Tag Archives: fat

Seven Elements of Good Mental Health: 4. Show some SSAS – The Prospering Soul

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Life shouldn’t just be about avoiding poor health, but also enjoying good health. Our psychological health is no different.

Before we take a look at poor mental health, let’s look at some of the ways that people can enjoy good mental health and wellbeing. This next series of posts will discuss seven elements that are Biblically and scientifically recognised as important to people living richer and more fulfilling lives.

These aren’t the only ways that a person can find fulfilment, nor are they sure-fire ways of preventing all mental health problems either. They’re not seven steps to enlightenment or happiness either.   But applying these principles can improve psychosocial wellbeing, and encourage good mental health.

4. Show some SSAS

SSAS stands for Supple, Strong and Skilful. This applies physically and mentally.

Physical fitness is good for us. This isn’t the main point of the blog, but I have never seen a study that shows exercise to be a bad thing. Ultimately, it’s not how fat you are that’s important for your longevity, it’s how fit you are [1, 2]. And the way to get fit is to exercise.

Physical exercise is not just good for the body but good for the brain as well. While the exact pathways are still being determined, there’s good evidence that moderate regular physical activity improves the balance of pro- and anti-inflammatory mediators in the body and in the brain. In the brain, this improves the overall function of our brain cells and their ability to form new pathways, which in turn, has been shown to improve mood disorders like anxiety and depression [3].

But being SSAS isn’t just about what being physically fit and active can do for your mood, but it also relates to being psychologically flexible and using psychological skills to leverage your strengths rather than just fighting with your weaknesses. One of the keys here is acceptance. Remembering your values that we spoke about in key 1 as your guide, exploit the things that you’re good at, using them to gain some self-confidence and momentum. Accept the things that can’t be changed in your life. Then when you have some momentum, learn some new skills to increase your resilience and strengthen your weaknesses.

I say this because sometimes we spend so much time focussing on all the bad things in our lives that we forget about the good things that we already have or can already do. It would be like an athlete spending all their time in the gym, getting really fit and strong, but never getting onto the field or court. It’s important that we courageously challenge ourselves to turn our weak points into strong points, but it’s more important to do what we can to help others around us.

References

[1]        Barry VW, Baruth M, Beets MW, Durstine JL, Liu J, Blair SN. Fitness vs. fatness on all-cause mortality: a meta-analysis. Progress in cardiovascular diseases 2014 Jan-Feb;56(4):382-90.
[2]        Lavie CJ, McAuley PA, Church TS, Milani RV, Blair SN. Obesity and cardiovascular diseases: implications regarding fitness, fatness, and severity in the obesity paradox. Journal of the American College of Cardiology 2014 Apr 15;63(14):1345-54.
[3]        Moylan S, Eyre HA, Maes M, Baune BT, Jacka FN, Berk M. Exercising the worry away: how inflammation, oxidative and nitrogen stress mediates the beneficial effect of physical activity on anxiety disorder symptoms and behaviours. Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews 2013 May;37(4):573-84.

Fat checking … sorry, fact checking

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As I was living vicariously on Facebook again this afternoon, I came across a forwarded page from nutritionist Christine Cronau. She was previewing tonight’s (Australian) ABC episode of Catalyst, on the topic of the low fat diet.

It’s not that she or the ABC are necessarily wrong about low fat diets. Some scientists have been sceptical of the evidence for low fat diets every since they were proposed in the late 1970’s [1]. Often, low fat foods have been manufactured with extra sugar to make them palatable again [2]. So while western consumers have been thinking they’ve been doing the right thing, they’ve probably been making the problem worse.

We’re also a society of carnivores, and the meat consumed in modern society is much higher in saturated fat. Plant and seafood based diets contain a high number of poly-unsaturated fatty acids (omega-3 and omega-6) which has also been a recommendation for our heart health, however a study in JAMA in 2012 suggested that high levels of omega-3 PUFAs did not protect from cardiovascular disease or reduce all cause mortality [3]. On the other hand, it appears that reviews of scientific research have suggested that saturated fat doesn’t pose a significant risk for cardiovascular disease or all-cause mortality either [4].

So it’s true that we may have to review exactly why plant based diets are good for us. What I raised an eyebrow at was her suggestion that, “What in the world did we do before cholesterol-lowering meds? Oh, that’s right, before we started mass producing sugar and back when we enjoyed plenty of saturated fat, heart disease was pretty much non-existent.”

This is a classic case of “two wrongs don’t make a right”. Sure, low fat diets are probably not the all-glorious panacea that they were touted to be, but suggesting that heart disease didn’t exist before the rise of sugar and low fat foods is grossly inaccurate. A quick glance at the data of the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that heart disease peaked in the late 1960’s, which was coincidentally before we started mass producing sugar and back when we enjoyed plenty of saturated fat, and has since dropped significantly.

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Is that because of dietary guidelines recommending a low fat diet? There are many contributors to heart disease, so low fat diets can’t be singled out as the sole cause, especially in light of the reviews I discussed above. The reduction of smoking may be part of it, as smoking has dropped in the same amount of time, although a significant proportion of our population still smoke.

Whatever the reason, it isn’t a good reflection when you try and support your argument against a fallacy with a fallacy of your own. I haven’t read any of her other material, so her books maybe quite cogent. However, Ms Cronau’s Facebook post today provides a good example of how cognitive biases can sometimes blind us to facts that don’t agree with our chosen position, and why we all need to be careful when evaluating the evidence of “experts” on line.

