Super Human Radio

A recent study published in the Lancet by Dr. David Ludwig and Professor Janet Currie of Harvard showed that mothers who gained more weight during pregnancy had larger babies. This seems logical and at first blush, a good thing. But is it?

Birth records of some 1.2 million newborns reviewed showed that mothers who gained more than 53 lbs(24 kg) gave birth to babies who were an average of 5.2 oz (148.9g) larger than women who gains just 18 to 22 lbs (8 to 10 kg). Now when you consider the dramatic variance in weight gain of the mothers and its contribution to the modest increase in size of the newborn baby the first thing that comes to mind is the mother's health carrying all that extra weight around.

Mothers who gain large amounts of weight during child birth tend to have elevated risks of gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, etc. But lets focus a little further up the road for a moment. What effects does this weight gain have on the baby - the metabolic environment that the baby is being formed under - and that baby's risks as it becomes an adult? That's the unknown and the real issue at hand.

"In view of the apparent association between birth weight and adult weight, obesity prevention efforts targeted at women during pregnancy might be beneficial for offspring," Ludwig and Currie wrote. And this opinion was concurred by two researchers from UCLA as well. Neal Halfon, MD, MPH, and Michael C. Lu, MD, MPH,wrote that a third of pregnancies involving normal-weight women and half of those with overweight mothers end up with weight gains above the officially recommended limits.

So why are mothers putting on this kind of weight during pregnancy? Once again the damned BMI is put into the equation. Mothers with a "healthy BMI" (18.5 to 24.9) are recommended to gain  between 25 and 35 pounds and mothers with a low BMI (below 18.5) should gain 28 to 40 pounds. Why? Why the variance at all?

And of course in the Divine wisdom that all of this evolves from if a mother is over weight (a BMI of 25 to 29.9), she should gain 15 to 25 pounds. And if obese (a BMI of 30 or higher), gains between 11 and 20 pounds.

Why not tell mothers to continue to eat healthy and gain the same amount of weight across the board - 18 to 22 pounds? Why should a starting weight even play into the whole equation?

Ludwig's study had another interesting twist. All of the participants had more than one child already so the subjects acted as their own controls so to speak. Ludwig and Currie were able to look at existing children from earlier child births and "see into the future". Although a number of previous studies have linked maternal body weight or weight gain with infant weight and/or adipose,

Because high infant birth weight and adiposity have been associated with poorer health outcomes in later life, the researchers suggested their findings had important public health implications. "Excessive weight gain during pregnancy could raise the long-term risk of obesity-related disease in offspring," they wrote.

There is one confounding factor that this study could not look at and that is the environment the child will be raised in. Lets face it, if a mother is over weight to begin with and then puts on even more weight during pregnancy, I'm willing to bet the household has a poor nutritional model. That baby - regardless of the weight at birth - will have a higher risk of being an obese child growing up in that household. We know that obese children develop more disease in later life.

The take away is simple. Mother's during childbirth have a greater responsibility to their unborn child than what was originally thought. They must maintain sensible weight gains to ensure their children don't inherit health issues later on in life. I know its hard but... put down the Twinkies.

In the words of the Water Boy's mother -" carbohydrates are the devil!"(imagine the Cajun accent if you will)

Every day research comes out that is turning the Government's recommended way of eating - The Food Pyramid - on its tip. Now a study lead by Dr. Gary Foster of Temple University and his group showed that when compared to a low fat diet - which has been the standard for heart health and still promoted by the American Heart Association - a low carbohydrate diet had better results in reducing markers for heart disease.

It has been said on the show numerous times that carbohydrates in general, and especially high glycemic index carbs, have a more profound effect on blood lipids than do fats. Well this study proves it. While this study sought to look at the effects of a low fat diet as compared to a low carbohydrate diet and their impact on obesity, something more profound was discovered.

Obese patients lost a similar amounts of weight on both eating plans, however, patients assigned to the low-carbohydrate diet had more rapid early declines in blood pressure, triglycerides, and VLDL cholesterol and greater increases in HDL throughout the study.

Wow.. so carbohydrate reduction is SUPER Heart Healthy!!

To me this was the most exciting part of the two-year multi-center study of more than 300 participants who's average age was 45 years old. Yet the publishers of the study stuck to their guns and focused the fanfare solely on the fact that the weight lost between both groups was similar.

Weight loss between the two groups was an average of 24 lbs (11 kg) at one year and 15 lbs (7 kg) at two years with no significant differences between groups, according to Dr. Foster.

Now to support Dr. Peter Rouse and his statements in a recent show about calories not being important, the low-carbohydrate diet limited carbohydrate intake to 20 g/d for 12 weeks and then increased by 5 g/d per week. Participants in this group could consume as much fat and protein as they wanted. They were not calorically restricted. Limiting carbohydrate intake was the primary behavioral focus for this group.

