In my office it’s not uncommon for a patient to tell me they are avoiding eggs because they have high cholesterol. I’m here to tell you it is unnecessary, and you are actually depriving yourself of a valuable source of nutrients. Find out more below.
Filed under Diet, Public Health
Yesterday we brought you a blog on which cholesterol tests you should add to the standard lipid panel. Today we tell you what to do about them. The best part? The solutions are natural, safe and effective. Enjoy!
Filed under Diet, Public Health
Heart disease is the number one killer of Americans. Find out how to properly assess your risk and what tests you should be having done.
Filed under Public Health
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New genes have been discovered that seem to be linked to Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). AD currently affects over 5 million Americans and that number is expected to increase substantially by the year 2029.
This year the first baby boomers will reach their 65th birthdays. By 2029, all baby boomers will be at least 65 years old. Ninety-five percent of all AD is in people 65 and older.
The discovery of new genes linked to AD is a step in the right direction. Every bit of information that help scientists unlock the mystery of why this occurs puts us closer to being able to effectively treat AD.
Let’s pretend that we know every gene that is involved in the production of AD. Let’s also pretend a test that exists to specifically detect all of these genes in you. Would you want to find out? What would you do if you had all of the genes linked to AD?
The truth of it is, there is nothing you could do to change your genes. Your genes are your genes. They are there and you can’t remove them. What you can do, however, is change how they are expressed. Just because a person has a specific gene does not mean it has to be expressed. The expression of many of our genes is closely related to our environment. Diet, exercise, smoking, pollution and stress are just a few things that can negatively or positively affect the expression of our genes.
So back to my first question. What would you do if you had all the genes linked to AD? You can’t change your genes, but you can change your risk factors.
There are many known risk factor that increase the risk of AD, independent of your genetic potential. The number one risk is aging. Unfortunately, there isn’t much that can be done about that. We are all going to get older which is not necessarily a bad thing. It is much better than the alternative!
Known risk factors for AD that are controllable are as follows:
You will notice that these risk factors significantly overlap with one another. You will also notice that when you control one risk factor you will impact another. If you can control these risk factors in your life you will significantly reduce your risk of developing AD regardless of your genetic potential.
Cardiovascular health is perhaps the most important. Cardiovascular disease causes a chronic, low grade reduction in blood delivery to the brain. This is known as hypoperfusion. This hypoperfusion is responsible for protein synthesis defects that later result in the classic AD neurodegenerative lesions.
To keep your cardiovascular system as healthy as possible make sure you eat an anti-inflammatory diet and exercise. Fish oil is also something you should consider. Fish oil, which contains omega-3 fatty acids, has been shown to reduce cardiovascular disease mortality better than any other substance known.
Reduction of high blood pressure is also very important. When blood pressure is too high it fuels a kind of scarring linked to later development of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. Controlling your blood pressure is actually very simple. You must maintain a healthy weight first and foremost. This, of course, means diet and exercise. Increasing waistlines mean more tissue and blood vessels for your heart to push blood through. This puts a strain on the heart and increases the resistance the heart must push against.
Keeping a healthy cholesterol profile is essential. However, the traditional tests from your doctor are probably not enough to tell whether you are at risk or not. Traditional tests examine total cholesterol, HDL (“good”), LDL (“bad”) and triglycerides. These are of some value, but they don’t tell the whole story. What you must find out is the particle size. In a nut shell, large and buoyant molecules of cholesterol are not as problematic as small and dense particles. Your traditional test does not distinguish between the two. Your traditional test might look very good, but a more advanced test may show that you are still very much at risk. See my blog entry from last summer for more detailed information.
