Damien Sutanto, Author at Magnus Performance

Author: Damien Sutanto

Blood Types and Diet

Posted on May 13, 2016January 20, 2019 by Damien Sutanto

Lets take a break from the diet-heart controversies and talk about something more light shall we? So some of you dear reader have read my opinion on how people reacted differently to different food on past articles and thinks “this guy probably believes in the blood type diet!” Well, must admit that due to my own personal preference in butter and bacon, when somebody told me that due to my A+ blood type I should not eat any meat and dairy, I must see the proof! So let us begin. Note that all reference on the blood type diet will be based on the book “Eat Right 4 Your Type”.

What is Blood Type?

Basically the red blood cells in you blood is decorated with different molecules on their surface. People with type A blood type have a two stage decoration, first stage being the antigen. People with B blood type also has a two stage decoration only with a different second stage than type A. Meanwhile type O only has the first stage. Your immune system is accustomed to the your blood type’s molecular marker and should you be injected with a different blood type it doesn’t recognize will assume that its an infection that must be dealt with, hence the blood clumping I would get if I get injected with type B blood.

What is the Diet’s Underlying Premise?

The underlying premise of the blood type diet (and the book) is that human race migrates and forced to adapt their diet to changing environmental conditions, hence:

- Type O people are from the time we are hunter gatherers, i.e. meat eaters.

- Type A is when we first became farmers, started in Asia and Middle East, i.e. mainly vegetarians

- Type B is when we first migrate from Africa to other continents, developed between 10,000 – 15,000 BC from the Himalaya highlands, basically nomads, dairy eater with flexible diet.

Type AB is from the mixing of type A and B, sensitive digestive tract.

And on and on the book sprouted some bullshit about what personality you are and what your exercise pattern you should do, including mood swings etc.

Why is it a bunch of crock?

Well, based on the short paragraph above, and the book itself (if you choose to read it), its as if blood types are something specific about humans, especially related to their migration pattern. And the Peter D’Adamo makes a pretty good story teller too about the mongolian horde etc. Except that if that is the case, then how come Gorillas, Bonobos, and chimpanzees all have blood types too? If anything, based on blood type research of over 680 great apes, all have blood type grouping similar to humans. You can click on the following link to find the NIH research publication on human and great ape blood type research in 2010. So if you are a B-type, forget about the fantasy that your great ancestors was part of the horde, it might came from before your ancestors were even humans.

Next, is the actual study itself. As they say, if you claim something, you better prove it. And in the case of bood type diet, where is the raw data? The Belgian Red Cross decided to do a study on it, published on the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2013 research regarding validity of the references used by the blood type diet. After poring over 1415 references on the diet, they concluded “No evidence currently exists to validate the purported health benefits of blood type diets.”. That’s right folks, all those “scientific evidences” that was being cited by “doctor” Peter D’Adamo were all fake.

Last but not least, suppose the studies cited by the proponents does not validate the postulate at all, what happens if somebody somewhere did proper study on it with a huuge data set? Well, Professor El-Sohemy of the University of Toronto did that, with 1455 test subjects, complete with DNA analysis. You can click on the following for the study published in 2014 by National Institute of Health regarding the effects of blood type diet And even after taking into account factors ranging from age, sex, ethnicity, and energy intake, the result is a resounding No.

So there you have it ladies and gentlemen, the “postulate” by this homeopath is simply a crock. Now I’m off to enjoy my medium rare beef burger that I pan fried with some butter!

The Cholesterol Myth and The Great Global Diet Fraud (4 out of 10)

Posted on May 10, 2016January 20, 2019 by Damien Sutanto

In case you are wondering about the image choice, cod fish is also high in saturated fat.

So you finished reading the third installment and decided to stick around. Congratulations, you deserve a reward for your healthy skeptic mind. A friend asked “if what I’m saying is true, then why would these people even do it?” Well, very prominent people have received Nobel prizes (and that is a lot of money and prestige) for their “doctored” results, for sure they have some incentives to make sure the story sticks. Not to mention that not many of those doctors educated in the diet-heart myth would be filling to accept that they had spent all their money and effort learning fraudulent knowledge.

