Let’s delve into the world of a chemist (me) for a moment and see what we can find that will help you get rid of some fat. Today the topic is plastics, or more specifically, plasticizers. This topic started for me in 1974, while I was still a graduate student. At the time our lab had been buying solvents in plastic bottles because they were so much cheaper than in glass bottles. However, some of the chemical analyses that I was doing at that time were giving me odd results. After a lot of thought about what the problem might be, I got lucky when I noticed that the plastic solvent bottles smelled like … plastic! In hopes of finding out the nature of the odor, I distilled a gallon of methanol from one of the bottles, then noticed a syrupy sludge that was left over. It smelled strongly of plastic. After a quick chemical analysis, I identified the main substance as a compound called dimethyl phthalate. I then learned that this is one of the plasticizing agents that go into making plastic bottles. At the time I thought nothing of it, except from then on I distilled my solvents to rid them of this contaminant.

Fast forward to the 21st century, and plasticizers are now big news. Phthalates, along with a compound called bisphenol A (BPA), have attracted a lot of attention because they leach into plastic containers and cause toxicity in the foods and drinks that contain them.

We are talking about thousands of products. Water bottles are only the most obvious of the plastic containers. Plastic is also found in plastic food containers, in canned foods and drinks that are lined with plastic, in boxes of processed foods, in plastic dishes, and in plastic baby bottles and sippy cups, to name a few. Plastic seems to be almost everywhere.

Plasticizers, Estrogen Dominance, and Fat

The reason that these kinds of molecules are toxic is that they have an estrogenic effect. This just means that they add to the estrogen load even though they are not natural estrogens. So bear with me while a make this point. Natural estrogens, such as estradiol, are steroids. Natural estrogens are not at all similar to BPA and phthalates.

Somehow the human body accepts plasticizers as if they were estrogens, although not perfectly. If you wonder about the effects of non-natural estrogens (called “xenoestrogens”), you are not alone. They are now being blamed for causing estrogen dominance, even in infants, and all of the consequences that come with it. The FDA is doing its usual dance, since plastics are part of a big industry. in 2008 a scientific panel evaluated several research studies on plasticizers and concluded that they do, indeed, pose a significant health risk. At  first the FDA ignored the recommendations to remove plasticizers from contact with foods and drinks, and even claimed that they, “…needed more studies,” to confirm the danger. The danger was so clear already, though, that the FDA finally relented, at least partially. BPA is supposed to be removed at least from containers for baby foods and drinks. Canada and other countries have already seen the light and banned BPA from food and drink containers, so the U.S. is a little slow on this issue.

As you may know by now, estrogen dominance leads to fat gain, and fat gain accelerates estrogen dominance. This is really a dangerous spiral, and it is made worse by plasticizers in your diet. One of the two absolutely best things that you can do to negate the fat-building effects of xenoestrogenic plasticizers is to avoid them. Never cook with plastic,  never cook or reheat food in plastic containers in the microwave oven, never drink water out of plastic bottles … you get the picture. Although this doesn’t sound easy, it can be done if you have enough incentive to get rid of excess fat.

The second, and probably more important, thing to do is make sure you are getting enough progesterone into your system to counterbalance estrogen dominance. This is not necessarily a simple thing to do, so I will be posting much more on this topic very soon. Even if you have no exposure to xenoestrogens, which is unlikely anywhere in the U.S. today, you are most likely deficient in progesterone anyway.

All the best in natural health,

Dr. D

One of the hard and fast pieces of advice for keeping the fat off was made famous by the “anonymous” celebrity below. At one time he had been nicknamed, “The Round Mound of Rebound,” because he was so roly-poly. Then he discovered how to get and stay trim and had a great career in professional sports. Since retirement, he apparently has violated his own rule so often that he is now an example of a reverse before-and-after sequence. See what the rule is (below pictures) and why violating got this guy fat again.

Recognize this celebrity? Here is his simple rule: Don’t eat after 7:00 PM. Why? Your best fat-burning time begins about 10 hours after a meal. All the right hormones line up in your favor for burning fat while you sleep: insulin, leptin, growth hormone. The details of how this works are laid out in my report, “5 Steps to a Slimmer and Healthier You.” Isn’t it interesting that, even if you run up and down a basketball court every night, you can still be fat if you eat late in the evening? You can look like that guy on the left if you put the right strategies into place. Or you can look like that same guy on the right if you don’t.

