I have a friend who lives in Switzerland and recently participated in the Geneva triathlon. After congratulating him, he said he was pleased, mainly because he did it on a purely vegan diet. I was a bit shocked that he ate “no protein”? WRONG! Lots of protein, just not from the places you commonly expect! Then. I congratulated a friend of mine on her legs (they looked great!) and how much weight she had lost. What she said was again a bit shocking. “vegan legs.” Although I am a doctor, nutrition is not taught to us in medical school..okay, maybe four weeks out of 4 years of studying.so yea, in essence, none. So this was unexpected. But I didn’t realize how beneficial a vegan diet would be until a third friend told me to watch a documentary called. “What the Health”. It was almost midnight, and I couldn’t sleep.. No YOGA for me that day. So naturally, I opened Netflix and looked for the documentary. I didn’t expect to stay alert throughout the whole thing. I was tired, but for some reason, everything that was said was entirely life-changing. WHY? It was things I had never learned in school. Something I had never researched myself. Things I didn’t expect and wanted to know more about. For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, watch it and let me know what it makes you think! In the following days, I decided that I should write about this and vlog about it too.. So I started my research. Little did I know, another physician would do a video criticizing the documentary, calling it “fake science.” Mind you, when one doctor says its science, and another doctor says its fake science.. well, it leads to a lot of confusion and doubt. After all, these are doctors, so which one do you believe?!?! What I noticed was that the physician that was criticizing the documentary didn’t give any evidence or research. So I started my journey into this tough topic. As I always say! I am not here to tell you what to do or to urge you to change your life or your eating habits. I am here to tell you the benefits and dangers of certain things so that you yourselves, can make your own informed decisions! Knowing why something is good or bad also helps keep you in line after you decide to make a change. Hopefully, anyway! Based on the documentary AND the critiques of the other physician, I have researched and written this post to address a few points made. There were lots of points! So If you think I missed one, LET ME KNOW! So I can send that one too! I have chosen a few points that I believe we’re the most “shocking,” “fake-sounding,” “alarming,” “controversial,” both from the documentary and the “debunking video.” So, if you need a break, take it! Stretch, have some water, even some coffee! And let’s dive in! –1- Documentary Point: Sugary foods OR high carb diets don’t cause diabetes, animal fat causes muscle cells to build up tiny particles of fat, and this leads to insulin resistance; the sugar stays in your blood and causes diabetes. Debunker Criticism: Sugar and carbs get stored as fat, basic physiology. The idea that fat particles deposit on muscle cells and doesn’t let sugar into cells is FAKE SCIENCE! Conclusion: High carbohydrates and high sugar diets predispose you to obesity and insulin resistance. Obesity is a risk factor for diabetes type 2, and insulin resistance causes it. BUT/ purely vegan diet What the documentary said was that high fat in the diet is the real issue. And this is true. The traditional way to help patients control their disease is by controlling their sugar and carb intake. The issue with this is that diets low in carbs makes you eat more fats and protein, so you feel appropriately energized. By minimizing fat, especially saturated fat in the food, improves insulin resistance. This means that even if you are eating sugars and lots of carbs, by lowering your amount of fat consumption, your body can deal with the sugar more adequately. A study was conducted on diets higher in grains, veggies, and fruits and lower dairy and meat consumption. Results showed that many diabetic patients were able to reduce their medications or go off them entirely. Studies on muscle cell fat content show that athletes and diabetes have higher levels of muscle cell fat, BUT only athletes have higher sensitivity for insulin. I take this info like this: Yes, overeating sugar and carbohydrates may predispose you to obesity, but only if your body cannot adequately deal with the amount of sugar you are putting in it. How can you help your body deal with sugar and carbs? Exercise! And lower saturated fats, like the ones found in animal proteins (dairy, steak, chicken, even fish) – 2 – Documentary Point: Eating eggs is like feeding your kids cigarettes? Egg yolk is full of cholesterol and fat; it is meant to maintain the development of a baby chick. When we eat it, it coats our blood cells; our blood gets thicker, changes our hormones, raises our cholesterol levels; there’s nothing healthy of eating the yolk of the egg. Eating one egg is like smoking five cigarettes? Debunker Criticism: be careful of people finding studies to support what they already believe. Conclusion: Appears to be on the side of the debunker. One study found that a diet high in eggs, but lower in saturated fats, or food that is high in eggs but replaces saturated fats with healthier fats, actually had a positive or no effect on harmful cholesterol levels. Another study found that short-term egg consumption did not severely affect arterial function in healthy people. In the International Journal of Cardiology, the same one that was referred to in the documentary, concluded that eating 1-2 eggs a day did not adversely affect blood cholesterol or LDL (bad cholesterol). This same study supported the debunker physician’s
