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Staying in the Zone Wellness Feed: The evolution of truth

Mon, 08 May 2006 22:33:00 -0700

The evolution of truth

By: Dr. Barry Sears Filed: 2/2/98

The 19th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said that all truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

The concept of the Zone is a new idea. It has gone through its ridicule stage, and now has entered the violent reaction phase, as many mainstream and backwoods nutritionists use the most outrageous untruths to bash the concept of the Zone.

Why such a violent reaction? Because the concept of food as a hormonal control agent disrupts the carefully constructed nutritional fiefdoms built over the past 20 years by the nutritional establishment. What good bureaucrat is going to stand up and stay ?I was wrong?? Not only wrong, but inadvertently decreased the quality of life for millions of Americans in the process. The Zone threatens to take away their livelihood. I would also feel threatened if I were in their shoes. But I am not.

Staying in the Zone Wellness Feed: Third World countries not immune to modern diseases

Mon, 08 May 2006 16:15:17 -0700

Third World countries not immune to modern diseases

By: Dr. Barry Sears Filed: 5/5/97 If you believe current dogma, then heart disease, cancer and strokes are strictly diseases of modern civilization and the sedentary lifestyle of today?s couch potatoes. Politically correct statements, but unfortunately they don?t square with the facts.

For the first time, reliable figures are appearing that set the record straight. In a study commissioned by the World Health Organization and published in Lancet last week, it was found that 50.2 million people died worldwide in 1990. The leading cause of death? Heart disease, with more than 6.3 million deaths. But nearly 60 percent of those diseases came from the Third World. Cancers came next with 6 million deaths (with more than 50 percent coming from Third World countries), followed by stroke at 4.4 million with nearly 70 percent coming from the Third World.

Heart disease, cancer, and stroke ? all diseases that are routinely only associated with industrialized countries. Yet these three diseases accounted for more than 33 percent of all worldwide deaths with the vast majority coming from the Third World. It can?t be the sedentary lifestyle in those in the under-developed countries that's causing such alarming mortality percentages. Maybe the massive amount of grain that we routinely ship them to help their hunger could be part of the problem.

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Staying in the Zone Wellness Feed: High insulin and heart attack risk

Sun, 07 May 2006 22:27:48 -0700

More research links high insulin and heart attack risk By: Dr. Barry Sears Filed: 8/10/98 A recent study in Circulation (Vol. 98: 398-404) confirms the relationship between elevated insulin levels and heart attack. This was a prospective study in which Finnish policemen with no evidence of heart disease were followed for 22 years. Those who had the highest insulin levels after five years were three times more likely to get a heart attack. This observation is in line with another recent article in the June issue of JAMA that indicates high levels of insulin increase the risk of heart attack by a factor of 5.

Staying in the Zone Wellness Feed: Physical fitness in the Zone

Sun, 07 May 2006 22:26:04 -0700

Physical fitness in the Zone By: Dr. Barry Sears Filed: 8/3/98

In the chapter I am writing on exercise and the Zone for my new book on anti-aging, I included a home test to determine how you stack up in terms of physical strength. This becomes vitally important as you age, since functionality will be determined by both upper-body and lower-body strength. The one way to build strength is by doing weight training. Though weight training is by its very nature boring and difficult, you will always have one set of weights to work with where ever you go. The weight is your own body weight. The best exercise to build upper body strength is the old standard military push-up with your arms in a direct line with your shoulders. It is also the best way to measure your upper body strength. If you are a male here's how many push-ups you have to do to be considered to have average upper body strength at various ages.

Staying in the Zone Wellness Feed: Chunky is in?

Sun, 07 May 2006 10:00:17 -0700

Chunky is in?

By: Dr. Barry Sears Filed: 2/9/98

After years of promoting Kellogg?s Special K cereal as the ?high-protein? alternative to typical breakfast cereals (because it contains one extra gram of protein per serving), Kellogg Co. recently announced that it will no longer use slim models to demonstrate how ?to lose the fat, but keep the muscle?.

According to an Associated Press story, women in focus groups were upset that none of them could ever conceive of being thin enough to fit into designer jeans or clinging evening dresses. Apparently chunky is in, and being your ideal body weight is out. Did anyone at Kellogg?s ever think that maybe their breakfast cereals may be the cause? Cereals have the same hormonal effects on insulin that candy bars do (actually candy bars enter the bloodstream at a slower rate than breakfast cereals). If the women in these focus groups had only realized that excess insulin makes you fat, then they would have figured out that the reason that they were upset is because they have been eating cereal for breakfast.