All the best in natural health,

Dr. D

I was just standing out in my yard, in the warm sunshine among the poppies in the desert landscape, sipping on my day’s starter shake. So it occurred to me to tell you about what a great way this is to start the day. Here’s what I do. First off, I throw a banana into the blender, today with a couple of large stawberries. Eve finds ripe bananas and other mature fruits at the dollar store. This is ironic, because the produce section there is supposed to be the dregs, the end of the line for stuff that the supermarkets couldn’t sell. It is great stuff, though.

Okay, I digress. On top of the fruit I add a serving of my protein powder (these days it is an unflavored soy protein product – I don’t buy into claims that soy is responsible for the wimpification of American males), a raw egg (dietary cholesterol is NOT a problem, regardless of what anybody else tells you), a scoop of greens powder, enough water for drinkable consistency, a powdered vitamin mix (means fewer pills today), and a collagen powder (a must every day for everyone! more on this topic soon). Just right, not too sweet, not to thick. I love these shakes! They are a great way to add a delicious and nutritious meal to my day. These are nothing like those crappy meal replacement powders (you know who you are!) that last about 20 minutes until I get hungry again. No, my shakes are solid and last for hours. In fact, in a couple of hours I’ll probably go out for a nice, easy 5-mile run just to get more oomph out of my liquid delectable.

All the best in natural health,

Dr. D

Truly Bad Low-Calorie Diet Research

A lot of ruckus exploded in the media from a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine. The article itself is titled, “Comparison of weight-loss diets with different compositions of fat, protein, and carbohydrates” (Feb 26, 2008; vol. 360(9): pp. 859-873). It has all of the earmarks of good research: 1) a reputable journal; 2) a famous institution (Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health); 3) a big bunch of professional scientists in the by-line (Sacks FM, Bray GA, Carey VJ, Smith SR, Ryan DH, Anton SD, McManus K, Champagne CM, Bishop LM, Laranjo N, Leboff MS, Rood JC, de Jonge L, Greenway FL, Loria CM, Obarzanek E, Williamson DA); and, 4) paid for by just the right government agency (the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health). All of these might fool a non-scientist into thinking that this research answers a nagging question about what the best weight-loss diet is. Indeed, it fooled all of the journalists who trumpeted the article as a guide for the ideal strategy for weight loss.

Get a Different Perspective on Poor Research at Harvard

Unfortunately, this article fell short in so many ways that it is just a big waste of time and taxpayers’ money. The statistics are weak, the comparisons among diets show poor results, the experimental set up was biased and incomplete. Indeed, I could go on and an about how truly bad this article is. It is very unfortunate that biased reporting in the media gave it such a thumbs up. I found a great analysis of all this idiocy by low-carb enthusiast, Jimmy Moore, in his blogpost at: “If New Research Says Weight Loss Is All About The Calories, Then Why Was The Atkins Diet Omitted From The Study?” So rather than me repeating all the good editorializing by Jimmy and the commentary by his visitors (including one by yours truly), I’ll just encourage you to read it for yourself at that link. Enjoy!

I am chagrined, although not surprised, that bad science gets published. This has always been the case. It is a dirty little secret that we scientists are good at hiding. Just thought you’d like to know.

All the best in natural health,

Dr. D

Anatomy of the Acai Berry Scam

Take a look at the photograph here. It represents thousands of ads and tens of thousands of words that focus on one thing – acai berry juice is useful for weight loss. Showing a slim, good-looking young lady is just an emotional  appeal. In this case the model is holding a glass of acai berry scam -er, juice. The message is, “Drink this juice and look slim and beautiful like me.” Nothing out of the ordinary for this marketing strategy. It is standard operating procedure.

The subject became a scam when Google slapped down hundreds of ads for sending people to fake blogs. These blogs were supposed to be by young ladies who miraculously lost weight by drinking acai berry juice. It turns out that the young ladies didn’t even exist!

What Does Research Have to Say?

