To stay in good standing as Registered Dietitian-Nutritionists, members of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics must complete a certain number of continuing education credits.  Here’s one way to get them (sent to me by a member who wishes to remain anonymous).

Here’s what they need to learn to earn them:Comment

Did participants learn about the cons of Splenda (and artificial sweeteners in general) as well as the pros?  One can only hope.

Chuck Schwerin.  Ghosts of Glencoe.  North Country Books, 2024.  472 pages.

I don’t usually recommend books here that are not about food politics.  This one, a rare exception, has only the most tenuous connection to the theme of this blog.

It is set in a fictional location much like the North Country School, a boarding school for teenagers near Lake Placid and the Adirondacks.  The school was one of the first to adopt an Edible Schoolyard project, still going strong.

I am making the exception because Chuck Schwerin is my next-door neighbor in Ithaca.  I had no idea he was writing a novel.  When he asked me to read the manuscript for a blurb, I didn’t know what to think.  What if I hated it?

Fortunately, I did not.  I could not put it down.  It is one fabulous adventure story.

Here’s my blurb:

Ghosts of Glencoe is a thrillingly plotted, utterly authentic coming-of-age story of what we can all learn from wilderness, at any age. I cared what happened to these characters, and couldn’t stop reading until its most satisfying conclusion.

I’m not a mountain person but I know plenty of people who are.

They would rather be climbing peaks than doing anything else, regardless of weather, rocky terrain, or mortal danger.

This book captures that sense, through the actions of teachers and students at the fictional Glencoe school, all of them human in their own unique ways.  You get to know these people well.   You care about what they do, the decisions they make, and the consequences of their decisions.

It’s a terrific read—just the thing for a summer vacation.

Enjoy!

Addition

There is an audio book.  Access at Kobo Books here.

The World Food Programme announced the new 2024 report. 

I last wrote about this project in 2021.

Progress?  Not this year.

As Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres says in his introduction, “Humanity can and must do better.”

Yes, but how?

Advocate!  Protest! Insist!

VOTE!

There is much discussion these days of the complexity of causes and consequences of excessive gain body fat.  This review addresses the history of what is known—and not known—about obesity., by someone who has been studying it for decades.

Bray GA. Obesity: a 100 year perspective. Int J Obes (Lond). 2024 May 7. doi: 10.1038/s41366-024-01530-6.

His conclusion:

Obesity is both a public health issue and an individual challenge
As noted during the discussion of the Fogarty Center Conference in 1973, the public health community was already aware of the health-related risks associated with obesity even before the explosion in prevalence occurred after 1975. The ensuing pandemic of obesity with some people developing obesity, but not others, challenges modern medicine and public health. As Hippocrates said more than 2500 years ago: “Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgment difficult.” The challenge for those of us working in the field of obesity is that there is more to uncover to fully understand and be able to effectively treat people with obesity.

The paper has 137 references.  If you want to learn what the debates are about, this is a great place to begin.

This seems to be a slow news week so I’m going to get caught up on research papers I think worth reading.

I first heard about this study from this video, from Dr. Greger’s newsletter announcement (I subscribe).

Here’s the study: Ornish D, et al.  Effects of intensive lifestyle changes on the progression of mild cognitive impairment or early dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease: a randomized, controlled clinical trial.  Alzheimer’s Research & Therapy volume 16, Article number: 122 (2024).  https://alzres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13195-024-01482-z.

It put 50 or so people in their 70s or older on “an intensive multidomain lifestyle intervention compared to a wait-list usual care control group” for 20 weeks.

People on the lifestyle intervention—diet, exercise, stress management, group support—did better.

The first author, Dean Ornish, runs a lifestyle modification program.

Comment: Wouldn’t this be terrific!  At the very least it is further evidence for the health benefits of a largely (not necessarily exclusively) plant-based diet.  Eating plant foods is strongly associated with prevention of any number of undesirable conditions.  The Alzheimer’s Association already recommends the DASH or Mediterranean diet patterns; both are plant based.

Eat your veggies.  Do so cannot hurt and might help—a lot.

I learned about this study from this account.

Probiotics may improve vaginal microbiota in postmenopausal women: A specific combination of probiotic strains may restore vaginal microbiota and relieve vaginal distress in postmenopausal women, according to a new study from Italian probiotic manufacturer SynBalance…. Read more

High marks to indicating industry sponsorship right up front.