Staying in the Zone Wellness Feed: Go take a walk

Sat, 06 May 2006 22:37:42 -0700

Go take a walk

By: Dr. Barry Sears Filed: 2/16/98

Remember the saying ?no pain, no gain?. This thought of physical abuse turned millions off to exercise. But an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association last week puts exercise back into perspective. This unique study focused on identical twins so that genetic background was not a variable. What they found was that if you take about six brisk 30-minute walks per month, you would decrease your mortality by 30 percent. If you took more than six brisk 30-minute walks or jogs per month, you further decreased your mortality by another 14 percent or practically cut your mortality in half!

Staying in the Zone Wellness Feed: Using TV to tune Americans into the Zone

Sat, 06 May 2006 22:36:24 -0700

Using TV to tune Americans into the Zone

By: Dr. Barry Sears Filed: 2/23/98

The concept of the Zone is not intuitively obvious since hormonal thinking is quite a bit different than caloric thinking. The reason the Zone Nutrition Program was developed was to turn back an epidemic growth of obesity and Type II diabetes in this country, which in my opinion if left unchecked, will destroy our health care in the next decade.

But how to get this message to the 260 million Americans who are not avid book readers? After all, less than 1 percent of the population has even purchased the books that describe this technology. I admit that we live in a visual world, and unfortunately the written word is becoming a less and less powerful medium to put forward a mass message. Therefore what has become the most likely medium to spread the word? You guessed it ? TV.

Staying in the Zone Wellness Feed: Origin of 'official' dietary recommendations

Sat, 06 May 2006 21:46:53 -0700

The origin of 'official' dietary recommendations Guest column By: Eric S. Freedland, MD Medical director Eicotech Corp. Filed: 12/29/97 Next article: Monday, Jan. 5, 1998

(From time to time, it is my pleasure to have outstanding researchers and physicians write the weekly column for the Zone Files. This week, Eric S. Freedland, MD, medical director at Eicotech Corporation, writes on how the official dietary recommendations became official. I encourage other physicians and researchers who want to write Zone-related articles to submit them to the Zone Files. ? Barry Sears)

Since 1950 the American Diabetes Association (ADA) has published dietary recommendations. The ratio as a percentage of calories for carbohydrate:protein:fat was 40:20:40 in 1950 and 45:20:35 in 1971 [1,2]. These are close to the Zone Nutrition Program?s 40:30:30 ratio. In 1986, the ADA was concerned about saturated fat intake and the risk for heart disease. Therefore, to ?simplify? things, all types of fat were to be limited and a low-fat diet rich in carbohydrates (up to 60 percent of the total energy) was recommended. An increase in carbohydrate replaced the fat. It was believed that high-carbohydrate diets would improve the diabetic condition with better blood glucose control and reduced insulin requirements [3].

Staying in the Zone Wellness Feed: The Depression Epidemic

Sat, 06 May 2006 13:49:44 -0700

The depression epidemic

REPRINT
By: Dr. Barry Sears Filed: 4/14/97

Has there been a sudden genetic change in humankind that has given us a new generation of Prozac-deficient adults? I think not, even though depression is constantly increasing in our society. Even when corrected through better and earlier diagnosis, it is clear that depression is reaching epidemic proportions. Is it possible that this rise in depression may be linked to something as fundamental as the diet, a diet which has also undergone dramatic changes in the last generation? The answer appears to be yes.

Staying in the Zone Wellness Feed: Your blood tells all

Fri, 05 May 2006 13:47:21 -0700

Your blood tells all

REPRINT
By: Dr. Barry Sears Filed: 4/7/97

You can?t hide from your genes. You can?t change them, but you can alter the way they are expressed. How would you like to peek inside your genetic code to see if you are very sensitive to an over-production of insulin when you eat carbohydrates? Then simply find out your blood type.

If you have type O blood, then it is very likely that you will have real problems consuming large amounts of high-density carbohydrates. Type O blood is the oldest surviving blood type in humans. If you have type 0 blood, your genetic response to carbohydrates will be similar to what it was for your ancestors 10,000-20,000 years ago when there were no grains on the face of the earth. And it also means that your insulin response to high-density carbohydrates such as grains, starches, bread, and pasta will b e very strong. Such an intensive insulin response is your worst hormonal nightmare.