Diabetes is also extremely important to control. Some references are referring to Alzheimer’s as Type III diabetes because of the biochemical similarities. Even being borderline diabetic raises the risk of developing Alzheimer’s or dementia by 70%! Diabetes’ hallmark is high blood sugar. This high blood sugar leads to a phenomenon called advanced glycation end products or AGEs. AGEs adversely affect the structure and function of proteins. In combination with oxidative stress brain function is easily affected. Advanced glycation end products have been found to be much more prevalent in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients than in healthy controls. This process begins early on in the course of Alzheimer’s and there is also evidence that AGEs assist in the formation of plaques seen in AD. Diet and exercise are the best ways to prevent diabetes and reduce your risk of AD.
While the study for a purely genetic link to AD will continue, a cure is likely many years away if one can even be found. What we can control, however, are our lifestyle choices that activate our genes. If we choose poorly, we are much more likely to activate unfavorable genes that cause disease. If we choose wisely, we are more likely to activate genes that are favorable and reduce our risk of further disease. The choice is yours. Make the right one.
Filed under Brain Health
Health care can be a confusing field. There is so much information out there, much of it conflicting, that leaves
consumers confused about their health. Well, today I am here to sort some of them out for you. Below are some common medical myths that people believe but are not necessarily true.
This is perhaps the biggest one I see in practice. Everyone thinks that having high cholesterol means they are at risk for having a heart attack. They also think that having low cholesterol is protecting them from heart disease and heart attacks. Neither is true! As a matter of fact, 50% of the people who have heart attacks annually have high cholesterol and 50% have low cholesterol. To most people this is an astounding stat, but it’s true. What has been shown in the research is that your total cholesterol is not actually a predictor of heart disease. Looking at the break down of the HDL (the good) versus LDL (the bad) cholesterol is helpful but still is not the entire story. What you should be looking at is the size of your cholesterol. How do you do that? It’s simple really. It’s just a blood test. It is how the lab analyzes your cholesterol that’s different. Without getting to technical, small, dense particles of LDL cholesterol are bad because they can make their way into the lining of your blood vessels most easily. Light, fluffy, large pieces of LDL are not problematic because they cannot readily get into the walls of your vessels and cause the atherosclerotic plaques that are so dangerous. These are tests that several of the largest laboratories are performing now and give us better information about cardiovascular health. I have begun measuring cholesterol in this fashion on all my high risk cardiovascular patients and the results have helped us tailor nutritional programs that will be most effective for them.
I recently had someone visit my office on a Monday for an acute case of back pain. She was in quite a bit of distress and discomfort. So much so that she had been to the emergency room over the weekend. There she was given test and test and finally told that her back pain was not life threatening and to go home, take some pain killers and get bed rest for 5 days. The advice of bed rest is still being given out by many physicians around the country for back pain despite the evidence that overwhelmingly concludes that this only makes back pain worse. In fact, the research shows that if you do go with bed rest you are much more likely to develop a chronic back problem. If you have an episode of back pain do not stay in bed. Your best bet is to stay as active as possible. Your goal should be to continue your normal activities, within reason, but modify these activities to fit your current limitations. Now, if your normal activities include vigorous exercise you may want to hold off on that until your back is feeling better, but you should try to walk if you can. Rest if you need to, but keeping the joints and muscles of the back active even when they are hurt is the best way for them to heal appropriately. You should also see a chiropractor. Chiropractors are trained extensively on the back and know how to provide nonsurgical relief for back pain.
This is a biggie. People come into my office for a lot of reasons. However, regardless of their initial reason I always ask about their diet. Inevitably someone will tell me they eat a healthy diet because they eat low fat. People assume that low fat is the best way to keep fat from accumulating around their midsection (and everywhere else!). This simply is not true. It seems intuitive that eating fat would make you fat just like saving money makes you rich. However, things in the human body are hardly ever that linear. The way the human body stores fat is by secreting a hormone called insulin. Insulin is secreted when a person consumes carbohydrates (bread, pasta, sugar) and to some degree protein. Insulin signals the body’s cells to take in the energy in the blood, in the form of sugar, and store it as fat or use it. Notice that I did not say that fat causes insulin release? That’s because it doesn’t! If fat does not cause the body to secrete the hormone necessary for fat storage then how can fat make you fat? It can’t! This myth comes from the fact that fat is higher in calorie than other foods but somewhere along the line people made the leap that eating fat caused fat to accumulate in the body. When fat is consumed it is actually slowly converted to sugar and burned, not stored.