Weight loss supplements have been so tarnished by fraud that the FDA, bless their peanut inspecting hearts, has decided to come down hard on companies that make these kinds of supplements. (Do you think for a minute that this has anything to do with the FDA’s real job – i.e., to be the enforcement arm of the pharmaceutical industry? Nah, didn’t think so.) In my view, this subject warrants a lot of digging into actual research. So that is what I have done on the topic of acai scams and weight loss.

Research Overview of Acai Research

The following is a very brief summary of ALL of the research that I could find in the medical literature about acai. I searched the medical database at CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine) on PubMed. (This is a free government site that you can use, too.) The keywords that I used, which are the most important kind of terms to search for scientific research about any species of plant, were the scientific name. In this case, the scientific name that is unique to the acai palm is, Euterpe oleracea.

Here is the list of research topics, with their publications dates, on all of the nine articles about acai that have ever been published in reputable scientific journals:

• 2004 Anthocyanins and similar phytochemicals were isolated and evaluated for antioxidant activity and pigment stability.
• 2005 Several commercial and non-commercial samples of acai fruit pulp were found to have antioxidant activity; very little of this activity was due to the anthocyanins
• 2006 Anthocyanins from fruits were found to be potent inhibitors of nitric oxide
• 2006 Seed extracts show potent antioxidant activity, mostly from as yet unknown ingredients
• 2007 Extracts of acai pits show vasodilator effect on rat tissue
• 2007 Acai fruits have good nutritional value
• 2008 Acai fruit pulp and oil inhibit growth of colon cancer cells in culture; effect is not due to anthocyanins
• 2008 Class of phytochemicals called lignans discovered; showed protective effect on breast cancer cell cultures that were stressed by hydrogen peroxide
• 2008 Showed acai pulp to be equivalent to applesauce in increasing plasma antioxidant capacity

Note that the first one appeared in 2004 and the most recent one in 2008. More will be coming in 2009, I am sure. Note also that not one single article has anything to do with weight loss. In the immortal words of Gomer Pyle, “Surprise, surprise, surprise!”

The Gory Scientific Details

If you really want to get more information about these articles, you can do the same search on CAM/PubMed that I did. Or you can see my more complete summaries of the research, with author names, article titles, journal citations, and PubMed ID numbers at my HerbScientist blog. Either way, you will learn that we have a big acai scam on our hands.

Isn’t real science fun?

All the best in natural health,

Dr. D

Here is a Nice Surprise About Fat (Don’t You Deserve One?):

Your body already “knows” how to burn fat naturally while you sleep. This isn’t silly marketing hype, even though marketing hypsters (OK, I made up that term) use it that way. How surprised do you think they’d be to know that they are right on target?

This post offers a little explanation about how nighttime fat burning is supposed to work and how you can make it work better. First off, your peak fat burning period out of every 24 hours is about 9-10 hours after you have dinner … if you don’t snack before bedtime! Some other variables play a role, too. These include when, what, and how much you eat and on the frequency, intensity, and duration of your physical activity.

So why is sleep so important for you on how to burn fat naturally? Actually, sleep itself isn’t the main point. The importance of the time between when you finish dinner and when you have breakfast is the key, which just happens to include a typical night’s sleep.

Mobilizing Belly Fat

Fat cells store fuel that you can use for energy when needed. A few things have to happen before storage fat gets moving. Right after you finish dinner, you are still burning off the food calories that you just ate. If you can avoid eating an evening snack, the calories from your meal will be mostly gone within a few hours, at which time you will start to use up stored carbohydrate, in the form of glycogen, from your liver and muscle tissues. Near the end of digestion, you will start using up fat that is circulating in the blood.

It takes 9-10 hours for your food to be completely digested and your blood fat to be mostly used up. This is golden fat burning time! Your body begins, finally, to mobilize fat from storage and start using it for your metabolism. This fat mobilization period is when your body is supposed to burn fat naturally while you sleep. Doesn’t that sound easy?

Stoking Your Fat Burning Furnace

You really don’t have to do anything at this point except to have breakfast about twelve hours after you had dinner. Ideally, at breakfast your furnace has already been at its fat burning hottest for about 2-3 hours, the period from 9-12 hours after your dinner. That’s really all there is to it for optimizing your metabolism to burn fat naturally while you sleep.

