Health & Nutrition by Michael R. Eades, M.D.

Dinner tonight at Casa Eades

Last Sunday the New York Times published a color spread on the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) data on the changes in food consumption in this country between 1970 and 2006, which got me to musing.

To the uninformed, which, sadly, probably means most people working in the nutrition industry and even those employed in a nutritional capacity at the USDA, these changes (all save two) seem to be in a positive direction. The intake of dairy products has decreased; the intake of vegetables has increased; the intake of red meat has fallen; the intake of fish, chicken and skyrocketed; the intake of fruit is up; the intake of grains has increased markedly; and the intake of vegetable fats has almost doubled. The only two negatives are that sugar and sweeteners have increased and overall food consumption has gone up by about 11 percent, or an addition 1.8 pounds per person per week.

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While reading a scientific paper on the benefits of a carnivorous diet I noticed a paper in the list of references at the end that I had never seen cited. I tracked the paper down, read it, and learned that vegetarians have significantly higher rates of advanced glycation end products (AGE) than do omnivores.

Before we get into the study, let’s take a moment and discuss AGEs so we’ll all be on the same page. When proteins are incubated with sugars, over time the sugar attaches irreversibly with the protein in a process called glycation. (There are many names for the reaction: the Maillard reaction, Schiff’s base formation, the Amadori reaction, etc. with minor differences between these different processes, but debating the differences is pointless for our purposes.) If the protein performs a specific function in the body due to its unique structural conformation, and it finds itself with a sugar attached to it that it can’t get rid of, then this protein suddenly doesn’t function so well and becomes a junk protein that the body has to dispose of.

Since most of the structures in our bodies are made of protein, and since all of these proteins are bathed in blood that contains glucose, the normal course of events is for a portion of these proteins to undergo glycation. And the longer the proteins are in contact with the sugar, the more glycated proteins will be formed. All this goes on continuously in our bodies so as we age we accumulate more and more of these substances, thus the clever name AGEs.

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A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post showing how the press fails to mention low-carb diets in weight loss stories, focusing instead on exercise or some other facet of an individual’s quest to lose weight and improve health. Today we’ll look at how the press, in an effort to minimize the untoward effects of carbohydrates on health, sometimes simply misrepresents the true outcome of studies.

A week or so ago a Swedish study (click here for a pdf) was released looking at the short term effects on the liver of a diet high in fast food. ABC News reported the study. Let’s first look at what the study was all about and what the data showed, then we’ll see how ABC reported it. By looking carefully at what ABC did to misrepresent the study, we can arm ourselves with the knowledge to identify this kind of press bias in future reporting.

First the study.

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Yesterday a reader sent me a film clip from ABC news about resistant starch. (Click here to view the video) In this film clip a young woman who is a registered dietitian (RD) spoke about the virtues of a “type of fiber” that she referred to as resistant starch. According to her, this substance can cure a multitude of ills.

There is a type of fiber called resistant starch that’s naturally found in some high carbohydrate foods.

And it’s amazing, the benefits. It ranges from helping us burn fat, helping us boost our immune system, control blood sugar, reduce the risk of type II diabetes and reduce the risk of cancer.

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