The low fat group on the other hand was calorically restricted to 1,200 to 1,500 kcal/d for women and 1,500 to 1,800 kcal/d for men. Carbohydrates accounted for about 55% of calories, fat for 30%, and protein for 15%. Which by the way is the macronutrient ratios promoted by most of today's dietitians. Limiting total energy intake (kcal/d) was the primary behavioral target for the group.

So there you have it fans. What you eat appears to be more important than how much you eat as it relates to heart health and weight control. Let the bickering begin.

by Dr. Peter Rouse

No one eats calories; calories are just a measurement (as is an inch) and have no substance. A calorie is a unit of heat equal to the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree at one atmosphere pressure (does this sound like a human body?).

The calorie theory is based on the heat engine analogy also known as thermodynamics by engineers.  The human body is not a heat engine, as they would like you to believe. The human body is more like a complex chemical factory than it is a heat engine.

Food is converted in to complex substances and structures and not as a machine designed for heat production, which the measurement of a calorie is.

A scientist named Adolph Fick proved in 1893 that living cells cannot be heat engines. Biological systems like humans are isothermal (equal temperature) systems. Cells cannot act as heat engines, for they have no means of permitting heat to flow from a warmer to a cooler body.

Nobel Prize-winner, Hans Krebs, mentioned in his book about another Nobel Prize-winner, Otto Warburg, M.D., Ph.D. “Fick made it clear in 1893 that living cells cannot be heat engines…”

Herman Taller, M.D, author of Calories Don’t Count stated, “One could assert with absolute certainty that the calorie theory has no scientific basis whatsoever”

In 2003, Harvard University study found people on a low carbohydrate diet could eat 25,000 more calories than those on a high carbohydrate diet over a 12-week period and they gained no additional weight.  If the calorie theory was correct then the low carbohydrate group should have gained a little over 7lbs of fat.

In another study conducted at Harvard University, some participants ate only carbohydrates, while other participants ate twice as many calories of only protein. Although the protein eaters ate twice as many calories as the carbohydrates eaters, they didn't gain any weight, whereas the carbohydrates eaters gained weight despite eating fewer calories.

In yet another semi-related study shows that a low-carb diet is more successful than a low-fat diet. In the two-year study, 322 moderately obese people were given one of three diets: a low-fat, calorie-restricted diet; a Mediterranean calorie-restricted diet; or a low-carbohydrate diet with the fewest carbohydrates, highest fat, protein, and dietary cholesterol. The low-carb dieters had no caloric restrictions. At the end of the study the low-fat, calorie-restricted dieters lost 6.5 lbs, the Mediterranean dieters lost 10 lbs, and the low-carb dieters lost 10.3 lbs. Not only that, but dieters on the low-fat, calorie-restricted diet cholesterol levels dropped 12 percent. The low-carb dieters cholesterol dropped 20 percent.

Even though studies coupled with real life experience have repeatedly disproven the calorie theory, so-called “experts” haven’t caught up.

“It does not matter how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is – if it disagrees with real-life results, it is wrong. That is all there is to It.” – Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize-winning physicist.

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Dr. Peter Rouse is a performance Enhancement and Corrective Exercise Specialist who walks the walk and talks the talk. He has a Ph D in Exercise Physiology and MS in Biochemistry, became one of the best known international strength and conditioning coaches and presenter in South East Asia, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and US.  He developed Optimum Performance Training System (OPTS), an international Certification and Education Program for trainers. He also developed the Scientific Fat Loss System - The world’s most advanced fat loss system. He can be reached at http://www.afperformancecenter.com

I've received emails from some people and posts in the shows that some have had difficulty downloading shows. After careful review by my server administrator I believe we have fixed the problem. It was a combination of the database management system's time-out setting and a setting that causes the web pages to refresh that was causing a premature break in the connection during the file downloads. It was more of an issue for those who are in other countries. The problem should be fixed completely now and I am creating this blog post so that people can post comments related to the problem here. If you have a continued problem downloading shows please post the show you are having difficulty with here.

Obviously there will still be the odd incomplete file downloaded due to Internet connectivity issues, but that should be the exception. Thanks for your patience with the server migration.

The FDA rejected the new Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) that I wrote about in my July 22nd Blog. But its not for reasons I consider a win. Not one word was mentioned about the possible breach of patient privacy. Instead, the 25 to 10 vote against the proposal is asking regulators that the new proposal have more teeth.

One interesting fact to come out of all of this was revealed by Bob Rappaport, MD, from the office of drug evaluation. The FDA dropped a number of earlier ideas such as prescriber accreditation because of concerns over how onerous it might be to track an estimated 700,000 prescribers! If they think tracking 700,000 prescribers will be a daunting task... what about some seven million Americans who are prescribed these medications?

Once again this is an example of a severely incapable FDA wanting to expand its reach with little of the resources it would take to execute this properly.

The FDA is also signaling that they may prefer the DEA be involved. This would require legislation. OK, imagine the FDA and DEA plus add patients private information to that recipe. Its not a good mix. Prescribers can be educated and managed without patient privacy being breached.

This isn't over yet.. not by any stretch. Stay tuned for updates as they arise.