WASHINGTON, D.C. A new group called the Low-Carb Action Network (LCAN), a coalition of doctors, academics, and average Americans with personal success stories using low-carb diets, has launched to urge U.S. nutrition leaders to include a true low-carb diet as part of the 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA).

LCAN members point to a large and rapidly growing body of strong scientific research showing carbohydrate restriction to be a safe and effective strategy to prevent and even reverse chronic, diet-related conditions such as pre-diabetes/type 2 diabetes, overweight/obesity, and high blood pressure along with a broad array of other cardiovascular risk factors.

The American Diabetes Association (ADA) recently endorsed low-carb/keto diets as a standard of care for the prevention and management of type 2 diabetes, stating that the diet lowers blood pressure, controls blood sugar, lowers triglycerides (fatty acids in the blood), raises the good cholesterol (HDL-C), and reduces the need for medication use.

However, the DGA does not include a low-carb diet. For the 2015 DGA, USDA-HHS ignored some 70 clinical trials demonstrating the effectiveness of low-carb diets. LCAN does not want important scientific evidence to again be ignored.

LCAN members are also concerned that USDA, in its current scientific reviews, is using an inaccurate definition of the diet that is not up-to-date with current science and will lead to misleading, untrustworthy results. Specifically, USDA is defining low-carb as 45 percent of total calories or less, when leaders in the field agree this number should be 25 percent.

Dr. Eric Westman, Associate Professor of Medicine at Duke University emphasized that the current dietary guidelines do not apply to most Americans and that a variety of dietary options should be presented to the American people, including a low-carbohydrate diet.

One size does not fit all. If there is anything weve learned over the last four years, its that the low-carb approach should be a viable option, stated Westman.

Dr. Mark Cucuzzella, Professor of Family Medicine at West Virginia University said a majority of the patients he treats daily have obesity and metabolic syndrome, a combination of conditions driven by hyperinsulinemia that increase the risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

If the government has any responsibility to give advice on nutrition it should be focused on those who have a medical condition which is impacted by nutrition and provide evidence-based nutrition solutions, one being a low-carb diet. This diet is highly effective to prevent and treat diet-related illnesses and has decades of evidence to support it.

Dr. Nadir Ali, Chairman, Department of Cardiology, Clear Lake Regional Medical Center, and Research Professor, Dept. of Nutrition and Applied Science, University of Houston, has significant experience in the science and practice of low-carb diets.

As a cardiologist, I regularly prescribe a low-carb diet to treat patients with type 2 diabetes and other heart-related diseases to better their health and improve their quality of life, said Ali. Given the significant amount of scientific research and evidence supporting this diet, its time for U.S. nutrition policy leaders to prescribe a low-carb option for those who are tipping into obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and more.

A study conducted last year by the University of North Carolina at Chapel concluded that only 12 percent of American adults are metabolically healthy, while 88 percent are en route to developing type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease or another chronic, diet-related condition.

Dr. Jeffry Gerber, M.D., FAAFP, board certified family physician and owner of South Suburban Family Medicine in Denver, CO, said it is unconscionable for nutrition leaders not to include a low-carb diet in the dietary guidelines.

It is unacceptable for our nations nutrition leaders to exclude nearly nine out of ten adults from the guidelines, when low-carb diets provide a viable and proven solution for effectively combatting obesity and diabetes, among other conditions, said Gerber. Every day people across the globe are improving their health by following low-carb diets. Their stories are emotional and real from fighting obesity and heart disease to beating depression and even cancer.

Dr. Charles Cavo, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Pounds Transformation in West Hartford, CT, stated that USDA and HHS officials have defined low-carb inaccurately for their scientific reviews. Theyve defined the diet as having a carbohydrate intake of <45 percent or less of overall daily calories, while leading experts in the field define a low-carb diet as <25 percent or less.

If USDA and HHS continue to wrongfully define low-carb diets, they will skew the results of their analyses, said Cavo.Defining low-carb as 45% of calories will wash out any positive results, which are largely achieved only when people significantly reduce carbohydrates, down to 25% of calories or less. Its not clear why USDA chose their definition of low-carb, since the agency provided no documentation or footnotes. But its clearly not consistent with leading research in the field or what we see working for weight loss and disease reversal in clinical practice.

