low carbohydrate

weight loss

Tums, The Weight Loss Wonder Pill

Are you stuck in the seemingly endless cycle of weight loss? Weight loss can feel tricky, especially if you always feel hungry. But here’s something to consider: in the course of one year, for every 100-calorie difference in your diet, your weight will go up or down approximately 10 pounds. If you think about it, […]

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Niacin Supplement Doesn’t Prevent Heart Disease

A recent NIH study assessing the effectiveness of Niaspan (a niacin supplement used to decrease triglycerides and raise HDL cholesterol) was terminated early because of concerns it may actually be harming patients.  This also puts into question whether Tricor, another triglyceride lowering agent actuallys prevents heart disease. I follow a simple rule with patients when

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Mummies and Atherosclerosis

A Brief Overview of Atherosclerosis Atherosclerosis is a process of chronic inflammation of the cells lining the arterial walls.  Overtime, scar-like tissue builds up with some deposition of calcium and small dense cholesterol molecules in the tissue.  Ultimately, the inflamed atherosclerotic lesion can rupture, a blood clot suddenly forms and an individual will experience a heart

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A Reader Asks – “How Do You Know When You Are Done ‘Detoxing’ After Reducing Carbs?”

Wikipedia – “Detoxification (detox for short) is the physiological or medicinal removal of toxic substances from a living organism, including, but not limited to, the human body.” Phrases such as ‘withdrawal from sugars’, ‘detoxing from carbs’ or ‘having low blood sugar’ are often used when people describe the feelings they experience after significantly lowering their carbohydrate intake.  I can understand why

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Monitoring Triglycerides is Important in HIV Disease

The Importance of Elevated Triglycerides Insulin resistance is the cause of type II diabetes, heart disease, chronic kidney disease and most cases of high blood pressure.  These conditions are dangerous and occur much more frequently in patients with HIV Disease than in the general population.  The main reason for this is insulin resistance. Triglyceride elevation

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Why Starting The Atkins Diet Causes You To Feel Tired

Why Starting The Atkins Diet Causes You To Feel Tired Patients who go on the Atkins low carbohydrate diet often experience headaches, ‘brain fog’, lightheadedness or fatigue the first few weeks after reducing their carbohydrate intake. These symptoms will improve after a few weeks but for some individuals they can be quit severe and will

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Low Carbohydrate Treats For Halloween

Poisoning Our Children’s Future The diabetes epidemic is growing so rapidly that presently 1 of every 10 adults in the U.S. has diabetes.  That number is anticipated to grow to 1 of every 3 adults by 2050.  That means that 1/3 of all those beautiful little kids in your child’s classroom, 1/3 of their soccer teammates and

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No Health Benefits From Eating 5 Times A Day

 The Myth Almost everyday a patient tells me they believe eating 5 times a day is important. They remember hearing that eating multiple times a day helps keep their blood sugar up. To make matters worse, patients believe they are suppose to specifically eat carbohydrates throughout the day. I understand why they believe this. I hear and

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Carbohydrate Reduction and Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome

Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common hormone disorder among women of reproductive age.  PCOS affects approximately 5-14% of women (depending on the definition used).  here is no significant difference between white and black women with regard to incidence of PCOS when controlling for BMI and age. PCOS is often associated

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Headaches and Lightheadedness

Headaches, A Common Malady A common problem many people experience from time-to-time is a headache. We can still function through the day with a mild headache but they can sometime become so severe as to incapacitate a person.  There are many known causes of headaches but there are only a few that occur quite commonly

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Carbohydrates and Urination Problems

Introduction Many patients commonly experience symptoms of urinary frequency, urgency or incontinence.  They may wake 2-4 times at night to urinate, have a sensation of needing to urinate but produce only a small amount of urine, have frequent or even the surprisingly urgent need to urinate during the daytime. Does this sound familiar?  Many of

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The Forgotten Protein: Plant Protein

The first word that comes to mind when the word protein is mentioned is ‘meat’.  Meat can include beef, pork, fish, poultry, and eggs.  All animal meats are excellent sources of protein, some even have other sources of added nutrients such as iron.  However, a commonly forgotten protein source is plant protein.  Plants can also