I love strawberries! Their taste, their texture, their color. Everything about a fruit draws me in, but I bet you didn’t know these cold facts about this incredible berry. CLOTTING: Recent research has shown that strawberries are not only full of antioxidants but also have antiplatelet, aka anti-clotting properties.???? What does this mean? Platelets are components of your blood that clump together and cause clots. These can then travel throughout your body until they get stuck, like in your legs, your brain, your heart, your lungs. Those are thrombotic events, and in medicine, they’re called strokes, pulmonary emboli, and heart attacks. Many medications on the market today prevent platelets from forming these clots to lower the risk of thrombotic events.???? A diet that can lower the risk of these events even more would benefit everyone who is on these medications and have other diseases that increase their risk of having them. https://youtu.be/gPIJqXZqmvU ANTI-GOUT There might also be some anti-gout effects. Uremic acid is the culprit here, and it can deposit in your joints, causing gout symptoms: redness, pain, warmth, inflamed, and unbearable should be another one. At the moment, research is a bit inconsistent, and more info is needed, but in the off chance that strawberries COULD lower levels of uremic acid in your blood… I’d say: CHILL AND EAT STRAWBERRIES LIPID LOWERING, LOWER CHOLESTEROL Before I get into this, I want to give you some word definitions to explain better what things are. I know I had some trouble understanding all these terms when I first started medical school. Oxidative stress Damage An excellent way to remember its damage is this: When something gets oxidated = it RUSTS & RUST is BAD For Spanish speakers – think: Oxidar = RUST = BAD LDL Bad cholesterol But if you’re a Curios George, its Low-Density Lipoprotein HDL Good cholesterol And if you’re a Curious George, its High-Density Lipoprotein Okay, so now we can Start: Strawberries found to lower oxidative stress (DAMAGE). Now, higher levels of damage to LDL (BAD CHOLESTEROL) are the most dangerous because it’s what starts narrowing your arteries.???????? Its kind of like HARD FAT depositing on the walls of your arteries until the blood that flows through there is so low that whatever organ the blood is traveling to, gets hurt and a part of it can die. This is what happens in a heart attack; the coronary arteries can be so narrow that an area of the heart dies. There you have it!???? Strawberries are not just delicious and colorful. They are great for your health! Share: More Posts NewsLetter Recent Articles Discover More Articles
Rabies is a viral disease that is usually spread to humans by contact with infected animals. The virus waits in the salivary glands of the animal. Once they bite someone, it travels into the broken skin and into the brain tissue where it wreaks havoc. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC, 2011), in the last 100 years, there has been a change in the types of animals, causing the most rabies transmission in the United States. Although the most common culprits worldwide are domestic animals such as dogs, especially in under-developed countries, in the United States, the most common hosts are “wild carnivores and bats.” Wild carnivores include raccoons, foxes, coyotes, and skunks (CDC, 2011). This change of host is likely due to the rabies vaccines administered to domestic animals on their routine veterinarian visits, which began in the 1940s (Finnegan, C. J., S. M. Brookes, et al., 2003). Since the 1900s, rabies mortality in the United States has decreased from approximately 100 fatalities annually to about one or two (World Health Organization [WHO], 2017). Suppose is mainly due to the routine vaccination of domestic animals. Also, the majority of the population in the United States has easy access to health care, and post-exposure prophylaxis is readily available (CDC, 2011). The United States population is also well informed. It has access to a variety of resources that would allow them to research the risks of being bitten by an animal, especially a wild animal such as a bat, raccoon, bat, skunk, fox, coyote, and domestic pets as well. These are all things that may not be as accessible to the rest of the world, which is a likely reason why most deaths due to rabies occur in areas with less than adequate health care in combination with living in an