This page has some GREAT miscellaneous content from Dr. Allan. If you are visiting this page for something specific, take a second to see some of the other important articles!

ANTIOXIDANT SOURCES and Whey vs Soy plus TED Pricing Specials FOOD ANTIOXIDANT CONTENT(mmol/serving) Blackberries 5.746 Walnuts 3.721 Strawberries 3.584 Artichokes 3.559 Cranberries 3.125 Coffee 2.959 Raspberries 2.870 Pecans 2.741 Blueberries 2.680 Grape Juice 2.557 Dark Chocolate 2.515 Cranberry Juice 2.474 Sour Cherries 2.205 Red Wine 2.199   All foods based on standard serving size. Source: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, July 2006   Dr. Brent Allan Infinity2 Health Sciences

Eat Your Colors: The foods that give you an anti-aging boost.  by PsychologyToday.com   Next time you're ambling down the produce aisle, keep an eye out for some of the smallest and little—known food superheroes—dark berries.   A study finds that adding boysenberries and black currants to your diet can give you an anti-aging boost that can protect all parts of your body and even postpone the development of Alzheimer's disease and dementia.   Berries and other colorful fruits and veggies are chock full of polyphenols, a type of antioxidant that buffers against disease by protecting even the tiniest of bodily cells from the natural stresses of the environment and aging. These helpful chemicals—also found in green tea, olive oil, dark chocolate and pomegranates—keep your cells (and you) vibrant and active.   How can you reap the benefits of these mighty little age-fighters? One author of the study, which will appear in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, offers some refreshingly simple advice: EAT YOUR COLORS.   Since polyphenols are largely responsible for providing plants their hues, choosing a varied color palate translates into treating your body to a vast array of the antioxidants. Include blueberries, strawberries, cranberries, purple grape juice, pomegranates on your plate. The more closely your diet resembles a rainbow, the better.   People may not realize a colorful diet is actually a heart-healthy diet, says James Joseph, a neuroscientist and director of the Neuroscience Lab at the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University. Antioxidants protect arteries by keeping them supple and strong. Healthy arteries not only mean a healthy cardiovascular system but healthy gray matter as well. Says Joseph: "What's good for your heart is also good for your brain."   It's possible that someday we'll use berry extracts in supplements or processed foods, says Joseph, but he believes that the eating fresh berries provides the most bang for your buck. Important compounds can easily be lost in processing berries, he says. Indeed, there may be chemicals in fruits and veggies that we haven't even identified.   Still, adding color to your diet isn't a quick fix. If you're serious about heart and brain health, "you want to make this a lifestyle," Joseph says. Healthy living means the triad of behavior: diet, physical and mental exercise.   Exercise affects brain in a way that's similar to polyphenols. Researchers from the McKnight Brain Institute of the University of Florida find that rats with exercise wheels in their cages show fewer signs of aging in their brains than their sedentary peers, and the same conclusions have been drawn by comparing elderly humans who exercise with those who do not.   That leaves mental exercise as the last leg in the triad. Reading books, tackling crossword puzzles and other kinds of brain workouts may be as powerful in Alzheimer's prevention as black currants and boysenberries.   Knowing is half the battle. Now that we know food and exercise are potent weapons in the battle against disease, we have one less excuse not to put up a superhero-worthy fight.

Building a Better Pyramid

If the goal of the Food Guide Pyramid is to give us the best possible advice for healthy eating, it should be grounded in the evidence and be independent of business.

Nutrition experts from the Harvard School of Public Health created the Healthy Eating Pyramid. It is based on the best available scientific evidence about the links between diet and health. This new pyramid fixes fundamental flaws in the USDA pyramid and offers sound information to help people make better choices about what to eat.

