Foods fighting cancer

“Autopsy studies from people who died in car accidents have shown that about 40% of women between the ages of 40 and 50 actually have microscopic cancers in their breasts. About 50% of men in their 50s and 60s have microscopic prostate cancers. And virtually 100% of us, by the time we reach our 70’s will have microscopic cancers growing in our thyroid. Yet without a blood supply, most of these cancers will never become dangerous.”~Dr. William Li, MD

All of us have tumor cells in our bodies. The problem is when they grow blood vessels and develop a blood supply: this is termed “Angiogenesis.”

In this Ted Talk by Dr. William Li, he talks about how our focus on cancer prevention should be on preventing the growth of blood vessels to tumors. Preventing this angiogenesis is one of the most important defenses against cancer, and he argues that this is something we can actually do with our diet.

Focusing on our diet might be the key to preventing the growth of cancers.

He explains: “Mother nature has laced a large number of foods and beverages and herbs with naturally occurring inhibitors of angiogenesis.”

Some of these naturally occurring anti-angiogenic foods include the following:

• Red wine/red grapes (Reservatrol) 
• Strawberries (Ellagic acid) 
• Soybeans (Genistein)

Here are some others: 

He ends by making the point that many local and sustainable foods are naturally anti-angiogenic. This is important because, as he says:

“For many people around the world, dietary cancer prevention may be the only practical solution, because not everyone can afford expensive end-stage cancer treatments, but everyone could benefit from a healthy diet based on local, sustainable, anti-angiogenic crops.” 

How do you do it?

“Good for the body is the work of the body, good for the soul the work of the soul, and good for either the work of the other.” 

~Henry David Thoreau

I recently met a fellow ashtangi who is also a first year medical student in New York. She asked for advice on keeping up a yoga practice during medical school… and I need help coming up with a good answer.

How does ANYONE keep up a yoga practice through sleep deprivation, stress, exhaustion, emotional highs and lows (be it from graduate school, a demanding job, a break-up, new motherhood, etc)? It’s during these times that we especially need to make time for a daily practice. 

Here are some things that helped me maintain some sort of yoga practice over the past few years... it’s a list I’ll have to keep adding to as I have to figure it out all over again next year as an intern:

• Get up in the early morning for a home practice. No matter how early! If you have to be at the hospital at 5:30, get up at 3:30... you may be tired at first but it will transform the rest of the day.
• Make a little cup of coffee before practice. After such sleep deprivation I would honestly not have been able to practice without this.
• Do a long practice at a studio on your days off. This makes all the difference! A home practice is really hard to maintain and having a weekly "tune-up" with a teacher/ yoga community is key.
• Find like-minded friends. It may take a while to find them but they are out there! Crank up the heat and practice together at home (especially when the studio is closed). Do “partner yoga” sessions and experiment with new things.
• Listen to your body and do the practice you need. Some days just sit, some days focus on second series, some days do more backbends or inversions... know what you need.
• Take staycations. When you do get some precious vacation days, spend some time at home doing yoga, sleeping, eating well. Staycations are the best vacations :)
• Do weekend workshops when possible. Take advantage of teachers when they come to you (you can learn a lot during one intense weekend).
• Don't hide your yoga practice from your other worlds. This is what I did for the first couple years of medical school (not sure where this came from – I guess I was afraid of what people would think), but by my 3rd year I stopped hiding it. I realized there are LOTS of people out there who do yoga or want to do yoga... so keep writing, talking, sharing, and build up the yoga community around you! 

That's all I have for now, but I really want to hear what's on your list… how do you do it?

Home practice with Caitlin (medicine intern) and Mariana (soon to be medical student!)

Getting enough omega-3's (without fish)

One of my concerns with being a non-fish eating vegetarian is the question of whether I get enough omega-3 fatty acids (“good fats”): Should I eat fish sometimes? Should I be taking fish-oil supplements? My body might need me to put those lox on my bagel and cream cheese?

We’ve heard why omega-3’s are good for us: they help reduce inflammation, reduce risk of heart disease, reduce risk of dementia… not to mention they may help keep protect your telomeres.

The other day my younger sister forwarded me a news alert from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, highlighting a recent study of 14,422 people showing that women on vegan diets do have an expected lower intake of omega-3’s, but they also have greater conversion of plant-based precursors to omega-3’s, and thus they have higher than expected blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids.

