7 Easy Ways To Spot Fad Diets

January 15, 2014 by Dr. Steve Chaney

The FTC Finally Targets Deceptive Advertising

Author: Dr. Stephen Chaney

I think it was P. T. Barnum who said “There’s a Sucker Born Every Minute”. That’s particularly true in the diet world where hucksters seem to be all around us – especially this time of year.

You’ve seen the weight loss ads touting:

Pills or powders that suppress your appetite or magically prevent you from absorbing calories.

Fat burners that melt the pounds away.

New discoveries (juices, beans, foods) that make weight loss effortless.

The one simple thing you can do that will finally banish those extra pounds forever.

You already know that most of those ads can’t be true. You don’t want to be a sucker. But, the ads are so compelling:

Many of them quote “scientific studies” to “prove” that their product or program works.

Their testimonials feature people just like you getting fantastic results from their program. [You can do wonders with “computer enhanced” photographs.]

Many of those products are endorsed by well known doctors on their TV shows or blogs. [It is amazing what money can buy.]

So it is easy to ask yourself: “Could it be true?” “Could this work for me?”

Fortunately, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has stepped up to the plate to give you some guidance. Just in time for weight loss season, they have issued a list of seven claims that are in fact too good to be true. If you hear any of these claims, you should immediately recognize it as a fad diet and avoid it.

7 Easy Ways To Spot Fad Diets

Here are the seven statements in ads that the FTC considers as “red flags” for fad diets that should be avoided:

Causes weight loss of two pounds or more a week for a month or more without changing your diet and exercise routine.
Causes substantial weight loss no matter what or how much you eat.
Causes permanent weight loss without lifestyle change even after you stop using the product.
Blocks absorption of fat or calories to enable you to lose substantial weight.
Safely enables you to lose more than 3 pounds per week for more than 4 weeks.
Causes substantial weight loss for all users
Causes substantial weight loss by wearing a product on your body or rubbing it on your skin.

I’m sure you have heard some of these claims before. You may have actually been tempted to try the products or program. You should know that the FTC said that it considers these to be “Gut Check” claims that simply can’t be true.

Operation Failed Resolution

Unfortunately, the FTC guidelines didn’t exactly make it to the front page of newspapers and blogs. They weren’t featured in the network news shows. So the FTC went one step further. In a program called “Operation Failed Resolution”, the FTC:

Sent letters to 75 publisher and broadcasters asking them to review the FTC’s “Gut Check” claims when screening ads for publication. The implication, of course, is that the publishers and broadcasters could be held liable for false advertising if they ignored the FTC guidelines in accepting advertisements.

On January 7, 2014 they initiated legal action against what they considered the four most outrageous weight loss claims. Those were:

Shake, Shake, Busted

Sensa, the company who’s ads claimed that you could just “shake, shake” their ‘fairy dust’ on your food and lose weight, was required to pay $26 million for unfounded weight loss claims and misleading endorsements (testimonials).

And, as for those clinical studies Sensa claimed to have had, the FTC alleged that one study was based on fabricated data, and the other two studies were equally flawed. The FTC also alleged that Sensa paid people for their testimonials.

Acai Nonsense

LeanSpa was fined $7 million for claiming that a mixture acai berry and a colon cleanse could help you lose weight. Among other things, the FTC prohibited LeanSpa from claiming that products were clinically proven to work when they are not.

Rub A Dub, Dub

L’Occitane was fined $450,000 for claiming that a skin cream called Almond Beautiful Shape would slim a person’s body “1.3 inches in just 4 weeks.”

HCG Deception

HCG Diet Direct was fined $3.2 million for claiming that human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) plus a very low calorie diet could help you lose a pound a day. The FTC alleged that HCG had not been proven to provide any more weight loss than the low calorie diet alone. The FTC stated that HCG “has been falsely promoted for decades as a weight loss supplement.”

Don’t Wait For the FTC to Act

You probably recognize that there are a lot of other companies out there hawking similar products. There are lots of similar weight loss ads that seem just too good to be true. The FTC is watching them and will probably try to shut them down one by one. When the actions against these four companies were announced, the FTC said:

“We cannot comment on companies that either we haven’t brought an action against in the past or we aren’t announcing today, because our investigations are non-public. We do have other investigations going on in the health area, but we can’t identify the companies we’re investigating”.

The good news is that you don’t have to wait for the FTC to act. They have given you “7 Easy Ways To Spot Fad Diets”. All you need to do is to avoid diets that make those kinds of claims.

