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, …
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 …
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 …
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 …
A Reader Asks – “How Do You Know When You Are Done ‘Detoxing’ After Reducing Carbs?” Read More »
Children Are Developing Adult Onset Diabetes When diabetes strikes during childhood, it historically has been type 1 diabetes (also known as juvenile-onset diabetes). However, the number of cases of children and adolescents with type 2 diabetes (formerly known as adult-onset diabetes) has been increasing in frequency over the last 20 years. Children and adolescents diagnosed with type 2 diabetes are generally between …
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 …
Monitoring Triglycerides is Important in HIV Disease Read More »
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 …
Why Starting The Atkins Diet Causes You To Feel Tired Read More »
What is Gout? Gout is a common form of arthritis that has been recognized for centuries. Patients often will complain of experiencing recurrent episodes of pain and inflammation in a joint, particularly the large toe and usually lasts for 1-2 weeks. It is often associated with obesity and excessive alcohol consumption. The incidence of gout …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Carbohydrate Reduction and Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome Read More »
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
How Processed Carbohydrates Fuel Your Hunger Part 3 Read More »
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 …
How Processed Carbohydrates Fuel Your Hunger Part 2 Read More »
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 …
How Processed Carbohydrates Fuel Your Hunger Part 1 Read More »
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 …
A low carbohydrate program is not entirely removing carbohydrates from the diet, simply reducing the amount. Breads are a high source of carbohydrates, and given that their main ingredient is wheat, (which is considered by the public to be a healthy grain) why should bread be considered unhealthy? Sadly, bread today is not the same …
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 …
Fast food restaurants are usually the quickest option for a meal, but unfortunately one of the more unhealthy options as well. With the average fast food meal ranging upwards of 1,000 calories or more it is no surprise that the ‘convenient’ meal choice hasn’t been too convenient on American’s waistlines. What would be a better …
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 …
When Deciding What to Eat, Be Sure To Make It ‘Carb Worthy’ Read More »
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 …
How To Prevent Cancer, Diabetes, Heart Attacks and Strokes Read More »
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 …
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 …
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 …
Your Pants Will Feel Looser Before Your Scale Says You’re Lighter Read More »
No. In terms of weight loss, breads are arguably one of the worst foods to be consuming. There are grocery aisles with thousands of bread loaves on the shelf, yet very few could even be charactarized as healthy. Many of them contain high amounts of sugars or high fructose corn syrup. There is a large …
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 …
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 …
The holidays can be difficult for those that are taking the low carb approach. Socially involved holidays can be an exception to enjoy your favorite foods. The ham or turkey, green beans, and the acorn squash are the best options for a low calorie and low carb approach, but you can still enjoy your mashed potatoes and gravy on …
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