Nutrition Questions and Dietary Fads
 

Do you ever think certain nutrition claims are ridiculous? I don’t know why but I seem to be the world’s biggest skeptic.

Sometimes I get fed up with all the different studies I read about in the news regarding nutrition and diets. I suspect there’s a lot of misinformation being given to the public. The media can report anything with regard to nutrition and people will buy it every time, no questions asked.


At the moment, here are a couple commonly accepted beliefs that bother me,

1) Why do healthy young people need vitamin supplements? In today’s culture don't we get enough vitamins in the food we eat? I’m really curious how the scientists determine our daily requirement and if taking too many supplements could actually be harmful. (One of you scientist types please explain to me how they would go about calculating daily requirement for the average citizen.)

On a related note, do I really need to be controlling my free radicals? My mom thinks I should. She’s totally sold on this antioxidant idea.

Wow, check out this article I just stumbled on when I googled antioxidants.

antioxidants a myth?


"If it turns out that antioxidants in food work because they generate health-promoting quantities of free radicals, that would be an ironic turnaround. It may also explain why supplements and extracts don't seem to work or may even be dangerous: the doses are too high, and produce too many free radicals. "


Now that’s some good science stuff right there.


2) On a completely unrelated note - Why do people still promote the idea that we need a minimum of 8 glasses of water a day? Is there some reason to believe we are all walking around dehydrated or something? Is this a myth or is this factual? I have a friend who is always telling me that she needs to drink more water, that she's probably getting dehydrated. Why do people think this?

I have plenty more examples of common practices that I believe must be myths but I'll have to save them for tomorrow.


So are there any fads or dietary practices that you think are silly? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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Everybody's biology is different. Most people supposedly have a need for one or two vitamins or minerals. The next guy's needs will be different. Things like stress and exercise and alcohol may deplete nutrients. So it's silly to paint everyone's needs with the same brush.

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all i know about the water thing is when i drink water during the day, then drink at night, i'm not hungover the next morning, and that's good enough for me

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On the dehydration thing, I've known many women who tell me they have kidney problems because they don't drink enough water, and that their doctor repeatedly tells them they're in real trouble if they don't. I never see them drinking water, too.

Oddly, I've never had a guy tell me he has this problem.

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I am on a water kick right now because a young guy on the day shift has kidney stones [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

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2) On a completely unrelated note - Why do people still promote the idea that we need a minimum of 8 glasses of water a day? Is there some reason to believe we are all walking around dehydrated or something? Is this a myth or is this factual? I have a friend who is always telling me that she needs to drink more water, that she's probably getting dehydrated. Why do people think this?

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Water is very important to the proper functioning of your body, and it is important to replace your normal daily loss of water.

As with most things, the specifics vary from person to person and is largely influenced by your environment, how active you are, and how much water is in the food you eat.

There are health effects to not drinking enough water, so to provide some guidance, we end up with a rule that likely is helpful to the "Average" person.

In general, if you are not drinking enough water, your body will tell you.

Good article on this topic

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Kellog's under pressure from child advocacy groups has voluntary announced stricter nutritional guidlines for advertising to kids.

"The Kellogg Co. said Wednesday that it would phase out advertising its products to children under age 12 unless the foods meet specific nutrition guidelines for calories, sugar, fat and sodium. Kellogg also announced that it would stop using licensed characters or branded toys to promote foods unless the products meet the nutrition guidelines."

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Actually, all of these health tips inlcude a 20 min high heartrate workout (resting*2.7). Most people don't get this daily. Also, those are 8oz glasses (kinda small) but yes, people get dehydrated.

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I think vitamins/mineral supplement are important if you do a lot of exercise or manual work, if you have a lifestyle that depletes them excessively (smoking and drinking), or if you're old or pregnant. Doesn't hurt the developing stages of life either (childhood, teendom). Otherwise a reasonable diet is more than enough for anyone.