The Bottom Line

Don’t be a sucker. Don’t fall for those enticing weight loss ads that sound too good to be true. The FTC has given you 7 simple rules for identifying the weight loss products that you should avoid, based on the claims they make. I listed those at the beginning of the article.

The FTC has taken enforcement action against manufactures of appetite suppressants, acai berry weight loss products, HCG weight loss products and sliming creams for false advertising.

The Director of the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection summed up the enforcement actions by saying “The chances of being successful just by sprinkling something on your food, rubbing cream on your thighs, or using a supplement are slim to none. The science just isn’t there.

There are no magical pills or potions that will make the pounds melt away. You need to change your diet, change your activity level and make significant lifestyle changes if you want to achieve long term weight control.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

What Causes Food Cravings?

January 9, 2014 by Dr. Steve Chaney

Is Your Body Trying To Tell You Something?

Author: Dr. Pierre DuBois

What Causes Food Cravings?

For some years, researchers had believed that having cravings for a particular type of food may be an indication that you are missing a particular nutrient in your diet. For example, if you crave red meat then you may have an iron deficiency, or if you crave ice cream you must need calcium.

Studies have shown, however, that cravings have nothing to do with a nutritional deficiency, but are actually caused by chemical signals in the brain. Nutritionist Karen Ansel says, “If cravings were an indicator of nutritional deficiency, we’d all crave fruits and vegetables. The fact that we all want high carb, high fat comfort foods, along with the research, is a pretty good indicator that cravings aren’t related to deficiencies.” Yes–it’s really all in your head.

Fat, Sugar and Salt Fuel Food Cravings

When you crave a food, the same reward centers in the brain that are responsible for drug and alcohol addiction are more active: the hippocampus (memory), the insula (emotion and perception) and the caudate (memory and learning). These areas are all very receptive to dopamine and serotonin, neurotransmitters that are responsible for feeling relaxed and calm and which spur reward-driven learning.

The reason you crave things such as ice cream, potato chips and chocolate is that these items are full of fat, sugar and/or salt. Both fat and sugar are involved in an increased production of serotonin and other chemicals that make us feel good.

Food Cravings Are Also Learned

There is a large societal aspect to cravings as well. For instance, women in Japan tend to crave sushi and only 6 percent of Egyptian women say they crave chocolate. Approximately half of American women claim that their cravings for chocolate reach a peak just before their period. However, research has found no correlation between fluctuations in women’s hormones and cravings. In fact, postmenopausal women do not report a large reduction in cravings from their premenopausal levels.

Will Power Alone Is Not Enough

Studies have found that the more people try to deny their cravings, the greater the craving they have for the forbidden food. Researchers suggest that it is better to give in to the craving in a controlled way rather than denying yourself altogether. Just be sure to restrict what you consume to a reasonable amount. If your dopamine receptors are constantly bombarded with high-fat and high-sugar foods (or drugs and alcohol), they shut down to prevent an overload. This makes your cravings even greater and you end up eating more in an attempt get the same reward, but you never really feel satisfied.

How To Bust Your Food Cravings

Exercise and distraction are the two best ways to reduce food cravings. One study found that a morning workout can reduce your cravings for the whole day. Other studies suggest that distracting your mind with other pleasurable stimuli can be effective. For example, smelling a non-food item that you really like can also help. Keep a small vial of your favorite perfume with you when a craving comes on and take a whiff when the craving hits you. It will occupy the aroma receptors that are involved in food cravings.

The Bottom Line

In most cases food cravings are not due to nutritional deficiencies. They are a physiological response of the “pleasure center” in the brain to fat, sugar & salt.

Food cravings are different in different cultures, which indicates that food cravings are also a learned response.

Willpower alone is not sufficient to overcome food cravings.

The best strategy to avoid food cravings is to exercise regularly and distract your attention with other pleasurable stimuli.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Are Diet Pills Safe?

January 7, 2014 by Dr. Steve Chaney

Another Diet Pill Bites the Dust

Author: Dr. Stephen Chaney

The New Year is upon us, and everyone is looking for an easy way to lose weight.

Let’s face it. Losing weight is difficult. You have to give up your favorite foods. You’re often hungry and cranky. You have to change your lifestyle. And did I mention that you might need to put on your running shoes and go for a run or, heaven forbid, actually go to the gym.

It’s so much easier to take one of those diet pills. You know the ones I’m talking about. They promise to give you energy – burn the fat – suppress your appetite. All you need to do is take one of those little pills every day and, voila, you’re ready to try on that bikini.

It all sounds great. But are those diet pills really safe? A few weeks ago I shared with you that the experts have warned against the use of fat burning sports supplements. They consider them unsafe. Now it’s time to turn our attention to the fat burning diet pills.

