The question: I dont have celiac disease but am thinking about going on a gluten-free diet. Good idea?

The answer: Gluten-free diets are certainly on the rise. In part because gluten intolerance, or celiac disease, is on the rise. But theyre also becoming fashionable as celebrities and professional athletes are dropping gluten from their diets. A gluten-free diet is often hyped as a way to increase energy, lose weight or deal with certain health problems.

The truth is, though, that a gluten-free diet isnt necessarily a healthy one if you dont need to be on it.

So who does need a gluten-free diet? For starters, its a necessity for people with celiac disease. Following a gluten-free diet is the only way to treat the condition. People with celiac disease avoid obvious sources of gluten such as bread and pasta but they also eliminate gluten hidden in foods such deli meats, salad dressings and condiments.

Its estimated that 1 in 133 Canadians have celiac disease. Its a lifelong, genetically based disorder that occurs when gluten a protein found in wheat, rye and barley triggers an abnormal immune response that damages the lining of the small intestine interfering with the absorption of nutrients.

Symptoms can include diarrhea, abdominal pain, weight loss and, in children, delayed growth. But most people have symptoms that are more subtle, such as bloating, excess gas or fatigue.

People who have non-celiac gluten sensitivity will also benefit from a gluten-free diet. These people test negative for celiac disease but react poorly to gluten and may report abdominal pain, headaches and fatigue.

Theres no evidence, however, that following a gluten-free diet will promote weight loss or offer any health benefit beyond helping gluten-sensitive people.

If you decide to drop gluten from your diet, be sure to include gluten-free whole grains such as brown and wild rice, quinoa and millet to help you get fibre, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.

Dont fall into the trap of filling up on gluten-free breads, bagels, cookies and snack foods. Many of these foods are refined and have been stripped of fibre and nutrients. And unlike wheat flour, these products are not fortified with vitamins and minerals. Many are also higher in carbohydrates and sodium.

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Is a gluten-free diet a good idea?

COACH PACQUIAO

THE IDEA that aging inevitably means gaining weight and having high blood pressure, high triglycerides, high cholesterol levels, and arthritis is widely accepted. Since so many people have these problems, we think of them as normal. Even doctors are likely to say that when you get to be a certain age, these conditions are to be expected and since they are irreversible, accepted.

Fortunately, research over the last decade has given as a better understanding of the causes of aging; in particular, several theories had led to new therapies offering older people opportunities not only to improve their health but to actually slow down the aging process. We now know that its possible to live to 100 and beyond and to stay healthy throughout our life spans this rectangularizing the aging curve. I believed that we need to have optimum energy as we grow old and not accept the diminishment many find encroaching as they grow older. We should be prepare now to strengthen our body before the time comes on where we are too old and get sick. I would like to cite joint disease as an example of a condition that medicine has accepted as inevitable, a condition that is reversible. There is now an epidemic of joint disease in the whole world. The majority of people over 60 have early, moderate, or late osteoarthritis. Conventional doctors call osteoarthritis, a wear and tear disease, as if the joints wore out like the parts of a car. That sounds believable but it is nonsense. The disease is a product of deficiencies and occurs when the joint is not being nourished. A nourished joint will remain healthy. I have seen runners in their 70s and 80s who use their joints 10 fold or even 50 fold more than a normal person does, yet their joints remain robust.

What causes aging?

Free radical damage. It is widely accepted that aging and degenerative diseases are the result of cellular damage brought on by free radicals, molecules that have become unstable after losing one of their orbiting electrons. The unpaired electrons of these molecules make the molecules highly reactive and in an attempt to restore balance, a free radical will steal electrons from other molecules, causing cellular damage and destruction.

Free radicals are produced through normal metabolism in the body, but increase with exposure to animal fat, alcohol, cigarettes, and other toxic chemicals. Lets give an example of how this damage can occur. Free radicals generated by cigarette smoke are huge in number. They steal healthy electrons from the lining of the lungs, thereby oxidizing lung tissue. When lung tissue oxidized, cells break down and die. As hundreds of thousands of cells become oxidized and damaged, tissues and organs throughout the body are affected. Aging and disease are magnified.