And we could also mention big Food and Beverage companies that is taking the fat out of natural products and replace it with sugar and claim its healthy. For example, lets talk about yogurt. They are naturally high in fat, taste good, and because fat oxidizes over time, we call it goes “rancid”, has limited shelf life. Once you take the fat out, it would last longer. Of course without the fat in the yogurt, it would not taste as good, so they dumped some sugar in it and cover the taste. Sugar also acts as a “natural” preservative by the way. Last but not least, you slap it with a “healthy” moniker and charge higher price. So not only would you end up with a product that has unnaturally long shelf life, you could charge a premium on it. This was the scheme 30 years ago. Now everybody is doing it making it virtually impossible to buy natural yogurt anymore or you need to go to a premium supermarket to buy them at premium price.

Last but not least, we have the pharmaceutical companies that are definitely getting richly rewarded for their “life saving” cholesterol lowering drugs.

Now that I have given you a glimpse of the diet-heart conspiracy motivations, allow me to bring you to the next myth:

“Myth 4: Cholesterol Blocks Arteries”

So let me show you the chart progression so far on how this myth relates to the big scheme of the diet-heart myths Dr. Uffe Ravnskov already proven to be false, which are animal fat consumption causes heart disease, high cholesterol causes heart disease, and saturated fat causes cholesterol.

This myth arose in the 1953, again popularized by Dr. Ancel Keys, the same person that created Myth 3. He simply stated that a major characteristic of sclerotic artery (i.e. the hardening of arterial wall) is the presence of abnormal amounts of cholesterol in the artery. And this cholesterol is derived from the blood.”

Interesting considering that he didn’t give any research or proof to back up this claim. He said so and that’s the end of it. In physics we call this postulate, not law and yet the medical community considers this as a law.

Its even interesting considering that in 1936, Pathologist Kurt Landé and the biochemist Warren Sperry of the Department of Forensic Medicine at New York University already did a study on relation between blood cholesterol and atheroschlerosis (the medical term for sclerotic artery) with 390 sample sizes and the result was no relation. Further study in Canada by Dr. Paterson and Dr. Derrick in 1957 to proof Dr. Key’s postulate also came up with no correlation. As with even further study in India by Dr. Mathur in 1961 with 200 sample sizes. Sorry folks, this episode’s myth buster is incredibly short. You can read on Advances of Pharmacology volume 2 that as I quote from page 213, “…no strict correlation is found in individual cases when blood lipids are measured post-mortem with atherosclerotic involvement..”.

Yes, you can also argue that perhaps blood cholesterol immediately dropped the moment you died, in which Dr. Mathur already proven is not the case. The blood cholesterol stayed relatively stable for the first 16 hours.

If you want to read further proofs that this myth is not grounded in reality, you should read more from Dr. Ravnskov’s book where he thoroughly debunked the famed Farmingham study Dr. Keys uses to build his conspiracy.

The Cholesterol Myth and The Great Global Diet Fraud (3 out of 10)

Posted on May 3, 2016January 20, 2019 by Damien Sutanto

Congratulations dear reader for persevering to the third installment of the series. At this point you might be asking if all that I am writing here is true, then how come most DOCTORS don’t even know about it? Well, the problem is that we are dealing with a very strong and entrenched interest coalition of pharmaceutical and consumer goods companies no different than eight decades ago where smoking was considered “healthy” and it took several decade worth of long and hard fight by dedicated individuals before we arrived at the present enlightenment stage on smoking.

Doctors aren’t always the best source of medical knowledge

Second point is that most doctors are busy too, such that they would most of the time even rely on pharmaceutical sales people to teach them about the newest medicine. And lets get it straight, reading the raw data of any medical research and applying your own analysis is a lot of work compared to say… just reading the conclusion, which might differ depending on who is making the conclusion.

Last but not least. We are now already at the end of an era where the “Diet Heart” interest group is slowly starting to die. More and more people, even some of the major actors in the healthcare business like LG are starting to move towards the truth that saturated fat is not the cause of heart disease. Even the US dietary guideline is finally starting the acknowledge the importance of saturated fat in our diet. You can read about it via the Harvard publication on latest dietary guideline and CNN version of dietary guideline.