Are Diet Pills Safe?

Lots of diet pills have come and gone over the years. Some have just faded away because they didn’t work. They didn’t live up to their claims. Others have been withdrawn from the market by regulatory agencies because they were dangerous or actually killed people- Ma huang and Fen-Phen come to mind, but there have been many others.

And now it looks like yet another diet pill, one called Dexaprine, may have the same fate.

The ads make it sound like a wonder pill.

“With one little change…you could feel energy all day long”

“With one little change…you can suppress your insatiable appetite”

“You can try another unsuccessful diet without it, but when you’re ready…the ultimate fat burner will be waiting for you with open arms.”

The Dark Side

And yet, like most diet pills, it also has a dark side. Side effects include insomnia, sweating, heart palpitations and high blood pressure. As if that weren’t bad enough, the supplement manufacturer that makes Dexaprine conducts no clinical studies on their products, so they have no idea whether their product is safe or not.

And, it appears that it may not be safe. Dutch authorities banned Dexaprine in August after reports of 11 adverse reactions associated with Dexaprine use in Holland since March of this year, including hospitalizations and severe heart problems. British authorizes followed suit the next day and issued a warning against use of “fat burner” supplements in general. It’s probably just a matter of time before other governments step in and ban Dexaprine as well.

And, it’s not just Dexaprine. New diet pills hit the market almost every day. And, they all have those same “magical” claims.

The Only Safe Drug Is A New Drug

It reminds me of the wise advice that a physician colleague of mine gave to the medical students near the start of their first year. He told them “The only safe drug is a new drug”. He went on to say that he didn’t mean that new drugs were safer than the older drugs. It’s just that we don’t know all of their bad side effects until they’ve been on the market for a few years.

Diets pills are no different. They burst on the market full of promise. But, once they’ve been on the market for a year or two, reports of their bad side effects start to appear. We start to learn just how dangerous they are. And, one by one, they all bite the dust.

The Bottom Line

1) There is no “Tooth Fairy”. There is no “Easter Bunny”. And, there is no magical pill that will SAFELY melt the pounds away. You simply don’t want to risk the diet pill solution – no matter how easy it sounds. No magical, “quick fix” diet solution is worth risking permanent heart damage – or worse.

2) If you are fortunate to lose weight safely using one of those diet pills, you won’t have learned anything. You won’t have changed anything. The weight will come right back on.

3) Permanent weight loss requires a permanent change to your lifestyle. Some of those changes will be difficult at first, but once those lifestyle changes become habits – once they become part of who you are, they will become easy.

You can achieve both the weight and the health you want!

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

The Two Biggest Misconceptions About Supplementation

December 31, 2013 by Dr. Steve Chaney

Secrets You Need To Know

Author: Dr. Stephen Chaney

In last week’s “Health Tips From The Professor” I told you the truth behind the headlines that vitamins are a waste of money. This week I’m going to be talking about the two biggest misconceptions that people have about supplementation. These are two secrets you need to know.

The Two Biggest Misconceptions About Supplementation

I won’t keep you in suspense. The answer is pretty simple. The two biggest misconceptions about supplementation that I hear over and over are:

1) Supplementation can cure disease

2) It doesn’t matter what you eat (or what supplements you take)

Of course, those statements don’t tell you much by themselves, so let’s delve into the subject more deeply.

Misconception #1: Supplementation can cure disease.

I don’t know how many times I’ve been asked “I have “disease X”. What supplements should I take? – as if supplements were drugs that can be taken to cure a disease.

We shouldn’t think of supplements as drugs that cure diseases. We should think of them as providing the nutrients that are the building blocks of health – or perhaps the ammunition that the body uses to fight diseases. Diseases, after all, are an abnormal state of being, and our bodies have an amazing capacity to fight those diseases.

When we have infections or cancer our body activates its immune system to fight it. When we have inflammation our body tries to put out the fire. When we have damage to our DNA – our genetic information – our body tries to repair it. The list is almost endless. Our bodies are wondrously designed!

Our immune systems require nutrients like protein, B vitamins, antioxidants, zinc and iron. The omega-3 fatty acids, anti-oxidants and polyphenols like resveratrol are anti-inflammatory. Nutrients like antioxidants and polyphenols support DNA repair.

So proper diet and supplementation are not “magic bullets” that cure diseases. They are simply the building blocks that allow the body to do what it does best.

And because no two of us are alike the nutrients that we need the most to allow our bodies to do their job efficiently may be different for each one of us.

