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from Anxiety Agoraphobia Bipolar Disorder Evaluations and Treatment in Boise, Treasure Valley, Idaho http://ift.tt/1hTrDoG
Health and Fitness - The Huffington Post
Are Detoxes Really Necessary?
From Mother Nature Network's Jennifer Nelson:
Detox diets are everywhere, but cleanliness may not be next to godliness when it comes to the body. Are these popular juice fasts, master cleanses and detoxification diets really necessary?
“There is no evidence that those detox diets do any kind of detoxification in the body,” says Andrea Giancoli, MPH, RD, dietitian and spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics in Hermosa Beach, Calif.
One of the reasons that people, especially celebrities, embark on master cleanses and detox plans is that there are a lot of overweight and obese people in our society, and people are looking for the quick fix, explains Giancoli. Detoxes and cleanses promise quick weight loss.
What’s more, there’s a paranoia in today’s culture that our bodies are full of toxins and that we must detox in order to rid ourselves of these offensive chemicals.
“In reality, if you really want to detox your body the best thing to do is have a diet that has plenty of fiber, plenty of fruits and vegetables, a lot of whole grains, a lot of plant foods so that your immune system, your liver, kidneys, lungs and other organs in your body can naturally do their job to detox you on its own,” says Giancoli.
“We need to have more trust in our body’s ability to do that, but we also need to feed our body the right foods so that it can be at its best.”
The fact is we have a natural detox system in our body that works very well when treated well. The liver does a great job of flushing out waste every day, our lungs breathe out pollutants, our kidneys filter out toxins, and our digestive system lets things pass through that we don’t need.
Worse, Giancoli warns that juice diets and cleanses only lead to water weight loss. Depending on how long people do this, they’ll lose water weight and then start losing lean tissue mass where muscle breaks down, a huge no-no which is only increasing your fat to lean muscle ratio.
Detoxing has also become the umbrella term for a lot of different diets. Sometimes the word may be used positively, as in feeding your body a healthy diet of natural, whole foods, and other times the word typically means drinking nothing but a fluid concoction of lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper or some such for days, which is supposed to flush poisons from the body. The latter detox diet is the one to skip.
Interestingly, you may be creating toxins when you go on these detoxes for a very long time, says Giancoli. When you’re not eating and you’re taking in very few calories, you start to break down muscle mass, which creates nitrogen compounds that your body has to excrete. After a period of time not taking in enough calories, the body will make ketones, which are acidic substitutes for fuel that have to be flushed out and neutralized so they don’t potentially cause loss of minerals like calcium from the bones. Seems “cleansing” may actually create toxins that the body then has to rid.
“You can bounce back after a day or two of that but why put your body in a position it has to recover from in the first place?” Giancoli says.
“I will say that the good side of them [cleanse diets] is that for short periods they may inspire people to eat better or inspire a better way of living or a healthy lifestyle, but you can do that without the torture of these so-called detoxes.”
“Plus, if you do fast or ‘cleanse’ for a number of days, the physiology of your body then wants foods so you’re now in danger of binging and storing fat more easily. So while you might lose weight during the cleanse, your body is more primed to store fat because it’s thinking ‘Oh my gosh, I’m in the feast period so I better store all these calories for the next famine period,’” Giancoli says.
Bottom line: Detoxing or cleansing is not a sustainable weight-loss technique. Nor do you need to do anything to help your body rid itself of toxins. The body is essentially a self-cleaning machine.
Detox diets are everywhere, but cleanliness may not be next to godliness when it comes to the body. Are these popular juice fasts, master cleanses and detoxification diets really necessary?
“There is no evidence that those detox diets do any kind of detoxification in the body,” says Andrea Giancoli, MPH, RD, dietitian and spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics in Hermosa Beach, Calif.
One of the reasons that people, especially celebrities, embark on master cleanses and detox plans is that there are a lot of overweight and obese people in our society, and people are looking for the quick fix, explains Giancoli. Detoxes and cleanses promise quick weight loss.
What’s more, there’s a paranoia in today’s culture that our bodies are full of toxins and that we must detox in order to rid ourselves of these offensive chemicals.