More important are the water-based vitamins such as B and C. Humans don't have the capacity to store these, so they are needed in a diet. If you have low energy and you have a processed diet or don't each much veggies/fruit, decent vitamin B complex supplements will work wonders for you in a few days of taking (you need to keep taking them though). If you're prone to colds and infections, vit C will likewise work wonders.


These vitamins and their role are well understood by scientists who study metabolism, and they have clear and reasonably understood roles there.

Fish oils I think have proven benefits.

Antioxidants and combating free radicals - yes I do believe this is real - I'm pretty sure this has firm scientific basis.


Where I remain somewhat cynical (though weakly - if a scientist proves benefits by direct analysis of metabolism, or a very strong correlational link) about stuff like ginseng and st johns wort. There might be something there. I remain deoubtful till proper scientific examination shows something.



One of the things that is amusing/irritating about the whole nutrition thing though, is that it seems that one week, one scientist says X is bad for you, and the next, it's good for you. I used to be a scientist, so I'm well aware that science is based on hypotheses that are testable and available for refutation rather than a provider of absolute truths, but even so...it's sometimes a little exasperating.

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This may be good for a whole thread in its own right, but here goes... What's the silliest diet anyone ever heard of?



I knew a girl who did a 'peanut butter and banana' diet once. Just that. She looked pretty ill after a week, and gave up.

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There are health effects to not drinking enough water, so to provide some guidance, we end up with a rule that likely is helpful to the "Average" person.

In general, if you are not drinking enough water, your body will tell you.



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I read the article. I would agree that if you're an active person and involved in any type of sports you would want to make sure you are hydrated. No argument here. But some of us are pretty inactive and sit at computer's all day. I can't really see how we would be in danger of being dehydrated.

On the other hand, preventing kidney stones is a very good reason why one might want to drink a lot of water. Now there's a reason that actually makes sense to me.


Ok check out this article. I skimmed it this morning and found it rather interesting.



Do we need 8 glasses of water a day?


It's debunking the 8 glasses of water a day thing. Not saying that people shouldn't keep doing what makes them feel good, I wouldn't want that (especially for people like Pryor who have found that water helps them prevent headaches.) But this article suggests that the 8 glasses rule was a pretty arbitrary amount with little scientific foundation.

this article needs to exist is to contradict his absurdly pervasive and unjustified idea that “chronic dehydration” is some kind of epidemic. It is probably not. There may be such a thing as “chronic dehydration”, but the weight of expert opinion is clear: if it exists at all, it is not serious, and easily cured in any event.




p.s. I hope someone read the article I linked above on antioxidants. It was pretty fascinating and slightly troubling.

Re: Nutrition Questions and Dietary Fads
 

katy, the article that you link to, debunks the "chonic dehydration" being an epidemic claims, but it does conclude by stating that drinking water does matter and does provide benefit. Just don't worry about it too much.

I also agree with Pryor that drinking lots of water when you are drinking alchohol helps prevent hangovers.

I'll take a look at the antioxidant issue later.

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In general, if you are not drinking enough water, your body will tell you.

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Unfortunately, most people don't recognize the signals the body sends, or attribute them to other causes.

I used to be a high caffeine guy. Three big cups of coffee by 10 am, mountain dew & cola's through the afternoon. When I felt worn down & tired, caffeine was my answer.
I switched to water when dieting about 5 years ago, and within a month I felt far more energized than I ever had during the caffeine days. No longer having that post-lunch fatigue wass the most noticable change.

These days when I don't drink enough, I can feel it and I understand what my body is telling me. If I never switched to water, I wouldn't know to attribute those feelings to dehydration.

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This may be good for a whole thread in its own right, but here goes... What's the silliest diet anyone ever heard of?

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I love all the new global warming diets that are trying to convince people to turn vegetarian because all the cattle farts are contributing to the destruction of the ozone layer.