So while there is no magic food or supplement that will cure a specific disease, a healthy diet and a holistic approach to supplementation can often work wonders.

Misconception #2: It doesn’t matter what you eat.

This is the flip side of the coin. I often come across people who have been told by the “experts” that the cause of their disease was not related to diet so they shouldn’t worry about what they eat. They are also usually told that supplementation will not do any good.

Let’s take the most extreme example – genetically caused diseases or serious degenerative diseases like multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s for which the causes are still not fully understood.

It is generally true that these diseases were not caused by poor diet (MS may be the exception because there is some evidence that it can be caused by inadequate vitamin D during childhood). And I know many people who take the “expert’s” advice to heart and eat whatever they like and consider supplementation a waste of money.

Is that a sound approach? Let’s consider.

Any nutritionist will tell you that an inadequate diet can lead to malaise, low energy, inflammation, weakened immune system and impaired wound healing – just to name a few maladies. Even if you don’t end up with the symptoms of a nutritional deficiency, a poor diet can rob you of energy and vitality.

If you layer the consequences of a poor diet on top of the underlying disease, your chances of being able to cope with the disease and function optimally are greatly diminished.

I have come across many people with very serious diseases who are able to function at a very high level through proper diet and a holistic approach to supplementation.

Diet and supplementation did not cure their disease as they quickly discover if they stop supplementing and go back to the way they used to eat, but in many cases you would consider them to be perfectly healthy as long as they keep doing what they have been doing.

The Bottom Line

1) There is no perfect food or supplement that is capable of curing disease, but if you give your body the nutrients that it needs it often has the ability to heal itself.

2) Proper diet and supplementation can make a difference even if the disease was not caused by poor nutrition.

3) Each of us have unique nutritional needs so a holistic approach to diet and supplementation is best.

I didn’t specifically talk about weight control and exercise, but you should know from my previous “Health Tips From The Professor” that I consider them to be an essential part of any holistic health program.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Are Multivitamins A Waste Of Money?

December 24, 2013 by Dr. Steve Chaney

Don’t Throw Your Vitamins Away Yet

Author: Dr. Stephen Chaney

The Professor is annoyed. Two things really irritate me:

Charlatans who cherry pick studies to “prove” that their snake oil supplements will cure what ails you.
Doctors who proclaim that vitamins are a waste of money without understanding the science behind the studies they are quoting.

Are Multivitamins A Waste Of Money?

You’ve seen the headlines telling you that “the experts” have concluded that multivitamins are a waste of money. You might be wondering “What’s behind these headlines? Who are these experts, and what is their evidence?”

Let’s start at the beginning. The article (Gualler et al., Annals of Internal Medicine, 159: 850-851, 2013) that generated all of the headlines was an editorial, which means it is an opinion piece, not a scientific study. It represents the opinion of five very prominent doctors, but it is, at the end of the day, just their opinion. Many other well respected experts disagree with their opinion.

They based their editorial on three recently published studies:

The first study reported that vitamin and mineral supplements did not decrease the risk of heart disease and cancer in healthy individuals (Fortmann et al., Annals of Internal Medicine, 159, doi: 10.7326/003-4815-159-12-201312170-00729)

The second study reported that multivitamins did not affect cognitive function in healthy male physicians aged 65 and older (Gradstein et al, Annals of Internal Medicine, 159, 806-814, 2013)

The third study concluded that multivitamins did not reduce the risk of a second heart attack in patients who had previously had a heart attack and were receiving appropriate medical therapy.

These were all large, well designed studies, so it would be tempting to conclude that the headlines were right. Maybe vitamins are a waste of money.

But, what if the whole underlying premise of these studies was flawed? Let’s examine that possibility by examining the flawed premises behind these and other studies.

What’s Wrong With These Studies?

#1) These studies were too narrowly focused.

Multivitamins and individual vitamins and minerals are not magic bullets. They are not drugs. They are meant to fill nutritional gaps in our diet – not prevent or cure disease. We should be asking whether holistic approaches can prevent or cure disease – not whether individual nutrients can do so.

One of the examples that I love to use, because it really made an impression on me as a young scientist, occurred at an International Cancer Symposium I attended more than 30 years ago. I attended a session in which an internally renowned expert was giving his talk on colon cancer. He said, “I can show you, unequivocally, that colon cancer risk is significantly decreased by a lifestyle that includes a high-fiber diet, a low-fat diet, adequate calcium, adequate B-vitamins, exercise and weight control. But I can’t show you that any one of them, by themselves, is effective.”

