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7025. arkymalarky - 4/22/2007 10:39:13 PM I'm not going to do a daily diary in here or anything, but I am back on track and feeling better. The main thing I have noticed with the thyroid medicine is that I seem to be sleeping better than I have in years. It's still been less than a week, though, so it may be a coincidence. I definitely feel better, my hoarseness, which I'd attributed to allergies is getting better, and I've lost a couple of pounds (a significant cut in calories). I can also exercise more without feeling like crap.
I'm getting a routine going, and that's my best bet for everything. I just do better with one, and my routine for about four years now has been chaos, due mostly to circumstances beyond my control, or at least circumstances that have made establishing a routine around them almost impossible. 7026. arkymalarky - 4/22/2007 10:40:15 PM I've lost a couple of pounds WITHOUT a significant cut in calories. 7027. Wombat - 4/22/2007 10:48:47 PM Arky:
I would urge you to keep a food diary. It seems a little weird at first, but once it becomes part of your routine, it takes a few minutes a day. After about a month, unless you have an incredibly varied diet, with lots of new foods, you will have amounts and caloric values down to almost shorthand. According to my dietician, the act of starting and keeping a food diary itself will cause you to lose weight. It makes you very aware of what you are eating, and offers relatively easy ways to make minor changes in your diet. These changes have an incremental effect; if you make enough of them, it will really help with weight loss. 7028. arkymalarky - 4/22/2007 11:23:28 PM Oh I definitely am doing that--just not in the Mote, which I thought I might share as a daily diary/blog-type thing. I will still hopefully post regularly if not daily, but the rest of y'all would get pretty bored pretty fast with it. Instead I'll do an update/blog-type thing and keep my daily diary (I have a neat notebook just for it). It does help me, as well as having an eating routine. Bob did it when he started out and continued for probably a year or so, and it helped him a whole lot.
And nothing helps me more than being able to be home a lot, which has been a real issue for the last few years. Since I'm only taking one class this summer and it starts at noon and goes three hours, five days a week, I'm thinking I can eat an early lunch and not eat "in town" right after class, but instead come home and have a snack and then supper later. 7029. clydefo - 4/23/2007 4:06:39 PM Another reason to avoid processed food.
By JUSTIN PRITCHARD
The Associated Press
Monday, April 23, 2007; 8:57 AM
LOS ANGELES -- The same food safety net that couldn't catch poisoned pet food ingredients from China has a much bigger hole.
Billions of dollars' worth of foreign ingredients that Americans eat in everything from salad dressing to ice cream get a pass from overwhelmed inspectors, despite a rising tide of imports from countries with spotty records, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal trade and food data....
...When U.S. Food and Drug Administration inspectors at ports and border checkpoints look, they find shipments that are filthy or otherwise contaminated. They rarely bother, however, in part because ingredients aren't a priority...
...Meanwhile, the ingredient trade is booming _ particularly since 2001, when the Sept. 11 attacks focused attention on the security of the nation's food supply.
Over the past five years, the AP found, U.S. food makers prospecting for bargains more than doubled their business with low-cost countries such as Mexico, China and India. Those nations also have the most shipments fail the limited number of checks the FDA makes....
...By its own latest accounting, the FDA only had enough inspectors to check about 1 percent of the 8.9 million imported food shipments in fiscal year 2006. Topping the list were products with past problems, such as seafood and produce.
"I don't ever remember working on ingredients," said Carl R. Nielsen, a former FDA official whose job until he left in 2005 was to make sure field inspectors were checking the right imports. "That was the lowest priority, a low priority."
There are other reasons ingredients aren't thoroughly examined. Unlike rotting fish or moldy vegetables, ingredient testing often requires a laboratory. Analyzing samples takes days and can irk importers who don't like the choice of holding their product or risking a costly recall if they go ahead with distribution...
7030. alistairconnor - 4/23/2007 4:30:16 PM That's yet another reason why I prefer short food supply chains. I estimate that 60% of what I eat is grown within 50 miles of where I live.
I like to know what I'm eating, so I buy very little in the way of processed foods. If I ever get sick from eating something, I'll have a pretty good chance of tracking down where the problem came from. 7031. thoughtful - 4/23/2007 6:06:51 PM One area that always makes me suspicious is organic foods that come from places like mexico. How on earth would someone be able to prove that? And with the demand for organics going up and the US being short of supply, there are more and more imported products in that regard.
But even beyond that, the food inspection rigor has deteriorated be it imported or domestic.