area that does not vaccinate domestic animals and has no access to the internet or other resources to keep educated on a topic unless provided to them. This limitation of awareness found in Thailand, where although knowledge about rabies and its severity is high, “awareness about bat transmission specifically was deficient.” Only 10% of the people who took a survey identified bats as a potential source of rabies, and 36% said they would likely not make any specific action if bitten by a bat (Robertson, Kis, Boonlert Lumlertdacha, et al., 2011). According to the WHO, although all continents are affected by rabies, 95% of deaths occur in Asia and Africa. Even if rabies post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) is readily available to the people in these areas, the costs of PEP are $40 and $49, respectively (WHO, 2017). A value that even some uninsured American citizens may have difficulty paying, let alone a person in Asia or Africa whose “average daily income can be between $1-2 per person” (WHO, 2017). Furthermore, the diagnosis of rabies has also evolved. Previously, the disease was a post-mortem diagnosis in animals, which means that the animal, if not dead already, had to be euthanized to take brain samples and confirm the diagnosis (CDC, 2011). Today, instead of euthanizing a perfectly healthy animal, the animal can be watched for ten days after it bites someone. If no symptoms of rabies appear, the animal is said to be rabies-free (CDC, 2011). That only decreases harm to healthy animals but also reduces the need to treat prophylactically, which, according to the WHO, is high, “typically exceeding 3,000” (WHO, 2017). Diagnosing rabies in humans is quite different, and although there are many diagnostic tests available, the WHO reports that those available are not “suitable for detecting rabies infection before the onset of clinical disease.” The “Fatal Infestations,” a video about the rabies outbreak, was devastating, mainly because rabies is a preventable and curable disease if caught before symptoms of the infection emerge. Since rabies is an infection of the nervous system, symptoms include seizures, erratic behavior and aggression, excessive salivation (drooling), aversion to water (hydrophobia), and even paralysis and coma. Once any of these symptoms manifest, the disease is too far gone, and recovery is unlikely (CDC, 2011). Although the symptoms of rabies are likely to be well known by physicians, many times, the diagnoses are missed. In the medical field, there is a common saying, “If you don’t think of it, you will not diagnose it,” and in this case, rabies was not thought of as a possibility, just as the video proposed. An epidemiological investigation requires specific steps to take in whichever order the investigator deems necessary (Gregg, Michael B, 3-13). The video shown in class showed a small portion of what an actual investigation entails. The investigation began when local health departments called the CDC because of concerns of an outbreak. The video shows the CDC arriving and speaking with the families acquiring what is called descriptive epidemiology: when, where, who, how many (Gregg, Michael B, 156-157). They looked for connections between all three victims now in a coma, intubated, and in the ICU. They then conducted a series of lab tests and imaging on all patients to diagnose the cause, but their efforts were unsuccessful, and a diagnosis could not be made. When the first fatality occurred, and the organ donor identified as the source, descriptive epidemiology continued, now centered on the donor himself. The CDC went to the patient’s home and spoke to friends and family. Luckily, this led to information about a bat bite on the donor’s chest in the previous weeks. The CDC then requested an autopsy and sent investigators to the donor’s home looking for the bats with infrared lenses. Multiple bats were found and taken into the CDC, where they tested for the rabies virus. The same rabies virus was confirmed to be present in both donor and bat, and the source of the infection found (“Fatal Infestations”). The video ends with the death of the last living victim. Any situation where an individual is still alive and on the brink of death due to an unknown cause, which has already killed others, the
My take on “What the Health” For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, watch it and let me know what it makes you think – 5 – Documentary Point: Chicken is not healthier than beef, it has almost the same amount of cholesterol as beef..85mg in chicken compared to 89mg of beef. Debunker Criticism: dietary cholesterol is NOT associated with Coronary Artery Disease Conclusion: I described studies that supported the debunker on this one when I talked about eggs (2). Dietary cholesterol does not severely impact coronary artery disease. But is chicken actually healthier than beef? Well, one study showed that poultry meats have a good overall nutritional profile. And they say it may even be beneficial in pregnant women, elderly and children. It goes on to say that eating chicken help