The question that came to me as I heard him speak was: “What’s the message that a responsible scientist or responsible health professional should be giving to their patients or the people that they’re advising?” You’ve probably heard experts saying:

“Don’t worry about the fat content of your diet. It can’t be shown to increase the risk of colon cancer.”
“Don’t worry about calcium. It doesn’t decrease the risk of colon cancer”
“Don’t worry about B-vitamins. They don’t decrease the risk”
“Don’t worry about fiber. It can’t be shown to decrease the risk either”

But, is that the message that we should be giving people – that nothing matters? Shouldn’t we really be saying what that doctor said many years ago – that a lifestyle that includes all of those things significantly decreases the risk of colon cancer?

#2) These studies were destined to fail.

It’s almost impossible to prove that any single intervention prevents disease when you are starting with a healthy population (something we scientists refer to as a primary prevention study).

For example, in “Health Tips From the Professor” just a couple of weeks ago I shared with you that even when you combine all of the published studies with tens of thousands of patients, it is impossible to prove that stain drugs prevent heart attacks in healthy individuals.

If you can’t show that statins prevent heart disease in healthy people, why would you expect to be able to show that vitamins or minerals prevent heart attacks in healthy people?

I can’t resist pointing out that this perfectly illustrates the pro-drug, anti-supplement bias that is so prevalent among many of my medical colleagues. I haven’t seen a single editorial or headline suggesting that statin drugs might be a waste of money for healthy individuals.

#3) These studies simply asked the wrong questions.

For example, the third study described in the editorial was asking whether multivitamins reduced the risk of a second heart attack in patients who were receiving “appropriate medical therapy”. What does “appropriate medical therapy” mean, you might ask? It means that those patients were on 4 or 5 drugs, with all of their side effects.

In reality the study was not asking whether multivitamins reduced the risk of a second heart attack. The study asked whether multivitamins had any additional benefits for individuals who were taking 4 or 5 drugs to reduce their risk of a second heart attack. That’s a totally different question.

There are lots of examples of this paradigm. For example, 17 years ago the Cambridge Heart Antioxidant Study showed that vitamin E significant decreased heart attack risk in patients with severe cardiovascular disease (Stephens et al, The Lancet, 347: 781-786, 1996). Patients in that study were taking one or two medications. However, in today’s world that would be considered unethical. The standard medical treatment for high risk heart disease patients today is 4 or 5 drugs, and when patients are receiving that many medications it is no longer possible to demonstrate a benefit of vitamin E. The story is similar for omega-3 fatty acids.

That poses a dilemma. What recent studies show is that individual nutrients don’t reduce the risk of a second heart attack in someone who is receiving “standard of care” medical treatment.

But that’s not the question I am interested in. I’d like to know whether natural approaches might be just as effective as the drugs or whether natural approaches might allow one to use fewer drugs or lower doses. I’d like to avoid all of the side effects of those drugs if I could.

What about you? What questions would you like answered? Do these studies answer those questions?

What Was Overlooked In Those Studies

The studies did show conclusively that there were no harmful effects from supplementing except for high dose beta-carotene in smokers. Somehow that information never made it into the headlines.

The Bottom Line

Don’t pay much attention to the reports that supplements don’t work and are a waste of money. Those studies are fundamentally flawed.

Don’t pay much attention to the reports claiming that vitamins will hurt you. Except for beta-carotene in smokers the latest studies showed no evidence of harm.

On the other hand, don’t expect miracles from your vitamins. If you spend your time sitting in front of the TV set eating pizza & drinking sodas, popping a vitamin pill won’t prevent much of anything.

Finally, holistic approaches are often as effective as drug therapy – without the side effects. Your vitamins can be an important part of a holistic approach to better health that includes weight control, a good diet and exercise.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Belly Fat Increases Your Risk Of Dementia

December 17, 2013 by Dr. Steve Chaney

Does Belly Fat Make You Dumb?

Author: Dr. Stephen Chaney

In last week’s “Healh Tips From the Professor” I told you that abdominal obesity (otherwise known as “belly fat“) increases your risk of dying from both heart disease and cancer.

But you probably knew that already.

This week I’m going to tell you about a recent study that breaks new ground and should really grab your attention.

Belly Fat Increases Your Risk Of Dementia

This week’s study shows that abdominal obesity dramatically increases your risk of developing dementia as you age (RA Whitmer et al, Neurology, 71: 1057-1064, 2008).

This study involved 6,583 members of Kaiser Permanente of Northern California, ages 40 to 45, who had their abdominal obesity measured between 1964 and 1973. The investigators then pulled their medical records between 1994 and 2006 when they were between 73 and 87 years old and asked how many of them had dementia.

