Today we review not one, but 3 books that say yes, you can control inflammation primarily through diet. Moreover, these books claim that through their diet you can prevent and/or reverse such diverse conditions as heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, allergies, asthma, cancer, ADD, depression, and even wrinkles. Wow, big claims.

The Perricone Weight Loss Diet claims to be “A simple 3-part plan to lose the fat, the wrinkles, and the years.”  While Dr. Perricone set out to control inflammation, he found that many of his patients were losing weight when they followed his program. He begins by giving you the basic science behind inflammation, the problems it causes, and how obesity itself contributes to inflammation. He very quickly progresses to the importance of Omega-3 fatty acids before presenting us “step one,” his top 10 food “SuperGroups” for weight loss. Not surprisingly, he thinks we should eat more cold-water fish, fruits, monounsaturated fats, spices (not for flavor, but for their phytonutrients), seeds and nuts, beans, pro-biotic dairy products like low-fat yogurt, whole grains, and non-starchy vegetables. Note the lack of processed grains and most dairy products. “Step 2″ is a potent cocktail of 12 nutritional supplements, headed up by Omega 3 fish oil and notably not including any of the standard vitamins and minerals you would likely find in a multi-vitamin. “Step 3″ discusses an anti-inflammatory lifestyle, which includes exercise, stress reduction, and tea. The plan itself includes a 14 day menu with 33 new recipes. This poses a problem for most dieters: where will most people find the time to prepare over 30 new recipes, many of which include unfamiliar ingredients?

The next book is The Inflammation Syndrome by Jack Challem, which boldly proclaims itself “the complete nutritional program to prevent and reverse heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, allergies, asthma” on the cover. Mr. Challem presents you several quizzes through the book to see just how bad your personal inflammation problem is and how your diet contributes to the problem. While many of his recommendations are similar to Dr. Perricone’s — including plenty of salmon — Mr. Challem stresses the “paleolithic aspects”: don’t eat it if a caveman wouldn’t recognize it as food. This results in a relatively low glycemic index diet. His supplement recommendations not only include Omega-3 fatty acids, but several traditional vitamins such as Vitamin C, Vitamin E, and B-Complex Vitamins. There is space devoted to avoiding foods to which the dieter may be sensitive, specifically gluten, nightshades such as potatoes, tomatoes, and peppers, or cow’s milk products. He does specifically recommend organic foods over conventionally grown foods. A total of 26 recipes are included, which for the most part include familiar ingredients, with a few exotic items that a large grocery store is likely to stock. This book is littered with anecdotes about people whose chronic medical conditions improved with this plan, but the medical details given lead me to wonder if they aren’t altogether made up. The final chapter presents recommendations for conditions ranging from “age-related wear and tear” to “infections” to “skin disorders”.

Finally, we have The Anti Inflammation Zone by Dr. Barry Sears. While the cover only claims to be “reversing the epidemic that’s destroying our health” — a downright modest claim by comparison — inside he does discuss the role of inflammation in obesity, diabetes, cancer, auto-immune disorders, and a variety of mental disorders. Dr. Sears does a good job of presenting the science behind “why inflammation is bad for us” and actually encourages readers to get lab tests to determine levels of inflammatory markers. Building on his “Zone” franchise, meals are built on “Zone Points” and “Zone Carbohydrate Blocks.” This is of course familiar to people who have been on one of Dr. Sears’s diets before, but a little bewildering to the novice. In short, this is a low glycemic load diet . He recommends lean sources of protein, such as fish, poultry, and egg whites. Like the others, he recommends fish oil supplements. There is an exercise component, with a twist: the exercise is designed to be one while watching your favorite TV shows: do aerobic work like marching in place or stair stepping during the show, and weight training (using canned food) or flexibility training on alternate days. It’s a good start for the couch potato. Dr. Sears includes two 7 day menus, one for men and one for women. While the recipes are not difficult, it poses a problem for various family members to be on different menus.

The common themes in these books are simple:

1. Eat plenty of fish, particularly cold water fish like salmon
2. Since you can’t possibly eat enough fish, take 1-5g of fish oil or Omega-3 supplement daily, depending on your condition and which plan you follow
3. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables
4. Limit your intake of starches and grains
5. Don’t eat processed sugars
6. Do eat olive oil and nuts
7. Tea is good for you
8. Exercise is good for you

One point that both Dr. Perricone and Dr. Sears make is that in their opinion, more than about 45 minutes of exercise daily is bad because it increases cortisol levels. While it is true that the novice health enthusiast should not exceed this level, many people enjoy great health working out an hour or more daily.

There’s no revolutionary knowledge in any of these three books, and frankly no real new spins on old thinking. There’s little to be found in these books that we haven’t seen offered up as well if not better in older works. If you’re really looking to understand the science of inflammation and the impact diet can have on it, get the Perricone book as it is by far the best of the three.

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Days like this happen to everybody. They can also mean the end of even the best intended fitness and weight loss plan. How you get through these times can make all the difference.
Over the last 12 years I’ve rapidly lost weight, gained back and stabilized. I’ve rolled from one workout routine to another upping the intensity every time. I’m now 65 pounds below my peak weight and leaner and tighter than ever. Staying motivated hasn’t always been easy but I’ve found a few tricks to keep rolling.

Little things:

Even when it was all diet just to get the weight off every day didn’t see shedding pounds and I had to look for little things to keep myself on target. Then it was all about getting back into the pants I wore before my medical Residency brought on all the extra weight. I’d try on the old pants and notice they got closer and closer to closing even when the weight didn’t change.

