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Medical Forum / Diseases and Disorders / Diabetes / March 2006

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Mediterranean Diet Lowers C-Reactive Protein Levels

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Ozgirl - 10 Mar 2006 03:48 GMT
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/525130

"Adherence to a Mediterranean diet, high in fruits and
vegetables and low in saturated fats, lowers levels of
inflammation in the elderly, as reflected by lower levels of
C-reactive protein."

""The (positive) effects of the Mediterranean diet might be
the anti-oxidant components of fruits and vegetables," Dr.
Fair told Reuters Health, "and the anti-inflammatory effects
of the diet may be one explanation for its protective effect
against cardiovascular disease.""
Kurt - 10 Mar 2006 03:58 GMT
> http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/525130
>
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> of the diet may be one explanation for its protective effect
> against cardiovascular disease.""

I think another important factor here (and with most diets) is that if
someone makes a major lifestyle change with their diet they are going
to be healthier for it.  Unless of course it's a really silly diet like
eating nothing but hot dogs all day. :)

It would be interesting to compare someone's general health while
faithfully following a diet like the Mediterranean Diet, South beach,
Atkins, Weight Watchers, etc. with their health while eating the
"average" diet of fast and processed foods that the majority of people
eat.  I would put money on the fact that one's health improves
dramatically when making conscious decisions about what they put in
their tummies.

One other thing, Ozgirl, why did you request your post to NOT be
archived?  It's a good post and might be something someone would want
to reference down the road.  Just curious.

Best,
Kurt
Ozgirl - 10 Mar 2006 04:15 GMT
>> http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/525130
>>
[quoted text clipped - 25 lines]
> archived?  It's a good post and might be something someone would want
> to reference down the road.  Just curious.

Lol, a friend created a utility that changes something in
the registry re archiving. I love playing with utilities, so
I played with it ;)
Kurt - 10 Mar 2006 04:26 GMT
> >> http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/525130
> >>
[quoted text clipped - 45 lines]
> the registry re archiving. I love playing with utilities, so
> I played with it ;)

Okay, that explains it. But I guess it WILL be archived anyway because
I've posted it twice! LOL

Best,
Kurt
Quentin Grady - 10 Mar 2006 07:45 GMT
This post not CC'd by email
On Fri, 10 Mar 2006 03:48:09 GMT, "Ozgirl"
<are_we_there_yet@maccas.com> wrote:

>http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/525130
>
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
>of the diet may be one explanation for its protective effect
>against cardiovascular disease.""

G'day G'day Ozgirl,

"There are other markers of inflammation that we haven't assessed yet
in terms of diet, such as high coronary artery content, which we found
in 200 patients. We have the blood available, we just haven't run the
tests yet," Dr. Fair said.

I found the statement puzzling.  

1. What is coronary artery content?  

2. How does one measure it with a blood test?

Best wishes,
Signature

Quentin Grady       ^  ^  /
New Zealand,       >#,#< [
                   / \ /\    
"... and the blind dog was leading."

http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/quentin

Ozgirl - 10 Mar 2006 10:41 GMT
> G'day G'day Ozgirl,
>
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
>
> 2. How does one measure it with a blood test?

Lol, no idea, hopewfully someone here can figure it out.

The important stuff in that article (for me anyway) was
whether the study showed improvement because of what they
ate or because of what they didn't. I have to say that in my
personal observations, people in the 65+ age group tend to
eat far less than people a lot younger.

Also I am always wary of questionnaire studies but in this
case, if the outcome helped proved the theory that obviously
was the reason for this study then people probably answered
honestly. Whatever, it seems that if anyone ate a similar
diet with the emphasis on all things in moderation they
could most likely have the same results regardless of what
factor determined  the outcome.
Quentin Grady - 10 Mar 2006 17:57 GMT
This post not CC'd by email
On Fri, 10 Mar 2006 10:41:07 GMT, "Ozgirl"
<are_we_there_yet@maccas.com> wrote:

>The important stuff in that article (for me anyway) was
>whether the study showed improvement because of what they
>ate or because of what they didn't.