 

 

The Healthy Eating Pyramid sits on a foundation of daily exercise and weight control. Why? These two related elements strongly influence your chances of staying healthy. They also affect what and how you eat and how your food affects you. The other bricks of the Healthy Eating Pyramid include:

• Whole Grain Foods (at most meals). The body needs carbohydrates mainly for energy. The best sources of carbohydrates are whole grains such as oatmeal, whole-wheat bread, and brown rice. They deliver the outer (bran) and inner (germ) layers along with energy-rich starch. The body can't digest whole grains as quickly as it can highly processed carbohydrates such as white flour. This keeps blood sugar and insulin levels from rising, then falling, too quickly. Better control of blood sugar and insulin can keep hunger at bay and may prevent the development of type 2 diabetes.

• Plant Oils. Surprised that the Healthy Eating Pyramid puts some fats near the base, indicating they are okay to eat? Although this recommendation seems to go against conventional wisdom, it's exactly in line with the evidence and with common eating habits. The average American gets one third or more of his or her daily calories from fats, so placing them near the foundation of the pyramid makes sense. Note, though, that it specifically mentions plant oils, not all types of fat. Good sources of healthy unsaturated fats include olive, canola, soy, corn, sunflower, peanut, and other vegetable oils, as well as fatty fish such as salmon. These healthy fats not only improve cholesterol levels (when eaten in place of highly processed carbohydrates) but can also protect the heart from sudden and potentially deadly rhythm problems. (3)

• Vegetables (in abundance) and Fruits (2 to 3 times). A diet rich in fruits and vegetables can decrease the chances of having a heart attack or stroke; protect against a variety of cancers; lower blood pressure; help you avoid the painful intestinal ailment called diverticulitis; guard against cataract and macular degeneration, the major cause of vision loss among people over age 65; and add variety to your diet and wake up your palate.

• Fish, Poultry and Eggs (0 to 2 times). These are important sources of protein. A wealth of research suggests that eating fish can reduce the risk of heart disease. Chicken and turkey are also good sources of protein and can be low in saturated fat. Eggs, which have long been demonized because they contain fairly high levels of cholesterol, aren't as bad as they're cracked up to be. In fact, an egg is a much better breakfast than a doughnut cooked in an oil rich in trans fats or a bagel made from refined flour.

• Nuts and Legumes (1 to 3 times). Nuts and legumes are excellent sources of protein, fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Legumes include black beans, navy beans, garbanzos, and other beans that are usually sold dried. Many kinds of nuts contain healthy fats, and packages of some varieties (almonds, walnuts, pecans, peanuts, hazelnuts, and pistachios) can now even carry a label saying they're good for your heart.

• Dairy or Calcium Supplement (1 to 2 times). Building bone and keeping it strong takes calcium, vitamin D, exercise, and a whole lot more. Dairy products have traditionally been Americans' main source of calcium. But there are other healthy ways to get calcium than from milk and cheese, which can contain a lot of saturated fat. Three glasses of whole milk contains as much saturated fat as 13 strips of cooked bacon. If you enjoy dairy foods, try to stick with no-fat or low-fat products. If you don't like dairy products, calcium supplements offer an easy and inexpensive way to get your daily calcium.

• Red Meat and Butter (use sparingly): These sit at the top of the Healthy Eating Pyramid because they contain lots of saturated fat. If you eat red meat every day, switching to fish or chicken several times a week can improve cholesterol levels. So can switching from butter to olive oil.

• White Rice, White Bread, Potatoes, White Pasta, Soda and Sweets (use sparingly): Why are these all-American staples at the top, rather than the bottom, of the Healthy Eating Pyramid? They can cause fast and furious increases in blood sugar that can lead to weight gain, diabetes, heart disease, and other chronic disorders. Whole-grain carbohydrates cause slower, steadier increases in blood sugar that don't overwhelm the body's ability to handle this much needed but potentially dangerous nutrient.

• Multiple Vitamin: A daily multivitamin, multimineral supplement offers a kind of nutritional backup. While it can't in any way replace healthy eating, or make up for unhealthy eating, it can fill in the nutrient holes that may sometimes affect even the most careful eaters. You don't need an expensive name-brand or designer vitamin. A standard, store-brand, RDA-level one is fine. Look for one that meets the requirements of the USP (U.S. Pharmacopeia), an organization that sets standards for drugs and supplements.

