That’s great. The true power of small conscious lifestyle changes reaping huge benefits over time.
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Absolutely, would like to share as much possible to help everyone in their own journey.
The complete guideline document is in the link below.
My two cents: I don’t think artificial sweeteners are harmful by themselves, in fact, most of the foods aren’t. Rather than promoting or villainizing any food, the constituents and the functions should be detailed and more emphasis should be given to the overall food consumed in a day and lifestyle.
I was reading about peanut butter and came across this; Aflatoxins are toxic substances produced by certain molds that can contaminate peanuts during growth, harvest, and storage. They are considered highly carcinogenic, and this article emphasises the potential health risks associated with high aflatoxin exposure.
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A recent study from the University of California, Davis, suggests that lab-grown meat may have a worse carbon footprint than beef, contradicting previous claims that it is a more sustainable alternative. It’s an energy-intensive process to produce lab-grown meat, as it relies on the use of artificial light, heating, and cooling systems to create a suitable environment for cell growth. Additionally, the study notes that the use of fossil-fuel-derived energy sources in the production process may contribute to increased greenhouse gas emissions, further exacerbating the environmental impact of lab-grown meat. This finding challenges the notion that lab-grown meat is a more environmentally-friendly alternative to traditional animal agriculture, raising concerns about the potential unintended consequences of this emerging industry.
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Shared by @NithinKamath
Article adds aspects of diet-related diseases by pizza, bread, and breakfast cereals wrapped in plastic and additives.
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Ultra-processed foods is one of the major ills of today’s diseases and majority of health issues and concerns.
A small note by one of our clinician’s on the same.
In the process of ultra-processing, food loses its essential nutrients and fibers. Such food usually contains a high level of sugar, fat and salt compared to unprocessed or minimally processed foods.
It is usually hyper palatable and consuming it gives us a high dopamine rush, making it addictive in the long-run. It is therefore vital in our day and age, to know the art of eating right. Because that is the only way to prevent, treat or reverse chronic diseases, as most of them are rooted in insulin resistance, among other factors.
If the carb content is the same in an ultra-processed and a minimally processed food, ultra processed food will cause insulin secretion of 150 units per day as opposed to the normal insulin secretion of 40 units.
The below blog (leave aside the lose weight bit), explains a bit more about food and ultra-processed food, fad diets, etc. and what really matters for health.
While BMI has been widely used as a measure of obesity, it is an imperfect metric that does not account for factors like age, sex, and race. BMI was originally developed in the 1800s, not for health reasons. There is a growing movement to use additional measures besides BMI to diagnose and treat obesity. Experts are concerned that the increased use of new weight loss drugs will exacerbate reliance on BMI alone. Efforts are underway to develop diagnostic criteria that examine how weight affects multiple organ systems, rather than just height and weight.
One such is the Edmonton Obesity Staging System which incorporates physical, mental, and functional health to provide a more comprehensive assessment than BMI.
Overall, BMI should not be used as a sole diagnostic tool for obesity. Here’s why
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BMI (body mass index) is a flawed measure for determining health risks and diagnosing obesity as it does not measure body fat or account for other factors like age, sex and race.
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BMI was created 200 years ago by Adolphe Quetelet as a statistical measure to characterize the “average man” rather than for health purposes.
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While BMI correlates with mortality risk at a population level, the cut-offs between healthy and unhealthy categories are arbitrary, and BMI is an imperfect measure for individuals.
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Factors like body fat percentage and distribution vary between sexes, ages and races but BMI does not account for these differences.
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Excess deep visceral fat poses health risks even for individuals with a healthy BMI.
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Over-reliance on BMI alone can miss cases of “normal-weight obesity” and cardiometabolic issues.
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Alternatives like waist circumference, body composition tests, or the Edmonton Obesity Staging System provide more health insights than BMI alone.
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Pressures of time in medical practice and the easy availability of new obesity drugs risk further entrenching BMI as the sole diagnostic criterion.
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Moving beyond sole reliance on BMI requires combining it with other health metrics and assessments in clinical guidelines and practice.
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Defining and diagnosing obesity is an ongoing process, with several expert groups working to establish more comprehensive criteria.
An interesting fact around BMI is that it became a mainstream index (according to Jacques Peretti’s ‘Done)’ thanks to the Insurance Industry (led by MetLife in particular) pushing that 19th century metric to prove that more people were obese and needed to take up life insurance.
Classic case of a misaligned incentive that a lot of health and fitness apps use even today for their own ends.