G'day G'day Ozgirl,

 One thing I liked was the use of a technique similar to linear
subjective analysis.  Hey, I'm on my first coffee for the morning so I
might not have the terminology correct.  Be kind if you are
knowledgeable about these things.

It works like this.  Humans are fabulous when it comes to making
decisions in a LIMITED field. They are lousy and self deluding when it
comes to making over all assessments subjectively.  Interviews are
well known for being the most highly trusted method of selection by
executives and yet having the worst track record. Such is the strength
of the self delusion factor.

Are people eating vegetables? That sort of thing. We can do those sort
of assessment objectively or subjectively. It doesn't matter much.
People do them well.  It is with collective assessment that humans
often get it wrong.  We get hooked up on one or two items and they
colour everything else.  It has been found that expert systems
regularly outperform the experts that devised them because they ask a
simple set of questions eg

1. Do they eat sufficient vegetables?
2. Do they eat a lot of meat?
3. Do they eat a lot of dairy?
4. Do they eat plenty of legumes (beans and peas)  

Notice how subjective each of these assessments are.  OK, they
probably kid themselves that they are objectively comparing them to
soma mythical Mediterranean diet but like who cares.  The reality is
words like "sufficient" "a lot of" "plenty of" are fuzzily defined
subjective concepts.  They give them (+) and (-) scores.  Then they
add them up taking account of the signs. Its gross.  One would think
it would work better if some items had greater weightings than others
but in practice the simpler the totally device the better it works.

> I have to say that in my
>personal observations, people in the 65+ age group tend to
>eat far less than people a lot younger.

True.  People in the 65+ group also represent a survivor population.
This is one reason I studied the dietary beliefs of ELDERLY Greeks.

>Also I am always wary of questionnaire studies but in this
>case, if the outcome helped proved the theory that obviously
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>could most likely have the same results regardless of what
>factor determined  the outcome.

I think you are onto the basic issue here. It is about assessing a
diet in total.  Some of the most successful diets in the world were
deficient in some aspects yet they worked better than the others.

Best wishes,
Signature

Quentin Grady       ^  ^  /
New Zealand,       >#,#< [
                   / \ /\    
"... and the blind dog was leading."

http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/quentin

Jefferson - 10 Mar 2006 19:55 GMT
> http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/525130
>
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> of the diet may be one explanation for its protective effect
> against cardiovascular disease.""

Identification of Lignans as Major Components in the Phenolic Fraction
of Olive Oil -
http://www.clinchem.org/cgi/content/full/46/7/976

It makes a difference if the olive oil is virgin versus refined.

Antioxidant effect of virgin olive oil in patients with stable coronary
heart disease: a randomized, crossover, controlled, clinical trial.
The Mediterranean diet, in which olive oil is the main source of fat,
has been associated with a reduced incidence of coronary heart disease
(CHD) and low blood pressure levels. Virgin olive oil (VOO), besides
containing monounsaturated fat, is rich in phenolic compounds (PC) with
antioxidant properties. The aim of this study was to examine the
antioxidant and anti-hypertensive effect of two similar olive oils, but
with differences in their PC (refined: 14.7 mg/kg versus virgin: 161.0
mg/kg), in 40 males with stable CHD. The study was a placebo controlled,
crossover, randomized trial. A raw daily dose of 50 mL of VOO and
refined olive oil (ROO) were sequentially administered over two periods
of 3 weeks, preceded by 2-week washout periods in which ROO was used.
Lower plasma oxidized LDL (p < 0.001) and lipid peroxide levels (p =
0.003), together with higher activities of glutathione peroxidase (p =
0.033), were observed after VOO intervention. Systolic blood pressure
decreased after intake of VOO (p = 0.001) in hypertensive patients. No
changes were observed in diastolic blood pressure, glucose, lipids, and
antibodies against oxidized LDL. Consumption of VOO, rich in PC, could
provide beneficial effects in CHD patients as an additional and
complementary intervention to the pharmacological treatment.
PMID: 15939067 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Frank
Chris Malcolm - 15 Mar 2006 12:09 GMT
>> http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/525130
>>
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
>> of the diet may be one explanation for its protective effect
>> against cardiovascular disease.""