Scary stuff. 7032. alistairConnor - 4/23/2007 6:41:09 PM I don't know how organic certification works in the US, but I have complete confidence in certified organic food which is available in France. The companies that do the certification are thorough and require complete traceability, and are strictly audited themselves. A lot of organic stuff in France comes from North Africa, so there are similar political and economic issues to Mexico. The organic producers have a major incentive to ensure there is no fraud, because they get a good price premium. 7033. thoughtful - 4/23/2007 6:41:25 PM clydefo, you know and i know that self reported results from pritikin do not make a controlled study. Further, the aspects of the diet over which we have no disagreement could certainly on their own account for the benefits to diabetes patients...losing weight, avoiding refined carbs and sweets, eating smaller more frequent meals.
I looked up the noted reference in diabetes care and can't find anything other than this reference which discusses frequency of meals, but nothing about the % of carbs vs fats vs protein in the diet.
I was unable to find anything based on the other 2 references which were light on details indeed.
7034. thoughtful - 4/23/2007 6:56:47 PM But that led me to search and find A Low-Fat Vegan Diet Improves Glycemic
Control and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in
a Randomized Clinical Trial in Individuals
With Type 2 Diabetes.
Very interesting study, except of course it was done only on 99 people and its was only carried out for 22 weeks. Many people can see improvements in lipid readings for a short period of time until their livers kick in and generate the cholesterol their body needs. I would like to see this study followed for a longer period of time for both lipid levels and ability to maintain the restrictions of a vegan diet.
Further, there was this interesting little detail buried in the study:
To test whether the effect of diet on
A1C was mediated by body weight
changes, a regression model was constructed,
including baseline A1C, weight
change, and diet group as predictors of
A1C change, among those whose hypoglycemic
medications remained constant.
In this model, the effect of diet group was
no longer significant (P0.23)..
So in other words, for some the weightloss led to the improvement in the diabetes, not so much the diet.
They also made the point that the vegan diet was easier to follow, which I found very surprising. But they weren't requiring the vegan dieters to limit calories at all...only food types. They do make the point that the point of failure for those following the ada diet was due to higher saturated fat intake which is easy to do when eating meat and such. Following a vegan diet, it's easy to eat a lot of volume and still keep overall calorie count low.
Of course schwarzbein has a vegetarian option as part of her plan, but includes a larger share of protein than pritikin, though from plant based sources. Further, note that even this vegan diet had 15% protein vs. pritikin's 10%.
So the important question of how much protein in the diet is required remains. Further I would like to see a comparison of a vegan diet vs a carb controlled diet that doesn't take into account the level of fat or saturated fat. Because they were counting both, it really wasn't a controlled study....and definitely not double-blind. 7035. thoughtful - 4/23/2007 7:16:25 PM Then again, there are studies like this one: that suggest deteriorating conditions for diabetics who follow a higher carb diet.
RESULTS--The site of study as well as the diet order did not affect the results. Compared with the high-monounsaturated-fat diet, the high-carbohydrate diet increased fasting plasma triglyceride levels and very low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels by 24% (P < .0001) and 23% (P = .0001), respectively, and increased daylong plasma triglyceride, glucose, and insulin values by 10% (P = .03), 12% (P < .0001), and 9% (P = .02), respectively. Plasma total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels remained unchanged. The effects of both diets on plasma glucose, insulin, and triglyceride levels persisted for 14 weeks. CONCLUSIONS--In NIDDM patients, high-carbohydrate diets compared with high-monounsaturated-fat diets caused persistent deterioration of glycemic control and accentuation of hyperinsulinemia, as well as increased plasma triglyceride and very-low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, which may not be desirable.
7036. clydefo - 4/23/2007 10:04:19 PM I certainly agree that results claimed by the Pritikin Center can't be compared to a controlled study. Probably though, their accumulated data over the years has been used for such.
I expect they would agree that there are other ways to treat diabetes, including other exercise/diet regimens. Although the nutrition debate rages, I don't think the integrity of the Center's numbers has ever been impugned. I really don't know much about the diabetes side of it. I can only vouch for the other benefits of their exercise and eating strategy.
The JAMA study cited in 7035 was studying ...a high-carbohydrate diet containing 55% of the total energy as carbohydrates and 30% as fats was compared with a high-monounsaturated-fat diet containing 40% carbohydrates and 45% fats. The amounts of saturated fats, polyunsaturated fats, cholesterol, sucrose, and protein were similar...
Pritikin would not call 55/30/15 a high carb diet. He might call it a "doomsday" diet. His is 80/10/10. Is the 40/45/15 control diet some special diet normally used for diabetics? The subjects were taking glipizide. The study may be entirely valid, but I'd like to know who funded it.