I try my best to present you with links that will give you the original data of the studies mentioned in Dr. Uffe Ravnskov‘s book. This will give you the opportunity to make your own analysis based on data provided by reliable third party such as US National Institute of Health and leading universities. However, as not all these data are available on public domain, hence some would come from reputable sources that does not include the raw data itself.

So, without further ado, we will now move on to the next myth

“Myth 3: High Fat Foods Raise Blood Cholesterol”

Now before we move on, allow me to introduce you to a chart that relates this myth with the previous two myths:

As I have shown in the first article, there is simply no relation between US animal fat consumption level with deaths from heart disease over the past century. Myth 2 has also been busted on the second article and now we are on to myth 3.

The “Diet Heart” myth is basically joined at the hip with Dr. Ancel Keys credibility. He is the proponent of the seven country study published in 1958 regarding the fat percentage of local diet in various countries vs. the mean serum cholesterol level. The data points fell on a straight line, showing very positive correlation. However, in Dr. Ravsnov’s book, he pointed to other countries Dr. Keys also collected data from but deliberately omitted from the study in which had in included them, would fall very far away from the correlation line. Furthermore, CHD death rates among subjects in Finland, Greece and Yugoslavia with similar serum cholesterol levels varied five fold depending on which area of the country they lived in. I.e. although the people in Finland on average eat the same diet, different areas within Finland would have different average Cholesterol level as if the food doesn’t really matter.

Four studies in the US, one in the UK, one in Israel and one in Finland failed to show any correlation between diet and serum cholesterol levels.

A different study mentioned in US NIH even showed that if you completely take out the saturated fat from the diet and replace it with carbohydrate, the cholesterol level remained the same. The study was done at Maastricht University in Netherlands, published in 2003 focusing on effects of dietary fat and carb consumption on your blood HDL, cholesterol and serum lipids. While yet another study showing no correlation between saturated fat intake and cardiovascular disease. This study was done at Oakland Research Institute in California regarding the association of saturated fat with heart disease, published in 2010. In the book, Dr. Ravsnov tried to eat various number of eggs per day (from 0 to 8) and found no direct correlation with his cholesterol level and one study even had an 88 year old patient eating 25 eggs a day with no effect on his cholesterol level. This study was done by Dr. Fred Kern from University of Colorado School of Medicine published by New England Journal of Medicine in 1991. Need more research to convince you? I suggest you read this blog from Stephan Guyenet, an obesity researcher and neurobilologist, PhD from University of Washington. Which brings the question, if cholesterol level is so important, can you really change it by changing your diet?

The Cholesterol Myth and The Great Global Diet Fraud (2 out of 10)

Posted on April 10, 2016January 20, 2019 by Damien Sutanto

All right, so we here we are picking up after busting up Myth 1: High Fat Foods Causes Heart Disease. I understand its pretty hard to accept since 99.9% of you have been told since high school biology that cholesterol is bad, eat 2 eggs a day max, etc. But as we peel off all the founding arguments of this global fraud, I hope you, dear readers, will bear with me, keep an open mind for how all these past studies are done, what was the actual result, and draw your conclusion based on logic and common sense. Let go deeper into the rabbit hole on Dr. Dr. Uffe Ravnskov‘s book.

Myth 2: High Cholesterol Causes Heart Disease

Your first question upon reading the title will probably be “What is the difference with the first myth?” Well, the first myth is about what you eat and heart disease. This myth is about what is actually measured in your blood and heart disease. Allow me to explain. These days, whenever I catch up with my old high school buddies, one of the things they like to compare is their cholesterol level. Their reaction gets even worse when they learned that I never measure my cholesterol level. And this post will show you why you don’t really need to.