There are many more to choose from, but these are some of the most common that I see in my office. If you’d like to know more, let me know in the comments section and I’ll post about your questions.
Filed under Diet, Public Health
Below is a blog post from cnn.com. It simply amazes me that a peer reviewed journal would suggest that fast food companies offer statins with their meals to offset their horrible health effects. See my comments at the end of the article.
A new report in the American Journal of Cardiology suggests that fast food restaurants should offer statins – a popular class of cholesterol-lowering medications – alongside their unhealthy food.
“We propose that the fast food industry is well placed to offer advice and supplements to counteract the cardiovascular harm arising from the foods they purvey,” the report said. “These companies already have an infrastructure for providing a variety of condiments… A generic statin could be added to the panoply of items in the self-service tray at little additional cost.”
The study – which likened taking a statin before eating to putting on a bike helmet before biking – was based on analyses of other scientific studies, and concluded that taking the drugs could offset the risk of eating fast food just enough to render the food harmless.
“Most of the primary prevention statin regimes we examined, with the exception of pravastatin, had the strength to counteract the increase in risk caused by an unhealthy diet; or eating an additional 36 g[rams] of total fat or 2.8 g[rams] of trans fat per day – approximately equivalent to a Quarter Pounder with cheese and a small milkshake,” the British researchers said in the study.
But Dr. Ralph Sacco, president of the American Heart Association, says that not only isn’t the solution that simple, it could be dangerous.
“There are other things regarding obesity that are important that a statin won’t neutralize, such as diabetes and high blood pressure,” Sacco said. “Even though we agree statins have a lot of good evidence in reducing cardiovascular and stroke risk, there are certain risks with any medications.”
The risks are relatively infrequent but include liver damage, muscle cramps and long-term muscle damage.
The British researchers concluded that the risks of eating fast food are much greater.
“Statins have been shown to be safe even at high doses,” the report says. “The documented safety record of statins is substantially better than that of fast foods, which carry not only direct cardiovascular risks, but other risks due to obesity.”
But regardless of whether the benefits do in fact outweigh the risks, Sacco says there are far better ways to reduce the negative effects of obesity.
“If you can control it with diet and exercise, that would be our preference rather than having to take a medicine.”
Dr. Court’s Comments
This is perhaps the most ridiculous recommendation I have ever seen from a mainstream medical publication. They
are suggesting that fast food chains offer cholesterol lower medications, called statins, with their meals to offset the negative health effects they have on human physiology. This is the pinnacle of not taking responsibility for one’s health. Why take responsibility if you can take a pill to supposedly offset the detriments to your health from eating the most unhealthy foods in the world?
Statin medications are not as safe as Big Pharma would like you to believe. Statins are HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, that is, they act by blocking the enzyme in your liver that is responsible for making cholesterol (HMG-CoA reductase). The fact that statin drugs cause side effects is well established—there are now 900 studies proving their adverse effects, which run the gamut from muscle problems to increased cancer risk.
For starters, reported side effects include:
These side effects hardly seem harmless and to give them as an option with your value meal from McDonald’s is outrageous. It is a great marketing ploy by the pharmaceutical industry to get as many American’s on statins as possible. Think about it. Wouldn’t this kind of strategy significantly increase sales of statin drugs? Of course it would. And where do we start and stop giving them to people. Does a 3 year old eating a happy meal get a statin to go with it? What about people who are already taking statins? Do they just take extra because you really never can get to much medication can you? The slope is a slippery one and I cannot believe this has even been suggested.