Low thyroid function. Low thyroid functioning can prompt diseases associated with aging. Most of the basic research on the thyroid was done before World War II. Pharmaceutical companies came in after the war with what they thought was the latest word in understanding the thyroid. It turns out they were wrong. It was found out that too much cholesterol in the blood, insomnia, emphysema, arthritis and failure of the immune system causes low thyroid function. Many conditions now considered mysterious diseases were recognized as traits of low thyroid. Very often these conditions would simply disappear when thyroid supplements were given.

When the thyroid is low we have to rely on emergency systems such as the production of adrenaline and cortisone to adapt stress. Cortisone and adrenaline are now recognized as factors that cause damage, setting degenerative diseases in motion and causing damage to the lining of blood vessels and brain cells but very often people dont realize that it is the thyroid that keeps us from relying excessively on these stress hormones.

Biological clock. Another theory holds that the body has a built-in-cellular biological clock that is set so that cells self-destruct after a certain amount of time. That since the theory was first propounded, the proposed upper limits for the clocks running time have increased. Scientists say there is a feeling that the top limit is pushing 140 years. Individual have actually lived to that age and even longer.

Shrinking thymus gland. Another theory relates aging to atrophy of the thymus gland which plays a role in maintaining a healthy immune system and fighting infection. When we are born, this gland covers our entire chest. Its huge. As we grow older, it diminishes in size, a process known as thymic involution. One of the theories of aging is that if we could stop thymic shrinking we could stop the aging process altogether.

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Reverse the aging process

JERUSALEM (AP) Told she was too fat to be a model, Danielle Segal shed a quarter of her weight and was hospitalized twice for malnutrition. Now that a new Israeli law prohibits the employment of underweight models, the 19-year-old must gain some of it back if she wants to work again.Not that she was ever overweight. At 1.7 meters (5-feet-7), she weighed 53 kilograms (116 pounds) to begin with. Feeling pressure to become ever thinner, she dropped another 13 kilograms (29 pounds). The unnaturally skeletal girl weighed 40 kilograms (88 pounds) by then, or about as much as a robust pre-teen, and her health suffered.The legislation passed Monday aims to put a stop to the extremes, and by extension ease the pressure on youngsters to emulate the skin-and-bones models, often resulting in dangerous eating disorders.The new law poses a groundbreaking challenge to a fashion industry widely castigated for promoting anorexia and bulimia. Its sponsors say it could become an example for other countries grappling with the spread of the life-threatening disorders.It's especially important in Israel, which, like other countries, is obsessed by models, whose every utterance and dalliance is fodder for large pictures and racy stories in the nation's newspapers. Supermodel Bar Refaeli is considered a national hero by many. She is not unnaturally thin.The new law requires models to produce a medical report no older than three months at every shoot for the Israeli market, stating that they are not malnourished by World Health Organization standards.The U.N. agency relies on the body mass index, calculated by factors of weight and height. WHO says a body mass index below 18.5 indicates malnutrition. According to that standard, a woman 1.72 meters tall (5-feet-8) should weigh no less than 119 pounds (54 kilograms).Also, any advertisement published for the Israeli market must have a clearly written notice disclosing if its models were made to look thinner by digital manipulation. The law does not apply to foreign publications sold in Israel.In Israel, about 2 percent of girls between 14 and 18 have severe eating disorders, a rate similar to other developed countries, experts said.The law's supporters hope it will encourage the use of healthy models in local advertising and heighten awareness of digital tricks that transform already skinny women into seeming waifs."We want to break the illusion that the model we see is real," said Liad Gil-Har, assistant to law sponsor Dr. Rachel Adato, who compared the battle against eating disorders to the struggle against smoking.The law won support from a surprising quarter: one of Israel's top model agents, Adi Barkan, who said in 30 years of work, he has seen young women become skinnier and sicker while struggling to fit the shrinking mold of what the industry considers attractive."They look like dead girls," Barkan said.Aspiring model Segal says she's thrilled with the new law and wishes it had been passed years ago. "I wouldn't have grown up thinking that this (being underweight) is a model of beauty. I wouldn't have reached the point I reached," she said.Segal said an agent told her three years ago that she had a beautiful face but not a "model's body." Trying to attain that ideal through drastic diets, she ended up in the hospital twice and stopped menstruating.Segal said she met Barkan during her modeling work, and he convinced her that she could succeed as a model without being unnaturally thin. Segal, who now weighs around 50 kilograms (110 pounds) and would have to gain 3.5 kilograms (almost eight pounds) to qualify for work.Barkan estimated about half the 300 professional models in Israel would have to gain weight to work again.Top Israeli model Adi Neumman said she wouldn't pass under the new rules, because her BMI is 18.3. Neumman said she eats well and exercises. "Make girls go to a doctor. Get a system to follow girls who are found to be puking," a symptom of bulimia, she said.Critics say the legislation should have focused on health, not weight, arguing that many models are naturally thin."The health of the model ... should be evaluated. Our weight can change hour to hour," said David Herzog, a professor of psychiatry and a leading U.S. expert on eating disorders.Pressure on the fashion industry has intensified in recent years, sparked by the deaths of models in Brazil and Uruguay from medical complications linked to eating disorders.Uruguayan model Luisel Ramos, 22, collapsed and died soon after stepping off the runway in August 2006, reportedly of anorexia-linked heart failure.Other governments have taken steps to prevent "size zero" medical problems but have shied away from legislation.The Madrid fashion show bans women whose BMI is below 18. Milan's fashion week bans models with a BMI below 18.5.The U.K. and U.S. have guidelines, but their fashion industry is self-regulated.Unrealistic body images in the media are believed to shape eating habits, especially among young people, though there is debate about how influential they are. Other factors include psychological health, trauma like sexual assault, or a tendency within one's family to emphasize physical appearance as a sign of success.It's not certain that the law will have a measurable impact, because Israeli teens take their cuesfrom both international media and local publications, said Sigal Gooldin, an eating disorder specialist at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.Social worker Uri Pinus, who treats seven teens with eating disorders at a Jerusalem hospital, said the law was unlikely to affect his patients."But our expectation is that this law will impact the wider public," Pinus said. "(It) will reduce pressure on the girls to lose weight."Segal said putting weight back on would be a challenge. But, she said, "in the end it's a very low price to pay when I think about other girls who won't grow up sick in the future."___Follow Hadid on twitter.com/diaahadid

