Cocoa and high blood pressure

Now, I would have thought that a good cup of cocoa would certainly make you feel better but because of its high caffeine content I wouldn’t have thought of it as a treatment for high blood pressure.

But who am I to disagree with researchers from Harvard? It seems that although 3 in 10 of us in the UK suffer from the condition there is one place in the world where it is virtually unknown. The Kuna Indians live on a group of islands off the Caribbean coast of Panama and hypertension does not exist there. Once the islanders reach 60, they have a perfect average blood pressure of 110/70 which is something to be envied and they also have much lower death rates from heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, and cancer.

So what’s their secret? It is certainly not their salt intake as that is as high as in the UK, but because they drink 5 cups of cocoa every day. WE know that the flavonols in cocoa stimulate your body’s production of nitric oxide and that boosts blood flow to your heart, brain, and other organs. If you are taking a daily aspirin to thin your blood you might like to know that one study found cocoa thins your blood just as well. Certainly tastes better, and one Harvard Medical School professor claims cocoa can also treat blocked arteries, congestive heart failure, stroke, dementia, and even impotence.

No more to be said really, but I would stick to organic cocoa and I am not sure if the islanders make it with milk or not, but if you do then make sure that’s organic too so you get the maximum benefit

Weight loss doubled with a journal

I am keen on journals for all kinds of reasons: they improve mental health if you ‘mind dump’ your thoughts every day, expand your creativity and put you in touch with your deeper feelings and processes.

Now it seems it can also help you lose weight – in fact it can double your weight loss. By keeping a simple food diary, you can see clearly what you are eating rather than ‘guessing’. Strangely, guessing results in you thinking you are eating less and exercising more but by using whatever method works best for you – email, pen and paper, a spreadsheet – you get a realistic estimate of how you are really doing.

A US study showed that after 20 weeks of journaling, reducing calories by 500 a day and exercising moderately the participants had an average weight loss of around 13 pounds. But, the more that they wrote in their journals, the more weight they lost and that meant about twice as much as a control group who didn’t write a journal.

Tea fights diabetes

I grew up in a family where several members drank black tea, meaning without milk, but really it just applies to the type of tea. Black tea, long known for its antioxidants, immune boosting and antihypertensive properties, could also help treat diabetes.

Researchers studied the polysaccharide levels of green, oolong and black teas because polysaccharides are a type of carbohydrate that includes starch and cellulose which help retard absorption of glucose.

The researchers found that of the three teas, the polysaccharides in black tea had the most glucose-inhibiting properties and their polysaccharides also showed the highest scavenging effect on free radicals, which are involved in the onset of diseases such as cancer and rheumatoid arthritis.

In another recent study, participants who drank black tea had significantly reduced plasma glucose concentrations after two hours, compared to those who drank water or caffeine drinks. Drinking black tea also increased insulin levels, compared with the other drinks.

That study linked black tea’s diabetic benefits to polyphenols (naturally occurring antioxidants) and these compounds are thought to work by stimulating your B-cells — pancreatic cells responsible for insulin production — to produce insulin in your body. A growing body of research also suggests that the polyphenols in tea can lower your cholesterol, triglyceride levels and blood pressure, and even help to protect your bones. That study linked black tea’s diabetic benefits to polyphenols (naturally occurring antioxidants), including Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), of which more below!

My Green Tea Comment:

Although black tea was found to contain more glucose inhibiting polysaccharides, green tea may still be the most beneficial tea of them all, including for diabetics. A previous study found that EGCG in green tea worked as well in moderately diabetic mice as the diabetes drug Avandia, for example.

Another study in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded that green tea-extract also had a positive impact on glucose abnormalities. In that study, daily supplementary intake of green tea-extract lowered the hemoglobin A1c level in individuals with borderline diabetes.

So for my money black tea is not as healthy as green tea as they undergo far more processing. Oxidation is the main deciding factor whether you have green, oolong, or black tea, and black tea undergoes the most amount of oxidation through application of high heat. Good green tea is not oxidized at all and, like the Irish fields, the greener it is the higher the quality.