I was happy to see the president of the American Heart Association take the other side of this story. He mentions that statins do nothing to offset the other health complications of fast food like diabetes and high blood pressure. This is true. You can’t take a statin to avoid diabetes. What he doesn’t mention is the fact that those kinds of food – food high in refined sugar – are notorious for raising inflammation in the body. When you raise inflammation you raise the risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer and osteoporosis to name just a few. You can’t control inflammation by taking a statin. Some new research does suggest that statins lower one of the inflammatory enzymes called CRP. But that’s just one. There are others that are still detrimental to one’s health.
This kind of a recommendation is dangerous. Period. It is also irresponsible for the American Journal of Cardiology to publish such information. It plants a dangerous seed. This kind of a recommendation encourages people to continue to make poor decisions regarding their diets. It gives them an excuse to continue to destroy their health under the pretense that they are offsetting their bad decisions with a pill. Instead, we should be encouraging people to make healthier choices regarding their diet and lifestyle.
Filed under Big Pharma, Diet, Public Health
At the Vreeland Clinic we use nutrition and diet to manipulate health. Our main goal is to improve overall health and help people feel energetic and youthful. To know if we’ve achieved our goal we rely, in part, on our patients to inform us on how they are feeling. This is not, however, the only marker we use to “check up” on our patients. We use a wide variety of blood work to make sure that along with feeling great, our patients are protected from the dangers of aspects of disease that do not always manifest in overt symptoms until it’s too late.
This blood work is a huge part of our practice and today I am going to share with you the blood work that you should be asking for when you go to your doctor.
Now, cholesterol is an interesting subject. Knowing the total number is useless. Knowing the breakdown of the “good” cholesterol (HDL) versus the “bad” (LDL) is a little more revealing but still is far from telling the whole story. What you need is to find out the particle break down.
Cholesterol testing has historically been used as the standard indicator for cardiovascular disease classified as HDL (good) or LDL (bad). However, it is actually the lipoprotein particles that carry the cholesterol throughout the body, not necessarily the cholesterol within them, that are responsible for key steps in plaque production and the resulting development of cardiovascular disease.
It is the particle size that is important. Small, dense and hard lipoproteins are dangerous while light and fluffy particles are not quite as worrisome. We know that just as many people with low cholesterol have heart attacks as people with high cholesterol. If total cholesterol was a good indicator of heart disease then why do people with “healthy” levels have heart attacks? It’s because your total cholesterol doesn’t tell the whole story. You must know the particle breakdown to have any real idea about your cardiovascular risk.
Below is a schematic from SpectraCell Laboratories that illustrates why this type of test is important. They are a national lab that runs these tests and their panel is called an LPP panel. There are many other companies that can do these tests. The other lab I am familiar with is Atherotech Diagnostics Lab. They call their test the VAP panel. Either test works. Your doctor can order these tests easily. (Please click the picture to enlarge it).
2. FibrinogenFibrinogen is an important factor in blood clotting and increases in response to tissue inflammation. Fibrinogen can help predict the risk of heart disease and stroke. Fibrinogen will not only be high in people with heart disease, but it’s also high in other inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis. High levels of fibrinogen also increase the risk of venous thrombosis (blood clots). Blood clots are silent killers that are often discovered too late. This is a simple test that almost all labs are capable of running. If you take appropriate steps, lowering fibrinogen can lower your risk of many inflammatory diseases.
Having your fasting blood sugar tested is very valuable, but it’s just a spot shot. It only tells you what your blood sugar was at the moment your blood was drawn. And if you followed the instructions, you fasted before that test so your blood sugar is likely as low as it’s going to get. (Remember with blood sugar, lower is better than higher). High blood sugar leads to diabetes. A hemoglobin A1C (or HbA1c) checks your blood sugar control over the last 2-3 months. A much better check! High HbA1c is an independent risk factor for heart disease for people with or without diabetes. Higher HbA1c leads to an increased risk of heart disease and vice versa. HbA1c is another test that every lab can perform and is easily ordered by any physician.
Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) is a hormone produced by the adrenal glands and is a precursor to the sex hormones estrogen and testosterone. Blood levels peak in one’s twenties and decline significantly as we age. They reach a level of about 20%-30% of one’s youthful peak between the ages of 70 and 80. Healthy levels of DHEA supports immune function, bone density, mood, libido and a healthy body composition. This is another easy test to order and almost all labs can perform it.