Go here to read the rest:
New Israeli law bans underweight models in ads as government tries to fight eating disorders

JERUSALEM (AP) Told she was too fat to be a model, Danielle Segal shed a quarter of her weight and was hospitalized twice for malnutrition. Now that a new Israeli law prohibits the employment of underweight models, the 19-year-old must gain some of it back if she wants to work again.

Not that she was ever overweight. At 1.7 meters (5-feet-7), she weighed 53 kilograms (116 pounds) to begin with. Feeling pressure to become ever thinner, she dropped another 13 kilograms (29 pounds). The unnaturally skeletal girl weighed 40 kilograms (88 pounds) by then, or about as much as a robust pre-teen, and her health suffered.

The legislation passed Monday aims to put a stop to the extremes, and by extension ease the pressure on youngsters to emulate the skin-and-bones models, often resulting in dangerous eating disorders.

The new law poses a groundbreaking challenge to a fashion industry widely castigated for promoting anorexia and bulimia. Its sponsors say it could become an example for other countries grappling with the spread of the life-threatening disorders.

It's especially important in Israel, which, like other countries, is obsessed by models, whose every utterance and dalliance is fodder for large pictures and racy stories in the nation's newspapers. Supermodel Bar Refaeli is considered a national hero by many. She is not unnaturally thin.

The new law requires models to produce a medical report no older than three months at every shoot for the Israeli market, stating that they are not malnourished by World Health Organization standards.

The U.N. agency relies on the body mass index, calculated by factors of weight and height. WHO says a body mass index below 18.5 indicates malnutrition. According to that standard, a woman 1.72 meters tall (5-feet-8) should weigh no less than 119 pounds (54 kilograms).