“In reality, if you really want to detox your body the best thing to do is have a diet that has plenty of fiber, plenty of fruits and vegetables, a lot of whole grains, a lot of plant foods so that your immune system, your liver, kidneys, lungs and other organs in your body can naturally do their job to detox you on its own,” says Giancoli.
“We need to have more trust in our body’s ability to do that, but we also need to feed our body the right foods so that it can be at its best.”
The fact is we have a natural detox system in our body that works very well when treated well. The liver does a great job of flushing out waste every day, our lungs breathe out pollutants, our kidneys filter out toxins, and our digestive system lets things pass through that we don’t need.
Worse, Giancoli warns that juice diets and cleanses only lead to water weight loss. Depending on how long people do this, they’ll lose water weight and then start losing lean tissue mass where muscle breaks down, a huge no-no which is only increasing your fat to lean muscle ratio.
Detoxing has also become the umbrella term for a lot of different diets. Sometimes the word may be used positively, as in feeding your body a healthy diet of natural, whole foods, and other times the word typically means drinking nothing but a fluid concoction of lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper or some such for days, which is supposed to flush poisons from the body. The latter detox diet is the one to skip.
Interestingly, you may be creating toxins when you go on these detoxes for a very long time, says Giancoli. When you’re not eating and you’re taking in very few calories, you start to break down muscle mass, which creates nitrogen compounds that your body has to excrete. After a period of time not taking in enough calories, the body will make ketones, which are acidic substitutes for fuel that have to be flushed out and neutralized so they don’t potentially cause loss of minerals like calcium from the bones. Seems “cleansing” may actually create toxins that the body then has to rid.
“You can bounce back after a day or two of that but why put your body in a position it has to recover from in the first place?” Giancoli says.
“I will say that the good side of them [cleanse diets] is that for short periods they may inspire people to eat better or inspire a better way of living or a healthy lifestyle, but you can do that without the torture of these so-called detoxes.”
“Plus, if you do fast or ‘cleanse’ for a number of days, the physiology of your body then wants foods so you’re now in danger of binging and storing fat more easily. So while you might lose weight during the cleanse, your body is more primed to store fat because it’s thinking ‘Oh my gosh, I’m in the feast period so I better store all these calories for the next famine period,’” Giancoli says.
Bottom line: Detoxing or cleansing is not a sustainable weight-loss technique. Nor do you need to do anything to help your body rid itself of toxins. The body is essentially a self-cleaning machine.
Mammography: Just Some of the Facts, Ma'am
Since the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) report on breast cancer screening in 2009, articles about the benefits and harms of mammography screening have accelerated. It is remarkable that a technology that women have counted on for decades for the early detection of breast cancer and its subsequent reporting life-saving benefits receive such polar opposite messages and conclusions. While these reports are primarily designed to assist women in making an informed decision about breast cancer screening, they often lead to more confusion about what to do and whom to believe to be protected from late-stage disease.
Breast cancer, next to lung cancer, is the second leading cause of cancer deaths among all races in the United States. Yearly, 230,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with breast cancer and 40,000 die from the disease. It is a substantial public health issue with deadly consequences.
A recent study by Pace & Keating published in JAMA reports that while mammography reduces mortality by 20 percent, it also has "harms" that must be taken into consideration when determining a patient's screening protocol. The authors conclude that mammography screening decisions should be individualized based on patients' risks and preferences.
I am a strong believer in personal responsibility and my ability to make healthful choices to control MOST of my health destiny. No smoking, moving my body daily, an abundance of green hues on my plate and a modest consumption of alcohol (although I have increased my consumption of red "antioxidant" wine since my advanced-stage breast cancer diagnosis); yet in spite of my health-conscious lifestyle with no family history of breast cancer and my relentless yearly mammographic screening appointments, I was diagnosed with advanced stage breast cancer within weeks of my 11th NORMAL mammogram. I only received all the facts of my individual risk of breast cancer AFTER my advanced stage diagnosis as I learned that my extremely dense breast tissue not only can mask cancer on mammography but is an independent risk-factor for breast cancer. Even though the masking and risk of dense breast tissue were reported in the scientific literature for more two decades, not one of my health care providers over a dozen years ever informed me of "all the facts" about the limitations of mammograms and the missed positives caused by dense breast tissue. This harm of dense breast tissue, which is the strongest predictor of the failure of mammography to detect cancer, is seldom discussed in the popular media.
