Now a new study published in Circulation compared the blood pressure between individuals who ate vegetable protein (specifically glutamic acid along with 4 other amino acids which are relatively higher in vegetable than animal protein) with people who ate non-vegetable protein (read animal meat).
They found a difference of about -2.7/-2.0 mm Hg in blood pressure in people eating more vegetables. Although that may sound small, individual results may be different (and maybe higher for you).
Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of death in United States. Once diagnosed, patients have a very poor prognosis with median survival between 3 to 6 months.
A new study published in the Journal of American Medical Association has found a link between being obese in early adulthood and the risk of developing pancreatic cancer.
Individuals who were overweight (BMI of 25-29.9) from the ages of 14 to 39 years or obese (BMI > 30) from the ages of 20 to 49 years were at about twice the risk of developing pancreatic cancer (OR 1.67 & 2.58 respectively), independent of diabetes status. Also obesity at older age was associated with lower overall survival in patients with this malignancy.
The main drawback of the study is that this is a case control study, therefore the 2 factors studied (viz. pancreatic cancer and obesity) could occur together but not be causally related (although the authors did do adjust for most other risk factors of pancreatic cancer).
“This graph shows percent of income spent on food at home and away from home in the United States since 1929. During the Great Depression, households spent a total of 15 to 20 percent of their income on food. Today, we spend about 10 percent of our income on eating at home and dining out.”
It is interesting to note that people are spending less on food (as a percentage of our income) although this is most likely due to rising incomes. However, there is no surprise that people have decreased the amount of money that they spend on home food while the percentage spent on eating out has remains relatively constant – which is most likely is a big contributor to obesity.
Michael Pollen’s new book, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto argues for simplification of dietary habits in this world of complicated food products. This is what he has to say in a nutshell:
What to Eat?
Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food (non-dairy creamer?)
Avoid food products with ingredients that are unfamiliar, unpronounceable, more than 5 in number, or that contain high-fructose corn syrup (none of these is necessarily bad in itself, but they raise red flags).
Avoid food products that make health claims. Broccoli and tomatoes are silent. If a product needs to crow about being healthy, chances are it isn’t.
Shop the periphery of the supermarket where the fresh food resides
Get out of the supermarket and shop at a farmers’ market
Eat mostly plants: more leaves than seeds
Choose quality over quantity
Eat until you’re no longer hungry, not until you’re full.
Sit down to real meals with other people; eat slowly and mindfully; enjoy your food
Or put simply in the authors own words: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.”
Does it mean that we should eat till our appetite is satisfied. Or does it mean that we should eat till we no longer feel hungry. There is an excellent article in Scientific American which explains that eating behavior is influenced by two mechanisms in the human brain:
Hypothalamic center which controls the need to eat
Higher cortical centers mediated by dopamine reward system which controls the desire to eat
The answer to “How much food should we eat” seems clear enough.
The desire to eat can override the need to eat, leading people to consume tasty foods even when they’re not hungry. The inability to forego these rewarding aspects of food intake override long-term homeostatic control, contributing to obesity.