“Healthy” Range

Early since high school, and later if you go to medical school or even half decent personal training certification, they will tell you that less than 200 mg/dL cholesterol level is considered healthy. 200 – 239 mg/dL is borderline high, and over is 240 mg/dL is high. You can read all this on National Institute of Health report on the cholesterol levels.If you are one of those rare individuals that has Familial Hypercholesterolemia, this is correct. If you don’t regularly monitor your cholesterol level, you can easily get a heart attack. You can read more from the National Library of Medicine regarding Familial Hypercholesterolemia.

However, Familial Hypercholesterolemia is a heredity disease. Either you have it since birth or you don’t. And the prevalence rate is only one out of 500. National Institute of Health has the latest study on Familial Hypercholesterolemia done by David Marais, published in 2004. That is a very small minority of the population mind you. Mind you the prevalence of peanut alergy is 1.1% of the general population in USA i.e. 5.5 out of 500. This number is based on study of peanut and tree nut allergy prevalence done by Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 1999. Are you going to tell the everyone to avoid peanut because of this? Lets dwell further on studies done on the general population.

Cholesterol and Old Women

Another thing is that a whole lot of old people are being told to take cholesterol lowering pills by their doctors as a precaution. However, past study done by Dr. Forette in France in 1989 actually showed that old women with HIGH cholesterol level (considered dangerous) actually live longer, with less cardiac issues than those with low cholesterol (i.e. the healthy range). You can read about the research called “Cholesterol as risk factor for mortality in elderly women” published by NIH in 1989. So why are we telling women to lower their cholesterol when they should be doing the opposite?

Now of course this is a limited study on a specific group of population. South Asians and Jamaicans might react differently. But we need to bear in mind that this study proves that you can’t make a general claim that everybody must maintain a low level of cholesterol

Cholesterol Standard Bearer Study

Any medical student worth his or her salt will probably then go to the famous Multiple Risk Intervention Trial (i.e. Mr. Fit) study done in 1982 that covers 12,866 high-risk men aged 35 to 57 years over 7 years of study. Surely such a large study will show beyond doubt that those taking life-changing cholesterol lowering diet will show significant improvement from the control group right?

Bear in mind that the treatment group receives stepped-care treatment for hypertension, counseling for cigarette smoking, and dietary advice for lowering blood cholesterol levels while the control group are just left to fend themselves with whatever is available at their community. Also that smoking has been proven beyond doubt to cause coronary heart disease as written by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute in 2015 regarding the effect of smoking on heart and blood vessels. Turns out total mortality rate for the treatment group is 41.2 out of 1000 while the control group was 40.4 out of 1000, difference of 0.8 person in every 1000. That’s right, MORE people DIED after receiving the treatment. To be fair, those that died out of coronary heart disease is 17.9 deaths out of 1000 in the treatment group and 19.3 deaths in the control group, difference of 1.4 deaths. But if you can claim the 0.8 deaths increase is not statistically significant, then I have the right to say the 1.4 deaths decrease is insignificant too right? after all its still within the same order of magnitude.

Who knows maybe more people died due to stress of not being able to eat their favorite cheese.

Other studies

If you read further into the book, it gets even more interesting how animal studies decades past that is supposed to show higher LDL causes heart disease is literally animal torture similar to recent studies I debunked in which Australian researchers torture fed mice with food that contains 80% fat just to make their point that fat is bad. Some things never changed, including desperate people). Not to mention past studies that supposed to show cholesterol being dangerous to Americans also shows the opposite on Canadians, Stockholmers, Russians or Maoris. Also regarding the accuracy of triglyceride measurement etc.

So there you have it folks, the conclusion of Myth 2. Next time you hear the familiar mantra of “sir, your cholesterol is too high”, kindly ask the person making that statement the following question:

1. What study is used to make this statement

1. Who funded the study, and what are the background of the researchers

1. What are the population demographics and size of the study

1. How was the study actually conducted

What was the actual result of the study

You might be surprised on what you find.

The Cholesterol Myth and The Great Global Diet Fraud (1 out of 10)

Posted on April 5, 2016January 20, 2019 by Damien Sutanto

So here I am, in my mid 30’s, strong enough cardio to do 10 K run under 30 min, visible 6 pack abs, and when I told my mom I could eat up to 5 eggs in a day and I pan fry everything with butter, the first thing she worries about is my cholesterol. So OK mom, this one’s for you, why you probably don’t need to worry to much about how much eggs I eat.