Antonio C. Martinez II was one of the principal lobbyists who advocated for the Dietary and Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA). Martinez, who has also used a low-carb approach to reverse his own type 2 diabetes, lose weight, and recover from heart disease, added specifics to Cavos point.

This proposed definition clearly does not reflect the standards set by research leaders in the field and practitioners with actual clinical and technical experience, said Martinez. The lack of a formal regulatory standard for low-carb allows for this kind of abuse. It needs to stop because the public is not stupid, and the committees credibility is in question with such bad science.

Dr. Georgia Ede, a Massachusetts-based psychiatrist and founder of diagnosisdiet.com, echoed Martinez and Cavos concerns that USDA-HHS have used incorrect definitions of a low-carb diet, which will lead to an inaccurate assessment of a real nutrition option that could make millions of Americans healthier.

As a physician who prescribes low-carbohydrate diets in my psychiatric practice every day, who has personally followed a low-carbohydrate diet for many years, and has paid close attention to the scientific literature on this topic, I am concerned that the percentage of carbohydrates the government is using for its definition of low-carb is far too high to be metabolically meaningful, and should be reconsidered, stated Ede.

Doug Reynolds, the founder of Low Carb USA, a group that hosts scientific conferences on the subject and has worked with a team of doctors to publish Clinical Guidelines for The Prescription of Carbohydrate Restriction as a Therapeutic Intervention, says the low-carb diet is a proven solution to help Americans improve their health.

Its time for nutrition leaders to embrace a low carb diet as a viable option. More than 70 clinical trials have been conducted, and the results are clear: Low-carb diets are effective in combating obesity and improving cardiovascular risk factors, said Reynolds. The success stories I have personally witnessed are truly incredible, and I never would have believed them if I did not see them myself.

LCAN plans to launch a grassroots campaign in the coming months to urge leaders at USDA and HHS to ensure that a properly defined low-carb diet is included in the DGA to provide a dietary option for the majority of Americans who suffer from diet-related, chronic diseases. The next meeting of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee will be held next month in Houston.

For more information on the Low-Carb Action Network (LCAN), please visit lowcarbaction.org.

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Group Calls on USDA to Include a Real Low-Carb Diet in Guidelines WKTN- A division of Home Town Media - WKTN Radio

Do you get any days off?

Now that we're in this show schedule, we get Mondays and Tuesdays off, which is slightly unheard of in theater. The trade-off is doing five show weekends, with two days off. On those days, it is imperative that I take care of myself, even in the smallest of ways. Making sure that I dont have anything scheduled before noon, or that I can wake up and stay in my pajamas and have a cup of coffee, or read the news for a while. I want to feel human.

Do you have to be militant about protecting your sleep?

It is the one thing that I protect at all costs. I will ruin friendships in order to get sleep. If I don't, I rob an entire group of people who have paid to see a story with the full experience. Sleep and yoga and meditation are three things that keep me sane. When I'm not working, I have a much more relaxed vibe, but when I'm doing this play, there are things that I can no longer do. I really enjoy weight-lifting and throwing a barbell around, but if I try to do that now, my body won't be able to recuperate.

What is it that you're focused on, if not weights? Is it flexibility, endurance, injury prevention?

Yes, that's exactly it. It's also thinking about fitness in more of a spiritual way. I'm not as results-oriented now. Yoga is a daily routine that makes my body feel full and strong and limber and helps me move around without damage.

Do you have a trainer?

I do not. I go to yoga classes, and I also really enjoy climbing and bouldering. It's a fun way to stay fit while also engaging my mind and my heart, rather than just mindlessly going to the gym and trying to pump up my biceps. It's like figuring out a puzzle with your body: How do you get to that point as quickly and efficiently as possible?

As a performer, are you also thinking about your voice, and your skin? I assume you're packing an inch of makeup on every night.

I am obsessed with skincare. Obsessed. My mom is a dermatologist and I had cystic acne as a kid. I have very sensitive skin. I've tried so many different products and companies. The number one thing that I use is a lot of Malin+ Goetz. And some Tata Harper, some Aesop. I'm also obsessed with Biologique P50. I love a good face mask.