That’s reassuring! That means that our bodies will probably make adequate amounts of omega 3’s from a plant-based diet (which includes walnuts, flaxseeds, plant-based oils).

I was especially glad to see a medical peer-reviewed paper addressing the bigger problem of our diminishing fish supply:

“Current dietary recommendations for maintenance of [adequate omega-3 levels]… are to consume one or more portions of oily fish per week; however, the supply of wild fish is dwindling and efforts to conserve the fish supply are needed.”

(If you haven't yet seen the documentary End of the Line, check it out!):

Weekend highlights

Weekend highlights: Friday evening girls wine & cheese night, running the "loop" (half-marathon 2 weeks from today!), Sunday morning mysore practice, cleaning out my in-box, de-cluttering my desk, La Colombe coffee, getting ready for my upcoming trip to Seattle/Portland (excited!).

I also found a new book to add to my reading list: The End of Overeating, by Dr. David Kessler:

"Back 50 years ago, the tobacco industry knew that smoking was harmful. If you look at how we were successful with tobacco, we changed how people viewed the product. We changed it so people now look at a cigarette and say, 'Boy, that’s a deadly, addictive, disgusting product.'

What we need to do, is to change how we fundamentally look at food, and ask ourselves, ‘Is that food nutritious? Is that going to provide the kind of nutrition I want?’ You have to be able to fundamentally change how you look at the food. One way to do that is to realize the extent to which you are being manipulated.

If you value being healthful, if you value eating nutritiously, if you say 'that is the kind of food that I want, that is not the food that I want"… then you can be free. Then, in essence, and only then, have you really re-programmed your brain.'"

~Dr. David Kessler (from this video)

Redesigning cafeterias

I was so excited to see this article in the New York Times today: how to redesign school lunchrooms to promote healthier eating. It's not about taking away the junk foods. Rather, it's about how simply redesigning cafeterias leads to healthier food choices. 

For example:

• Make healthy foods (like broccoli) the first thing you see
• Give food attractive names: Instead of “corn" call it “creamy corn”!
• Provide choices: Offer students a choice of carrots OR celery (not only carrots)
• Keep ice cream and desserts in closed containers so they're not easily visible
• Encourage tray use: This increases veggie and decreases ice cream consumption
• Decrease the size of bowls
• Move chocolate milk behind regular milk 
• Put apples and oranges in fruit bowl rather than a stainless steel pan (this makes it more appealing)
• Verbally offer students a salad (and more will say yes)
• Move the salad bar in front of the checkout (instead of off against a wall)
• Have student pay cash for desserts (instead of using lunch tickets to buy them)
• Make a “healthy express” check-out line for students not buying desserts or chips 

This is pretty much what my school lunches used to look like... yikes.

Revolution Foods

“Let’s look at the school lunch program…We are essentially feeding them fast food and teaching them how to eat it quickly… lunch should be educational. Right now the school lunch program is a disposal scheme for surplus agricultural commodities. When they have too much meat, when they have too much cheese, they send it to the schools, and they dispose it through our kids’ digestive systems. Let’s look at it in a different way. This should be about improving the health of our children.”

~ Michael Pollan (in an interview with Bill Moyers, November 28, 2008)

Check out this short video about a company called Revolution Foods, serving a new kind of school lunch:

The founders, Kristin Richmond and Kirsten Tobey, came up with the idea while in business school at Berkeley, motivated "by the idea of creating a healthier generation.”

Their company now serves almost 60,000 meals to mostly low-income students in 350 schools across the country!

The criteria for the food they serve:

• No high fructose corn syrup
• No trans fats 
• Antibiotic and hormone free meat and dairy 
• Local and organic foods preferred 
• No fried foods 

The challenge: healthy food is more expensive. These meals are $3-4/meal, while the government currently only reimburses schools up to $2.75 per meal. This is certainly worth the investment though, especially considering how much money this will save in medical bills down the road. 

How about also bringing this idea to hospital cafeterias?

For all the coffee lovers...

You are not alone… this survey shows that doctors and nurses “depend on coffee to get through the workday” much more than other professionals (I think I could’ve predicted that one!).

Sure we might be addicted, but the recent good news is that we also might be helping our inflammation and cholesterol levels.

