic with stents, with bypasses, with the drugs, because none of it is treating causation of the illness," Esselstyn says.

The Esselstyn diet is tough for most Americans to swallow: no meat, no eggs, no dairy, no added oils."

BTW the Tarahumara Indians are showcased in the Born to Run book. HIGHLY recommended! Here is a good video on them.

Related articles

• The 'heart attack proof' diet (smokesomething.wordpress.com)
• Dr. Sanjay Gupta Reports: The Last Heart Attack (autoimmunephoenix.wordpress.com)
• From omnivore to vegan: The dietary education of Bill Clinton (cnn.com)
• Heart attack survivors 'unaware of risks' (news.theage.com.au)

Eating dried plums prevent osteoporosis - The Times of India

Eating dried plums prevent osteoporosis - The Times of India:

"The group that consumed dried plums had significantly higher bone mineral density in the ulna (one of two long bones in the forearm) and spine, in comparison with the group that ate dried apples.

This, according to Arjmandi, was due in part to the ability of dried plums to suppress the rate of bone resorption, or the breakdown of bone, which tends to exceed the rate of new bone growth as people age.

Arjmandi encourages people who are interested in maintaining or improving their bone health to take note of the extraordinarily positive effect that dried plums have on bone density."

Phys Ed: How Chocolate Can Help Your Workout - NYTimes.com

Phys Ed: How Chocolate Can Help Your Workout - NYTimes.com:

Good news: eating chocolate and also exercising may create a synergistic response in the body:

"The muscles of all of the animals that had been given epicatechin contained new capillaries, as well as biochemical markers indicating that their cells were making new mitochondria. Mitochondria are structures in cells that produce cellular energy. The more functioning mitochondria a muscle contains, the healthier and more fatigue-resistant it is."

But alas the news is not all good:

"“A very small amount is probably enough,” Dr. Villarreal said. Extrapolating from his group’s mouse data, he said, five grams of dark chocolate daily, or just a sixth of an ounce — about half of one square of a typical chocolate bar — is probably a reasonable human dose if your aim is to intensify the effects of a workout."

It goes on to say that too much chocolate may even reverse the findings. Maybe you can have too much of a good thing.

Chew More, Eat Less?

Chew More, Eat Less?:

Interesting:

From the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition:

Main findings:

• "participants ate 11.9% fewer calories in the meal where they chewed 40 times per bite compared to the meal where they only chewed 15 times per bite.


• In both the lean and the obese participants, chewing 40 times per bite resulted in lower blood levels of ghrelin (a hormone that stimulates appetite) and higher levels of cholecystokinin (CCK, a hormone that signals fulness and tells the stomach to slow down digestion), than chewing 15 times per bite."