The explanation here of how you burn fat naturally while you sleep leaves out the importance of getting good sleep and otherwise releasing stress at night. These are additional factors that will influence your metabolism. All this means is that you can ensure optimal fat burning by getting good sleep. Good sleep entails several 90-minute periods of alternating between deep and light sleep, over about 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Depending on your health and how well you eat in general, whatever you do to make sure you have about a 12-hour period that includes good sleep between dinner and breakfast will give you your best chance to burn fat naturally every night.

Bedtime Snacks Undermine the Whole Thing

After-dinner snacking, a little bit of ice cream before bed, a midnight snack … all of these will interrupt your prime fat-burning time. Your body simply won’t get to the point of mobilizing stored fat. This is a fact of your normal biochemistry. If you have trouble making it from dinner to breakfast without eating, you either have an underlying health problem or bad habits that you have to overcome, or both. If you want to burn fat naturally, the way your body is meant to do, you must allow it to dip into stored fat for at least a couple of hours every night. This is your simplest, easiest, and best hope for harnessing the power of your own metabolism.

Does How Burn Fat Naturally During Sleep Work for Everyone?

Unfortunately, the answer is that not everyone can benefit from nighttime fat burning as much as they should. Your body has its limits, especially if you have diabetes, hormone imbalance, thyroid deficiency, a poor lifestyle, or are taking a number of prescription drugs. The good news is that most of the things that slow down your fat metabolism are based on poor choices that you can undo. Your body knows how to burn fat naturally while you sleep, so doing whatever you can to be healthy and sleep well will keep you on track to do so.

All the best in natural health,

Dr. D

KEY QUESTION: What are the best fat burning foods and the best fat burning diets?

All good fat burning diets must include three components. WHAT you eat is equally important to WHEN you eat and HOW MUCH you eat. Each of these is a separate topic, so for now this article will focus the first of these, the foods themselves.

Fat burning foods provide calories with nutrients. That is almost all there is to it. In addition, the best foods also do not cause too much inflammation. Paying attention to nutrient content and inflammatory potential is the simplest and most effective approach to choosing what to eat for burning fat. Let me give you an obvious example. Oranges contain a lot of sugar AND a lot of nutrient value. Fruity Pebbles contain a lot of sugar and very little nutrient value. This is a no-brainer. By the way, both contain the same exact kind of sugars, either sucrose or fructose or a mixture of the two. This is not really important. You already know that Fruity Pebbles are awful for fat burning diets.

Processed sugar and other nutrient-free carbohydrates also cause inflammation. Excess sugar drives up your insulin level. Insulin is a caustic protein that causes damage when you have too much in your bloodstream. Excess insulin from a high sugar intake is just one of the inflammatory responses you will have by eating the wrong kind of food for fat burning  diets.

Foods for Fat Burning Diets – Nutrient Density

High nutrient density includes mostly fresh foods. Dieticians, nutritionists, and naturopaths mostly agree that the highest nutrient density comes from several categories of foods, which include:

• VEGETABLES: Arugula, Bell peppers, Broccoli, Cabbage, Carrots, Leeks, Onions, Romaine lettuce, Scallions, Shiitake mushrooms, Spinach, Tomatoes, Sweet potatoes (NOT yams!)
• FRUIT: Apples, Blueberries, Cherries, Grapefruit, Oranges, Pomegranates
• FISH: Flounder, Salmon (esp. wild caught), Sole, Tilapia
• MEAT AND POULTRY: Beef, Lamb, Pork, Chicken, Turkey, Wild game
• HERBS AND SPICES: Basil, Black pepper, Cardamom, Chives, Cilantro, Cinnamon, Cloves, Garlic, Ginger, Parsley, Turmeric
• NUTS AND SEEDS: (raw, unsalted) Almonds, Flaxseeds, Sesame seeds, Walnuts
• OTHER: Eggs (esp. the whites)

Do you suppose that you could survive on any of the fat burning diets if they were based only on foods taken from this list? Of course! This is a list of incredibly delicious foods, and the variety of taste treats is endless when you use different combinations of herbs and spices.

