The claims of a Breatharian couple who say theyve survived for nearly a decade on little more than air and sunlight are tough to swallow, according to experts interviewed by The Post.

Akahi Ricardo and Camila Castello said theyd eaten little more than a piece of fruit or vegetable broth just three times a week since 2008 in an interview with The Sun published last week. Castello even claimed to have gone without food during her entire first pregnancy, saying she fully lived on light and consumed no food.

The story of the couples extreme and implausible diet went viral, with numerous outlets picking up the story, including the New York Post. But Tanya Zuckerbrot, a registered dietitian and author of The F-Factor Diet: Discover the Secret to Permanent Weight Loss, on Monday threw doubt on the couples claims, saying they belie everything we know about anatomy and the role that food plays, particularly during pregnancy.

Its possible to survive up to 21 days without food due to glycogen and fat reserves in our bodies, according to Zuckerbrot. But the maximum time anyone could live without water is 7 days, she says. That drops to even less in extremely hot environments.

Its a faulty premise that they could survive off of the sun, Zuckerbrot told The Post in response to Castellos claims of a food-free lifestyle. If you dont provide your body with caloric intake, your body will begin to break down.

Zuckerbrot said the limits of how long people can go without food or water have been determined through observation of hospice patients. And any diet without protein would ultimately lead to conditions like osteoporosis and ultimately death, she said.

You wouldnt have muscle mass and youd waste away, Zuckerbrot said. It doesnt make sense; it defies all common knowledge of what our bodies need to survive. People would starve to death you cant live.

This couples dietary habits are not only unhealthy but quite dangerous, Lisa Moskovitz, CEO of New York Nutrition Group, told The Post. While there have not been vigorous studies on starvation in the human body we know that an individual cannot survive very long without food, and especially not without water.

These people, if telling the truth, are certainly the exception not the rule when it comes to restrictive eating, she added.

Asked how such a preposterous claim could be believed, Zuckerbrot said people are always looking for the latest and craziest diet fad, even if its not based on science.

Were always looking for something that seems holistic, or some new, great diet, she said. And theres something very elitist about this, like I can go without food for so long while you need to eat, you slovenly pig. We shouldnt overeat, but this is really going from one extreme to the other. Both of them are unhealthy and I cannot support either one.

Zuckerbrot, who advocates a high-protein and high-fiber diet, said calorie restriction has long been a way for severely obese people to lose weight and theres evidence that modified food intake does result in increased longevity among laboratory rats. Still, a very low-calorie diet or VLCD would call for at least 800 calories per day, she said.

It just makes no sense, Zuckerbrot said of the couple, who split their time between California and Ecuador, according to The Sun.

Attempts to reach them Monday for comment were unsuccessful.

Castello, 34, said the married couple of nine years didnt eat anything at all for three years and claimed to have done without food during her first pregnancy in 2011, a claim Zuckerbrot characterized as simply dangerous. In general, women who are pregnant need at least 300 additional calories per day, she said.

As a mother and a registered dietitian, that makes me angry because theres so much false information out there and this would really put a mother and her unborn child at risk, she said. She would be wasting away, along with that fetus.

Dr. Roshini Raj, a gastroenterologist and associate professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center, was even more blunt about the couple, calling them delusional if they really believe in their diet without food.

Its obviously something thats not based in medical fact, Raj told The Post. Its incompatible with life. There is some evidence that caloric restriction may be beneficial to your health, but certainly nothing to this extreme. If they truly believe it themselves, theyre delusional. Theres just no way it would ever be possible.

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'Breatharian' no-food diet claims are a bunch of hot air, experts say - New York Post

When Alicia Hunter, 49, heard about a diet where she could eat as much of her favorite fruit as she wanted, the Upper East Side woman was hooked. There was one small catch, though: It was the only thing she could eat.

In an attempt to lose weight for the holidays, I ate only melon for almost 30 days after I heard about the Mono Diet, says Hunter, an eyelash-extension professional. I lost 7 pounds, but I never want [to eat] melon again.