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Katy,

DB is right when he's talking about the water soluble vitamins. The flip side of those is that you can't really get too much of them. If you guzzle OJ like a fiend to try and OD on vitamin C or something, your body just passes all the excess out in your urine.

You actually do have to be careful with some of the fat-soluble vitamins, like vitamin A. Since it doesn't dissolve in water, it just hangs out in your body until it's needed. If you eat way, way too much, it can become toxic.

For free radicals and antioxidants, I'm skeptical. Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) produced by your cells' mitochondria as a normal by product of your metabolism are extremely reactive. Some, like hydroxide radical, will react with virtually the first thing it touches. Fortunately, your body has mechanisms to reduce the output of OH radical and instead put out the less harmful nitric oxide. Still, though, it seems like for antioxidants to have any effect, they'd have to be at a comparable concentration to other things in your cells that these free radicals might react with. Your cells are roughly 200 mg/mL protein, but people take these antioxidants at levels where their concentrations will be, oh, 4-5 orders of magnitude below this. Since proponents say that these antioxidants suck up the ROS directly, they have to be around to bump into an ROS molecule before it reacts w/ something else. If people argue that some of these compounds are stimulating your body's natural defenses against ROS, that I could believe, but I'm skeptical about how effective they are at chewing up ROS on their own.

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If you're prone to colds and infections, vit C will likewise work wonders.

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I did a longass research paper on vitamin c in like 7th grade. My research concluded that this claim is BS and has been disproven by many different scientists.

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Water intake has been correlated to mood, too. By way of anecdote, I tried myself to see if increasing my water intake seemed to make much difference, and it did. I feel noticeably more energetic when I'm drinking more water than usual. Even when I'm not sprinting to the bathroom.

As to why, I don't know, but water is sometimes called the universal solvent. Your body needs it for most everything it does. It certainly needs it for passing waste out of your body. As well as helping me do all kinds of other things, I'm figuring it helps me get waste out faster when I drink a lot of it. That might have spillover effects into my mood.

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This may be good for a whole thread in its own right, but here goes... What's the silliest diet anyone ever heard of?

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I love all the new global warming diets that are trying to convince people to turn vegetarian because all the cattle farts are contributing to the destruction of the ozone layer.

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Lots of things about cattle farming are very wasteful for the amount of useable food you get from it. Farts are inherently funny, but it's true that large-scale cattle-raising is very costly environmentally.

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Water intake has been correlated to mood, too. By way of anecdote, I tried myself to see if increasing my water intake seemed to make much difference, and it did. I feel noticeably more energetic when I'm drinking more water than usual. Even when I'm not sprinting to the bathroom.

As to why, I don't know, but water is sometimes called the universal solvent. Your body needs it for most everything it does. It certainly needs it for passing waste out of your body. As well as helping me do all kinds of other things, I'm figuring it helps me get waste out faster when I drink a lot of it. That might have spillover effects into my mood.

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Blarg, water is useless without a loofah. You should know this by now [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

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Water intake has been correlated to mood, too. By way of anecdote, I tried myself to see if increasing my water intake seemed to make much difference, and it did. I feel noticeably more energetic when I'm drinking more water than usual. Even when I'm not sprinting to the bathroom.

As to why, I don't know, but water is sometimes called the universal solvent. Your body needs it for most everything it does. It certainly needs it for passing waste out of your body. As well as helping me do all kinds of other things, I'm figuring it helps me get waste out faster when I drink a lot of it. That might have spillover effects into my mood.

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Blarg, water is useless without a loofah. You should know this by now [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

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Yeah, I'm probably just being poisoned by my own testicles, so it's clouding my thinking.

Re: Nutrition Questions and Dietary Fads
 

i drink at least 8 Diet Cokes a day , and if i need vitamins i will drink a few Diet Coke Plus

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Fortunately, your body has mechanisms to reduce the output of OH radical and instead put out the less harmful nitric oxide. Still, though, it seems like for antioxidants to have any effect, they'd have to be at a comparable concentration to other things in your cells that these free radicals might react with.

