As you can imagine, waiting (not always so patiently!) for test results has made me even more interested in reading articles about lifestyle strategies for disease prevention. Doing something positive by creating a healthier lifestyle, one that can reduce the risk of cancer and other diseases, is something patients can do for themselves. Feeling that you’re in control of something in your life is good for both your mental and physical health.
On the upside, two health professionals have told me that slow results usually mean the test result will be negative. More suspicious samples are fast-tracked through the system, as they should be. So, perhaps slow is good. I’m afraid last week’s blog was a bit of a frustrated rant… so I’m trying to shift to a better, more positive frame of mind by taking control of what I can, and changing to a healthier lifestyle!
Looking at the research…
While I still like Michael Pollan’s Food Rules best for their simplicity: [Eat food (real food, not processed), mostly plants, and not too much], there certainly is some interesting research that many of us don’t hear about.
It’s always been difficult to conduct diet research on humans—it’s just too hard to completely control a person’s diet for the years it would take to really learn what’s best. But here are some of the diet recommendations and strategies being investigated that have caught my attention and that seem to make sense…
Eat more foods with flavonoids
For years researchers have found that some people who eat more foods with antioxidants, called flavonoids, have extra protection against heart attack, stroke, Type 2 diabetes, and some types of cancer, as well as lower blood pressure. But they weren’t sure why eating more of these foods didn’t work as well for everyone.
New research has discovered that certain bacteria in the gut break these compounds down into substances that deliver the benefit. Those with more diverse gut bacteria are the ones who benefit more.
Foods rich in flavonoids include berries, apples, pears, dark chocolate, and red wine. Ensuring you also have some fermented foods in your diet, like sauerkraut, yoghurt, kombucha and others, can help to ensure you benefit maximally from these tasty flavonoid-containing foods.
Meanwhile, increased diversity of gut bacteria is being found to be associated with reduced risk of several inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Antibiotic overuse and poor diets are believed to have reduced the variety of microbes in our guts, with some species actually now extinct in some populations.
Ditch sugar and processed food
For all that we’ve been warned to avoid fatty foods, sugar is now believed by some researchers to be much worse. And when the fat is removed from food, it loses a lot of its taste. So, food processers have been making up for this by adding sugar (which we all love!). Multiple studies have suggested that increased amounts of processed foods in our diets can increase risk of cancer and heart disease.
Besides the obvious weight gain too much sugar can cause, there’s also Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver disease (NAFL) that is caused by the body storing some of that excess sugar in the liver as fat. Fatty liver disease is a risk factor for liver dysfunction as well as cancer.
Of course, if one were to eliminate both fat and sugar, that would leave only protein… and high protein diets can be hard on kidney function, as the kidneys are required to filter all the amino acids from the excess protein. To me this suggests a balanced diet with some fat and protein, plenty of fiber (think vegetables!) and a very low amount of sugar.
My sister (also a retired pharmacist) loves to watch videos of researchers discussing their work and she passes some of them on to me. A recent one discussed the effects of sugar on cancer cells and whether cancer is a genetic disease (caused by damage to DNA), or a disease of damaged mitochondria (the tiny energy-producing organelles in the cytoplasm (the fluid part of the cell outside the DNA-containing nucleus). Transferring damaged over-producing mitochondria from a cancer cell to a normal cell caused it to become cancerous but transferring DNA did not.
This suggests that cancer could be a disease of excess energy production by damaged mitochondria, allowing a cell to grow non-stop, rather than a disease of damaged DNA. The researcher suggests the damage seen in DNA could well be a “downstream” result of the rampant cell growth, not the cause of it. He also discussed that, since cancer cells are known to use mainly sugar for energy (and not fat or ketones, produced when fat is used for energy rather than sugar), removing sugar from the diet may be a strategy for future cancer treatment.
So, what the heck—I figure I might as well go “Keto” for a while, as I wait for my test results. At least I’ll be doing something positive rather than just sitting around waiting for a letter in the mail…
Intermittent Fasting
While I’ve blogged about intermittent fasting before, it’s worth mentioning again. When you limit your eating to less than 8 hours each day, your body goes into “clean up” mode, devouring dead and damaged cells… basically clearing out the garbage. This is called “autophagy” … eating oneself! (I’ll post the link to my article below, if you’re interested in reading it.)
The premise behind intermittent fasting is to stop eating and snacking throughout our waking hours so our body can spend time cleaning house rather than just processing a constant intake of food. This can be done either by compressing daily food intake into 8 hours or less, or by taking in less than 600 calories on 2 non-consecutive days of the week.
Many cultures have fasting rituals—the month-long celebration of Ramadan is one example, where followers do not eat during daylight hours. Historically, humans did not have the plentiful food supply we have today, and this has created a huge change in modern eating habits, with 3 full meals plus 2 to 4 snacks every day. Grazing, as one friend calls it, leaves little time for cleaning out the garbage in our cells.
“Knowledge translation” takes a long time…
When I retired from active pharmacy practice and started this blog, I had the time and interest to read as much as I could about creating a healthy lifestyle. I subscribed to several health newsletters that give me a steady stream of research-based information to share with you all. It is notable that new medical discoveries take an average of 17 years to become standard medical practice. They call this transfer of knowledge into practice “knowledge translation” and it’s a big problem in the world of science. Writers like me are trying to speed this up a little…
The IF Diet (Intermittent Fasting blog (Jan 2020) link: https://jeanniebeaudin.wixsite.com/author/post/the-if-diet
References:
Consumption of ultra-processed foods and cancer risk—British Medical Journal
The Effects of High-Protein Diets on Kidney Health and Longevity—Journal of the American Society of Nephrology https://jasn.asnjournals.org/content/31/8/1667
Flavonoid-rich foods lower blood pressure via gut bacteria--
Microbial Diversity and Abundance of Parabacteroides Mediate the Associations Between Higher Intake of Flavonoid-rich Foods and Lower Blood Pressure—Journal of Hypertension
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