This study followed healthy subjects for 3 months:

• The first month: subjects had 0 cups of coffee/day
• The second month: subjects had 4 cups of coffee/day
• The third month: subjects had 8 cups of coffee/day 

I like the design of this study because individual subjects serve as their own controls, helping control for confounders (like diet, exercise, or smoking which may be associated with coffee consumption), and making it easier to see the effects of coffee alone.

They compared markers of inflammation, oxidative stress, cholesterol, glucose, and insulin resistance. They found increased coffee consumption to be associated with:

• A decrease in markers of inflammation IL-18 and 8-isoprostane (no change in C-reactive protein or IL-6)
• An increase in adiponectin, a hormone involved in regulating metabolism and glucose levels (no change in fasting glucose or insulin)
• An increase in HDL cholesterol (the good kind of cholesterol) 

Their conclusion: “Coffee consumption appears to have beneficial effects on subclinical inflammation and HDL cholesterol.”

I’d love to see a similar study design looking at these markers after a month of a daily yoga practice!

And how much do you love these mugs?! I want one!!

How's your health equation?

“Our nation's food choices have produced a population with widespread chronic illness and health care costs spiraling out of control. You cannot escape from the biological law of cause and effect -- food choices are the most significant cause of disease and premature death. We cannot win the war on these diseases by putting more money into medical interventions or drugs. We must unleash the disease-fighting artillery in our own kitchens.” ~Dr. Joel Fuhrman

That quote is from this article in The Huffington Post by Dr. Joel Fuhrman (a Penn Med grad, btw!). 

He brings up the importance of the ratio of micronutrients to macronutrients in our diet. 

• Micronutrients: Vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals which contain no calories but are important for DNA repair, free radical deactivation, immune function, and more.
• Macronutrients: Calories. They provide us with energy in the form of fats, carbohydrates, and proteins.

The higher the ratio of micronutrients to macronutrients, the higher the nutrient density of the food. Eating high nutrient density food prevents over-consumption. Conversely, eating low nutrient-density food leads to over-consumption as our body craves more nutrients. 

He provides a health equation, and argues that the nutrient density of your food predicts your future health: 

The Health Equation:  

Health = Nutrients / Calories

Here are two obvious ways we can improve our health equation:

1. Eat more high-nutrient foods (high-nutrient, low calorie): i.e. leafy greens, colorful veggies, fruits, beans, nuts.
2. Eat less low-nutrient density food (low-nutrient, high calorie): i.e. refined sugars, processed packaged foods.

And while food is extremely important, it's certainly not the only factor in our health equation... so I’m wondering how we can fit things like exercise, sleep, and stress-level into it? 

Getting it back

In the movie Surfwise, Dr. Pascowitz defines health as:

“Not meaning the absence of illness but a superior state of well being. Above and beyond simply being but being everything a human being can be so that the brain can be everything that it can be.”

I think we all kind of know what Pascowitz is talking about. We all have times when we feel far from this "superior state of well being." We know when we’ve lost some of our zest and vitality for life.

Lately, my excitement for residency has been taken over by stress, fears, and uncertainty over the future.  I’ve been seeking ways to regain that “superior state of well being.” Here is my working list of things to do to help get it back: 

• Call an old friend. Old friends remind of us of who we are, what we want, why we’re doing what we’re doing, and what we might be missing. Call someone you haven't talked to in a while, call someone who "gets" you. 
• Meet a new friend. Meet up with someone you admire and want to learn from. Get inspired.
• Eat carefully. Food affects our mood and vice versa. When we're feeling down, the foods we often crave can end up making us feel worse. When feeling fragile, I try to stick to the basics: fruits, veggies, and grains.
• Learn something new. A new food, a new skill, a new fact.
• Create something. Try out a new recipe, make a collage, write a journal entry.
• Go for a run. Sweat it out. Get some endorphins circulating. 
• Do yoga. Get up early, make some coffee, and go practice. Hold upward facing dog for longer than usual and do lots of backbends. Remember how Iyengar said, “If you keep your armpits open, you won’t get depressed.” 
• Recognize your destructive thought patterns. Negative automatic thoughts spiral into more negative thoughts and doubts. Try not to get stuck in these thought patterns! First step is recognizing them.
• Do not wallow. Don’t keep sitting there thinking – get up and go do something! 
• Indulge in ‘me’ time. For me this means lighting a candle, taking a bath, and reading some Rumi.
• De-clutter your space. Clean up your clutter. I finally bought hangers and hung up all the clothes that were lying around my room... easy and instant gratification.
• Smile and laugh. Especially when you don’t feel like it. Fake it till you make it. 
• Keep a small journal with you wherever you go. The little pocket moleskine ones are perfect. Write down ideas, questions, quotes you like, lists of things you want to do.
• Go outside. Disconnect from your phone and computer.