> Identification of Lignans as Major Components in the Phenolic Fraction
> of Olive Oil -
> http://www.clinchem.org/cgi/content/full/46/7/976

> It makes a difference if the olive oil is virgin versus refined.

> Antioxidant effect of virgin olive oil in patients with stable coronary
> heart disease: a randomized, crossover, controlled, clinical trial.
[quoted text clipped - 18 lines]
> complementary intervention to the pharmacological treatment.
> PMID: 15939067 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Nice to have scientific confirmation of my virgin habit :-) I've long
been a fan of eating most of things, whether they be fruits or
vegetables, simply on the general grounds that that's what most
animals have been doing for most of evolutionary history. I like liver
and gland meats as well as the usual muscle meat, and I like my fish
whole and ungutted, because when I gut them I sometimes find the very
nutritious roes inside which my cats and I greatly enjoy.

My liking of the whole thing clearly goes back a long way. When I was
little my mother objected to me leaving bits of orange peel lying
round the house, so I simply ate them. I came to like them, and today
I'll still eat the peel that other folk discard.

One day when I was four a health visitor came to see if my mother was
looking after me properly. While quizzing my mother about diet, bowel
movements, and so on, the lady observed me bite a bit of peel off an
orange and eat it. She thought I was too young to understand, so she
started to tell my mother a story about a little boy she knew who had
eaten the peel of an orange and become very ill. I realised she was
making it up, so I sat in front of her staring fixedly at her while
all the time slowly eating the entire orange, pips included, until not
a trace was left of it. She got increasingly flustered and told ever
more exaggerated stories about parasites and germs and chemicals.

My mother completely ignored me, fed the health visitor tea and
biscuits, and made polite exclamations of astonishment at every
successively more frightful story of boys who had eaten orange peel.

After the lady had gone my mother said "I don't like people who talk
as though you weren't there. You *were* a bit naughty though." But she
said that with a grin suggesting that there were extenuating
circumstances.

That was the last time the health visitor visited us :-)

Signature

Chris Malcolm cam@infirmatics.ed.ac.uk +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB,  Informatics,  JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

Anil - 15 Mar 2006 13:23 GMT
Chris,

Oh great story Chris. Thanks for sharing. What is most interesting is
as a child somehow you knew that eating the skin was the key. And you
had a good sense to ignore the "experts" who claim they know what they
are talking about!

So after all the beauty is skin deep eh!

Anil
Chris Malcolm - 16 Mar 2006 12:19 GMT
> Chris,

> Oh great story Chris. Thanks for sharing. What is most interesting is
> as a child somehow you knew that eating the skin was the key.

I was only four. I had no idea that orange skin was good for me. I did
know that my mother didn't think it was bad for me, and that I'd been
eating it for a long time without bad effect. I was also sure that if
the frightful stories of what happened to kids who ate orange peel
were true, this wouldn't be the first time my mother would have heard
of them, and it wouldn't be so easy to buy them. Kids often tell each
other lurid made up horror stories like earwigs which eat their way
from one ear to the other while you sleep, and I recognised that this
woman was doing the same thing.

> And you
> had a good sense to ignore the "experts" who claim they know what they
> are talking about!

After the woman had gone my mother made some comment about how stupid
she was. It's quite likely that before the woman arrived, or perhaps
at a previous visit I'd heard the same kind of remark. I was probably
doing nothing much smarter than preferentially paying attention to
mummy, which is a good survival trategy for children :-)

Signature

Chris Malcolm cam@infirmatics.ed.ac.uk +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB,  Informatics,  JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

bj - 15 Mar 2006 19:15 GMT
> One day when I was four a health visitor came to see if my mother was
> looking after me properly.