Homocysteine is formed in the body from the metabolism of the amino acid methionine. It is inflammatory in nature. High levels have been associated with an increased risk of heart attack, bone fracture and poor cognitive function. Other studies have linked high homocysteine to macular degeneration and gall stones. Some patients, because of a genetic defect in the way they metabolize folic acid, have very high homocysteine. Lowering this is critical for long term health. It is easily lowered with activated B12, activated B6 and activated folate. Homocysteine is easily performed at any lab.
CRP, as it is abbreviated, is another inflammatory enzyme. CRP is a powerful predictor of systemic inflammation and is a great indicator of risk for heart disease and stroke. It may predict heart disease years before it becomes problematic. It identifies at risk populations while they are still healthy. This truly is a great tool. A review of epidemiological data shows that CRP was able to predict heart attack, stroke, peripheral artery disease and sudden cardiac death in healthy individuals with no history of cardiovascular disease. Again, this is a simple test and can easily be ordered by your doctor.
This list is by no means comprehensive, but it’s a good start. Each individual person may require more testing depending on their specific condition. These are, however, a great way to evaluate your overall health and predict disease that might await you years down the road. Once you have found your specific risk factors appropriate steps can be taken to avoid the consequences in your later years.
Filed under Public Health
In my clinic people come to see me for all kinds of reasons. One of the reasons people often see me is because they have high cholesterol. High cholesterol has been linked to heart disease and is seen as one of the main causes of preventable death in this country.
This theory that high cholesterol actually causes heart disease by itself has many holes in it. However, the pharmaceutical companies would like you to believe that if you lower your cholesterol you will significantly reduce your risk of having a heart attack or a stroke. The evidence does not support this statement.
Cholesterol is not an independent risk factor for heart disease. So what does that mean? It means that high cholesterol alone is not enough to cause heart disease. There are many other factors that must be present in order for heart disease to occur. The main risk factor is inflammation. This inflammation can be measured in a simple blood test. The tests you should request from your doctor are called hs-CRP and homocysteine. Both of these are inflammatory markers and they give a good indication of your risk factor for a future cardiovascular event or heart attack/stroke.
The theory that high cholesterol alone causes heart disease is flawed. For example, there are large populations of people that have very high cholesterol and heart disease is almost nonexistent in their culture. The Eskimo tribes of the Arctic are great examples of this. Also, research shows that 50% of people that have heart attacks have cholesterol that is considered too high (>200 mg/dl). That means that the other 50% have cholesterol numbers that are within the normal ranges!
With that said, cholesterol does increase your risk for heart disease in the presence of other risk factors like inflammation. It does not make sense to lower cholesterol alone and expect to be protected from heart disease. It does make sense, however, to work on those levels in conjunction with reducing your other risk factors. Today I will tell you of the best natural ways that you can lower your cholesterol.
For a quick reference here are the current medical guidelines for cholesterol.
In my opinion everything should start with diet. Study after study has confirmed that eating a low carbohydrate diet is much more effective in the short term and long term in managing cholesterol levels. It sounds counter intuitive that eating a diet that is higher in fat reduces cholesterol levels but the data is there. The mantra that eating fat raises cholesterol levels does not hold true. It is actually the sugar (carbohydrate) that causes cholesterol levels and triglyceride levels to sky rocket. I routinely put my patients on low carbohydrate diets to reduce cholesterol and have yet to see it fail. The only problem is that sometimes their cholesterol levels become too low! Low cholesterol is just as problematic as high cholesterol.
This one might be a no-brainer, but it must be incorporated. Exercise has many benefits, but specifically it is known to raise the HDLs and lower the LDLs. It also improves heart muscle function, mood, cognitive performance, bone strength and many other factors associated with overall wellness. I can’t stress exercise enough.