The diet dictates that you eat only one food for several weeks to lose weight fast, something that many experts warn is dangerous and only successful in the short term. Hunter, however, used it to kick-start a long-term weight-loss plan to shed the pounds, and raved about the benefits.

I kept the weight off and actually lost another 8 pounds since then on other diets, she says.

The Mono Diet (sometimes referred to as Banana Island or Monotrophic Diet) has become increasingly popular since a YouTube star nicknamed Freelee the Banana Girl (real name: Leanne Ratcliffe) boasted about her weight loss in 2014. She claimed to have lost 40 pounds eating close to 30 bananas a day.

Its an incredibly restrictive and unbalanced diet and I do not recommend that anyone follow it.

Since then, a new version, the Sweet Potato Diet, was released in April, touting how the spud can help you lose 12 pounds in just two weeks. Meanwhile, the hashtag #monomeal on Instagram, which highlights pictures of peoples meals containing a single food, has more than 38,000 posts, and the diet was one of the most searched in 2016, according to Google. Comedian and magician Penn Jillette even wrote a book last year about how he lost 100 pounds by eating nothing but potatoes for two weeks to kick off his diet. And Matt Damon revealed he ate only chicken breasts to drop weight for his role in Courage Under Fire.

Yes, this diet can produce weight loss, says Frances Largeman-Roth, registered dietitian and author of Eating in Color. But, the weight loss is a result of caloric restriction not because any particular food is magically producing weight loss. Its an incredibly restrictive and unbalanced diet and I do not recommend that anyone follow it.

In addition to a low caloric intake (Hunter estimates she ate about 800 calories a day worth of melon), which can cause symptoms like dizziness, a Mono Diet can also lead to some serious health problems. The diet landed Ashton Kutcher in the emergency room in 2013 after he followed the Mucusless Diet Healing System, and based his diet solely on fruit.

I ended up in the hospital two days before we started shooting [Jobs], he told reporters at the Sundance Film Festival. Months later, at a press conference, he said that, My insulin levels got pretty messed up and my pancreas kind of went ... crazy. The levels were really off, and it was painful.

Amy Gorin, a Jersey City-based registered dietitian and nutritionist, says such diets can have a negative effect on your metabolism and may cause muscle loss. By eating just one food, youd be taking in too much of certain vitamins or minerals for example, potassium from bananas. Additionally, it will be very hard to maintain any weight loss once you go back to eating a normal diet.

While Hunter didnt have an issue keeping off the initial weight she lost, and raved about her glowing skin, others who tried it didnt have as great an experience.

I was desperate to lose weight, so I decided to eat only carrots for an entire month, says New Jersey music teacher Beth Glickman, 58. I lost about 10 pounds in one month, but the palms of my hands turned orange! Needless to say, the diet didnt last much longer than that.

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The dangerous diet that could ruin your health - New York Post

ANDERSON, Ind. A new study claims to have found a connection between drinking diet soda and being at higher risk of developing dementia and stroke.

However, the study's author is calling for more research to be done.

The study found an association between drinking at least one artificially sweetened beverage daily and having an increased risk of stroke or dementia by three times the risk of someone who drinks diet soda less than once a week.

The researchers who conducted the study analyzed the Framingham Heart Study Offspring Cohort. The 2,888 people in the group for the stroke study were primarily Caucasian, over the age of 45. The 1,484 people in the dementia study were over the age of 60.

The authors quickly cautioned in the American Heart Association press release that the research only shows a trend among one group of people rather than an actual cause and effect.

The people who participated in the study had researchers check in with their drinking habits periodically over a seven-year period, according to the press release. The researchers then followed up 10 years later to see who developed the targeted diseases.

At the end of the 10-year period, 3 percent of the people had had a stroke and 5 percent had been diagnosed with dementia.

Matthew Pase, a senior fellow in the department of neurology at Boston University School of Medicine, Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, and the Framingham Heart Study, said more research needs to be done to confirm the findings since the sampling of people were primarily white and older. He also said they did not track how much regular soda the participants were drinking as well.

Even if someone is three times as likely to develop stroke or dementia, it is by no means a certain fate, Pase said in a press release. In our study, 3 percent of the people had a new stroke and 5 percent developed dementia, so we're still talking about a small number of people developing either stroke or dementia.

