Archived News of the Week

Ashwagandha, the Paleo Diet, Bad Docs, and Tea

Ashwagandha: I love Ashwagandha. I take it every day, test it on everyone and I am proud to carry a particularly clean and dependable version from Supreme Nutrition. Ashwagandha comes from a woody shrub from semi-arid habitats in Africa and the Mediterranean and east into India and it has long been used in Ayurvedic medicine. If you are a collector of tidbits like I am, here's one for you: The name Ashwagandha is derived from Sanskrit and means "smells like a horse," referring to the strong smell of the root which is said to be redolent of horse sweat or urine but it also means "gives the user the strength and stamina of a horse." So, I guess you might smell pretty bad, but you're strong.

Recently, I found out that there is even more reason to love it, above and beyond the fact that it is a general rejuvenative tonic and seems to give me energy; it also quells inflammation and it treats asthma, bronchitis and arthritis; it has GABA type qualities and it encourages restful sleep.

Now I find that it does even more than all the wondrous things above: It is also a longevity herb. An extraction of whole root Ashwagandha called KSM-66 was given to the research worms, C. elegans which are critters that behave biologically very much like us. These worms lived on average, 21% longer than their less fortunate friends treated with placebo. (Annals of Neuroscience, Vol, 20, 2013.) Let's translate: If my normal lifespan would be, say, age 80 and I lived 21% longer, wouldn't that be a bit over 100? Not too shabby.

Regarding Paleo Eating: I know I yap a lot about the Mediterranean Diet, but here is another possibility for you: The Paleo Diet. Here is where people get confused and tend to throw away the Paleo diet because they think it's just a newly revised clone of Atkins. The actual, healthy Paleo Diet has nothing to do with the Atkins Diet which I think is unhealthy. Paleo eating just goes several healthy steps further than Atkins and doesn't advocate for the consumption of the unlimited fats or "bad" foods like sausage and cheese, and of course, forbids the infamous eggs Benedict with pork bacon for breakfast and the pork rinds for snacking are verboten.

Yes, we lost weight on the Atkins, but it wasn't healthy. He was the first person - and I admire him for this and for standing strong in the face of all the hostility that was thrown at him 30 years ago - to think that there was something wrong with the way we were chowing down on low-fat foods (which replaced the newly ostracized saturated fats with unhealthy acid and inflammation producing sugars), starches and grains, but the Atkins food plan, in car language, was more the clunky precursor Model-T. vs. the sleeker Prius of the current Paleo plan.

The low fat craze started all those years ago - 40 years ago? - because of one flawed study on the supposed lethal effects of saturated fats on heart disease, thus Entenmeyers low fat but filled with sugar cheesecake and trans fats margarines were born. I remember in high school we switched to pretzels rather than nuts, stopped the sour cream, the whole milk and switched from butter to margarine. Coconut oil was much maligned and anyone with half a brain would not have been caught dead eating it. Now it's a health food.

Not long after we all changed our diets to less fat/higher sugars, statins were discovered which then created a monomaniacal billion dollar industry. (Is there a conspiracy here?) First we were told to lower cholesterol levels from 300 to 250 then after a while from 250 to 200 and now the suggested levels are ridiculously low, from 200 to 150, all the while pushing the use of statin drugs to achieve these goals. Forty years ago  before statins were discovered - the norm for cholesterol was 300 yet the incidence of heart disease remains the same 40 years later. Now, in 2013, the worm has turned again and it's not about saturated fats, but all about sugar, insulin resistance and inflammation which makes a whole lot more sense to me. And so it goes.

The current Paleo diet doesn't allow for dairy, cheese, processed food and sugars, alcohol, legumes or grains. What is recommended is fruit, vegetables, lean meats, seafood, nuts and seeds and the healthy fats contained in avocados and olive oil. I watched a Dr. Oz show on this not too long ago where a typical dinner plate was described. It was a bit more than half vegetables, then the other half was divided into 1/3 fruit, 1/3 lean meat and 1/3 good fat like avocado. It was a big, tempting plate loaded with lovely, colorful, healthy foods and it appealed to me.

The Department of Medicine within the UC SF School of Medicine set up an outpatient study a couple of years ago consisting of 9 non-obese, sedentary, healthy participants. They ate Paleo for a short period of time - 10 days only - and what the researchers found even in that short amount of time was dramatic changes in some important biomarkers.

And, though the end results were impressive, the researchers said we must take metabolic typing or personal nutritional requirements into consideration or what might be good for one person may not be good for another, and I agree. Furthermore, I think that someone needs to do this study for a longer period of time and with more than 9 participants, but what they concluded was this: "Even short term consumption of a paleolithic type diet improves BP, glucose tolerance, decreases insulin secretion, increases insulin sensitivity, and improves lipid profiles without weight loss in healthy sedentary humans." (Eur J. Clin Nutr, 8/2009)

I can help you find out what metabolic type you are and whether you would benefit going more Paleo, or you could just try going Paleo for 30 days and see how you feel without the foods mentioned above. I know that I feel better without the grains, sugars, beans and starches. But that's just me. I am the poster girl for a metabolic Protein Type which supports the idea of the Paleo diet.

Big Pharma Ties and M.D.s: Pursuant to my last newsletter and my harangue against the FDA and Big Pharma, there was an interesting article, supportive of my crankiness, in the Tuesday May 14, 2013, New York Times Science section entitled Light on Doctors Lucrative Industry Ties. "Orthopedic surgeons, cardiologists and psychiatrists received the most lucrative payments, the new study found. Primary care physicians - such as internists and pediatricians - were the least likely to receive payments." (NEJM, May, 2013, online)

Yes, we have all heard that doctors take money, expensive gifts, trips and an endless supply of samples of new drugs to hand out to patients. Therefore: "Avoid physicians who see drug reps and dispense samples. Ask instead, 'Could I have a tried-and-true drug?' Or, 'Could I have a generic version?'"

Beware of the Doc who "prescribes a new or more expensive drug instead of an older alternative." Beware of the "orthopedic surgeon who immediately recommends a knee replacement. Get more opinions and go with the one... "who recommends watching and PT. It might be interesting for the patient to wonder to what extent those two physicians have relationships with industry." I know that there is a whole lot of evidence out there that committed PT can help you avoid knee surgery.

Tea: Flavenols are phytochemicals found in tea, apples and other fruits. New research from the British Journal of Nutrition indicates that the Flavenols from tea are particularly powerful. These Flavenols were associated with a 72% lower risk of atherosclerotic vascular disease mortality in the cohort of women that they studied. I have read for a long time the benefits from all kinds of teas, and here is proof positive that my pot of ½ decaf black tea in the morning is probably a good thing and it would probably be even better if I substituted it for green.

Green tea which has been linked to a reduced risk of Alzheimer's and certain cancers, improves cardiovascular and oral health and also benefits in weight management and it contains many more Flavenols/polyphenols than black tea: 40% vs. 10%. Oolong (an acquired taste) is semi-fermented and lies somewhere between green and black tea.

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