Why?
Were you or your family under some sort of supervision?
Was this a followup to some sort of problem you were known to have?
Is this a UK practice or something?
bj
Chris Malcolm - 16 Mar 2006 12:08 GMT
>> One day when I was four a health visitor came to see if my mother was
>> looking after me properly.

> Why?
> Were you or your family under some sort of supervision?
> Was this a followup to some sort of problem you were known to have?
> Is this a UK practice or something?

I don't know what the current rules for these visits are, but it has
for long been the case in the UK that the family of every young child
gets visited to see if there are any health or other problems, and to
make sure that the mother knows about any special services or benefits
that she might qualify for because of her special needs or those of
the kid. The child of poor parents, for example, is not supposed to go
short of medical treatment or food because of that. They do pick up
quite a lot of badly cared for children, and of course some abused
children.

Every now and then there's a big scandal because some child is found
to have died of parental abuse and the social services failed to pick
it up in their visits, or failed to notify the appropriate people,
etc.. Heads usually roll.

Signature

Chris Malcolm cam@infirmatics.ed.ac.uk +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB,  Informatics,  JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

bj - 16 Mar 2006 18:08 GMT
Oh.
We just don't have anything like that here in the USA. The only time social
services in its various forms gets involved is if there's already a problem
that's been reported. I think Americans would go ballistic, anyway, if the
gummint started sending people around to check up on their parenting!

But when they do get involved, if there's a Bad Outcome, we also have our
Big Scandals. Sometimes heads roll, but not always & probably not enough of
the right ones. But that's just IMO.
bj

>>> One day when I was four a health visitor came to see if my mother was
>>> looking after me properly.
[quoted text clipped - 18 lines]
> it up in their visits, or failed to notify the appropriate people,
> etc.. Heads usually roll.
Quentin Grady - 15 Mar 2006 19:43 GMT
This post not CC'd by email
On 15 Mar 2006 11:09:29 GMT, Chris Malcolm <cam@holyrood.ed.ac.uk>
wrote:

>My liking of the whole thing clearly goes back a long way. When I was
>little my mother objected to me leaving bits of orange peel lying
[quoted text clipped - 22 lines]
>
>That was the last time the health visitor visited us :-)

G'day G'day Chris,

Thank you for a delightful story.   The response of the health worker
is all too typical of human nature.  Make a post anywhere mentioning
the benefits of fish and someone feels compelled to mention mercury.
They never seem to be aware that most of the fish in the world is not
contaminated and that the assumptions made on the toxicity of mercury
in fish were exaggerated by a factor of ten.  Yes, in some countries
that put profit ahead of the health of their people there is a
problem.  What I'm addressing here is how the typical response people
have to new ideas is often one of anxiety.

Last weekend I put together a new method of accelerated learning for
updating skills. I call it the hoon technique. Hoons view anxiety
differently and in a way that accelerates their learning.

To them,  anxiety is a thrill seeking appreciation.

Best wishes,
Signature

Quentin Grady       ^  ^  /
New Zealand,       >#,#< [
                   / \ /\    
"... and the blind dog was leading."

http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/quentin

Nicky - 17 Mar 2006 21:11 GMT
> One day when I was four a health visitor came to see if my mother was
> looking after me properly. While quizzing my mother about diet, bowel
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> a trace was left of it. She got increasingly flustered and told ever
> more exaggerated stories about parasites and germs and chemicals.

Oh, ghods, I had TWO like that : )  Visits from the health visitor (which
were standard in the UK until the child starts school, or hits 5, whichever
happens first) were always somewhat worth holding your breath during : ) One
health visitor was a Mum, and knew when a rugrat was winding her up - the
other was single, childless, and clueless : )

Nicky.

Signature

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