Having a conversation about the harms of over-diagnosis and over-treatment of indolent cancers have little value to a patient when it cannot be precisely determined which cancers will harm and which will not. As Denise Grady aptly reveals about mammography and harms in the Well blog of the New York Times, "So where are these over-treated women? Nobody knows." Additionally, we need better risk models to accurately communicate an individual's personal risk for breast cancer, as indicated by my "low risk" assessment status prior to my advanced-stage diagnosis.
An editorial in JAMA by Elmore and Kramer insists on balanced messaging from health care providers about the facts of mammography, supporting shared-decision making by respecting women's preferences and values. I applaud this recommendation, as all too often I hear from women about how physicians shockingly dismiss their concerns about dense tissue and the likelihood of masked cancers by mammography. Sadly, time, money, inconvenience and health care providers' preferences and knowledge trump "just the facts."
Physicians have an ethical responsibility to truthfully communicate the current scientific facts with their patients. Additionally, they need to listen to and respect patients' preferences even when it may collide with their own preferences. An informed decision about such a personal health issue as breast cancer screening and prevention can only be made after receiving all the facts!
For information about dense breast tissue and risk, visit AreYouDense.org
For legislative efforts about density reporting, visit AreYouDenseAdvocacy.org
Breast cancer, next to lung cancer, is the second leading cause of cancer deaths among all races in the United States. Yearly, 230,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with breast cancer and 40,000 die from the disease. It is a substantial public health issue with deadly consequences.
A recent study by Pace & Keating published in JAMA reports that while mammography reduces mortality by 20 percent, it also has "harms" that must be taken into consideration when determining a patient's screening protocol. The authors conclude that mammography screening decisions should be individualized based on patients' risks and preferences.
I am a strong believer in personal responsibility and my ability to make healthful choices to control MOST of my health destiny. No smoking, moving my body daily, an abundance of green hues on my plate and a modest consumption of alcohol (although I have increased my consumption of red "antioxidant" wine since my advanced-stage breast cancer diagnosis); yet in spite of my health-conscious lifestyle with no family history of breast cancer and my relentless yearly mammographic screening appointments, I was diagnosed with advanced stage breast cancer within weeks of my 11th NORMAL mammogram. I only received all the facts of my individual risk of breast cancer AFTER my advanced stage diagnosis as I learned that my extremely dense breast tissue not only can mask cancer on mammography but is an independent risk-factor for breast cancer. Even though the masking and risk of dense breast tissue were reported in the scientific literature for more two decades, not one of my health care providers over a dozen years ever informed me of "all the facts" about the limitations of mammograms and the missed positives caused by dense breast tissue. This harm of dense breast tissue, which is the strongest predictor of the failure of mammography to detect cancer, is seldom discussed in the popular media.
Having a conversation about the harms of over-diagnosis and over-treatment of indolent cancers have little value to a patient when it cannot be precisely determined which cancers will harm and which will not. As Denise Grady aptly reveals about mammography and harms in the Well blog of the New York Times, "So where are these over-treated women? Nobody knows." Additionally, we need better risk models to accurately communicate an individual's personal risk for breast cancer, as indicated by my "low risk" assessment status prior to my advanced-stage diagnosis.
An editorial in JAMA by Elmore and Kramer insists on balanced messaging from health care providers about the facts of mammography, supporting shared-decision making by respecting women's preferences and values. I applaud this recommendation, as all too often I hear from women about how physicians shockingly dismiss their concerns about dense tissue and the likelihood of masked cancers by mammography. Sadly, time, money, inconvenience and health care providers' preferences and knowledge trump "just the facts."
Physicians have an ethical responsibility to truthfully communicate the current scientific facts with their patients. Additionally, they need to listen to and respect patients' preferences even when it may collide with their own preferences. An informed decision about such a personal health issue as breast cancer screening and prevention can only be made after receiving all the facts!
For information about dense breast tissue and risk, visit AreYouDense.org
For legislative efforts about density reporting, visit AreYouDenseAdvocacy.org
#idahomentalhealth
from Anxiety Agoraphobia Bipolar Disorder Evaluations and Treatment in Boise, Treasure Valley, Idaho http://ift.tt/1hTrDoG