A Little Surprise – Frozen Foods

Fruits and vegetables are often picked when they are unripe, then stored in a cold box. They are fumigated with ethylene gas just before they are put out for sale. This gas makes them look like they are ripe. Looks are deceiving, since they have little of the nutrient value that comes from naturally ripening. You know this is the case when you bite into a really beautiful orange or tomato that has almost no flavor. Flavor, like nutritional value, goes hand in hand with natural ripening.

What about frozen foods? Fruits and veggies are left on the tree, bush, or vine longer if they are to be picked for freezing. They have to be ripe at that time because they are going to be frozen right away. By ripening naturally, they have a higher nutrient density than their fresh counterparts. Nevertheless, be sure to get only  unadulterated frozen foods for the best benefits to your health and fat reduction program. Food manufacturers consistently offer high-sugar and high-salt frozen foods, which should be a crime. Don’t buy them!

Foods That Are Not So Good

Think about potatoes and rice. These foods are excluded from the list above because they carry a big load of starch and little else. “If it is white, don’t bite,” is generally good advice regarding these foods. It also includes anything made with enriched flour of any kind. If the flour is enriched, then it was first stripped of its nutritional value. No amount of “enrichment” can make up for the stripped-out nutrition.

Juices are also missing from the above list. Commercial juices are almost all a bunch of sugar-laden crap. If you can get whole, completely unprocessed, fresh or frozen juices without adulteration by apple or grape juice, go for it. Just be sure to count the calorie density in your daily intake, because a glass of juice can be a big load of calories.

Really Bad Foods

You must consume all three food groups – carbohydrate, protein, and fat – to be trim and healthy. Fats, however, have acquired an evil reputation, which is idiotic  and oversimplified. The key is to eat the right kinds of fats and avoid the wrong kinds.

The biggest culprits among bad fats are the saturated fats from animal products and the trans fats from chemical processing. Saturated fats most often come from meat and dairy and from processed and fried foods. Just be sensible about eating meat by eating less meat that is fatty. Marbled steak, as good as it tastes, is too fatty. Chicken and turkey skin are too fatty. Most pork is too fatty, although not all. By the way, the added hormones and antibiotics in commercial meats also stick fat on you like super-glue. The best fat burning diets are free of hormones and antibiotics.

Trans Fats: Evil Non-Food

Trans fats have become the whipping boy of the health food industry, for good reason. You probably know by now that trans fats are made by a synthetic chemical transformation. Foods contain trans fats if they have partially hydrogenated oils. These are highly inflammatory. They ruin blood vessels, lead to insulin resistance, and promote obesity. Avoid them at all costs.

French fries, potato chips, crackers, baked goods, and all kinds of processed foods are loaded with saturated fats, trans fats, or both. These are triple-whammy early death foods because you get: 1) lots of bad fats, 2) lots of inflammatory carbohydrates, and 3) very low nutrient density. Evil, I tell you! None of these foods will be part of good fat burning diets.

Your Eating Plan

The success of fat burning diets depends on consuming only valuable, nutrient-dense foods. You don’t have to get crazy and start feeling as though you are depriving yourself of good food. Fat burning diets should be appealing, tasty, and offer lots of foods that you can look forward to without missing the ones that you must avoid. Enjoy!

All the best in natural health,

Dr. D

The 5-part series that I put together on how best to lose fat shows you how to use all of the components of fat burning as well as you can. Each part (some with more than one sub-part) gives you the best information that I could find. Keep in mind that the information is general, which means that specific applications will vary depending on your particular health status. Here are the basic steps:

Step 1. Eating to Burn Fat: the best fat burning foods, the best eating pattern (when to eat for optimum fat burning), and how many calories are ideal for you. Scientific studies really clear up some common confusion here.

Step 2. Fat Burning Supplements: Why there is no silver bullet that solves everything, regardless of what you read about Hoodia and other so called miracle weight loss pills. Supplementation the right way will boost your metabolism, control your appetite and blood sugar, shrink fat cells, alleviate fat triggering stress, and provide the key missing mineral that your fat burning furnace depends on. You can get a head start on this step right now at Doctors Nutrition Center (if this link doesn’t work, insert this url into your browser: http://www.doctorsnutritioncenter.com/belly fat reduction.html).