What else do you do? Please share!

Negative ions

I spent the weekend at the Jersey shore. As we were lying around relaxing, someone suggested that this relaxed feeling might be because of the high concentration of negative ions at the beach.

What are negative ions?!

Negative ions are molecules with a negative charge (i.e. gain of an electron). This happens when molecules run into each other and break apart. They're present in higher concentrations in places like beaches, waterfalls, and showers. 

Could the presence of these invisible particles help explain why the beach is so relaxing?

This study at Columbia University looked at people with seasonal affective and bipolar disorder and found that high density negative ion generators actually improved symptoms of depression.

Columbia University researcher Michael Terman, PhD, explains in this article:

"The action of the pounding surf creates negative air ions and we also see it immediately after spring thunderstorms when people report lightened moods.”

According to researchers, negative ions may increase oxygen flow to the brain and lead to improved alertness and energy.

Where can we find negative ions? 

• By turning off the air conditioning and opening the windows
• In the shower 
• At beaches, mountains, waterfalls 
• After rainstorms
• By buying a negative ion generator

Low-carb diets: What happens in 20 years?

Are you on a low-carb diet or know someone who is? I've dabbled with this myself and hear friends and patients talking about it all the time.

But I've always wondered: can this really be good for our bodies? We lose weight in the short-term, but what about 20+ years down the road?

A recent study in the latest Annals of Internal Medicine starts to answer these questions. They find that where your proteins/fats come from (i.e. animals versus plants) matters very much for long-term health. 

They compared low-carb diets made up of animal sources versus low-carb diets made up of vegetable sources (in over 100,000 people for over 20 years), and found an important difference in mortality rates.

Low-carb diets high in animal-protein diets were associated with higher mortality (both cardiovascular and cancer mortality), while low-carb diets high in vegetable protein diets were associated with lower mortality overall (especially cardiovascular mortality rates). The authors’ conclusion:

“A low-carbohydrate diet based on animal sources was associated with higher all-cause mortality in both men and women, whereas a vegetable-based low-carbohydrate diet was associated with lower all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality rates.”

Low-carb diets can be helpful or harmful. What really matters is everything else you are putting into your body. It seems best to stick to simple and intuitive food rules. Here are my 5 for the day: 

1. Avoid refined sugars (but do not avoid nutritious whole grains!)
2. Minimize animal products
3. Build meals around fresh colorful vegetables (the more color the better)
4. Avoid overeating
5. Chew thoroughly (this helps with #4)

Laughter yoga

I had almost forgotten about the laughter-yoga class I took in India a few years ago until I came across an article about this growing practice in the latest Time magazine.

Apparently there are more than 400 laughter yoga clubs in the US!

What is laughter yoga?

• Laughing exercises
• Breathing exercises
• “Fake it till you make it.” (Fake laughter with other people turns into real laughter)
• No jokes needed 

Here is a short video on the STEPS!

There have been no peer-reviewed studies of laughter yoga, but many people including cancer patients and prisoners are now trying it out.

And check out this short CBS clip about it.

Anyone know of anyone doing this in the Philly area?! 

The 7 Conditions of Health?

I went to another free lecture at Essene the other night. This time it was by Macrobiotic expert Denny Waxman, whose book I have just finished: The Great Life Diet.

He talked about the 7 conditions of health as defined by the Macrobiotic founders George Ohsawa and Michio Kushi. They are divided into 3 categories: Physical, Mental/Emotional, and Spiritual. Here they are:

Physical:

1. No tiredness

2. Good sleep

3. Good appetite

Mental/emotional:

4. Good memory

5. Never be angry

6. Joyous and alert

Spiritual:

7. Endless appreciation/gratitude

I thought this was a pretty good list, but there were some things missing for me (friendship, love, community, laughter, learning).