Pritikin's case for eating only enough protein and fat to meet the body's repair and mainenance needs and to provide for needed body chemistry makes sense to me. More than that is excess and must be treated as such. Cleaner, more efficient blood with less platelet clumping and metabolic "ash" to eliminate. He differs from strictly Vegan diets in that limited lean meat is o.k. Whether a plant or animal source, pay attention to the protein and fat content. He limits beans, non-fat dairy and soy because of high protein. Nuts are concentrated fat calories to be avoided.
A very basic and low-prep version of the regimen is easy and convenient for me to stick to. With herbs, spices and fancy recipes, it can be made to satisfy the epicure. 7037. arkymalarky - 4/24/2007 2:49:57 AM Well, the weight seems to be dropping fairly fast with this thyroid medicine. I know that will plane off and I'm fine with that. I just feel like when my thyroid reading is "normal" I will have a good idea of where I really am wrt weight for my long-term goals.
I had class tonight and ate out, as usual, but got full on half what I'd been eating. I gave Mose the rest rather than taking it home. 7038. thoughtful - 4/24/2007 2:26:06 PM Arky, what is the doc having you do for follow up now that you are on the meds...are you monitoring your pulse, blood pressure? Did you get copies of your blood test results that said you needed supplementation? When are you to go back for your next visit.
Also, are you increasing the amount of iodine in your diet? (Seafood, iodized salt, vitamins with iodine are key sources as is milk.) 7039. thoughtful - 4/24/2007 2:43:14 PM Clydefo, yes, that's the issue...what and how is it determined is an adequate level of protein.
And of course, I'm sure there is individual variation be it from evolutionary background or genetic makeup. By that I mean, if you were innuit, chances are the ones who survived over the millennia were the ones who fared best on a high protein and fat diet (fish, whale, seal, walrus) vs. say someone of mediterranean descent whose evolutionary history allowed survival of those who fared best on a lower protein higher plant based diet. 7040. clydefo - 4/24/2007 6:10:59 PM Meat Protein Food For Thought.
On Cancer and a Vegetarian Diet - Kathy Freston
Once you start paying attention, you just can't avoid the bad news about meat consumption. From Reuters comes the news that "Women who received the most calories from animal protein had twice the risk of [endometrial cancer] compared to those who took in the fewest calories from animal sources." ...
Arsenic In Chicken Production
FOR ENVIRONMENTALISTS and some public health experts, one of the most puzzling practices of modern agriculture is the addition of arsenic-based compounds to most chicken feed. The point of the practice is to promote growth, kill parasites that cause diarrhea, and improve pigmentation of chicken meat. But Tyson Foods, the U.S.'s largest poultry producer, stopped using arsenic compounds in 2004, and many high-end and organic growers raise chickens quite successfully without them. What's more, McDonald's has asked its suppliers not to use arsenic additives, and the European Union banned them in 1999... 7041. arkymalarky - 4/25/2007 12:46:10 AM Thoughtful,
I will have my blood tested once a month until it is at "normal" and go from there. All my other readings were good. 7042. arkymalarky - 4/25/2007 12:47:57 AM And she started me on a very low dose of hormone, so I haven't had any changes in pulse or bp. It's been a week today, so all that will be revisited when I go in in three weeks, unless I have a problem before then. 7043. arkymalarky - 4/25/2007 12:56:43 AM Oh, except my cholesterol was a little high and she wants to give me a stress test and look at all that again after I've gotten the thyroid issue under control. I was having chest pains, but since that's a symptom of hypothyroidism (and I haven't had them in a few days) she wants to make sure my thyroid doesn't affect any test results.
Right now I'm trying desperately to finish my coursework for my May graduation and get my own work done and grades finished for my kids. By the time I go back in to the doctor, all that will be behind me except reviewing and giving my classes their finals, getting a mammogram, and taking a June class to finish up my MSE. I don't really expect the May test to show "normal," but I hope the June one does. That's just a blind guess, though. 7044. thoughtful - 4/25/2007 3:25:14 PM I want to strongly encourage you, arky, to get a hold of the copies of your blood work. It's really best to get familiar with where your readings are as well as what the reference or normal range is. Many people find they do well only within a much narrower range than what the blood testing labs consider to be 'normal' for average people.
It is also very important to make sure the right tests are being run....the TSH, the Free T3 and the Free T4. Many doctors will incorrectly dose patients based on the TSH, but the TSH can lag the readings in the other 2 tests leading to over or under treatment. It's really important to dose based on the free t3 and free t4 as well as by how you feel.
I only emphasize this as, through the mediboard, I've heard so many horror stories from patients who are being mistreated and are miserable as a result, when it's not necessary.
So many endos today make their money off of diabetes that they know little about managing thyroid disease. I've seen many of our participants go through 3 or 4 endos before they find one who will treat the patient and not the thyroid.
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