Step 3. Fat Burning Exercises That Really Work: You will be pleasantly surprised how simple it is to do the right exercises for burning fat. Not ab crunches. Not sweating at a gym for hours on end. In fact, not strenuous at all. The absolutely best scientific research for exercising to burn fat is easy yet brisk for all ages, youth to seniors (even up to age 92!), regardless of whether you have painful joints that keep you from walking or working out.

Step 4. Stress, The Most Overlooked Cause of Fat: What you must do to prevent stress from undermining your best efforts to burn fat even though you are eating right, taking the best supplements, and doing the right exercises. This is the key to healthy slimming.

Step 5. Achieving Key Hormone Balance: Fat makes hormones that either help you burn fat or make you store more. Hormone levels change as you age, so keeping them balanced is crucial for maintaining youthful metabolism and a younger looking, slimmer and healthier body.

I encourage you to get the full series by subscribing to my newsletter, “Belly Fat Science News.”

All the best in natural health,
Dr. D

Here are just a few results that you can get by applying what you learn at BellyFatScience.com:

Ladies:

• Getting into that size 3 dress again.
• Enjoying more energy all day long.
• Relieving your poor aching joints from carrying too much of you.
• Feeling and looking better in every way.

Gentlemen:

• Dumping those silly *man boobs* and showing off your abs again.
• Getting back into those 34-inch waist pants.
• Looking broad-shouldered and instead of big-bellied.
• Feeling fit and strong.

More Benefits From The New Science of Fat

• Sleeping better than you have in years.
• Getting your cardiovascular health back on track.
• Balancing your hormones, especially you ladies with unbearable hot flashes and you gentlemen with a disappearing sex drive.
• Strengthening your bones, even if you have already been diagnosed with osteoporosis.
• Sending that stupid diabetes packing.
• Aging much more slowly and gracefully.
• Jumping tall buildings, running faster than a speeding bullet, and growing more powerful than a locomotive!

Okay, maybe I’m kidding on that last one (sort of), just so you will get the idea that burning off your excess belly fat will boost your wellness and give you a new lease on life in countless ways.

The Dark Side of Fat

This whole topic is now attracting a lot of new attention from researchers in many areas of science. It’s almost as if we are hearing about the Dark Side of the Force. Dozens of health problems, from cancer to heart and cardiovascular failures, diabetes, arthritis, and much, much more are made worse by keeping that blob hanging around your middle (and often on your thighs, back side, and arms, too).

Belly Fat Is Evil! Do What It Takes To Get Rid Of It! NOW!

You have to be a scientist like me to read the gobbledygook that we write for professional journals. Nevertheless, this is what it takes to figure out the best strategies for your health. You have to decide among hundreds of diets, dozens of exercise programs, countless workout machines, thousands of supplements, and untold numbers of ridiculous infomercials. This is where I come in. I study what scientists say and translate it into language that you can understand, so you can decide how to benefit from real science.

By the way, I avoid mainstream medicine in favor of natural approaches to health and healing. Plenty of good science points to better strategies from Mother Nature for shrinking down your excess belly fat and keeping yourself healthy naturally.

So let’s get you started!

Dr. D

Leptin is a protein whose role is to signal the brain about how much fat you have. The brain’s response is either to tell your body to use up some of your current fat or add more to it. This astounding discovery in 1994 is at the heart of obesity research. However, even though leptin is the master fat hormone, it is not a lone ranger. Your hormone balance depends on many other kinds of hormones, especially including insulin. This is a fascinating story that will help people understand how they got fat and what to do about it based on real scientific research.

I will be posting lots of material here about leptin and how you can take advantage of what scientists are learning about it. If you are in a hurry to get the full story, you can get the definitive book on the topic. The site that the book authors maintain is http://www.masteringleptin.com/.

Eating plans, exercise strategies, supplementation, and everything you can think of can be optimized for leptin metabolism so you can be slim and healthy like you are supposed to be!

Although mastering leptin is not as simple as boosting or supplementing your natural levels, the steps for getting your leptin back into balance are simple, easy, and rewarding.

If you subscribe to my newsletter, you can find out right away how to get your leptin working for you instead of against you.

Dr. D