Fluoride is a common contaminant in many black teas and this toxic substance can have profoundly negative effects on your body. Green tea is the least processed kind of tea, and therefore typically contains the least amount of fluoride and the most EGCG of all tea varieties, which is a very good thing for your health.

I am currently trying a new type of green tea, Matcha, which contains the entire ground tea leaf, and can contain over 100 times the EGCG provided from regular brewed green tea. I will let you know how I get on with it.

Mindfulness and weight loss

Still on the weight loss front, it is probably the sight of myself in a bikini in the holiday snaps that has made this so much in the forefront of my mind, but here’s another good reason to take up yoga. A study done at a cancer centre has shown that regular yoga practice is associated with mindful eating, and people who eat mindfully are less likely to be overweight.

If you are concerned about middle-age spread, then it seems that regular yoga practice may help prevent it. An earlier study found that middle-age people who practice yoga gained less weight over a 10-year period than those who did not. This was independent of physical activity and dietary patterns and the researchers suspected that the weight-loss effect had more to do with increased body awareness, specifically a sensitivity to hunger and satiety than the physical activity of yoga practice itself.

Mindfulness is a skill learned either directly or indirectly through yoga and it does seem to affect eating behaviour according to the Head of a Cancer Prevention Program.

What does it mean?

Eating mindfully means being aware of why you eat, and stopping eating when full. Non mindful eating occurs when we eat when we are not hungry or in response to anxiety or depression. The way that eating a chocolate from a box is fine, but looking at the box and not remembering you ate them all definitely fits into the concept of mindless eating.

Yoga cultivates mindfulness in a number of ways, such as being able to hold a challenging physical pose by observing the discomfort in a non-judgmental way, with an accepting, calm mind and focus on the breath. This ability to be calm and observant during physical discomfort teaches you how to maintain calm in other challenging situations, such as not eating more even when the food tastes good and not eating when you’re not hungry.

Practice:

If you want to practice mindfulness around food, try looking at these points when eating:

** awareness – look at your food and observe how it looks, tastes and smells

** emotional response – are you hungry, or eating in response to sadness or stress

** disinhibition – are you continuing to eat even though you are full?

** external cues – have you chosen the food in response to advertising or peer pressure

** distraction – are you just focusing on your food, or on other things like making or taking a phone call or watching TV

Men are better than women at dieting

Most men do not embrace the concept of dieting unless pushed to it by a health problem or a few gentle (ie nagging) remarks from their partner. But research shows that when they do decide to got it they are better at it than women.

Men have not been well served by the diet industry, partly because of inertia, but also because of embarrassment. The traditional dieting aids for women like slimming groups just do not attract men. Do not despair though because I have found a couple of resources that can really help.

First is a clever woman who realised men don’t like dieting in public, for example asking for a gin and slimline tonic still isn’t quite the thing – and actually from a health point of view that slimline tonic is worthless. It may have fewer calories but it also has a cocktail of chemicals in it – go for the real thing and get the benefit!

Jeni Blaskett decided to create a slimming group in which men would flourish and lose weight. One that meant that men could go about their daily routines without feeling they were losing face so she set up a website www.Beltdown.com exclusively for men

Beltdown’s key diet plan principle is unique, and couldn’t be easier to follow – ‘If you can’t wash it, try to avoid it’. So a cooked breakfast of eggs, bacon, tomatoes and mushrooms makes it onto the tick list, cake and biscuits do not. The website has plenty of info aimed specifically at men, such as which are the lowest calorie beers and curries, and the format allows for men to stay totally anonymous, whilst still getting the challenge, competitiveness and interaction of a group – but online.

If you have an internet connection, it costs £8 a month membership and is available 24/7 – so no more excuses skip over to www.beltdown.com

Men only

If you want a programme designed by a man who has been there and done that himself, then I can recommend Robert Paterson’s book ‘Warriors’. He found the same problems in going to slimming groups as Jeni describes so he put together a very successful programme that has all the elements needed for successful weight loss. It is particularly aimed at those who have found success in their careers but who, due to hectic lifestyles and lack of time, have lost their healthy body in the process.