Also known as phytosterols, these naturally occurring substances are found in high amounts in vegetable oils. They are mostly undigested and act by inhibiting your absorption of cholesterol in the following way – they prevent cholesterol from being emulsified in the gastrointestinal track. When fats, like cholesterol, are not emulsified the body cannot absorb them. Because plant sterols are not absorbed, they have very little, if any, side effect. They work wonders for people with high cholesterol. My advice would be not to purchase these over the counter. In speaking with some nutrition companies I have found that these are rather difficult to put into supplement form so buying them over the counter from a discount brand is unlikely to produce the results you are looking for. Purchase them from a doctor trained in functional medicine and who works with a reputable nutrition company. They may be slightly more expensive, but you get what you pay for. Here is a link to my website and the companies that I use.
Niacin, or vitamin B3, is another great natural way to lower cholesterol numbers. It is found in red meat, chicken, turkey and beans among other things. It is extremely safe with the only side effect being a temporary flushing effect in the skin shortly after taking it. This can be avoided by purchasing a non-flush niacin. It has been shown to reduce LDL (bad) cholesterol and increase the HDL (good) cholesterol. Doses are different for everyone and can range from 500 to 5,000 mg per day taken one to two times per day. It has been shown to reduce heart attacks by 27% and stroke by 26%.
Fish oil is great for a lot of things. While it does not directly impact total cholesterol levels, it does reduce triglyceride levels in the blood and raise the HDL level. Triglyceride is a measure fat in the blood. It usually has implications on total cholesterol levels. Fish oil is so effective it has been made into a drug by GlaxoSmithKline called Lovaza. It is ridiculously expensive at $175 for a one month supply. (Read my blog about it here.) The dose offered from Lovaza is also much too low at 1 gram per day. An effective dose is about 4-6 grams per day. You should also buy this through a reputable nutrition company as many cheap brands contain mercury, PCBs and other toxins. (Read my blog about that here.) A one month supply of a quality fish oil will probably cost between $25-$35 depending on how much you need to take. Much better than $175!
Lowering cholesterol by itself is not a full proof plan for protection against heart disease. It must be part of a total approach because high cholesterol by itself is not dangerous. However, it is useful if you lower your other risk factors. My advice to my patients is not to rely solely on a pill if you want to reach your goal. You must change your diet as well. Low carb, as mentioned above, is the way to go. If you combine the best of these two approaches you should be able to hit your target cholesterol in no time.
Filed under Diet, Public Health
The article below is from the NY Times. See my comments at the end of the article.
NY Times Article
Eating about two and a half airplane snacks’ worth of nuts every day helps lower total cholesterol and “bad” LDL cholesterol, and improves the ratio of total cholesterol to “good” HDL cholesterol, a study reports.
Researchers pooled the results of 25 clinical trials that involved 583 participants over all. The study reported that eating just 2.4 ounces of nuts of any kind was associated with declines of 10.2 milligrams per deciliter in bad cholesterol, a drop of about 7.4 percent, and 10.9 milligrams in total cholesterol, or 5.1 percent.
The study, which appeared in the May 10 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, was partly financed by a nut-industry foundation, and two of the authors receive research money from other organizations representing the nut and peanut industries.
But the authors noted that some of the trials they analyzed had no corporate financing, yet came to similar conclusions.
“Nuts are rich in unsaturated fats, and that is a main driver in lowering cholesterol,” said the lead author, Dr. Joan Sabaté, a professor of nutrition at the School of Public Health at Loma Linda University in California. “They are the richest source of protein in the plant kingdom, and they also contain fiber and phytosterols, which compete with cholesterol to be absorbed. All these nutrients have been demonstrated to lower cholesterol.”
The effect was most pronounced among people with higher LDL cholesterol to begin with and among those who were not obese. The more nuts they ate, the greater the effect.
This is great information to get out there. We have all seen those commercials touting cereal as a way to lower cholesterol. I have never been a fan of that because telling people to eat cereal to lower their cholesterol is a slippery slope. There are a lot of consumers in this country who cannot or do not make the distinction between Coco Puffs and a high fiber, whole grain cereal that could potentially be good for you.