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Thanks for your thoughts, Wookie. My concern is that the scientists have a very crude understanding of how the body works and how it utilizes various forms of nutrients. The article I linked tries to point out that just because something works in a test tube does not mean it will automatically work in the body. That's what they've discovered with antioxidant supplements. In fact, some studies indicate that it is not helpful and is possible harmful.

In 1992, researchers were studying lung cancer and found that the antioxidant beta carotene showed promise against cancer. They recruited 18,000 for a controlled study.


" the researchers pulled the plug two-thirds of the way through after discovering, to their surprise and horror, that those taking supplements were faring worse than the controls."

Also in the 1990s, researchers found that a diet high in vitamin E significantly reduced the incidence of heart disease. However, experiments using vitamin E supplements have been very disappointing. Several of the studies showed no effect and one showed that it caused harm.


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In fact, despite good evidence that vitamin E is a powerful antioxidant in the test tube, there is now serious doubt that it acts the same way in the body. "Vitamin E is not an antioxidant. In fact it must be protected against oxidation," says Angelo Azzi, a biochemist at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts. He points out that vitamin E exists in eight different forms in nature, all of which function as antioxidants in the test tube. Yet the body only uses one form, alpha tocopherol, which is pulled out of the bloodstream by a highly specialised protein in the liver. All the other forms are excreted. Azzi argues that evolution is unlikely to have gone to such great lengths simply to obtain an antioxidant from the diet. "There are millions of antioxidants," he says.

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The conclusion is becoming clear: whatever is behind the health benefits of a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, you cannot reproduce it by taking purified extracts or vitamin supplements. "Just because a food with a certain compound in it is beneficial, it does not mean a nutraceutical [with the same compound in] is,"

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I'm still very curious how they came up with the daily requirements for vitamins. Anyone know? I read one article that said it was based on very old data having to do with scurvy. I've no idea if that's true or not.

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From what I've read, politics plays a part.

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From what I've read, politics plays a part.

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Politics? Wait a sec, which thread am I in? Are we talking nutrients or Hillary?

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No, Blarg's in the right thread. There has definitely been politics present in the FDA recommended servings of, say, milk per day.

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They tell our soldiers in Iraq that if their urine isn't clear they're on their way to dehydration. I'm sure they have to be very diligent with the heat.

Personally, I'm a human sponge. I fill up my glass with ice water first thing when I get up, last thing before I go to bed, and all day in between. A friend even once had a dream about me chugging gallons of water.

Fish Oil is the one supplement that my doctor recommended I take daily, so I do. In fact, Omega 3 is supposed to be the next big food supplement marketed in everything we buy at the grocery store.

I'm not big into vitamins, (though I did just start taking a daily this past year), or antioxidants, but I know that the Mayo clinic has found that ALA, (Alpha Lipoic Acid), can reverse the symptoms of diabetic nueropathy.

To my knowledge we don't have a med that can do this, (only those that help control the symptoms). Reports I've read from people who have taken ALA say you have to get your blood sugar under control first, then the ALA helps. They've been using it intravenously in Europe for a while. Here you can buy pills over the counter.

Re: Nutrition Questions and Dietary Fads
 

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Yeah, I'm probably just being poisoned by my own testicles, so it's clouding my thinking.

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Ha! As long as it was already mentioned, my first thought was that you must be dehydrated, with all that sweating you do down there.



I'm originally from Illinois, and have family that still farms there. I keep my opinion close to the vest on the subject, but I have always looked at those vast corn fields and marveled at how much of it goes merely to make cows fat.

Merely. lol.

Re: Nutrition Questions and Dietary Fads
 

What about the latest diet fad, the first FDA approved diet pill, Alli?

About Alli
Cost: About 60 cents per pill, or $1.80 a day

What it is: Over-the-counter version of the drug orlistat, which blocks fat absorption in the intestines.

What it does: Helps users lose weight by cutting the calories absorbed from fat.