• Alcohol (in moderation): Scores of studies suggest that having an alcoholic drink a day lowers the risk of heart disease. Moderation is clearly important, since alcohol has risks as well as benefits. For men, a good balance point is 1 to 2 drinks a day. For women, it's at most one drink a day.

Other Alternatives

The Healthy Eating Pyramid summarizes the best dietary information available today. It isn't set in stone, though, because nutrition researchers will undoubtedly turn up new information in the years ahead. The Healthy Eating Pyramid will change to reflect important new evidence.

This isn't the only alternative to the USDA's MyPyramid. The Asian, Latin, Mediterranean and vegetarian pyramids promoted by Oldways Preservation and Exchange Trust are also good, evidence-based guides for healthy eating. The Healthy Eating Pyramid takes advantage of even more extensive research and offers a broader guide that is not based on a specific culture. The Healthy Eating Pyramid is described in greater detail in Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating, published by Simon and Schuster (2001).

Failing The Test

A few years ago, the USDA's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion created the Healthy Eating Index "to measure how well American diets conform to recommended healthy eating patterns."(4) This score sheet uses five elements from the longstanding USDA Food Guide Pyramid (number of daily servings of grains, vegetables, fruits, meat, and dairy products) and five from the 1995 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (total fat in the diet, percentage of calories from saturated fat, cholesterol intake, sodium intake, and variety of the diet). A score of 100 means following the federal recommendations to the letter while a score of 0 means totally ignoring them.

To see how well the principles embodied in the Healthy Eating Pyramid stacked up against the government's advice, Harvard School of Public Health researchers created an Alternate Healthy Eating Index with a scoring system similar to the USDA's index. They then used information about daily diets collected from more than 100,000 female nurses and male health professionals taking part in two long-term studies to complete both indexes.

Men who scored highest on the USDA's Healthy Eating Index (meaning their diets most closely followed federal recommendations) reduced their overall risk of developing heart disease, cancer, or other chronic disease by 11% over 8-12 years of follow-up compared to those who scored lowest. Women who most closely followed the government's recommendations were only 3% less likely to have developed a chronic disease. (5)

In comparison, scores on the Alternate Healthy Eating Index did appear to correlate with disease. Men with high scores (those whose diets most closely followed the guidelines in the Healthy Eating Pyramid) were 20% less likely to have developed a major chronic disease than those with low scores. Women with high scores lowered their overall risk by 11%. Men whose diets most closely followed the Healthy Eating Pyramid lowered their risk of cardiovascular disease by almost 40%; women with high scores lowered their risk by almost 30%.

"The new USDA dietary pyramid is a lost opportunity to help Americans make informed choices about diet and long-term health," says Walter Willett, the Fredrick John Stare Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition in the Departments of Nutrition and Epidemiology. "It's clear that we need to rebuild the pyramid from the ground up, not just tip it on its side and dress it up with new colors. Every American deserves it."

 

References

1. Hooper M, Heighway-Bury R. Who Built the Pyramid? Cambridge, Mass.: Candlewick Press, 2001.

2. Abboud L. Expect a food fight as U.S. sets to revise diet guidelines. Wall Street Journal: August 8, 2003, B1

3. Leaf A, Kang JX, Xiao YF, Billman GE. Clinical prevention of sudden cardiac death by n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and mechanism of prevention of arrhythmias by n-3 fish oils. Circulation 2003; 107:2646-52.

4. The Healthy Eating Index. USDA Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. http://warp.nal.usda.gov/fnic/HEI/hlthyeat.pdf accessed on 13 December 1999.

5. McCullough ML, Feskanich D, Stampfer MJ, et al. Diet quality and major chronic disease risk in men and women: moving toward improved dietary guidance. Am J Clin Nutr 2002; 76:1261-71.

120 Natural Grape Flavor Chewable Tablets

Serving Size:  2 tablets (2-3 yrs), 4 tablets (4+ yrs)

 

ü 1 at mealtime twice a day for 2 and 3 yr olds.

ü 2 at mealtime twice a day for 4-12 yr olds, adults or the elderly who have difficulty

    swallowing capsules.