It's crazy how many people still think there's shame attached to skincare. I think it's changing. You're allowed to take care of yourself. My rather conservative, manly-man father would spend $10 on a pair of jeans and think that's expensive. God love him. But I'm wildly different.

And self-care is multifaceted, right? It obviously goes far beyond face masks. It's also about understanding yourself in stressful situations and how to change your reactions to your reactions. You know what I mean? Years of therapy have taught me that your way through the world is not based on the things that happened to you. It's how you react to the things that happen to you.

How do you think about food? Are there specific things that you gravitate towards?

I fast in the morning, so I don't usually eat until about 2:00 or 3:00 p.m. I'll try and work out in the morning just as a way to wake myself up. I will have a cup of black coffee. I always start with overnight oats. Overnight oats is one of the greatest inventions of all time because it keeps you full for so long, but not heavy full. If I have to be on the go, I have to have something that I can take with me, and overnight oats fit the bill there. I usually do blueberries and banana, almond butter, oats, cacao nibs, a little bit of cinnamon. Throw it in, mix it up, add a little bit of protein powder, and then it's done. I swear by that. And it's also about eating as many vegetables as possible. I try to stay away from red meat before a show and steer toward things that are easily digestible. If I'm thinking about what I just ate on stage, I'm pretty much fucked.

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Andrew Burnap: The Real-Life Diet of 'The Inheritance' Star Who's Obsessed With Overnight Oats - GQ

Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang sometimes seems more like a walking meme generator than a man trying to become the most powerful person in the world: He jokes that hes the Asian Oprah for his Freedom Dividend proposal, which guarantees a universal basic income of $1,000 a month; he streams videos of himself dancing to Lunizs I Got Five on It, a song about splitting the cost of marijuana; and at a campaign office opening in Manchester, New Hampshire, he sprayed whipped cream into the mouth of a kneeling supporter.

So when I planned to document two days of Yangs campaign trail eating habits, his staffers werent concerned even after photos of fellow candidate Pete Buttigiegs particular method of eating a cinnamon roll went viral following my previous campaign embed. There isnt going to be a viral moment, because he knows how to eat food, Yangs campaign manager Zach Graumann snarked.

Despite the antics, Yang is a serious candidate. The businessman, often described as a millionaire, has a net worth of $1 million according to Forbes, making him in fact less wealthy than all but one of the seven candidates who have qualified for the upcoming primary debate. He will also be the only person of color on stage since California Senator Kamala Harris dropped out of the race earlier this month, and New Jersey Senator Cory Booker failed to qualify. (Nine candidates, led by Booker, have signed a petition to expand the qualifying criteria for the debates.) With a $10 million fundraising haul in the third quarter, Yangs team is beefing up his operations in key early voting states like Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada, hoping to exceed expectations as primary voting begins so that he can catch fire by Super Tuesday, when 14 states will hold presidential nominating contests and 40 percent of the delegates for the Democratic partys nomination will be decided.

Yang and his supporters, who call themselves the Yang Gang, often complain of a lack of media coverage for his candidacy; in the last debate, hosted by MSNBC, he received the least amount of speaking time of the 10 candidates on stage, despite polling better than half of them. To bridge that coverage gap, Yangs team decided to take its first Iowa bus tour his 23rd visit to the state with media in tow. The five-day sprint consisted of bowling, a basketball game, office openings, more serious events like a forum on autism with his wife Evelyn (one of their children is autistic), and only a little bit of malarkey.

Despite making a signature out of his love of turkey legs at the Iowa State Fair, voters who expected Yang to indulge in public performances of wolfing down Iowas more visually impressive favorites, like Decorahs frosted cinnamon rolls and Smittys pork tenderloins, as he made his way through the state will be disappointed. A lot of times we just go to the closest restaurant on Google Maps, said Erick Sanchez, Yangs traveling press secretary, who previously worked on Ohio Congressman Tim Ryans presidential bid. Ideally, wed love to be able to hit a local deli every time we travel but with the schedule we keep, its fucking impossible.