Side effects: Excessive fat passing through the digestive tract can lead to diarrhea, oily stools, upset stomach and flatulence.

Any overweight Loungers considering trying this?

Re: Nutrition Questions and Dietary Fads
 

ok, we're all healthy and fit in TLDR... cool!

What about the trend toward Oxygen infused Water... say what?

O2GO is marketing Water with up to 5 times more oxygen...

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I cry [censored]. I'd wager that by the time that water gets anywhere close to where your body might absorb that 02 (if it even could possibly be absorbed), you'd have belched out all the extra 02.

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What about the latest diet fad, the first FDA approved diet pill, Alli?

About Alli
Cost: About 60 cents per pill, or $1.80 a day

What it is: Over-the-counter version of the drug orlistat, which blocks fat absorption in the intestines.

What it does: Helps users lose weight by cutting the calories absorbed from fat.

Side effects: Excessive fat passing through the digestive tract can lead to diarrhea, oily stools, upset stomach and flatulence.

Any overweight Loungers considering trying this?

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I think we're all already on it.

FWIW, when they said things like, I think, Olestra caused this, it made me wonder if it wouldn't be better just to be a little fatter with a little less surprise diarrhea.

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What about the latest diet fad, the first FDA approved diet pill, Alli?

About Alli
Cost: About 60 cents per pill, or $1.80 a day

What it is: Over-the-counter version of the drug orlistat, which blocks fat absorption in the intestines.

What it does: Helps users lose weight by cutting the calories absorbed from fat.

Side effects: Excessive fat passing through the digestive tract can lead to diarrhea, oily stools, upset stomach and flatulence.

Any overweight Loungers considering trying this?

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seems like this would only work if you are on a high fat diet, which not many people are on...for most people i would imagine sugar is a bigger problem than fat...

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If you're prone to colds and infections, vit C will likewise work wonders.

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I did a longass research paper on vitamin c in like 7th grade. My research concluded that this claim is BS and has been disproven by many different scientists.

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I've now completely given up on putting any worth in studies, there's just way too much conflicting advice, and i've just gone the testing route. If i hear something that makes sense to me i'll test it for a month and keep or bin it.

Vitamin C is one i kept. I take 1mg each day before i made improvements to by diet and have never gotten a cold since unless i've slept extremely badly in recent days. Sure, this could be down to other reasons but at the cheap price and no side effects i'm keeping it.

This next one is even more radical and based on research with an incentive so buyer be aware. But if i have gotten a cold or mild illness, as said from sleeping poorly, sleeping in the cold, doing something that's lowered my immune system, when the symptoms appear i'll take 4mg of Vitamin C. So far this has only been 3 times (today after my vegas fight) and it seems to work amazingly w/o any side effects. FWIW, i heard that from vitamincfoundation.org (they recommend way higher). Also worth noting that if i take 2mg of vitamin C in good health i'll piss it out right away, with a cold i wont release any of it. It's on wikipedia that some scientists believe that's one indicator as to how much vitamin c we require.

8 glasses of water recommendation i kept, i drink about 6 pints per day. Strangely, most noticeable effect was i don't feel tired waking up in the morning.

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I'm still very curious how they came up with the daily requirements for vitamins. Anyone know? I read one article that said it was based on very old data having to do with scurvy. I've no idea if that's true or not.

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That's right. A lot of the recommended intakes are based on amounts to prevent disease x. The recommended intakes really are stupid though. Large difference from governments to governments and then huge difference from governments to health books. Even with all that, there's huge difference from person to person. Just eat a good diet.

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Hi Jay,

Thanks for the information. I guess I'm pretty skeptical of all these studies. As a child I was made to take my vitamins every day, as well as other nutritional supplements. I did so obediently. As I grew older I became skeptical.