The results may shock you.

The participants were divided into five groups based on their abdominal circumference. Those with the largest abdominal circumference were nearly 3 times more likely to have developed dementia than those with the smallest abdominal circumference. And that was after the data were adjusted for age, sex, race, education, diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, stroke and heart disease – all factors that are known to affect the risk of dementia.

Belly Fat Is Worse Than Overall Obesity

Interestingly enough the abdominal circumference was a better predictor of dementia risk than was BMI, the most frequently used measure of obesity.

Those subjects who had high abdominal obesity and normal BMI had a 2-fold increased risk of developing dementia

Those subjects who were obese but had normal abdominal circumference had only an 80% increased risk of developing dementia.

Of course, those people who were both obese and had a large belly were the worst off – they had almost a 4-fold increased risk of developing dementia.

So where you store your fat is more important than the total amount of fat, but you probably knew that already.

You Can Reduce Your Risk Of Dementia

Now let’s get to the question that I’m sure that many of you are dying to ask me: “If I don’t like what I see when I look into the mirror, am I doomed to develop dementia when I get older?”

The answer is no. Most experts feel that the effects of abdominal obesity are reversible.

But the time to act is now!

If you wait until you get older, you might just forget that you ever read this article.

The Bottom Line

The bad news is that belly fat increases your risk of developing dementia as you get older by as much as 3-fold.

The good news is that dementia is not inevitable. You can reverse the increased risk of dementia by losing the belly fat

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

How Do You Fight Insomnia?

December 12, 2013 by Dr. Steve Chaney

Preventing Sleeplessness Without Medication

Author: Dr. Pierre DuBois

Do you struggle to fall asleep at night? Do you find yourself wide awake at three in the morning staring up at the ceiling and wondering if you’ll fall back to sleep at all before your alarm goes off?

If you answered “yes”, you are not alone. Research has shown that up to 50 percent of the population suffers from insomnia with up to a third having struggled with it for at least a year.

How Much Sleep Do You Need?

The average adult requires a little over 8 hours of sleep each day. However, very few people are able to manage that with lives that are more hectic than ever. Jobs, children and other obligations require us to be up with the birds and to go to bed far later than we would if we were following our own biological rhythm. A disruption to our circadian rhythm, which governs our hormone production, body temperature and sleep, can lead to insomnia.

What Does Insomnia Do To Us?

We need adequate, restful sleep in order to perform at our best. Prolonged insomnia can cause mental fuzziness and interfere with how you perform your daily activities. It also increases your risk of depression, headaches, auto accidents, and can lead to substance abuse.

Of course, worrying about the lack of sleep you are getting rarely helps you get more sleep! Stress, anxiety, and widespread use of coffee and alcohol are some of the greatest contributors to insomnia.

How Do You Fight Insomnia?

Learning how to manage stress effectively is one of the best ways to increase your chances of getting a good night’s sleep, and making some changes to your lifestyle may make a difference in the number of hours of sleep you get. The following are the top 10 strategies you can use:

Get regular exercise before dinner, which can help put your body in a restful state by bedtime. Just be sure not to exercise too close to bedtime, as this will likely make you restless.

Try to get out in the late afternoon sun as often as possible to stimulate melatonin release, which will help get your circadian rhythm back on track.

Use stress reduction techniques such as yoga, meditation and Tai Chi, which are great ways to help teach your mind and body to relax.

Caffeine and smoking keep the body stimulated. Try to avoid them from mid-afternoon on, and keep your consumption of alcohol to a minimum.

Eat a small snack of protein with a complex carbohydrate just before bed, such as peanut butter on a whole-grain cracker. It can keep your blood sugar from dipping too low and waking you up in the night.

Keep to the same sleeping and waking schedule every day and don’t change it by more than an hour on weekends.

Avoid television or computer use at least an hour before bedtime, as it stimulates the brain, making it difficult to fall asleep.

Keep your bedroom dark, quiet and cool.

If you are lying awake for more than about 20 minutes, get up and go sit in another dimly lit room until you feel sleepy.

These strategies have proven useful for many people in getting them back to a regular sleeping rhythm. Give them a try — they may help you too!

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Abdominal Fat Shortens Your Lifespan

December 10, 2013 by Dr. Steve Chaney

Your Belly Fat Could Be Killing You

Author: Dr. Stephen Chaney

You’ve probably already heard about the dangers of abdominal obesity (otherwise known as “belly fat“). You’ve probably heard that it increases your risk of diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer.

But did you know that your belly fat could be killing you? And, the weirdest part is that your belly fat could be killing you even if you are at ideal body weight (more about that in a minute).