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How Processed Carbohydrates Fuel Your Hunger Part 3

How Many Carbohydrates are Too Much? So what should we reduce our carbohydrate intake to?  The average American diet consists of 50-60% of calories from carbohydrates, and many highly processed carbohydrates at that.  Scientific studies suggest that most individuals can become extremely healthy if they reduce their carbohydrate intake to approximately 25% of their total

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How Processed Carbohydrates Fuel Your Hunger Part 2

Good Carbs and Bad Carbs It is important to understand there are some very healthy forms of carbohydrates that you can eat without excessively stimulating your hunger (in future posts look at the lists of low carbohydrate fruits in vegetables that can be incorporated as part of your diet). A mistake that patients of mine

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How Processed Carbohydrates Fuel Your Hunger Part 1

The Basic Science of Carbohydrates What are carbohydrates, and how do they increase our hunger and cause us to become overweight?   Carbohydrate is the term for a wide range of molecules that are often categorized as starch, sugar or fiber.  They are usually derived from plant leaves, roots, seeds or fruit.  A few exceptions

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A No-Cook Type of Protein? Cottage Cheese

Dairy is commonly forgotten for its protein content.  All dairy has some form of protein, and some are higher than others.  Cottage cheese is the dairy option with the highest amount of protein. A half cup serving contains between 100-120 calories, between 10-15 g of protein and a low amount of carbohydrates (3-6 grams). The

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How to Start Your Low Carb Diet

The approach taken on this blog is not the Adkin’s diet.  Completely eliminating carbohydrates is not the intention, but more a reduction.  Reducing the amount of carbohydrates eaten in a day and increasing protein in the diet is one of the best steps toward weight loss. Besides the benefits of weight reduction, reducing carbohydrates in

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When Deciding What to Eat, Be Sure To Make It ‘Carb Worthy’

I recently had the pleasure to travel to the beautiful city of Chicago to visit friends, dine at a few nice restaurants and escape the generally maddening pace of running my medical practice. During our visit we decided to go to Gino’s East to enjoy some of their famous deep dish pizza.  Now, many of

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How To Prevent Cancer, Diabetes, Heart Attacks and Strokes

In a recent study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers identified 4 factors tied to reduced disease risk: never smoking, having a body mass index (BMI) lower than 30, performing at least 3.5 hours per week of physical activity, and following a healthy diet. Participants with all 4 factors had a 78% lower

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Beans Are Good for You

In terms of carbohydrates, an overall reduction of processed, simple carbohydrates in the diet is the best approach for weight loss while maintaining satiety.  Specifically, the carbohydrate reduction in the diet should focus on consuming more protein and less bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, and corn.  Along with that list, a natural reduction of sugars and

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How Much Fish Oil Should I Take And Why?

Many patients I see  in my practice are taking fish oil supplements and don’t really understand why they are beneficial  but just that everyone seems to recommend taking them. Fish and certain plant and nut oils are common natural sources of omega-3 fatty acids.  Fatty acids are special molecules that have a wide array of

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Your Pants Will Feel Looser Before Your Scale Says You’re Lighter

One of the most intriguing aspects about reducing your carbohydrate intake is the surprising sculpting effect it has on your body.  This seems to be most notable in women because they genetically carry a greater proportion of fat in the hips and thighs are much more apt to notice a change in how their skirt

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Modern Day Life and Carbohydrates – Part I

So where does this unprecedented increase of dietary carbohydrates leave us in the modern era?   Modern humans presently consume more carbohydrates in a single day than Stone Age humans consumed in a year, and 20-30% more than we did just a few decades ago. Part of the reason for the significant increase is that carbohydrate-based

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Body Sculpting With Low Carb/High Protein Diets

One of the more intriguing health benefits I’ve observed in my patients from decreasing carbohydrate intake (to 25-30% of daily calorie intake) and increasing protein (20-30 grams per meal 3 times per day) is the significant and fairly rapid body sculpting effect that occurs. Patients will often comment how quickly they seem to shrink in

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Do You Have Autonomic Dysfunction?