However, the study is one of many that point to artificially sweetened sodas, or diet soda, as not being a healthy option and even causing additional health issues of its own.

Studies since 2010 have showed various health concerns that could be linked to drinking diet soda, such as increased risks of Type 2 diabetes, heart attack and a slower metabolism. Diet sodas may have fewer calories, but some of the artificial sweeteners have been questioned.

Aspartame is one of the most commonly used artificial sweeteners, and its about 200 times sweeter than sugar, meaning much less of it needs to be used. Rumors and unscientific studies have claimed for years that the sweetener causes cancer, but the Food and Drug Administration and other agencies have found it to be safe, according to the American Cancer Society.

Marianne Spangler, patient navigation services director and dietitian at Community Hospital Anderson, said in 2016 that dietitians generally follow the guidelines of the FDA. She said while the FDA has said diet soda is safe, she encourages her patients to drink more water anyway.

Michelle Richart, registered dietitian at St. Vincent Anderson Regional Hospital, said she encourages her patients to drink less diet soda because it cuts down how much water they are drinking. If they are drinking enough water, a little diet soda is fine, she said in 2016.

What authors of the study published in the American Heart Associations journal Stroke are really trying to iterate is that while more research needs to be done, diet sodas may not be better for people than their sugary counterparts, said senior editorial author Ralph Sacco, a former president of the American Heart Association and the chairman of the Department of Neurology at the Miller School of Medicine at University of Miami in Florida.

Both sugar and artificially sweetened soft drinks may be hard on the brain, Sacco said in a press release.

See the article here:
Study links diet sodas to higher risk of dementia, stroke - Palestine Herald Press

Youve been trained from a young age to avoid fat. To this day, you probably drink 2 percent milk, jelly your toast instead of buttering it, and buy packaged food with reduced fat as much as possible. Even though doctors usually recommend low fat, is it really that bad for you? Some doctors are now saying the exact opposite, and heres why.

For decades, people have eaten low-fat foods in an effort to promote a healthy heart. The fatty and starchy diets of most Americans have led to higher cholesterol and, presumably, an increased risk of heart disease. However, research is showing just the opposite effect when people consume healthy fats like olive oil alongside healthy carbs.

One obesityexpert, Dr. Aronne, says that slightly low-fat diets might help people lose weight. On the other hand, it might also cause people to turn to more carbs when theyre hungry. The decreased fat intake simply does not satisfy a persons hunger as long as a diet with healthy fats.

DAY HIKING: WHAT TO TAKE

As a result, dieters eating less fat to lose weight might actually be thwarting their efforts. Any extra carbs they consume will only add to their weight, especially if they eat highly processed white breads and sugar.

Maybe reducing fat in your diet wont help with weight loss, but is it really good for you? Onestudyby the National Institutes of Health analyzed the effects that a high-fat diet has on weight loss and heart disease risk. The researchers instructed participants to get a high amount of carbs from vegetables, and they told everyone to avoid trans fats.

In the low-fat group, participants had to keep their total fat intake below 7 percent of their daily calories. They could still eat breads and cereals, though. For the high-fat group, however, participants reduced the amount of carbs they were eating and did not avoid fats like meat and butter.

After one year of these protocols, researchers analyzed the health of participants in each group. They found that those who had reduced their fat intake had only lost an average four pounds. Participants who ate a high-fat diet actually lost twelve pounds, without counting calories.

SHOULD YOU LET YOUR TEEN GET A NOSE JOB?

Next, researchers analyzed heart health, also finding that those in the high-fat group had improved their cholesterol more than those in the low-fat group.

Scientifically speaking, thisresultmakes sense. Those who reduce their fat intake likely fill the gaps with more carbohydrates. The carbohydrates then turn into sugar in the body.

Since theres more carbs than the body needs, it stores the sugar into fat cells. Unlike a high-fat diet, however, the body doesnt use the stored fat because it burns the carbs for energy. At that point, people are just adding on weight without the body needing to burn any of the excess.