I'm also not sure about #5: Never be angry. Never? I don’t get angry often, but when I do it’s usually for a good reason (in my opinion, at least)!

Does anything else seem to be missing for you on that list?

Being ANTI-cancer

I recently came across this article by Dr. David Servan-Schreiber. I remember seeing his book in Barnes and Noble a couple years ago. I picked it up and read the whole thing sitting in the café - I could not put it down.

He is both a doctor and scientist (PhD in Neuroscience). At age 31, he discovered he had a brain tumor, which was picked up by chance when one of his patients didn’t show up and he ended up getting into the scanner instead.

After his diagnosis, he began furiously studying cancer. He wanted to learn as much as possible, especially why we get cancer and what we can do to prevent it.

The first thing I learned is that we all carry cancer cells in us. But I also learned we all have natural defenses that generally prevent these cells from turning into an aggressive disease. These include our immune system, the part of our biology that controls and reduces inflammation, and the foods that reduce the growth of new blood vessels needed by developing tumors.

In the West, one out of three people will develop cancer. But two-thirds will not. For these people, their natural defenses will have kept cancer at bay. I understood it would be essential for me to learn how to strengthen these defenses. 

Servan-Schrieber talks about the circumstances under which cancer grows:

1. A weakened immune system that cannot identify and control the growth of cancerous cells.
2. Chronic inflammation that supports cell growth and expansion.
3. Tumors develop their own blood vessels that allows them to grow to much larger sizes. 

He says, 

When we strengthen our immune system, reduce inflammation and reduce the growth of new blood vessels, we help create an anticancer ‘terrain.’

Here's how we can actively create anticancer terrain:

1. Eliminate sugar. According to Servan-Schreiber, this is the #1 cancer promoter in the US. Sugar feeds cancer cells and promotes low-grade chronic inflammation. 
2. Add cancer-fighting foods. Most simply, this means a colorful diet full of whole grains, fresh fruits, and vegetables.
3. Exercise. Simply walking daily for 30 minutes can reduce your cancer risk and cancer recurrence.
4. Reduce stress. Stress increases susceptibility to disease, so find ways to reduce stress in your life (yoga, meditate, time for friends).
5. Reduce pollutants. Do what you can to minimize exposure to chemicals and pesticides.

A dad's yoga lessons

We have many teachers in our lives, and often the most influential (and most overlooked) are our parents.

Though my dad may not tell people he does “yoga,” he is a yogi by my standards. He starts every morning with mindful exercises and a jog. He is disciplined. He works hard. He is compassionate. He eats healthily. He cares about the environment. Plus, he can do a pretty awesome handstand for a 63 year old!!! Check this out: 

He also just published a book (Shooting in the Wild: An Insider's Account of Making Movies in the Animal Kingdom) about the yogic principle of ahimsa (non-violence), though he doesn’t use that word. He writes about how through the process of educating people on important environmental issues, we can unintentionally tread a path of abuse, harm, and unethical behavior. And of course, this is not unique to his industry of environmental filmmaking – many industries cause harm in the hopes of creating benefit (i.e. food industry, pharmaceutical industry).

I never realized this before, but my dad has actually taught me a lot of yoga. I decided to ask him some questions I’ve never asked him before:

1. Who are your greatest mentors on non-violence and why?

Gandhi because he was extraordinarily fearless in confronting violence with non-violence. And Congressman John Lewis because again he was incredibly brave when it come to facing down the vicious and violent tactics of the racist police departments in the segregated south.

2. What are 3 things people can do right now to minimize the harm we cause the environment?

Stop eating meat. Buy organic fruits and vegetables. Live modestly and without ostentation.

3. What are some of your daily habits and routines that help keep you focused on your goals and purpose?

I assiduously follow my Personal Mission Statement. I exercise daily for at least an hour, including standing on my hands for one or two minutes. I plan my day meticulously and always work on paper (not in my head). I never drink alcohol and like to live ascetically, simply, and with intentionality. My diet is vegetarian with lots of fruit and vegetables. I virtually never watch television. I love smiling, laughing, being funny, and greeting everyone I meet with great warmth.

4. What is the key to achieving happiness, success and fulfillment?

Devote your life to helping solve one of society’s great problems (for example, environmental degradation, poverty, child abuse, and prejudice against women) so that your life has purpose, direction, and meaning.