He created a specially developed ‘business plan’ to show you how to: – Set targets you can meet – Devise sensible day-to-day eating plans – Motivate yourself when the going gets tough – Achieve long term success – Treat your body as your business

Robert was an international banker weighing 22 stone who lost 8 stone on his regime, and kept the weight off. He is now Chairman of the Emerging Markets Group and Chairman of Performance Consultants, Brasil. He is a spokesman for the British Heart Foundation and regularly competes in events to raise funds for them. You will find his book on Amazon by typing in his name and Warriors in their search box.

The great organic debate

Some things are inevitable; global warming, the sun rising every day and the routine argument that organic food has no real value, so here we go again. It’s not unlike the debate on alternative medicine, if you have found it valuable and it has worked for you then you will continue using it, despite what any scientific study tells you.

Homoeopathy is a case in point; it is frequently pointed out that it cannot be proved, but I know it works for me, and the Royal Family, so I consider that I know better because by taking the remedy Nux Vom after a rich meal I can sleep easy with a quiet digestive system. Am I an idiot? Possibly, but I am not stupid as to stop taking something that does me no harm and that I find effective and replace it with a chemical/pharmaceutical alternative.

This debate is up again because the Government’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) says that organically produced food is no better than the same food grown with the aid of chemicals. They asked the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to review all papers published over 50 years on the nutrient content or health impacts of organic food versus the products of mainstream farming.

Papers, you note, not human experience, and their chief researcher Alan Dangour said: “A small number of differences in nutrient content were found to exist between organically and conventionally produced crops and livestock, but these are unlikely to be of any public health relevance.”

Depends how you define relevant doesn’t it? The organic movement is about having access to natural, untreated food that and also being concerned about larger issues such as animal welfare and the environment. As the researchers did not look into the possibility of contamination of non-organic food by pesticide residues, or into the environmental impacts of the different growing methods, they have certainly upset the Soil Association, responsible for most organic certification.

It said the researchers had set such strict criteria for judging whether other people’s work was worth taking seriously that they had rejected a lot of findings in favour of organics. Even within the facts and figures taken into the review, there was evidence that organic food had more of a whole range of nutrients.

But the FSA stood firm and said the differences the Soil Association referred to were not big enough to be significant and they have been supported, in a way, by the views of biodynamic farmers who have said for some time that the organic standards for food don’t go far enough as even organic farmers are permitted to use certain chemical herbicides on their crops or use antibiotics on their animals. Obviously this will have some impact on their nutritional value and purity and buying organic food from a supermarket does not necessarily give you the information you need.

I am a firm believer in organic and biodynamic farming for my health, and taste buds, and truly the best way to get your produce is directly from those who grow it. Most places now have a regular farmers market, there are over 500 of them round the country, and by talking to the person on the stall you will soon find out exactly what kind of farm they run and how organic they are.

To find your nearest one, go to www.farmersmarkets.net

Update on Maximum Calories – UK style

Well, it’s not nearly as serious as that Robbins Large Chocolate Oreo Shake at a whopping 2,600 calories but in summer apparently we tend to order iced coffee from our favourite java store and that is a problem. Just one a day can give a woman more than a quarter of her recommended 2000 calorie intake – and leaves no room at all for the odd chocolate or two. These drinks are creamy and often have syrup in them and they provide as many calories as an evening meal, except we have them as well as and not instead of.

Three chains were checked for calorie content: Starbucks, Caffe Nero and Costa Coffee. Beware: if you like a large berry mocha frappuccino with whipped cream from Starbucks you are consuming 561 calories – though you ought to get a reduction from the effort of saying that endlessly long name! If you want the caffeine without the calories then order a simple iced coffee as that is only 5 calories. Caffe Nero’s double chocolate or mocha frappe, though delicious, runs you 483 calories and you might be better heading for Costa. Personally I think they have the best blend of coffee, and their most calorie-laden drink is the massimo frescato but that is a mere (well, compared to the others) 332 calories.