Now, it’s still little things that get me through. Weight lifting can be fun but it isn’t always. The mirror keeps me rolling, though as the little changes in definition provide the motivation keep going. My biceps are still small but they are better defined, maybe someday they’ll take on a little size.

Plan:

The famous aphorism that “failing to plan is planning to fail” is absolutely true. Whether it’s just diet or a full on fitness regimen, planning is key. The unexpected always comes up, and for dieters it’s often an unexpected meal out. Knowing how to handle the unexpected by having a definite plan gets you through. Planning ahead by having a snack-sized bag of nuts or raisins in your desk means you don’t end up with cookies or candy from the office vending machine. Planning the day in advance avoids unexpected extra calories and frankly makes it easier to say no when treats get offered. It’s not on plan, sorry.

Fitness plans are just as important. Today’s workout needn’t be completely structured but if it’s cardio today then it’s cardio — no fooling around at the gym. Push it and push it hard. That’s the plan. If it’s resistance training, then push that. It’s in the plan.

Conviction:

Over time you’ll get where you’re going, but only if you know deep down that you will. I got out of bed this morning because I knew, because I believed that what I was doing was important and that I had to. Without conviction, I’d still be lying in my warm bed enjoying the down comforter and curled up with feather pillows. I might have rolled over and put some music on, but I doubt it. Instead I did work out. I am up. I am energized. I am rolling and I am writing.

The journey from fat to fit is long and unending. Take your victories where you can along the way. Stay motivated and true to your conviction and warm bed on a chilly spring morning need never stand between you and further success.

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While there was a short term increase in risk from “earlier data”, risks declined over time. Women who took the pill had a reduced risk of all cancers, including “main gynecological cancers combined.” This is a great surprise, considering that women have been told for decades that to get a prescription for birth control pills, they must submit to annual screening for cervical cancer and pre-cancerous conditions. Women on the pill also had lower risk of heart disease and “all circulatory disease.” Considering that heart disease and cancer are the #1 and #2 causes of death respectively in American women accounting for roughly 48% of deaths, this is an important finding.

One caution, “The study continues to find a higher rate of violent or accidental death among oral contraceptive users compared with never users. The authors are unable to explain this persistent finding.”

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The CDC has taken the first stand against childhood obesity which has risen to almost 20% of children between the ages of 5 and 11. Teens have it nearly as bad. These kids are at very real long term risk of heart disease, diabetes, some cancers and arthritis. Some already show signs of disease such as poor glucose tolerance, high cholesterol and high blood pressure.

Fortunately, there is an alternative. A study presented at the American Heart Association’s 2010 Conference on Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism showed that physical fitness was directly correlated with academic achievement.The study followed kids from 5th to 7th grade. The kids who were fit the whole time did the best on standardized testing. Those who started out unfit but became so by the 7th grade followed up second. Fit in 5th but losing fitness by 7th followed and the fully unfit kids finished last in academic performance. “The take-home message from this study is that we want our kids to be fit as long as possible and it will show in their academic performance,” Lesley A. Cottrell, Ph.D., presenting researcher, said. “But if we can intervene on those children who are not necessarily fit and get them to physically fit levels, we may also see their academic performance increase.”

Pushing fitness too far has a downside too. At this week’s 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), two studies are being presented that show that youth athletic injuries are on the rise and having lasting impact on sports participants.

One study found that 25% of youth baseball players are suffering elbow pain and 15% of them have suffered real bone or cartilage injuries. For pitchers it’s much worse with bone and cartilage injuries climbing over 50%. These are largely preventable but can result in serious long term problems if not treated including both sports career ending injuries and lifetime pain.

Lengthening adolescent athletic schedules are creating problems too. “More adolescents are participating in year-round sports without seasonal breaks, or they are playing on multiple teams simultaneously,” says Thomas M. DeBerardino, MD. “This increased exposure means there will continue to be growing numbers of significant musculoskeletal injuries, both traumatic and chronic overuse.”

For teens this can mean problems both now and down the road. Treating them as miniature adults both in their training schedules and in treatment for injury can result in stunted growth, arthritis and a lifetime of pain and loss of function.

Keeping kids healthy is a key to having them age against the machine as they get older but pushing them too hard can have just the opposite effect.

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While on average, 26.5% of Americans are obese, residents of the 10 fattest cities were at minimum 32.9% obese. But where things get interesting is in the habits of those people as compared to national averages. In 6 out of 10 of those cities, people claim they ate healthier than the national average and eat veggies regularly; in 8 out of 10 cities, more people claim they exercise regularly than the national average. There are more smokers than the national average in 6 of the 10 cities. In 6 of the cities there was a higher rate of not having health insurance, and in 9 of those cities there was a higher rate of not having enough money for food. How sad and ironic.

What is really sobering is that in 8 or 9 of those cities there are more bad health issues than the national average: more diabetes, more high blood pressure, more high cholesterol, and more heart attacks. Each. Yest more data against the idea of “fat but healthy.”

Then there are America’s 10 slimmest cities, all of which are coastal or mountain. The average obesity rate of all 10 cities is 18.7%, well below the national average. In those cities, more people report eating right, eating veggies, and not smoking than the national average. In every one of the 10 cities, people report getting regular exercise. Only 1 city had a lower rate of being able to afford food than the national average.

And not surprisingly, every one of the thin cities had lower than average rates of diabetes and heart attacks. Only 9 had lower rates of high blood pressure and high cholesterol; not everybody’s perfect.

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