But to focus on meals would be to miss the real story of his campaign diet: Andrew Yang is a supreme snacklord. Costco-sized containers of popcorn pour out of every cabinet of his bus, while the teams work table is constantly littered with an assortment of chips, jerky, Whole Foods 365 almonds, BarkThins, classic Welchs fruit snacks, clementines, and Yangs favorite the quietly cultish BelVita breakfast biscuit. Every campaign trip to Iowa or New Hampshire starts off with a 30-unit case, and theyre usually gone by the end. Its always a good time for BelVita, said Yang, who ate a package for breakfast one day, then paired it with a cup of pomegranate seeds as an evening snack on another.

During a two-hour span in Dubuque, a city in that sits on the Mississippi River in eastern Iowa, Yang ate package of a BelVita biscuits; munched on bags of Navitas Organics cacao goji power snacks and Whole Foods roasted almonds; nibbled on half of a plain doughnut from Dunkin during a roundtable discussion with small business owners; and polished off a bag of Skinny Pop butter popcorn while being interviewed by the Washington Posts Dave Weigel.

On another occasion, during a 30-minute drive from Cedar Falls to Waterloo, Yang finished a package of dark chocolate cocoa Skinny Dipped almonds, started on a bag of Tates Chocolate Chip cookies, and downed a bottle of water, his preferred beverage, while taking questions from the press. Yang had a new bottle of water in his hand virtually every time he stepped on or off the bus. It prevents me from getting sick, Yang said of his disciplined hydration. Plus, I speak a lot so it helps. Besides water, Yang only consumes green tea Honest T is his preferred brand for the road and the occasional fruit juice; he does not drink alcohol or coffee.

Yangs ceaseless snacking doesnt mean that he skips meals, though. On the first day of my embed, he ate what most people would consider to be four separate meals: eggs, sausage, and an acai bowl for breakfast; a turkey sandwich from sub chain Jimmy Johns, delivered to a conference room where the team was filming YouTube content, for lunch; a pepperoni pizza on the way to a town hall event, for dinner; and an Asian salad at Houlihans, the casual American bar and restaurant chain, for a second dinner.

Jimmy Johns is the not-so-secret go-to for Iowa political operatives who need to feed hungry staffs: The chains sandwiches agree with most palates, there are vegetarian options, and its a known quantity with locations across the entire state. Its consistent. The bread has a decent chew, Sanchez, Yangs press secretary, said. Its not Subway, which tastes like licking a subway. (The Buttigieg team also told me that Jimmy Johns was a staple, but they ordered from a local sandwich shop when I was embedded with the campaign optics! with mixed results.)

While Yangs campaign trail diet consisted mostly of snacks and practical chain restaurants for the two days I was on the road with him, the last meal on my final day was an iconic diner: Iowa Citys Hamburg Inn No. 2, which has a long history of patronage by ex-presidents and presidential candidates alike, from Ronald Reagan in the early 90s and Bill Clinton in 2003 to Barack Obama and Mitt Romney during their respective campaigns.

Most diner stops on the campaign trail are for the photo op: Often, the food remains untouched. Yang seemed to follow this pattern, greeting supporters and taking selfies with restaurant employees as news crews stood by filming. But after noting that the food was delicious at Hamburg Inn No. 2, he ordered a takeaway dinner of bacon cheeseburgers and pie shakes for the ride back to the hotel.

Yang said that he eats healthier back home in New York City, but with a focus on hydration and spreading his eating across the entire day, he believes hes doing the best he can while on the road. I try to stay healthy, he said as he spooned a chocolate bourbon pecan pie shake into his mouth. The game of Mario Kart his staff had been playing on the TV behind him came to an end and the bus pulled way, on to the next stop.

Gary He is a photojournalist based in New York City.

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What Andrew Yang Eats on the Campaign Trail - Eater

A device that translates brain signals into speech? It sounds like science fiction, but it was one of the University of California research breakthroughs that got the worlds attention in 2019.

That wasnt the only UC research to go viral this year, according to the Altmetric Top 100, an annual ranking of the most shared, discussed and tweeted studies in popular and online media around the globe. Research from across UCs 10-campus system accounted for 14 of the top 100 most discussed findings this year.