First and foremost, this post is a review of the book “The Cholesterol Myths: Exposing the Fallacy that Saturated Fat and Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease” by Dr. Uffe Ravnskov. I have never met the book writer in person and I get no financial gains from promoting this book that is no longer in print. However I believe this is an amazing book that deserve more exposure among wider audience.

So without further ado, let as start with myths that have been circling around our heads since the 1950’s that our moms still accept as fact:

Myth 1: High Animal Fat Consumption Causes Heart Disease.

First, let us check the US death from major cardiovascular disease from the 1900’s to 2011.

Source: 1900-1970, U.S. Public Health Service, Vital Statistics of the United States, annual, Vol. I and Vol II; 1971-2001, U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, Vital Statistics of the United States, annual; National Vital Statistics Report (NVSR) (formerly Monthly Vital Statistics Report); and unpublished data.

Now Let us compare this with the US population fat consumption

Source: USDA Nutrient Content of the U.S. Food Supply, 1909-2000

Now for all of you that have learned statistics 101 and remember a thing or two about co-relation, you can probably see that the US population death rate due to heart disease is neither proportional, nor inversely proportional with either butter, total or vegetable oil. So if the theory said A causes B, how come the data shows a completely different story?

If you would bother reading the book, it would even expose how African Massai tribesmen that over ate any westerner in red meat and over drank the same westerner on full fat milk has one of the lowest cholesterol level measured based on a study done by Professor [George] Mann [of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, USA] . The book would also mentioned how Honolulu and Puerto Rico citizens that consumed more vegetable oils than animal oil (lard and butter) get more heart attack than those that consume more animal oil in a study conducted by Dr. Tavia Gordon.

This is just the tip of the iceberg on the mountain of data provided in the book that dispels the myth that high animal fat consumption (rich in saturated fat) will cause heart disease. Stay tuned for part 2.

Does Veganism Cause Colon Cancer?

Posted on April 4, 2016January 17, 2019 by Damien Sutanto

As you, dear reader, might have probably guessed from my past diet mythbusting post, I’m a fan of bacon and butter. So imagine by glee I have when ResearchGate, EurekaAlert, Telegraph, and RT news, all excellent source of credible information mind you, claims on their headline that having a vegetarian diet will cause you to get colon cancer.

After all, the vegans and vegetarians including some respected respected UFC fighters like Nate Diaz and his big brother Nick Diaz has been touting abandoning meat and dairy has help them get stronger. Which is strange since if you think about it, the canine and molar teeth in our jaws proved that we evolved as omnivores.

Of course, sometimes the good things in life must end once you do enough reading on the underlying research. Lets get through them one at a time:

What is PUFA and LCPUFA

Human body needs Long-chain Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids (LCPUFA) to function properly from conception to aging. However, LCPUFA are mainly found in fish, along with grass fed mammals and eggs.

What the research actually shows

Based on research done at Cornell University, approximately 70% of South Asians (Indians, Pakistanis and Nepalese), 53% of Africans, 29% East Asians, and 17% Europeans have a very specific genetic variations that could convert plant based Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids (PUFA) into the said essential LCPUFA. There is nothing magical here. Merely the fact that unlike what Paleo nuts insisted, humans do adapt, in this case via genetic mutation, to what they eat. The vegetarians simply become adapted to plant based diet.

So if you are one of these individuals with this genetic variation, you don’t need to eat animal sourced calorie to supply you with LCPUFA.

Where it became a problem

Now what happens in adaptation, borrowing the words of Dr. McGill, is that you usually “rob Peter to pay Paul.” In this case one of the LCPUFA is Omega 6 Fatty Acids is a pro-inflammatory and pro-blood clotting agent that cannot be taken at excessive level and need to be balanced with the anti-inflammatory Omega 3 Fatty acids. Since modern processed sunflower, safflower, corn, soy and peanut oil are especially high in Omega 6 and low in Omega 3 (not an issue with traditional sources like virgin coconut oil and nuts and avocado eaten directly), then in this case, the majority of Indians simply became more vulnerable to inflammation when they consume modern diets (think of chicken deep fried with canola oil) because not only are their body also producing sufficient Omega 6 on their own (unlike majority of Europeans), they also need to cope with additional Omega 6 from their food. Hence, chronic low level inflammation that leads to elevated risk of colon cancer, heart disease and a host of other nasty stuff.