5. What are some things you do to stay healthy while traveling?

I exercise daily when travelling (including swimming if the hotel has a pool), never waste time in the plane watching movies (instead I read), avoid any foods that might upset my stomach (including coffee), eat black or white bean soup whenever I can get it, stay closely connected with my wife and three daughters by phone and e-mail, and keep careful track of my commitments so I build a deep trust with my colleagues and friends.

6. What is your biggest fear?

My biggest fear is failing to achieve my goals as described in my Personal Mission Statement, and thereby dying with remorse, regrets, and disappointments.

7. If you could tell a room of 10,000 young adults one piece of advice, what would it be? 

Work hard, avoid indolence and idleness, be both serene and ambitious, avoid duplicity at all costs, and devote your professional lives to a cause that will improve society and help others.

3 reasons to kick my coffee habit

I’ve been doing a lot of my food shopping at Essene lately (my favorite new store). Last night they had a free public lecture about nutrition. Throughout the talk, the speaker kept saying don’t drink coffee, coffee is toxic, coffee is poison...

Finally someone put up their hand and asked “But why is coffee so bad???” My thoughts exactly!

He then gave 3 reasons:

1. Coffee is highly processed (But what exactly does that mean, and why is that bad?)
2. Coffee contains unregulated chemicals and pesticides (Unless you buy organic, which I don't right now)
3. Coffee stimulates the adrenal glands, putting the body under stress and causing the release of stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol (This is why I drink it!)

Part of me intuitively agreed with him on these, but this still did not stop me from making a cup first thing this morning (though it did stop me from making a second cup!)

Prescribing veggies

Doctors are now prescribing fruits and veggies at local farmers’ markets. Check out this article in the NY Times last week if you haven't seen it yet.

Doctors at three health centers in Massachusetts have begun advising patients to eat “prescription produce” from local farmers’ markets, in an effort to fight obesity in children of low-income families. Now they will give coupons amounting to $1 a day for each member of a patient’s family to promote healthy meals.

Farmers’ markets can be a “hub of preventive health.”

“Can we help people in low-income areas, who shop in the center of supermarkets for low-cost empty-calorie food, to shop at farmers’ markets by making fruit and vegetables more affordable?” said Gus Schumacher, the chairman of Wholesome Wave, a nonprofit group in Bridgeport, Conn., that supports family farmers and community access to locally grown produce.

If the pilot project is successful, Mr. Schumacher said, “farmers’ markets would become like a fruit and vegetable pharmacy for at-risk families.”

The key will be to make it easy for people by bringing farmers' markets into hospital cafeterias, doctors' offices, schools, and churches. Speaking of which, I was so happy to walk into our hospital cafeteria the other day and see this: A table dedicated to produce from local farms!

Perhaps one day doctors will even be able to prescribe farm shares, so that fresh fruits and vegetables can be directly delivered to people each week. 

How acidic is your diet?

I've heard people (especially yogis) talk about wanting to eat a low-acid diet but never really paid much attention until recently. Then this article piqued my interest, about how a low-acid diet might help prevent osteoporosis.

How could a low-acid diet prevent osteoporosis? Our blood needs to stay within a neutral pH of 7.35-7.45. When the blood gets too acidic, calcium is leached from the bones in order to neutralize it. Too much calcium loss from the bones leads to osteoporosis. Different foods produce different amounts of alkalinity or acidity in the body.

Acid-producing foods include meats, beans, fish, cheeses, and grains. Foods with a high protein content leads to more acid production (especially animal proteins because of sulfurous amino acids). Coffee, tea, beer, wine, sugary foods (things we crave and become addicted to) all acid producing.

Alkali producing foods include fruits and vegetables. Even though lemons and other citrus fruits have acidic juice, when they are ingested they actually have an alkaline effect (result of the potassium and magnesium present).

The typical American diet is highly acidic: meat, dairy, sugar, alcohol, and coffee, while low in fruits and vegetables. A low-acid diet is high in fruits and vegetables, and low in animal protein.

Some are beginning to suggest that it may actually be the consumption of too much meat and animal protein (including dairy) that explains the high rates of osteoporosis in America. Even though dairy products contain calcium, they may actually end up weakening our bones because of their acid-producing effect. Research like this is surfacing, showing that there is insufficient evidence to recommend dairy to children for bone health.