References

  1. La Berge, A.F., How the ideology of low fat conquered america. J Hist Med Allied Sci, 2008. 63(2): 139-77 doi: 10.1093/jhmas/jrn001
  2. Malnick, E., et al. Low fat foods stuffed with ‘harmful’ levels of sugar. The Telegraph, 2014. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10668189/Low-fat-foods-stuffed-with-harmful-levels-of-sugar.html
  3. Rizos, E.C., et al., Association between omega-3 fatty acid supplementation and risk of major cardiovascular disease events: a systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA, 2012. 308(10): 1024-33 doi: 10.1001/2012.jama.11374
  4. Hoenselaar, R., Saturated fat and cardiovascular disease: the discrepancy between the scientific literature and dietary advice. Nutrition, 2012. 28(2): 118-23 doi: 10.1016/j.nut.2011.08.017

Sweet Poison, Another Fad

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According to the esteemed medical journal “The Daily Telegraph”, sugar has been exposed as a poison which is slowly killing us[1].

“FORGET fat, salt and carbohydrates – sugar has been branded more addictive than heroin. It is slowly killing us. // While foods high in fat were once accused of increasing our waistlines, experts said it was foods high in sugar, such as cereals and yoghurts, that are making us fatter and more prone to long-term illness.”

The article is right.  Fat was once touted as foods hidden assassin.  Then it became carbs when the Atkins craze hit.  Now its sugar.

Then pretty soon, people will get bored with this fad, and some other “expert” will publish some book that find a new health demon to exorcise.

The problem is that these fads are narrow minded and overly sensationalist.  Everything is bad for us in some degree.  Change the article slightly and you see how ridiculous this fad reporting becomes.

Oxygen is exposed as a deadly addiction that turns us to rust. // Forget fat, salt and carbohydrates – oxygen has been branded more addictive than sugar. It is slowly killing us.

While foods high in fat were once accused of increasing our waistlines, experts said it was breathing oxygen in the air that is causing free radicals to form in our cells.  Free radicals cause oxidative damage, just like rust on iron.

Oxidative damage leads to increased rates of aging of our cells, experts say.  The faster we age, the sooner we die.  Experts say that reducing oxygen intake can add years to our lives, if we can just break our oxygen addiction.

Ahbig Stoog said breaking the oxygen addiction wasn’t easy, but it was worth it.  “I’ve never felt healthier”, said Mr Stoog.

Sorry, but sugar is just one of a long line of fads to come and go.  The Sweet Poison book was written by a lawyer, David Gillespie.  I like lawyers, but understanding law doesn’t give you a degree in biochemistry.  I was at a conference where Professor Rosemary Stanton (nutritionist and biochemist) and Mr Gillespie both spoke.  Stanton tore him apart.

But it’s not just my opinion.  This has been tested scientifically by a group in Adelaide, their work published in 2009[2].  They compared the weight loss effects of two diets over a year, an extremely low carbohydrate diet (like that espoused in the Sweet Poison Quit Plan) and a standard low-fat diet.  The extreme low carbs diet contained 4% of the energy intake as carbs compared to 46% as carbs for the low fat diet.  Importantly, both diets were equal in the calories consumed.

If the sweet poison hypothesis is correct, and sugar alone is responsible for weight gain/loss then the extreme low carbs diet would show significant weight loss to the low fat diet.  If, on the other hand, weight loss is moderated by total calories consumed, no matter what the make up of the diet, then the weight loss for the two diets would be about the same.

The result of the study is bad for Mr Gillespie’s credibility, because both groups lost approximately the same amount of weight (Low Carbs: 14.5 +/- 1.7 kg; Low Fat: 11.5 +/-1.2 kg; P = 0.14).**  The results mirror those of an earlier study by the same authors, using slightly different diets, but again showing that diets of a similar calorie intake result in the same amount of weight loss[3].

The point is, fad diets come and go.  The diet that works is one that is calorie controlled.  People on zero-sugar diets lose weight because they consume less calories.  Any diet that works is because people consume less calories.

A balanced, low calorie diet has been pushed by nutritionists and doctors ad nauseum for decades, but consistently neglecting words like “poison”, “toxin” or “death” has meant that the message is nowhere near as stimulating as the current whim.

If you feel compelled to cut every ounce of sugar from your diet then fantastic.  You will lose lots of weight, and I commend that.  But don’t kid yourself.  Sugar isn’t a poison.  It’s just another fad.

References:

  1. http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/sugar-is-exposed-as-a-deadly-addiction-that-turns-sweet-life-sour/story-fni0cx12-1226686558161
  2. Brinkworth, G.D., et al., Long-term effects of a very-low-carbohydrate weight loss diet compared with an isocaloric low-fat diet after 12 mo. Am J Clin Nutr, 2009. 90(1): 23-32.
  3. Noakes, M., et al., Effect of an energy-restricted, high-protein, low-fat diet relative to a conventional high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet on weight loss, body composition, nutritional status, and markers of cardiovascular health in obese women. Am J Clin Nutr, 2005. 81(6): 1298-306.

** Some people may wonder why I stated that the results of the study showed a similar weight loss, yet the numbers I quoted showed that the low carb diet had a weight loss of 14.5kg compared to 11.5kg for the low fat group.  How can weight loss of 3kg be “the same”?  The answer lies in the P value, a statistical measure of the strength of the evidence.  A p-value of greater than 0.05 shows that the difference in the groups could have been the result of chance.  For more explanation on the P value: http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/what-a-pvalue-tells-you-about-statistical-data.html