While some very basic cereals, like steel cut oats for example, may be good for you in moderation, the vast majority of cereal out there is a major contributor to obesity and high cholesterol in this country. Oatmeal, in some studies, has been shown to mildly lower cholesterol levels when eaten every day for two months, but I don’t advise that my patients eat oatmeal frequently.
I do, however, recommend that my patients consume nuts as often as possible. This new research gives me another reason to tell my patients to go nuts! The greatest thing about this is that the results showed that the more nuts people consumed the better they did!
The study has some weaknesses. For one it was financed partly by the nut industry. However, almost all studies done on pharmaceuticals are funded for the most part by the pharmaceutical industry itself. Despite that fact we are supposed to take what we see and hear about those studies as gospel. In my opinion this study would be a little more substantial if it were not funded by the nut industry, but the results seem reasonable and from my experience as a clinician it makes sense.
Secondly, they did not delineate what type of nuts people should be eating. For my patients I recommend that people consume all nuts with the exception of peanuts. Peanuts are highly inflammatory and contain a mold toxin called aflatoxin that can cause a litany of health issues. Almonds, cashews or walnuts are all better options.
The moral of the story is eat as many nuts as you can. They are great as snacks or as an addition to a salad. I eat them as often. The best way to make sure you get them in is to buy them in bulk and have them on hand where ever you are. Buy a bag for the house and one for work and keep them there. They stay fresh for a very long time when properly stored and provide a great boost of energy, are loaded with vitamins and mineral and now help you lower your cholesterol. It’s a miracle food!
Filed under Diet
The marketers that come up with advertising campaigns for the food industry are pure genius. They can take a food that is completely unhealthy and spin the commercial so that it appears as if the food is as good (if not better) than any health food available. My rant on Tostitos is a good example. (Click here to read the post.) Some excerpts and statistics from this blog were taken directly from the Let’s Move Report to the President available at www.letsmove.gov.
I recently saw another good example. This was a Honey Nut Cheerios commercial. It started about by talking about cholesterol and how high levels of the stuff can be bad for you. Then it mentions how whole grains can improve cholesterol numbers. I have issues with that statement as well but that’s a whole different post. The commercial continues and states that Honey Nut Cheerios is made from whole grains and in a “study” was shown to reduce cholesterol. We are of course provided no information on this so called study, but it sounds official so it’s included in the commercial. They also put a big read heart on the box to suggest that eating Honey Nut Cheerios is heart healthy. At the end of the commercial they also introduce Chocolate Cheerios and it too has a big red heart on the box! It’s heart healthy too! The problem? Honey Nut Cheerios and Chocolate Cheerios are not heart healthy! In fact, they are the opposite. They are loaded with sugar and are not a good way for children to start the day.
Both Honey Nut Cheerios and Chocolate Cheerios provides a child with the equivalent of more than 4 teaspoons of sugar to start the day. That’s equal to half a soda for breakfast. Would you let your child drink half a soda for breakfast? Probably not. But wait, Cheerios does provide vitamins and minerals, right? Yes, they do but what if Coca Cola decided to fortify its soda with vitamins and minerals? Does it make soda healthy? Certainly not. I have provided the nutrition information and packaging of both Cheerios below for your viewing pleasure.
As you can see, both boxes have the big red heart on them. The marketers know that the vast majority of people that see this box with assume that means Cheerios is healthy and that’s a major problem because it’s cereals like this that are contributing to childhood obesity is a big way.
Food marketing to children and adolescents is a big business. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) estimates
that, in 2006, food, beverage, and quick-serve restaurant companies spent more than $1.6 billion to promote their products to young people. Children and adolescents are an important demographic for marketers for several reasons: (1) they are customers themselves; (2) they influence purchases made by parents and caregivers; and (3) they are the future adult market. The last reason is of particular importance to marketers. Just like the cigarette companies of the 50’s and 60’s, the food industry knows that if it can get you hooked on their products as a child, you are unlikely to change as an adult. Habits are hard to break.