Abdominal Fat Shortens Your Lifespan

A group of scientists at the National Institutes of Health recently analyzed data collected from 44,000 women in the Nurses’ Health Study over a 16-year period and asked if abdominal obesity affected their death rates from heart disease and cancer (Zhang et al, Circulation, 117: 1658-1667, 2008).

The answer was a clear-cut yes!

The study showed that women with a waist circumference of 35 inches were 2X more likely to die from heart disease and cancer than women with a waist circumference of 28 inches – even if they were at ideal body weight.

Abdominal Fat Can Kill You Even If Your Weight Is In The Normal Range

You might be asking “How could those women be at ideal body weight and still have abdominal obesity?”

There is a natural tendency to lose muscle mass as we age. When we add in the inactivity associated with the American lifestyle that loss of muscle mass is accelerated and the muscle is replaced with fat. Thus, it is actually possible in today’s world to have both normal weight and abdominal obesity – and that is not a good thing!

Of course, the women who were both overweight and had abdominal obesity were even more likely to die from heart disease or cancer. So weight control is not just about looking good in your bathing suit – abdominal obesity is a killer!

However, the good news is that you can do something about abdominal obesity. With exercise and a controlled calorie, high protein diet you can replace that fat with muscle (See my previous article “Do High Protein Diets Reduce Fat And Preserve Muscle?).

The Bottom Line

Belly Fat may double the risk of dying from heart disease and cancer in women. The statistics are likely to be similar in men.

Because both inactivity and the normal aging process cause us to lose muscle and replace it with fat, many of us have excess belly fat even when we are not overweight.

Combining a calorie controlled, high protein diet with exercise can help reverse the process and replace that excess fat with muscle.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Trigger Point Therapy

December 5, 2013 by Dr. Steve Chaney

Five Tips For Releasing Trigger Points

Author: Julie Donnelly

Have you ever had a pain in one area, rubbed another place on your body, and felt the pain melt away? If so, you’ve experienced the result of “trigger point therapy.”

A trigger point is technically an area of hyperirritability in a muscle that may refer pain &/or numbness to another area. In other words, it is a “knot” in the muscle fibers and it prevents muscle fibers from lengthening to their longest length. The shortened fibers are therefore pulling on the insertion, limiting range of motion, and weakening the entire muscle because these fibers are basically out of commission.

Trigger Points and Stretching

A muscle originates on a bone, crosses over a joint, and inserts onto a bone that will move when the muscle contracts. This is the way the body moves, and it functions perfectly until a trigger point forms in the muscle. As the muscle shortens it is pulling on the insertion point and you feel stiff, inflexible.

You may decide to stretch, however, people sometimes complain about feeling worse after stretching than they did before doing the stretch. To stretch a muscle, while it still has an active trigger point, could cause tiny tears to occur in the fibers, and could cause even more pain.

Consider this analogy. If you tied a rope onto a strong tree and then went straight across and tied the other end of the rope onto a flexible tree, the smaller tree would continue to stand straight. If you then tugged on the rope the flexible tree would bend. However, if you tied a knot, or two, or three, into the rope, the flexible tree would be leaning over. If you then pushed the bent tree so it was again standing up straight, you would only cause the knot in the rope to tighten, and you would be overstretching the fibers on either side of the knot.

This is exactly what happens when you try to stretch a muscle that is shortened by knots in the fibers, without first releasing the trigger points.

Five Tips For Releasing Trigger Points

As the trigger points caused knots to form in the muscle, the shortening of the fibers put a strain on the insertion point on the other side of the joint. You can reverse this situation by doing the following steps:

Treat. Hold the pressure on each trigger point. In order to effectively stretch a muscle you need to first press on each trigger point, holding the pressure for 30-60 seconds.

Understand the Muscle Movement. Look at the muscle that you will be treating. To best treat and stretch a trigger point, you need to know what movement the muscle makes. For example, the muscles in the back of your neck will pull your head back so you can look up at the ceiling, and the muscle on your shoulder blade raises your arm. To stretch, you need to go in exactly the opposite direction as the movement of the muscle.

Stretch. Move so the muscle needs to stretch. For example, the trapezius muscle will raise your shoulder, so to stretch it you want to move your head away from your shoulder. You can accomplish this by dropping your head in the opposite direction while pulling your shoulder down toward the floor.

Press and Stretch for Optimal Benefit. To optimize the treatment, whenever possible, continue the pressure on the deactivated trigger point and then move your body so the muscle is forced to lengthen.

