“Oh really?” I replied. “And what diet are you trying exactly?”

Long story short, one of the guys I work with, who I’ve been sporadically talking to about Crossfit and weight lifting and the zone diet and paleo diet, has taken it upon himself to try out some of my dietary suggestions. Specifically he seems to have only made 2 changes to his diet:

1. Stop eating bread
2. Only eating pasta once a week

Ok that’s not a bad start, I approve of both those things. Interestingly he’s not done anything else, like increasing exercise for example (not that that’s of much use as we know that exercise doesn’t reduce weight much), nor has he changed the rest of his diet much. So I was quite interested to hear what effect these 2 changes had had, here’s what he said:

• He’s lost 1.5 stone (21 lbs or 10kg) in just 6 weeks
• Stomach cramping / bloatedness has gone

WOW!! I’m not surprised, but still super impressed. Well done that man. I’ve adopted a phrases from one of my other work colleagues: bread is the Devil’s Dough!

That claim is backed up by this piece of research done when France won the 1998 world cup. In which it says:

Instead of about 33 deaths a day in the five days before and after the match, 23 men died of a heart attack on match day.

So there was a 30% drop in heart attacks in men the day France won the World Cup. Which means there should be a similar reaction in Spain. 10 more Spanish men are alive (or at least escaped a life changing trip to the hospital) as a result of Spain’s win yesterday.

But, in true interweb science fashion, there’s another study which says it ain’t so. This study reports that:

In a study conducted during the 2006 World Cup in Germany, researchers reported that men are three times more likely to have heart attacks on days when their national football team is playing in a key match.

Although it should be noted that this study was done in Germany, and Germany didn’t win the 2006 World Cup (Italy did), so maybe football increases heart attacks throughout the group and knockout stages, but there’s a reduction on the final day, if you actually win.

So I guess the real question is, how many people did the World Cup competition kill?!?

I’m reminded of this xkcd.com cartoon:

As if diet wasn’t important enough already, it seems you can’t feed your kid junk, then kick him/her out to play and hope they burn it off.

“the lifestyle factors associated with eating unprocessed meats and processed meats were similar, but only processed meats were linked to higher risk.”

That’s a really telling conclusion. Personally I think it’s a load of old nonsense that eating red meat is linked to health issues, the reason being, several studies I’ve seen lump processed meats with red meats, when assessing risk factors. It’s very refreshing to see this study do the exact opposite and conclude that red meat does not increase the risk of heart disease!

The world’s dietary advice can be changed, one study at a time.

Apart from the well documented negative health issues of sweets that are high in sugar, glucose syrup and E numbers, I also found hydrogenated vegetable oil (a source of cancer inducing trans fats) and palm oil (at least they admitted it) which is the cause a massive environmental damage across the world. Palm oil is becoming a bigger and bigger issue at the moment.

IMO as a children’s charity, Great Ormond Street Hospital should seriously re-evaluate their fund raising strategy to one that promotes health not disease in kids, and one that is more environmently reasponsible.

“Nursery food – A big survey from the Local Government Organization has found that nurseries serve too much fruit and vegetables and not enough carbohydrates for growing toddlers. They’re calling for more guidelines.”

WTF!?! Since when are fruit and vegetables not carbohydrates?

It is shocking that people who don’t understand that very basics of dietary macro nutrients, consider themselves in a position of authority to dictate what children should and shouldn’t eat. Disgraceful.

Anyway, I thought I’d repeat the test 3 years on and see what it is now. Here are the results with the bits I’m missing out on apparently:

Lifestyle

+ 0.5 Minimizing or cutting out your caffeinated coffee consumption completely could provide you with about half a year more in life expectancy

+ 2.0 If it is ok with your doctor, taking an 81 mg aspirin every day improves your hear and brain health and could help you delay or escape a heart attack or stroke. Taking an aspirin each day, perferably in the evening, could add 2 years to your life expectancy.

+ 1.0 There is a clear link between the inflammation of gum disease and heart disease. Do a good job of flossing daily and you could add a year to your life expectancy.

Nutrition

+ 3.0 Red meat is the primary source of potentially life-shortening iron. Cutting back your read meat consumption to 1-2 days per week or less could add 3 years to your life expectancy

+ 2.0 Increasing your exercise regimen to 5 days a week could add 1 year, to 6 or 7 days a week could add 2 years to your life expectancy

Medical

+ 1.0 Examining yourself for cancer could add a year to your life expectancy

+ 0.5 Being in touch with your health care provider annually is very important to your strategy to screen for and prevent illness. Getting the appropriate blood tests on a regular basis could add a half a year

+ 0.5 Getting your blood sugar checked could add half a year to your life expectancy

There are certainly some things I don’t agree with there, like taking the aspirin. Check yours out and post back here what it is: http://calculator.livingto100.com/

Some great quotes from Dr Robert Lustig, Professor of Paediatrics at the University of California:

- “Everyone talks about a high fat diet… well a high sugar diet *is* a high fat diet.”

- “High Fructose Corn Syrup behaves just like a poison.”

- “You wouldn’t think twice about not giving your kid a Budweiser, but you don’t think twice about giving your kid a can of coke. They’re the same thing.”

- “A low fat diet isn’t really a low fat diet, because the Fructose or Sucrose doubles as fat. It’s really a high fat diet. That’s why our diets don’t work.“