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Healthy Eating

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Re: Healthy Eating

Postby Pampy » Sat Jul 25, 2020 12:06 am

Isn't eating too much protein associated with kidney damage, heart disease and increased risk of cancer?

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Re: Healthy Eating

Postby Stokey Sue » Sat Jul 25, 2020 12:25 am

That’s a tricky one

The only one I’ve been into at all of those 3 very different things is kidney disease, and it seems that excess protein probably does not directly cause kidney disease, but if your kidneys are struggling to cope excess protein will make them struggle more, so dietary protein is reduced in kidney disease. I remember in hospital most of us having something ghastly for lunch and the renal patients having apricots and cream

Anyone know about the others?

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Re: Healthy Eating

Postby Pampy » Sat Jul 25, 2020 12:29 am

The potential for kidney damage explains why my diabetes nurse has advised me not to go overboard with proteins.

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Re: Healthy Eating

Postby karadekoolaid » Sat Jul 25, 2020 1:28 am

Apart form your own experience, where does that come from?

No scientific "evidence", Sue; just watching family and friends eat less meat and more veg.

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Re: Healthy Eating

Postby Stokey Sue » Sat Jul 25, 2020 1:38 am

OK it just sounded like you we’re supporting Dr Levitten asquoted by Dennis, whic confused me a little

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Re: Healthy Eating

Postby dennispc » Sat Jul 25, 2020 1:40 pm

Like KK I had a meat problem at the beginning of lockdown. We’d started ordering from Hello Fresh and found ourselves consuming only meat heavy meals. My body did not like that at all so we changed it.

I first came across this protein thing for the elderly when on a group holiday in Croatia. There were two District Nurses from Leeds, specialising in elderly care. Not sure how the conversation started, but they were quite careful to explain about the elderly not being able to absorb ‘goodness’ from foods as their bodies once did.

The book was bought for me, because a daughter wanted to give a birthday present at the same time as I’d read a review of the book in the Times.

I don’t think it’s meant to be an academic science book, after all there are no annotated references in the text, one reviewer commented, ‘he’d make a good companion, he loves telling stories.’ The book was intended for the general public. I thought it was only about the brain, and how it works - part of my studies years ago. He offers hope that no one need “go gentle into that goodnight.”

On one page he enjoys himself by giving examples of American probiotic manufacturers being successfully sued for false claims.

However, I checked the NHS site and found this,

https://www.nhs.uk/news/older-people/ol ... e-protein/

Found more academic stuff, but it's lunch time, pouring with rain, so I'll leave it there.

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Re: Healthy Eating

Postby Stokey Sue » Sat Jul 25, 2020 2:45 pm

I appreciate it’s not meant to be an academic book - but my point was that if you are used to getting it right you always do so, and there’s no reason a no - academic audience should be subjected to carelessness, it a cavalier attitude

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Re: Healthy Eating

Postby jeral » Sat Jul 25, 2020 4:20 pm

I got to thinking, bear with me.

If older people are less active after retiring, they tend to eat less carbs but still eat a reasonable amount of protein (budget permitting) because it's enough to keep them full, therefore proportionately more protein than carb heavy plates.

If, maybe a big if, that is so, does lack of carbs result in less "energy" and thus less desire to be active?

A self test ought to be possible, e.g. two or three days protein heavy, two or three days carb heavy and see whether there's a desire to sit like a pudding or conversely feel the urge and energy to run a mile.

karadekoolaid hinted at this but didn't say what his "protein overdose" symptoms were or felt like, so I could be on completely the wrong track. Needless to say I'm thinking empirical not scientific so usual exclusions of different metabolism rates etc.

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Re: Healthy Eating

Postby karadekoolaid » Sat Jul 25, 2020 8:36 pm

Difficult to describe really, Jeral, but my boys are huge meat-eaters and appalling vegetable eaters. Since I´m not...
There just came a moment when I couldn´t face any more burgers, pulled pork tortillas (Cochinito Pibil - which is absolutely delicious), shrimp tacos, chilaquiles with cheese and eggs (and I love cheese and eggs), grilled salmon, etc. I just felt I wasn´t "hungry" any more and craved something light.
we went to a beautiful lake resort called Tequesquitengo over New Year, and since there were 15 of us, we (more or less) planned out breakfasts and dinners. First day - chilaquiles with eggs. BBQ at night.Second day, a full English. A pork tenderloin done on the grill at night.Third day, arepas with chicken and avocado and fresh Oaxaca cheese. Another BBQ - shrimp for me. And so it went on!