Slowly Move the Joint in a Smooth Circle. Slowly rotate your shoulder in a circle, move your leg so your hip joint loosens, curl and open your fingers fully, circle your neck, and arch your back like a cat. Finally, stop pressing on the trigger points but continue the slow, relaxed movement of your joints.

The more often you limber up your joints, the more flexible you will feel. Always go only to the point of “this feels great,” never trying to overstretch or make a movement that is beyond your comfort level. Stretching feels great when you have untied the knots that have held you bound!

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Omega-3 Fatty Acids And Brain Health

December 3, 2013 by Dr. Steve Chaney

Is it How Much You Eat, or How Much You Keep?

Author: Dr. Stephen Chaney

Why do some studies conclude that omega-3 fatty acids are essential for a strong mind, a strong heart and will wipe out inflammation – while other studies suggest that they are ineffective? The simple answer is that nobody really knows.

However, in the process of reviewing two recent studies on omega-3 fatty acids and brain health I made an interesting observation that offers a possible explanation for the discrepancies between studies. And if my hypothesis is correct, it suggests that the design of many of the previous studies with omega-3 fatty acids is faulty.

Omega-3 Fatty Acids And Brain Health

The first study (J.K. Virtanen et al, J Am Heart Assoc, 2013, 2:e000305 doi: 10.1161/JAHA.113.000305) looked at the effect of omega-3 fatty acids on brain function in older adults (>65 years old). It concluded that high omega-3 levels were associated with better white matter grade and a 40% reduction in subclinical infarcts (Sorry for the technical jargon – but both of those are good things in terms of brain function for those of us who are getting a bit older).

The second study (C. M. Milte et al, J of Attention Disorders, 2013, doi: 10.1177/1087054713510562) looked at the effect of omega-3 fatty acids on children (ages 6-13) with ADHD. It concluded that high omega-3 levels were associated with improved spelling and attention and reduced oppositional behavior, hyperactivity, cognitive problems and inattention.

What Is The Common Thread In These Studies?

Why, you might ask, am I comparing a study in the elderly, where the concern is retention of cognitive skills, with a study on ADHD in children?

That’s because there is a very important common thread in those two studies. It wasn’t the amount of omega-3 fatty acids in their diet that counted. It was the levels of omega-3 fatty acids in their blood that made the difference.

The first study included a detailed dietary history to estimate the habitual intake of omega-3 fatty acids in the participants.

There was no correlation between estimated dietary intake of omega-3 fatty acids and any measure of brain function in those older adults.

However, there was a strong correlation between blood levels of omega-3s and brain health in that population group.

The second study was actually a placebo controlled intervention study in which the children were given 1 gm/day of either omega-3 fatty acids or omega-6 fatty acids.

Once again, there was no correlation between dietary intake of omega-3 or omega-6 fatty acids and any outcome related to ADHD.

However, there was a strong correlation between blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids or omega-3/omega-6 ratio and improvement in multiple measures of ADHD.

How Could The Effect of Dietary Intake And Blood Levels Of Omega-3s Be So Different?

Both studies were relatively small and suffered from some technical limitations, but the most likely explanations are:

Inaccurate recall of the participants as to what they eat on a habitual basis. (study 1)

Individual differences in the ability of participants to convert short chain omega-3 fatty acids (found in foods such as canola oil, flaxseed oil and walnuts) to the beneficial long chain fatty acids (found in cold water fish). (study 1)

Poor compliance in taking the supplements. (study 2)

Why Are These Studies Important?

The most important insight to come out of both of these studies is that it is essential to actually measure blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids and not just rely on dietary intake or supplementation for a valid clinical trial.

That’s a concern because blood measurements of omega-3 fatty acids are expensive and have not been a part of many of the clinical studies that have been performed to date. Even the largest, best designed clinical study is worthless if the dietary recalls aren’t accurate or people don’t take their capsules.

We need to go back and reevaluate many of the clinical studies that have been published.

We need to ask:

Are their conclusions valid?

Did some studies fail to show that omega-3s were effective simply because they only measured dietary intake and not how much of the omega-3s actually accumulated in the blood?

The Bottom Line

High blood levels of omega-3s in the blood correlated with improved brain health in the elderly and reduced ADHD symptoms in children

These studies were small, but they are consistent with a number of other studies that have come to similar conclusions.

Blood levels of omega-3s are better predictors than dietary intake for evaluating the health benefits of omega-3 fatty acids.

Many previous studies that failed to find an effect of omega-3 fatty acids on brain health, heart health or inflammation did not actually measure blood levels of the omega-3 fatty acids. These studies should be reevaluated.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.