Heres a look back at a few of the UC stories that got the worlds notice:

UC San Francisco announced in April that neuroscientists had created a state-of-the-art brain-machine interface that generated natural-sounding synthetic speech by using brain activity to control a virtual vocal tract an anatomically detailed computer simulation including the lips, jaw, tongue and larynx.

The study was conducted in research participants with intact speech, but with further refinement, the technology could restore the voices of people who have lost the ability to speak due to paralysis and other forms of neurological damage, researchers reported.

For the first time, this study demonstrates that we can generate entire spoken sentences based on an individuals brain activity, said senior author Edward Chang, M.D., a professor of neurological surgery and member of the UCSF Weill Institute for Neuroscience. This is an exhilarating proof of principle that with technology that is already within reach, we should be able to build a device that is clinically viable in patients with speech loss.

Read more:https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/synthetic-speech-generated-brain-recordings

UC Berkeley and University of Chicago researchers in October published a study finding significant racial bias in a category of algorithm that influences health care decisions for over a hundred million Americans.

The study found that a type of software program that determines who gets access to high-risk health care management programs routinely let healthier whites into the programs ahead of blacks who were less healthy. Eliminating bias in the algorithm could more than double the number of black patients automatically admitted to these programs, the study revealed.

The algorithms encode racial bias by using health care costs to determine patient risk, or who was mostly likely to benefit from care management programs, said Ziad Obermeyer, acting associate professor of health policy and management at UC Berkeley. Because of the structural inequalities in our health care system, blacks at a given level of health end up generating lower costs than whites. As a result, black patients were much sicker at a given level of the algorithms predicted risk.

Read more: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/widely-used-health-care-prediction-algorithm-biased-against-black-people

Antarctica experienced a six-fold increase in yearly ice mass loss between 1979 and 2017, according to glaciologists from UC Irvine, NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Netherlands Utrecht University. Their study found that the accelerated melting caused global sea levels to rise more than half an inch during that time.

Thats just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, said Eric Rignot, chair of Earth system science at UC Irvine and the studys lead author. As the Antarctic ice sheet continues to melt away, we expect multi-meter sea level rise from Antarctica in the coming centuries.

Read more: https://news.uci.edu/2019/01/14/uci-jpl-study-antarctica-losing-six-times-more-ice-mass-annually-now-than-40-years-ago/

Actually, the problem is with us, not them, reported UC Santa Barbara psychological scientistJohn Protzko. Grumbling about the younger generation is an age-old practice that transcends both culture and time. Protzko has termed the phenomenon the kids these days effect.

There is a psychological or mental trick that happens that makes it appear to each generation that the subsequent generations are objectively in decline, even though theyre not, said Protzko, whose research appeared in the journal Science Advances. And because its built into the way the mind works, each generation experiences it over and over again.

Humanity has been lodging the same complaints against kids these days for at least 2,600 years, said Protzko. Its the exact same complaints time after time theyre disrespectful, they dont listen to their elders and they dont like to work.

Read more: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/kids-these-days-0

A team of scientists, including those at UC Riverside, tracked millions of deaths around the globe and found that poor eating habits kill more people than tobacco. In fact, poor diets are responsible for more deaths around the world than any other risk factor.

Researchers analysis found that 3 million deaths globally were attributed to too much sodium; another 3 million deaths were attributed to a lack of adequate whole grains; and 2 million more deaths were attributed to a lack of adequate fruit. Researchers found that countries where people eat a Mediterranean diet, which is high in both unsaturated fats and fiber, had the fewest diet-related deaths.

The results are based on limited data and assumptions, but conclusions are consistent with major reports from public health and medical authorities, Marion Nestle, professor emerita of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, and a UC Berkeley alumnus, told The Washington Post. Nestle noted that the researchers seem to be recommending a largely, but not exclusively, plant-based diet, and thats what everybody is saying these days.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/04/05/bad-diets-kill-more-people-around-world-than-smoking-study-says/

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Five UC research stories that got the world talking in 2019 - University of California