For Maximum Calories – Queue here

Happily, I don’t think this has reached our shores yet, but if you have a Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream Parlour near you then read on! The greatest calorie snack on the planet seems to be their Large Chocolate Oreo Shake which weighs in at a whopping 2,600 calories. That’s more than you get allowed in a day on some diets, and it also serves you up 135 grams of fat (59 of saturated fat, 2.5 of trans fat), 263 grams of sugars and a massive 1,700 mg of sodium.

This is actually a normal dietary allowance of 3 days’ worth of saturated fat and, and as much salt as you find in 9 packets of crisps. But, I am not a killjoy – maybe one of those in a lifetime would be adventure enough to see what it was like, just don’t eat anything else for 24 hours!

Leukaemia and lymphoma link to Nutrasweet

My regular readers will know I am not a fan of artificial sweeteners, mostly because of the side effects linked to them and the fact that because the body does not recognise them as sugar, it is more inclined to seek it out in other forms – in other words it won’t help you lose weight and keep it off.

Since 2005 we have known that there is a link between lymphoma, leukaemia and aspartame and it has had FDA approval since 1981. You will find it in literally thousands of products from food and soft drinks through less likely items like vitamins. You will find it on the supermarket shelves under several different brand names including NutraSweet, Equal Measure, and Spoonful. Since it was first approved there have been a string of complaints from consumers over symptoms such as migraines, dizziness, insomnia, joint pain, memory loss, hives, rash, abdominal cramping, hallucinations, and seizures. There were also some deaths reported related to aspartame

Earlier this year the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) reported that aspartame showed no carcinogenic potential at the allowable daily intake (ADI) of 40/mg/kg but personally I think the wisest course is to avoid it altogether. To date there are over 900 studies done, with the most recent in May 2009 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, which investigated the link between formaldehyde and lymph cancer. You may only associate its use in embalming bodies, but a 2007 study showed that it linked to aspartame intake.

Aspartame turns into formaldehyde in the body, but it was previously thought that this was then quickly eliminated until a 1998 study showed that dietary aspartame binds to tissues in protein. It was found in liver, kidney, and blood and the report suggested that the build up of aspartame was cumulative and it is this that causes more damage over time.

Since 1987 formaldehyde has been listed by the US Environmental Protection Agency as a probable human carcinogen and is also linked to birth defects, and environmental allergies. In fact if you are thinking of starting a family you might want to pay attention to James Bowen, MD who wrote a provocative article entitled ‘Aspartame Murders Infants’ and who has said that it is destructive of the fertility process as it both inhibits female sexual response and induces male sexual dysfunction.

Natural alternatives for sweetness such as Perfect Sweet mentioned above, honey and Stevia, which is sold as a supplement, are worth seeking out.

60 percent increased prostate cancer risk from overcooked meat

In this weather it’s tempting to bring out the barbecue, though personally I have never had a decent steak off one yet, and there is always the problem of overcooking. Blackened steak might taste ok whether on the barbecue or the grill, but it does pose a health hazard – particularly for men.

Overcooking causes problems for vegetables too as they lose their nutritional value, but there are possible carcinogenic effects in meat, and eggs, that are definitely hazardous to health. When they are cooked at very high temperatures they produce a chemical compound called PhIP, which many believe can cause DNA changes, or can metabolize harmless bodily enzymes into carcinogens.

There is already a well documented link with PhlP and breast cancer and now the University of Minnesota has undertaken research that they say shows that that regularly eating well-done, or burned, meat could boost the risk of pancreatic cancer by a staggering 60 percent. It’s because overcooking creates heterocyclic amines (H.A.s), which contribute to increased risk of pancreatic cancer and it’s in the burned portions of the meat that the greatest concentration of H.A.’s are found.

So turn down the heat and turn up your chances of avoiding cancer.

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