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Re: Healthy Eating

Postby Stokey Sue » Sat Jul 25, 2020 8:58 pm

Someone who is in NHS clinical nutrition has just posted a link to a paper in the latest edition of Gut -BMJ about the diet of the older person, defined here as 65 -79 as that's their research population

They are quite clear that the problems with getting older are specific pathologies (diabetes, atherosclerosis, joint degradation etc) and increasing frailty (general weakness, non-specific inflammation, loss of muscle mass etc)

Their proposed solution is to adopt what they describe as a Mediterranean diet, their version is quite specific, which they think will help by increasing the diversity of the biome, as the microbes will help you make better use of nutrients and reduce background levels of inflammation

It's a behemoth of a paper with some interesting, and new to me, presentation of statistical analysis so I'll try to read it when I'm more awake, I think it's probably not a paper for a non-scientist but here it is

https://gut.bmj.com/content/69/7/1218

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Re: Healthy Eating

Postby Pampy » Sun Jul 26, 2020 12:24 am

I've just read the abstract (like Sue, I'm tired!) - it's very interesting. Think I'll look into how a Med. diet will fit into my lifestyle.

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Re: Healthy Eating

Postby karadekoolaid » Sun Jul 26, 2020 3:10 am

If you´re interested in giving us non-scientists a brief summary, Sue, that sounds very interesting.

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Re: Healthy Eating

Postby scullion » Sun Jul 26, 2020 11:53 am

i think the two text boxes just after the abstract, titled something like summery of the survey, probably give you the information you want.

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Re: Healthy Eating

Postby jeral » Mon Jul 27, 2020 1:49 am

Stokey Sue wrote:...[clip]...
I think it's probably not a paper for a non-scientist but here it is. ...

Hmm, quite :D
I understood the non-medical words, e.g. veg, fibre, fruit, fish = good; whilst fat (animal/saturated), alcohol, sugar = bad.

You would know better than I would if it looks like they were trying to prove the outcome expected (there seemed to be a touch of validation euphoria that their study agreed with an alternative one in some regard), although the underlying idea seems to be whether a short-cut supplement could one day work if they could isolate/refine/concentrate such a thing, with good intentions no doubt for those unwilling or unable to follow or stick to the recommended diet.

I did wonder how they'd measured an improvement in reducing bone loss after a year as I thought that current machines couldn't detect differences until after a four year interval as any yearly movement would be within the +/- margin of error.
---

It seems to the authors that the gut's workings can affect our overall wellbeing as (or if) it somehow affects the goodness we either do or don't get from food if the gut gremlins decide they aren't happy.
How depressing if true. I was happy with "balanced", miserable if "or else!". *cries into beer whilst eating a cream doughnut* and other delightful late night imagery...

I've just had to do an edit, as I thought that gut meant stomach and it's juices from other organs, but just checked and "gut" means the whole darn lot from mouth to er, exit. So it's stomach and intestines too, through which nutrition is absorbed. Blinking gremlins are everywhere.

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Re: Healthy Eating

Postby karadekoolaid » Mon Jul 27, 2020 3:16 am

i think the two text boxes just after the abstract, titled something like summery of the survey, probably give you the information you want.

Yes, I looked at that, but it´s still a bit general. However I then looked for "Mediterranean Diet" on the web and found this:
The diet is generally characterised by a high intake of plant-based foods (e.g. fresh fruit and vegetables, nuts, and cereals) and olive oil, a moderate intake of fish and poultry, and low intakes of dairy products (mostly yoghurt and cheese), red and processed meats, and sweets. Wine is typically consumed in moderation and, normally, with a meal.1 A strong focus is placed on social and cultural aspects, such as communal mealtimes, resting after eating, and regular physical activity.2
Sounds good to me, because that´s mostly what I eat EXCEPT for low intake of dairy products.I eat a lot of cheese. Mind you, I´m not a (red) meat eater and rarely eat sweets.