Food and beverage companies utilize a full range of marketing techniques including print, internet advertising (such as advergames), product packaging, in-school marketing, cross-promotions, prizes and contests, and the use of popular licensed characters that appeal to children and adolescents.
Research conducted by the Sesame Street Workshop in 2005 found a strong influence of popular licensed characters on preschoolers’ food preferences. When preschoolers were asked if they would rather eat broccoli or a Hershey’s chocolate bar, 78% of the children chose the chocolate bar and only 22% chose broccoli. When an Elmo sticker was placed on the broccoli, however, 50% of the children chose broccoli. This shows that children are extremely impressionable and will likely always want to eat the foods that have the marketing behind them. Unfortunately, this is almost always foods that are nutrient empty.
The food industry claims it is concerned with the health of children. In 2006 the Council of Better Business Bureaus established the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI). CFBAI was intended to change the ratio of food and beverage advertising messages directed to children under the age of 12 to encourage healthier eating and lifestyles. It has 16 current member companies – Burger King, Cadbury Adams, Campbell Soup, Coca-Cola, ConAgra Foods, Dannon, General Mills, Hershey, Kellogg, Kraft, Mars, McDonald’s, Nestle, PepsiCo, Post Foods, and Unilever.
These companies are doing this on a voluntary basis and have set guidelines for themselves:
While these guidelines sound noble, it’s like asking the wolves to guard the sheep. A recent examination of the CFBAI has showed that it really is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to appease the public while continuing to do what they have always done.
The Federal Trade Commission’s 2008 report on the CFBAI noted that the participating companies’ nutritional standards, as well as their definitions of “child-directed,” vary by company. Within certain guidelines, each company developed its own nutritional standards for what constitutes a “better for you” food or a “healthy dietary choice.” Moreover, the FTC criticized the program for applying these standards only to certain forms of advertising.
A recent study analyzed the effectiveness of the CFBAI and found that it had not substantially shifted advertising for children toward healthier products. Using one measure of nutritional quality, the study determined that, in 2009, advertisements for healthy products accounted for a very small fraction of all advertising by participating companies, while most advertising promoted foods of low nutritional value. The study also found that companies participating in the CFBAI nearly doubled the use of licensed characters over the past four years, increasing from use in 8.8% of advertisements in 2005 to 15.2% in 2009. Roughly half of all advertisements with these characters are for foods in the lowest nutritional category.
This clearly shows that while the guidelines have been set, they are not abiding by them at all. And why would they? There is no actual power in this CFBAI. It’s a voluntary group that is regulating itself. The food industry is not going to do anything that may cost them any profit. The sad fact is though that it is costing the youth of America their health.
There has got to be tighter regulation on what is termed health food. Just because it contains whole grains does not make it a health food. Industry wide changes need to be made. Official guidelines need to be set that categorize foods into good and bad (easier said than done, I might add) and these big companies need to be forced to adhere to them. The consequences of not doing so need to be severe as well.
Another big part of the problem is the lack of education in the general public. I see these ads and brush them off as ridiculous. I can do this because I’ve had years of nutritional training. While it does not take years to train someone how to eat and evaluate food properly, the food industry knows that most people don’t know the difference between good and bad foods. They also know that people trust what they see on television. If they are told that Chocolate Cheerios are heart healthy then it must be true.
Education is the only real solution to this problem. Children need to be taught from a young age what foods are good for you and what foods should be viewed as treats and eaten sparingly. My advice to my patients is always the same – if it comes in a box and is processed, don’t eat it. Those are the most likely culprits to destroy your health. Shop around the edges of the grocery store. Skip those middle aisles with all the cookies, snacks and cereals. Most of the cereals on the market today are no better than a box of cookies anyway. If you do this, you’ll live a healthier and happier life.
Filed under Diet, Public Health
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