Conclusion

Just putting it out there, the brothers I mentioned early in the article actually eats seafood as they definitely have at least partial European ancestry hence they need the aforementioned LCPUFA from their diet. My advice as usual is the same, first try to eat what your ancestors ate, and as a lot of people (including this article writer) have a mix ancestor here and there, try to experiment a little bit and see what works best for you.

If you are an African Massai herdsman or pure blooded Mongolian and you try to be a vegan without taking appropriate supplements, your children will have higher chance of becoming idiots and you will have higher chance of severe dementia in your old age.

Is This The New Health Food???

Posted on March 29, 2016January 17, 2019 by Damien Sutanto

ATTENTION! Researchers in Japan proved that if you wanna be healthy, you should eat tonnes of carbs. At least that’s what Huffington Post, Elite Daily (one is copy paste from the other btw) and a few other media are trying to convince you based on the article title alone. But does this even make sense? After all, according to American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, increasing consumption of carbohydrates among US population is leading to increase of type 2 diabetes.

So what exactly does the research say? Captain Diet Myth Buster is here to the rescue!

Its is quite interesting that if we look simply look at the US National Institute of Health, it actually refers to the Japanese study as evidence of low carb diet effectiveness on health, particularly on reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes. NOT a high carb diet. So how come the very same research could be considered both as a High Carb and Low Carb at the same time by different people? Yes, you are reading it correctly. Same research, some people say its high carb while some others say its low carb.

1. What is the actual quantity recommended in the study?

Well, first of all, if you look at the Japanese Dietary guideline below:

It does seems to show that you must eat a whole lot of carbs, i.e. 5 – 7 serving of grains compared to 5 – 6 servings of vegetables. However, if you actually spent the time reading the actual research (not from huffpo or elitedaily), you will find that the Japanese definition of 1 serving of grains (carbs) is abut 40 gr while 1 serving of vegetable is 70 grams. I.e. the amount of recommended grain consumption is gram per gram lower than that for vegetables, and not that high compared to what high carb advocates, coca-cola and pepsi would want you to believe.

2. What are the activity levels on the research subjects?

As I have previously emphasized on the importance of exercise for health and for weight loss, you cannot separate the diet from the activity of the research subject. In this case, even the FAO and Australian Sports Commission states that athletes active in endurance and High Intensity training need to consume more carbohydrates than normal population. And if you read more of the research subject and buried at the end of the Huffpo piece, you will find that the test subject as a population walks and are physically more active than the general population. Hence it does not translate to the current generation of desk jockeys that are only highly trained on the finger motor control skills.

3. What I would recommend

Yes, the same old tirade, hit the gym folks! But as Gray Cook once said, move well, then move a lot. Get a good PT or Physio that will teach you to move properly, use the hip hinge more and spare your knees on your movement patterns. As for diet goes, forget about the fad diets and eat more of what your great grandma would recognize as wholesome food. Having said that, I do put my dad on my own special mix of nutrition and he can still do a 7 K jog 3x a week even though he is past 74 now.

Why it is safe for you to eat that bacon anyway

Posted on March 24, 2016January 17, 2019 by Damien Sutanto

So in October 2015, WHO decided to classify processed meat as a Group 1 carcinogen. It share the same classification as asbestos and smoking. The basis of this justification is the research done by Global Burden of Disease Project that placed an estimated 34,000 death globally due to diets high in processed meat on an annual basis. Understandably, this leads to a flurry of both sensationalist and respected media such as the guardian, Canadian Cancer Society, American Cancer Society, and BBC all to publish articles about the evils of processed meat. And it leads to the Big Asian Guy’s lovely Significant Other to understandably started getting worried about his bacon consumption. Hence me writing this article to both ease her mind and make sure you, my dear readers will also be properly armed to ease your SO’s mind.