maintain body weight, and have a positive effect on cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer… then I read the conflicts of interest section… It was funded by Unaitalia, a company that specializes in the promotion of Italian food chains of meat and eggs. Is that too conflicting? Maybe? Ugh, I don’t know, what do you think? A study on 500,000 men and women did show that red and processed meat was associated with the risk of cancer of multiple organs including the colon, liver, pancreas, and others. But what about chicken? One study showed that although red meat does, chicken and fish do not increase the risk of rectal cancer. Another study showed chicken doesn’t increase the risk of prostate cancer. A Harvard study looked into the effect of meat, fish, poultry, and eggs on prostate cancer progression. Eating processed meats, unprocessed red meat, fish, total poultry, skinless poultry were not associated with prostate cancer recurrence or progression. Greater consumption of eggs and poultry with skin was associated with a 2x increase in risk in comparison. Men with high risk and high poultry intake had a 4 fold increased risk of recurrence or progression. So, if you have to choose between meat and chicken, eat lettuce HA! right, that’s a tough one. If the question is based on cholesterol which is better… well neither they’re both bad. Based on the risk of colon cancer, chicken is better. Based on prostate cancer, skinless chicken is better. But we never make decisions based on specific things like these. The argument becomes a bit difficult. Overall animal protein, higher saturated fat. All animal protein has saturated fat, including dairy and fish. That’s what you should know in my opinion – 6 – Documentary Point: what about fish? Also not that great The amount of omega 3 in fish is lower than green veggies! Has other worries too like PCBs (chemicals), mercury, saturated fat, cholesterol Cholesterol is all over the place. Tuna in water has less than1/2 a glass of milk. Salmon or tilapia can be even higher than a pork chop. Debunker didn’t criticize this in his video. Conclusion: I chose to talk about this because a lot of people believe that we NEED animal protein to get omega 3, energy, protein, etc. This is a good topic to talk about because fish is actually not the highest source of omega 3. In fact, some fish have more omega 6, which can cause inflammation and can worsen a lot of inflammatory diseases. So, not all fish is good! But that’s another blog post. Lastly, maybe higher cholesterol thank pork chop depends on how it’s cooked, I’m not sure. I didn’t find any evidence of this. But I’ll keep looking I promise! – 7 – Documentary point: humans need cow milk as much as we need milk from a giraffe. Debunker criticism: NONE Conclusion Okay so the debunker didn’t say anything about this either, but I figured it’s a good a place as any to discuss milk. There are so many milk commercials and ads. Milk gives you calcium and potassium and vitamins blah blah blah. Sure, they’re all true. Milk is supposed to nourish….just babies? I used to think milk was extremely important to a person’s diet because of all these nutrients, so I decided to look into it. Turns out, there is no definitive answer here. It is not bad for some things and it’s bad for others. One study found that dairy products “do not increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, particularly if low fat”. Further, it also found that “up to 3 servings per day appears to be safe and may confer a favorable benefit with regard to bone health”. Then, another study went on to say that a higher consumption of dairy products was associated with higher levels of hip fractures. Also, some of the highest consumers of dairy including Finland and Sweden, also happen to have high rates of osteoporosis. One study explains that areas where vitamin D is low but calcium intake is high also has a high prevalence of cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis. Many doctors today are sending patients home with vitamin D supplements. A study conducted on polish women concluded that bone health depends on many things including calcium intake, vitamin D, age, and menstruation in women. They went on to say that dairy product consumption early in childhood may lower the risk of osteoporosis in adult women. Another study, conducted recently this year found that low calcium intake and low vitamin D both contributed to low bone density, osteoporosis in menopausal women in Korea. Overall, there is conflicting evidence that milk should be avoided. Based on all this information it is hard to decide whether milk is good or bad. As a doctor, I think vitamin D, calcium, and all other minerals and vitamins are important for health. Whether we should be getting them from milk, is not for me to say. My take on all this is that anything in excess is bad, as always. Yes, you can find vitamin D and calcium from other sources so milk is not needed. Yes, what the documentary said about us only needing milk early in life is also true. But there are so many things we