Also, any advertisement published for the Israeli market must have a clearly written notice disclosing if its models were made to look thinner by digital manipulation. The law does not apply to foreign publications sold in Israel.

In Israel, about 2 percent of girls between 14 and 18 have severe eating disorders, a rate similar to other developed countries, experts said.

The law's supporters hope it will encourage the use of healthy models in local advertising and heighten awareness of digital tricks that transform already skinny women into seeming waifs.

The rest is here:
Israeli law eyes super-thin models as bad examples

As a dietitian in private practice, I was hard-pressed to meet a vegan or would-be vegan 20 years ago. Thats not no longer the case. More and more, I am asked to craft plant-based vegetarian meal plans for clients.

Its hard to say how many Canadians are vegan today. As of 2003, 4 per cent of the population said they followed a vegetarian diet, although not necessarily a vegan one.

The prevalence of vegetarianism has undoubtedly increased over the past decade. And many more people are moving in this direction by cutting red meat from their diet.

A vegan diet is the strictest form of vegetarianism. While a vegetarian might pour milk on cereal or eat cookies made with eggs and butter, a vegan avoids all animal products including meat, poultry, fish, eggs, dairy, even honey.

The motivation to adopt such a hard-core diet varies. Some do it for ethical reasons, not wanting to harm animals for human consumption.

Others like the fact a vegan diet is better for the environment than one based on meat. Large-scale meat production is thought to contribute as much as 22 per cent of greenhouse gases in the world each year.

The health benefits are a draw as well. A vegan diet has been shown to improve blood sugar in people with diabetes, lower LDL (bad) cholesterol and blood pressure, and promote weight loss. It may even help prevent colon cancer and heart disease.

Many people became interested when former U.S. president Bill Clinton drew international attention to veganism crediting his weight loss to a plant-based diet.

But perhaps more people are considering veganism because the diet is easier to follow than it used to be. Vegan soups, frozen entrees, energy bars, protein powders, even breads are available in mainstream grocery stores. And a growing number of restaurants are devoted to vegan fare.

Vegan cookbooks are proliferating too. So much so there are vegan cookbooks devoted entirely to slow-cooker meals and vegan entertaining.

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How to have a balanced vegan diet

ScienceDaily (Mar. 20, 2012) In a surprising result, Michigan State University researchers looking at the effects of diet on bowel disease found that mice on a calorie-restricted diet were more likely to die after being infected with an inflammation-causing bacterial pathogen in the colon.

While research suggests inflammation associated with obesity may contribute to inflammatory bowel diseases such as colitis, the study results revealed a low-calorie diet may actually impair the immune system's ability to respond to infection, said Jenifer Fenton, assistant professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition.

Additionally, the study found no connection that moderate obesity increased the severity of colitis in the mouse model.

"The results are similar to the research from our department that shows consuming fewer calories make it harder to fight off the flu virus," said Fenton, referring to recent work by colleague Elizabeth Gardner. "Since this is a totally different pathogen, it amplifies the need to find out why caloric intake has such an impact on the body's ability to respond to infection.

"It is possible that the same mechanism that happens with the flu is occurring with gastro-intestinal diseases; future research will ask this very question."

The research is published in the current edition of the World Journal of Gastroenterology.

Inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD, is a group of conditions affecting the colon and intestines; the major types being ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. People suffering from IBD have an increased risk of developing colon cancer.

As part of their study, Fenton and colleagues evaluated the influence of obesity and calorie-restricted diets on mice with induced colitis.

Mice in the study were given one of three dietary treatments: a high-fat diet, a 30 percent caloric-restriction diet and a control group on an average-caloric diet. They then were treated with bacteria called H. hepaticus, which infects the colon and causes inflammation, eventually leading to tumor development. This process models the more aggressive lesions observed in human colon cancer cases.

Unexpectedly, study results suggest increased body fat induced by a high-fat diet did not influence the severity of colitis, despite changes in hormones that are known to increase with obesity and influence inflammation. In fact, researchers found calorie-restricted mice had a higher mortality rate in response to infection with H. hepaticus, dying before tumors even developed.

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Low-calorie diet may be harmful for bowel disease patients