The study: Efficacy of Lactiplantibacillus plantarum PBS067, Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis BL050, and Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus LRH020 in the Amelioration of Vaginal Microbiota in Post-Menopausal Women: A Prospective Observational Clinical Trial. Nutrients 2024, 16(3), 402; https://doi.org/10.3390/nu16030402.

Method: “Subjects were supplemented with a probiotic product containing Lactiplantibacillus plantarum PBS067 (DSM 24937), Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis BL050 (DSM 25566), and Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus LRH020 (DSM 25568; all from SynBalance Srl, Origgio, Italy)…Women were asked to consume 1 capsule/day, away from meals, for 4 consecutive weeks. Assessments of health status were carried out at the starting point of the study (T0), after 4 weeks of oral probiotic supplementation (T1), and after a 4-week follow-up.”

Results: “Clinical outcomes revealed a decrease in menopausal symptoms. Significant improvements were observed across various parameters…Moreover, the probiotic intervention facilitated the restoration of vaginal microbiota, evidenced by an increase in lactobacilli abundance.

Conclusion: “the combination of these specific probiotic strains, previously clinically tested in childbearing-age women, showed to be effective also for post-menopausal women.”

Conflicts of Interest: “Authors P.M. and D.F.S. were employed by the company Synbalance Srl. Authors E.V., A.M. and A.C. were employed by the company Wellmicro Srl. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.”

Comment: Employees of the company making the probiotic supplement conducted this uncontrolled observational study.  The supplement made study subjects feel better and improved their microbiomes.  But compared to what?  The study had no control group.

In addition:  While we are on the subject of probiotics, I’m quoted in a New York Times article about probiotic supplements in beverages.

Prebiotic sodas aren’t likely to harm your health, Dr. Nestle said, but it’s also not likely that they’ll be beneficial.

“Really, if people are concerned about their microbiome, they need to eat vegetables,” Dr. Nestle said. “Vegetables would do wonders.”

At long last, Peter Byck’s Roots So Deep is available for viewing.

Peter is at Arizona State.  He’s done something quite remarkable, so much so that I wrote a blurb for his films.

If we are going to do anything to prevent further climate change, soil degradation, and groundwater pollution, we are going to have to transform current agricultural practices to those that are more regenerative.

Roots So Deep compares methods used by conventional and regenerative and shows how farmers—real people—are trying to make either method work.

Peter Byck is a terrific interviewer, even of people who view the world from different perspectives.  His question: what will it take to convince farmers to convert from conventional to regenerative?

The films make it clear that conversion won’t come easily—it appears too risky and requires too much of a change from using fertilizers and tilling methods.  But once farmers take that risk, we can see how they win on productivity, financial viability, soil quality, and resistance to flooding and climate.

What I like so much about these films is the genuine compassion and understanding shown for farmers, no matter how they farm.  Anyone who wants to know what regenerative agriculture, in theory and in practice, will watch these films with pleasure and admiration for the hard work that goes into producing food.

Enjoy!  And pass the word along.

Despite all the fuss about the guidelines every five years, they say the same things every time: eat more fruits and vegetables (plant foods), balance calories (good luck with that), and reduce intake of saturated fat, sugars, and salt (euphemisms for ultra-processed foods).

You don’t believe me?  Take a look:

Ancel and Margaret Keys’ 1959 dietary guidelines for prevention of coronary heart disease.*

1. Do not get fat, if you are fat, reduce.
2. Restrict saturated fats, the fats in beef, pork, lamb, sausages, margarine, solid shortenings, fats in dairy products.
3. Prefer vegetable oils to solid fats, but keep total fats under 30% of your diet calories.
4. Favor fresh vegetables, fruits, and non-fat milk products.
5. Avoid heavy use of salt and refined sugar.
6. Good diets do not depend on drugs and fancy preparations.
7. Get plenty of exercise and outdoor recreation.
8. Be sensible about cigarettes, alcohol, excitement, business strain.
9. See your doctor regularly, and do not worry.

*Keys A, Keys M.  Eat Well and Stay Well.  New York: Doubleday & Co, 1959.

The concept of ultra-processed foods encompasses much of this.  We would be better off eating less of them.

It shouldn’t take all this work every five years to come to this conclusion.

So why all the fuss?  I’d call it food politics.

If people ate healthfully, chronic disease prevalence would decline and lots of industries would be out of business: junk food, diet foods, diet drugs, and those profiting from health care.