Mind you, according to WHO, processed meat are:

“Processed meat refers to meat that has been transformed through salting, curing, fermentation, smoking, or other processes to enhance flavour or improve preservation. Most processed meats contain pork or beef, but processed meats may also contain other red meats, poultry, offal, or meat by-products such as blood.

Examples of processed meat include hot dogs (frankfurters), ham, sausages, corned beef, and biltong or beef jerky as well as canned meat and meat-based preparations and sauces.”

So if you think it doesn’t concern you since you hate bacon but love beef jerkey or heck, even smoked salmon, then you are wrong, this does concern you and the food you love.

First and foremost, the basis of this classification is their research finding that shows sufficient evidence that processed meat causes colorectal cancer. Nasty disease I agree. There is no sufficient evidence linking it to any other form of cancer. An association with stomach cancer, yes, but no conclusive evidence. And this is after combing through 800 studies on cancer in humans, and 400 epidemiology studies on processed meat, the study is done by 22 experts from 10 countries. If there is a conclusive evidence linking processed meat with any other cancer, they would have found it.

Second of all, although 34,000 deaths might sound a lot, these numbers contrast with about 1 million cancer deaths per year globally due to tobacco smoking which is also placed within the same category. And I would argue that there are way more people eating processed meat than there are people smoking.

Third, the ABSOLUTE risk factor increase from consuming processed meat DAILY compared to going all paleo vegan here is 18%. I am not making this up. All 3 facts can be found on the first link I gave on top of this article.

Now after we consider these three facts, lets step back a little bit and do a little bit of research on what IS the baseline risk of getting a colorectal cancer anyway, as in based on the current diet of different cultures GLOBALLY. According to research published on Clinical Colorectal Journal in 2009, the highest population-at-risk for colorectal cancer are the people in United States, Australia and New Zealand, and Western Europe which is 40 out of every 100,000 people (0.04% mind you) whereas in Africa and some parts of Asia, its down to 5 out of every 100,000 people (0,005%). WITH EXISTING DIET. Suppose you abandon your existing diet and go all monk, the ABSOLUTE decrease in risk is (0.04% times 18%) ….0.0072% if you are on the HIGHER population bracket. Mind you, according to US National Weather Service, your odds of getting struck by lightning over your LIFETIME (approximately 80 years) is 0.0083%. The decrease in risk by changing your lifestyle is less than the chance of you getting hit by a lightning. And based on our dear NSC friend’s data in 2002, the chances of death while being a car passenger 1 out of 17,625. Are you going to stop riding a car?

So do you think its worth changing your diet? Bring on the bacon darling!

Will you be the next victim of this silent killer?

Posted on March 24, 2016January 20, 2019 by Damien Sutanto

Harvard researchers estimated that this killer is responsible for over 5.3 million death in 2008 alone, same as cigarette smoking. Another study published by the Lancet finds that this global pandemic is the fourth leading cause of death worldwide. It is …. the globalization of the American lifestyle!

Call it irony, but the rise of technological advancements that brought us modern day conveniences might actually decrease our lifespan. BBC and NY Times among other leading publications have all predicted that the current generation will have a shorter lifespan than the previous generation. This sedentary lifestyle have led Huffington Post to call “sitting is the new smoking”. But if you are thinking that chucking out your sitting desk over for a standing desk will help, then sorry, latest research published on the Cochrane Library has shown that its more of a fad than actual science.

Hence the actual solution to this epidemic is for people to started moving more. Based on the US National Health Interview Survey in 2000, 2005 and 2010, increasing number of doctors are starting to prescribe exercise to their patients. Because exercise has been proven to be a better medicine both to help many things from increase insulin sensitivity for diabetic people, treating depression and anxiety, heck if you have a bad knee, proper exercise (I emphasize that you MUST get a good personal trainer not some guy that got his certificate from some “guru” that never does his own research) is actually more effective than glucosamine.