Is it possible people are getting too much vitamin-fortified food? Say I eat breakfast cereal that's been fortified (is that even the right word?), then I eat a sandwich with bread that's been fortified, then I eat a pasta for dinner that's got fortified wheat products...I mean how do we know how much we're ingesting?

As for vitamins, I agree with you that the whole thing seems arbitrary. The amount I may need is certainly not going to be the amount you need. I find that highly doubtful. I think people assume the government is looking out for us where these pills are concerned but I doubt it. A few months ago they did a report on TV about several popular vitamin brands not containing what was claimed on the bottle. I really believe that no one is even testing these products for safety or accuracy.

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I have completely no idea about fortified foods. That market is a lot bigger in America than England. I just try to eat as whole as possible.

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A big reason to take C is that it helps with the energy cycle, smoothing out highs and lows. I think it tames insulin spikes or something, I forget. At any rate, I have found it hugely helpful in preventing or alleviating the late morning and mid-afternoon dips in energy I typically get. The indirect benefit of that is that these things tie into mood, as well, so I'm happier and, uh, chippier when I just take about a gram and a half when feeling blah and lifeless. So far the intake of about 125 grams a day hasn't had any ill effect.

Just kidding! on the last ...

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1) Why do healthy young people need vitamin supplements? In today’s culture don't we get enough vitamins in the food we eat? I’m really curious how the scientists determine our daily requirement and if taking too many supplements could actually be harmful.

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Good questions. The RDAs of the various vitamins and minerals were largely determined some time ago, as a response to widespread diseases of deficiency like cretinism and so on. They're not exact, just what has been observed to be 'enough'.

This is complicated by the relatively recent discovery of low-level deficiency diseases. You may not show direct signs of deficiency but low nutrient intake may substantially increase your risk of heart disease and other illnesses. It's probably that some of the RDAs are too low. No-one is really sure.

Also, one study done on teenagers and their eating habits showed that none were hitting their RDAs in all categories, including the one taking multivitamin pills.

So yes, based on the evidence you should be supplementing with a multivitamin every day. The American Medical Association reccomends it and they were dead set against it not so long ago.

As db notes, Omega 3 is also a big deal. I eat tons of salmon/tuna so I don't supplement, but it's a good idea.

Not quite incidentally, there was an interesting study reported in new Scientist a few months ago. A double-blind study was conducted in a British prison, with half the inmates given nutritional supplements to bring their diet up to 'best standards' and the rest given a placebo. Among the group given the supplements recorded violent behaviour dropped 37%. The control group showed no change. The work is now being replicated in the US and Holland: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1924153,00.html

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On a related note, do I really need to be controlling my free radicals? My mom thinks I should. She’s totally sold on this antioxidant idea.

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I wouldn't loose sleep over it.


The problem for nutrition is that you need many years and studies with thousands of people. There's also ZERO interest from industry. This is a classic tragedy of the commons where the government should be a hell of a lot more active.

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Thanks for your thoughts, Wookie. My concern is that the scientists have a very crude understanding of how the body works and how it utilizes various forms of nutrients.

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Be glad you dont live in a time period where giving birth was a serious health risk, or the getting leeched for any health reason, or even thinking that baths are harmful.

P.S. Basically, im curious if you think we have a very "crude" understanding now, what do you think we had before?

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Is it possible people are getting too much vitamin-fortified food? Say I eat breakfast cereal that's been fortified (is that even the right word?), then I eat a sandwich with bread that's been fortified, then I eat a pasta for dinner that's got fortified wheat products...I mean how do we know how much we're ingesting?

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Fortification can act as quite a nice population-wide study. There's good evidence that fortification with B-vitamins was responsible for large drops in rates of death from heart disease. It may also help with strokes. Also it is excellent for pregnant mothers, who require large amounts of folic acid, and old people, who frequently absorb it badly. Google can tell you tons more.

Bear in mind that fortification generally involves adding the same vitamins that were removed by the processing of the food in the first place. We take the bran out of beakfast cereals and bread and rice and thereby loose all of the micronutrients.