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Re: Healthy Eating

Postby jeral » Mon Jul 27, 2020 5:53 pm

Hmm. "Med diet" is really shorthand for selecting the purportedly healthy aspects of what Mediterraneans actually eat, despite its being held up as the norm. Clearly it isn't if dairy is minimised as Med-border countries and all of France seem almost obsessive about cheese. Although Greece and Turkey weren't in the study, their sheep cheeses and of course live yoghurts are prominent dietary elements.

Could any of those countries' inhabitants be persuaded to reduce dairy, even if industry economic consequences were neutral, since it would go against the grain of millennia of what the body is used to so can cope with?

Apart from which, other studies suggest that processed plant fats are worse than sat fats, their being "unnatural" in digestion gut gremlin thinking. My dad used to refer to seed fats as "wagin fat" - stuff used to grease wagon wheels that he'd never dream of eating. (You can't believe the rank smell from inert seeds permanently emanating from warehouses on riverside delivery wharfs.)

Although I rarely indulge in animal fats, I'm obviously biased in favour vs processed plant fats. Altogether now: In moderation as part of a balanced diet.

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Re: Healthy Eating

Postby dennispc » Mon Jul 27, 2020 6:16 pm

…  not a paper for a non-scientist …

True, the terminology and statistics were way above me. However, thank you Sue for posting, it was certainly worth a read.

Supplementary Table 1: had 289 in the control group and 324 that had MedDiet intervention from Italy, UK, Netherlands, Poland, France. The positive for me was, anyone could follow the diet, as long as there was access to those food groups.

The paper defines MedDiet as, ‘… increased consumption of vegetables, legumes, fruits, nuts, olive oil and fish and low consumption of red meat and dairy products and saturated fats.’

KK’s quote adds to that. The communal nature of eating for example.

The MedDiet group had the advantage of food intake being customised to the individual. Which left me pondering how far can the results be applied to the general population?

Thanks again.

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Re: Healthy Eating

Postby Stokey Sue » Mon Jul 27, 2020 7:09 pm

I've just started working my way properly through the paper

The title of the paper is Mediterranean diet intervention so rather than a vague reference to the Mediterranean diet there should somewhere be a clear description of how they intervened

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Re: Healthy Eating

Postby Stokey Sue » Mon Jul 27, 2020 7:56 pm

OK
This is one of those research projects where the papers are nested like Russian dolls, you do get the feeling that the team are trying to make at least half a career out of a single study

The dietary details are not in the paper I first linked to, and some of the stats are beyond me even on careful reading.

There was a proper dietary intervention, not just telling people to go away and eat a Mediterranean style diet but coaching from dietitians on what the subjects should do to make their previous diet match the required NU-AGE MedDiet standard. And impressively when they divided the subjects into three groups (poor, average, good) for how well they stuck to their new diet there seemed to be a strong correlation with how well the markers they looked at improved, although 612 subjects completing the study is not a huge number, I’ve seen many more used for a drug trial, so for a dietary intervention it is minimal, though they are doing a lot of expensive lab work.

So the Russian doll in the centre? <Drum roll> - the dietary details seem only to be in the paper below and it is paywalled. Methinks Dr Berendson may be looking for a book deal.

Berendsen, A., Santoro, A., Pini, E., Cevenini, E., Ostan, R., Pietruszka, B., et al. (2014). Reprint of: a parallel randomized trial on the effect of a healthful diet on inflammageing and its consequences in European elderly people: design of the NU-AGE dietary intervention study. Mech. Ageing Dev. 136–137, 14–21. doi: 10.1016/j.mad.2014.03.001

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Re: Healthy Eating

Postby jeral » Mon Jul 27, 2020 8:31 pm

Any chance of finding out what inflammation arriving with age (or whatever their words were contracted to inflammageing) actually is? I.e. what it is that becomes inflamed?

As a non-scientist I don't know what can become inflamed at the micro level, or do they mean bigger things like heart or one or more other organs? There were several mentions of it and it seems key, but nothing I could understand.
Ta.

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