The anti-cancer drugs are in your medicine cabinet

Did you read about the recent findings that aspirin may prevent some types of cancer not only through suppressing inflammation, but also through decreasing the levels of 2-hydroxyglutarate, and thus, interfering with the metabolism of neoplastic cells?  

This report followed a series of publications that revealed the beneficial effects of vitamin C against some common types of cancer. 

It seems that in addition to good diet and physical activity, some cancer prevention drugs are already in our medicine cabinets.

PS. Here is a link for more on vitamin C and cancer.

How do our docs encourage healthy lifestyle?

Can our doctors serve as a good example of healthy habits? Can they advise on diet and physical activity? Read this post to find out what one doctor thinks about these questions. Keep in mind that at least 44 percent of the American doctors are overweight or obese.

Mini fruit pies

Sugar is not good for us; however, there are holidays when everyone expects a little treat on the table. As long as the treat incorporates healthy ingredients and as little sugar as possible, then we can indulge once in a while. Below is a recipe for one such treat prepared with fruit and served in small portions.

Dough: mix 1 cup of whole-wheat flour, ½ cup of cornmeal, ½ tsp. salt and 6 Tbs. Smart Balance. Mix these ingredients with your hands until crumbs form. Add ¼ cup of water and 1 beaten egg, incorporate by mixing. Wrap the dough with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour (maximum of two days). Spray/oil the muffin pan. To make crust, separate dough into four balls and roll each thinly (1/8 of inch) to yield 6 circles (or 24 circles total). I use a a bowl to cut circles of dough (approximately three times the diameter of a muffin well). Transfer dough circles onto the muffin wells, and fold dough to cover the walls of the well to form “cups”.

Filling:  Mix chopped apples (approximately 1/3 medium size apple per mini-pie) or any other fresh fruit (plums, peaches, pears, etc.) with as little sugar as you can tolerate. To an apple filling, you can add cinnamon, walnuts, and raisins.  For a filling made with pumpkin puree, add sugar, cinnamon, and walnuts to taste. Distribute filling into the dough “cups”. Roll the remaining dough, cut decorative shapes (use a cookie cutter), and put them on top of each mini-pie.  Bake at 375°F for 35-40 minutes or until the crust on top is golden color. Optional: lightly sprinkle sugar or cinnamon sugar on top of the muffins.

Brave the crowds in the mall or take a peaceful nature walk?

Some of the nation’s park systems are inviting visitors on Black Friday. 

First Minnesota announced that all 75 state park and recreation areas will be admission-free on Friday. California joined the initiative with 49 state parks, and Missouri invited visitors for free camping. 

Let us hope that other states will follow the example next year. Maybe opening enclosed sports facilities, botanical gardens, and conservatories for free in regions with colder weather will also be a hit?

Thanksgiving Special: Personalized Nutrition?

A very interesting new study shows that for their sample population, there was a wide variation in post-meal blood glucose form person-to-person even when eating the same food; conversely, what was best for one person was not good for another. An algorithm predicted post-meal blood glucose levels. The authors claim that this type of personalized nutrition will be better than a less efficient “one size fits all” generalized set of dietary recommendations:

  

 Highlights

• High interpersonal variability in post-meal glucose observed in an 800-person cohort
• Using personal and microbiome features enables accurate glucose response prediction
• Prediction is accurate and superior to common practice in an independent cohort
• Short-term personalized dietary interventions successfully lower post-meal glucose

Summary

Elevated postprandial blood glucose levels constitute a global epidemic and a major risk factor for prediabetes and type II diabetes, but existing dietary methods for controlling them have limited efficacy. Here, we continuously monitored week-long glucose levels in an 800-person cohort, measured responses to 46,898 meals, and found high variability in the response to identical meals, suggesting that universal dietary recommendations may have limited utility. We devised a machine-learning algorithm that integrates blood parameters, dietary habits, anthropometrics, physical activity, and gut microbiota measured in this cohort and showed that it accurately predicts personalized postprandial glycemic response to real-life meals. We validated these predictions in an independent 100-person cohort. Finally, a blinded randomized controlled dietary intervention based on this algorithm resulted in significantly lower postprandial responses and consistent alterations to gut microbiota configuration. Together, our results suggest that personalized diets may successfully modify elevated postprandial blood glucose and its metabolic consequences.

Note the graphical and especially, the video abstracts.

 A link to the full paper is here.

From a scientific standpoint, this is a very good, comprehensive, and interesting study, and it highlights the large amount of inter-personal variation in the metabolic response to diet.

Three concerns:

1. From the standpoint of practicality, is it currently realistic to test a significant portion of, for example, the American population in this manner, and generate personalized nutrition for them?  For the more well-off, certainly, but for the masses, we already are in a situation that the health care system is stretched, including financially.  Without having the ability to test the general population, studies like this may be used by some to justify bad eating habits : “I’m likely one of those people who thrive on ice cream!”

2. If a person goes on a personalized diet based on these data, their gut microbiota, as well as aspects of their metabolism, may change over time, which would also change to some extent the degree to which that personalized diet is useful. Will they need to be periodically re-tested, and how would that impact the issues brought up in concern #1?

3. For those people “lucky” enough to get a good response to a “bad” diet, diet compliance may not be an issue, but for many people, compliance will be an issue; people today have difficulty adhering to dietary recommendations. Will they listen better if their personalized profile requires a diet heavy in broccoli?  If they have to make big changes in their diet?  Should this testing therefore be reserved only for those people who exhibit a strong commitment to engage in healthy eating, whatever the outcome of their personal dietary profile is?

In the long run, this study needs to be repeated with a larger, more diverse population. One question to be answered with a larger follow-up study is: for what percentage of the population is a generalized “healthy diet” good?  If a large majority of people – in a very large and diverse population sampled - would get results indicating that the typically recommended “healthy diet” is best, then it may not be necessary to test most people in this manner. Perhaps only the most high-risk individuals would need to be tested, including those who demonstrate high blood glucose even after switching to a “healthy” diet.