And no, despite what some people claim, simple 1/2 hour brisk walking is not enough. US based Centers of Disease Control and Prevention recommends men, women and even children to do both cardio and weight training. Hong Kong Department of Health also recommend both cardio and weight training. So at the end of the day, its not your pills of standing desks or excuses from some doctors with outdated knowledge that will help you. Its regularly hitting some “iron diet”. Are you finally going to get off your bum or are you still waiting to be the next victim of this global pandemic?

Check out my YouTube channel for some strength training ideas and leave a comment there or on FaceBook. Remember folks, if you experience any joint pain or other problems while doing any exercise, you should regress it or better yet, contact me as not all the exercises are for everyone.[:id]Para Peneliti dari Harvard memperkirakan pembunuh

Persistent low back pain and associated myths

Posted on March 21, 2016January 20, 2019 by Damien Sutanto

According to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, between 75% to 85% of the population are experiencing lower back pain. According to University of Maryland, it is the leading cause of disability among male under the age of 45. So if you are one of those people that are experiencing them at the moment, of having recurring episodic pain, understand that you are not alone.

So what happened if you have tried all, and nothing works. What does it mean when the leading “experts” claimed that its all in your head? Does it mean that you are going mad? What happens if you are sure if its real? Recent studies indicate that orthotics, acupuncture, even specialized beds has been inconclusive. In fact, according to Dr. Stuart McGill, Professor of Kinesiology at University of Waterloo, most back surgery does not give long term success for patients based on his 30 years experience. Does that mean that you are doomed to live with this pain for the rest of your life?

The main problem with low back pain is that people seems to think every one has the same problem and should be treated the same. But sorry folks, low back pain is not the same with diabetes. It’s more similar to cancer. Based on Dr. McGill’s research, there’s more than 6 different pain triggers for low back pain, all of them are associated with different conditions, and all each have unique solution. There is a time and place for back surgery, and most of the time you don’t need it. Of course, since a doctor’s time is precious, it will save the doctor a lot of time to give a general prescription to all low back pain (i.e. pain killer) and some common therapy exercise (i.e. yoga, pilates or swimming) before simply giving them a nuclear option (i.e. surgery) when it doesn’t work WITHOUT even trying to find the real trigger of your pain. Sounds familiar with you?

So what should you do? Finding a good back expert that is really passionate about helping people would be one. If you are lucky. Another option would be to simply read Back Mechanics by Dr. Stuart McGill, learn how to identify your own pain triggers and how to address them yourself. Hey, its definitely cheaper than a a visit to the chiropractor.

Oh, and the myths? Well, here are some of them based on the book:

Myth: Stretching will help cure my backpain. Truth: Stretching will induce the stretch reflex in your muscles, giving temporary relief on the area. But if your pain is say due to disk bulge (what I used to have), then it actually put further stress on the affected disk. the relief itself only last 20 – 40 minutes.
Myth: Pilates and or yoga will help cure my back. Truth: Some of the exercises in Pilates are actually bad for your lower back. Bad yoga teachers will get you bed bound for months by encouraging bad posture.
Myth: My surgeon will cut my pain away.. Truth: In most cases, surgery will cause irreversible damage making you worse off than you were in the long run
Myth: They say its all in my head. Truth: They need to get sent back to school, most of the time there is a cause and effect relationship between your pain and a physical phenomenon in your back.
Myth: This pain killer the doctor prescribed will take care of the pain. Truth: unless the underlying cause is being addressed, you will ended up being dependent on the pain killer, most likely with ever increasing dosage.
Myth: This work hardening exercise will make me less sensitized to the pain. Truth: You will be more sensitive to the pain just like a sore thumb will not become less sensitive by continually hitting it with a hammer.

References:

American Association of Neurological Surgeons, December 2011
University of Maryland, January 2012
Painscience.com, July 2013
Rosner A. J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 2014
Clin J Pain. 2013 Feb;29(2):172-85. doi: 10.1097/AJP.0b013e31824909f9. Acupuncture for low back pain
Stuart McGill research, http://www.ahs.uwaterloo.ca/~mcgill/
Stuart McGill, Back Mechanics: Step by step McGill method to fix back pain

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