My own doctors have always recommended dairy products to make sure I get enough calcium, but have never talked about the effects of a low or high acid diet on my bones. Have yours? I'm wondering if/how this might start to change over the next few decades.

Are we feeding our own cancer cells?

If you eat a lot of fructose (which most of us do), the scary answer might be yes.

There is a lot of fructose in the American diet, as high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) has infiltrated our grocery stores. The consumption of high-fructose corn syrup has actually risen 1,000% from 1970-1990.

This study just came out showing that fructose actually stimulates the growth of pancreatic cancer cells (CBS news overview here).

Fructose is taken up by cancer cells and used to make new nucleic acids, which are the building blocks of cell growth and proliferation.

The authors of this study write:

“Fructose is a particularly significant dietary sugar component with important implications for patients with cancer, particularly given the significant dietary change that has occurred in human fructose consumption since the mid- 20th century. Our findings provide important insights into recent epidemiologic studies that have identified refined fructose as an independent risk factor for pancreatic cancer, and identify fructose-mediated actions as a novel therapeutic cancer target.”

When I checked the ingredient list on my packaged foods at home, I was shocked at how much had high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in it... even my "healthy" whole-wheat bagels and my seemingly innocent ketchup and BBQ sauce.

Can decreasing the amount of fructose in our diet inhibit cancer growth? This is the question we need to research now. 

Eliminating HFCS is essentially what the Ornish diet does when they recommend a whole foods, plant based diet. Some preliminary studies show that this diet, along with exercise and stress reduction, may have some effect on the progression of prostate cancer (in addition to reversing atherosclerotic disease).

How much HFCS are hospitals serving patients? I wish we could say zero. I’ve been thinking a lot about Ben’s post and could not agree more that hospitals should provide nutrition labels on their food.

If you’re interested in learning more about this fructose issue, here’s a post and “mini-med school lecture” about it. I’m sure this is something we’ll be hearing more and more about. 

5 Ways to Make Hospitals Better

I’m happy to present this guest post by Ben Gerber, the author of Minimalist Muscle, a blog about muscle development and minimalism (two important parts of a yoga practice). Ben is a minimalist, lifter, blogger, and the husband of one of my best friends. He is now also a cancer survivor. You can learn more about his life and ideas on his blog.

Five Ways to Make Patients Healthier and Happier at the Hospital

Until recently, I'd been fortunate enough to have never stayed in a hospital overnight as a patient. My lucky streak ended this month with a week-long stay. While I was very happy with the treatment I received in this specific hospital, I came away from the experience with a lot of thoughts on how hospital stays could be a much healthier and happier experience. Here are the first five that came to mind.

1. Increase the number of healthy food options available. After not eating for nearly a week, I was excited to receive the hospital menu for my first meal. I had no delusions that hospital food was going to be fine cuisine, but I was shocked at the amount of junk food on the menu. Suffice it to say, the healthiest thing on the menu that day was apple sauce and cream of wheat (both of which I ordered). How hard would it be to add a banana or apple to the menu?
2. Reduce the sodium content of all foods. I like salty food as much as the next guy (I have a weakness for Kettle Chips), but much of what I was served was so salty that it was almost inedible. Any dish that sounded potentially healthy ended up having what I suspect to be an entire day's worth of sodium.
3. Disclose the nutritional value of all foods. It amazes me that fast food and chain restaurants are required to state the nutritional content of their food items, but hospitals are not. After all, you don't go to McDonald's expecting to be healthier after you leave, but you certainly expect hospitals to do everything they can to make you healthier during your stay. If the point of nutritional disclosure regulation is to avoid misleading consumers, the better target is hospitals.
4. Have a designated walking loop. According to my doctor, getting on my feet and walking was one of the best things I could do to recover from my surgery. The problem was that there wasn't any safe place to walk, particularly considering my frail state. The hospital hallways were always bustling, and I was almost plowed over several times.
5. Reduce the amount of junk in hospital rooms. Hospital rooms are tiny and difficult to navigate. I recognize that space is a matter of economics, but the existing area could be utilized much more efficiently. For example, I did not need the massive bedside table. Nor did I need the large rolling food table during the majority of my stay, since I couldn't eat (this coincided with the time in which it was most painful to move around, making the food table particularly difficult to navigate around).