On the other hand, a high-fat diet forces the body to burn fat as a source of energy. If it doesnt get enough energy from the food you eat, it then burns excess fat stored on the body. In addition, the healthy fats keep people feeling full longer, avoiding the temptation of eating more carbs.

For now, this subject still holds some debate among health professionals. New research does indicate that more healthy fats improve a persons health.

However, scientists have not done much research on the exact effects of a high-fat diet over a prolonged period. They also need more studies on the direct link between increasing saturated fat and its effects on heart health.

THE DAMAGING EFFECTS OF MAKEUP ON TEENS

For now, you can simply eat healthy fats without trying to avoid them in your diet. You might not want to increase your fat intake exponentially just yet.

Recently, a high-fat diet has shown more benefits to a persons health and weight loss than a diet meant to avoid fats. Also, healthy fats like olive oil lower bad cholesterol while raising good cholesterol, potentially lowering heart disease risk. How can you benefit from this research right now? Eat olive oil, meat, nuts, and other fats in a healthy balance, and youll get the benefits they provide.

This article first appeared on AskDrManny.com.

Dr. Manny Alvarez serves as Fox News Channel's senior managing health editor. He also serves as chairman of the department of obstetrics/gynecology and reproductive science at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey. Click here for more information on Dr. Manny's work with Hackensack University Medical Center. Visit AskDrManny.com for more.

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The skinny on high-fat diets | Fox News - Fox News

Men's Health

Where to Eat Fast Food If You're Following a Strict Diet Men's Health Their round up focused on low-carb, Mediterranean, pescatarian, vegan, and vegetarian diets, all of which are typically made up of low-calorie meals. (Read up on their methodology to find out exactly how they classified each diet and why they decided ...

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Where to Eat Fast Food If You're Following a Strict Diet - Men's Health

Creating a healthy lifestyle is hard. It's even harder when you have no idea what anything means. We consulted a registered dietitian, a celebrity nutritionist, and an internist to help break down the trends.

The goal of an alkaline diet is to reduce the acidity in the bodywhich will supposedly aid in treating or preventing diseasesby nixing foods that are on the acidic side, like meat, dairy, eggs, and grains.

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This diet centers on the claim that certain foods have chemical reactions specific to your blood type and sticking to foods your blood type reacts positively to will help you shed pounds, give you an energy boost, and improve your overall health.

There isn't an exact definition for clean eating, but it's basically all about opting for natural foods and avoiding foods that have seen the inside of a factory.

Coconut Oil Isn't the Diet Miracle You Think It Is

Diets That Work: 10 Things They All Have In Common

Say good-bye to foods with grains like wheat, barley, and ryeeach contains a protein known as gluten. This diet is necessary if you're one of the 1 percent of Americans who suffer from celiac disease.

Intermittent fasters alternate between periods of eating and fasting to create metabolic changes to promote weight loss. Fasting periods range from a few hours to days of not eating or severely restricting calories.

It's exactly what it sounds like: These popular weight-loss plans eliminate or restrict foods high in carbs, like rice, pastas, and breads, and up your intake of fats and proteins.

Eat as they do in countries along the Mediterranean Sea: olive oil, seafood, complex carbohydrates, vegetables, fruits, beans, whole grains, even wine not so much dairy, meat, and processed foods. Bonus: It's considered a balanced, heart-healthy diet.

Known as the caveman diet, this eating plan sticks to basics like lean meats, seafood, fruits, vegetables, and nuts (and cuts out the fun stuff: sugar, booze, potatoes, and dairy). The philosophy is that this is how humans are "meant" to eat.

A version of this article appears in the July issue of Marie Claire, on newsstands June 20.

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Every Type of Diet, Explained - MarieClaire.com

Women's Health

What Is The Fasting Mimicking DietAnd Can It Help You Lose Weight? Women's Health The Fasting Mimicking Diet is based on research from the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern Californiaspecifically, a study published in the journal Cell Metabolism, which tested how yeast reacted when deprived of food for a short ...

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What Is The Fasting Mimicking DietAnd Can It Help You Lose Weight? - Women's Health