Friday, February 29, 2008

The Amazing Power of Lycopene for Prostate Health

By Joseph McCaffrey, MD, FACS

You may have heard about lycopenes before.  These are compounds found in many brightly colored vegetables and especially in tomatoes.  They've gained some prominence because population studies have suggested that men who ate several servings of tomato products a week had a lower risk of prostate problems than those who didn't. 

Now there's a study from Germany¹ showing even stronger proof of the benefit of adding lycopene to your diet.

Benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) is a condition in which the cells of the prostate are starting to become a little abnormal.  They aren't cancerous yet, but it's considered a precancerous condition.  Men who have it are at an increased risk of prostate cancer in the future.

In the study, 40 men who had this condition proven by biopsy of their prostate were divided into two groups.  One received 15 mg of lycopene daily in a capsule for six months.  The other group received a look-alike placebo.

After only six months, the results were astounding.

As you probably know, rising PSA (prostate specific antigen) levels can reflect developing prostate cancer.  In the group receiving the lycopene, PSA levels decreased.  There was no change in the placebo group.

The researchers measured size of the prostate in all the men by both digital rectal exam and trans-anal ultrasound (women who complain about mammograms might want to consider how the prostate is examined).  Prostate enlargement by both measures progressed in the placebo group.  Prostate size stabilized in the lycopene group.

Very importantly, the symptoms of prostate disease, as measured by the International Prostate Symptom Score questionnaire, improved more in the lycopene group than in the control.

All in all, these are very impressive findings, especially since they were achieved using an extremely safe dietary supplement.

This study was done in men who already had a dangerous situation developing in their prostate.  Why wait until you have that problem?  I recommend getting lycopene in your diet now.

You can take a supplement, as in the study, but as usual I recommend food as the primary source and supplements as the backup.  One cup of tomato juice or a tomato-based vegetable juice (like V-8) has over 20 mg of lycopene -- more than the 15 used in the study.

Here's what I suggest.  Keep low-salt or no-salt organic tomato juice in your fridge.  Most mornings, have a cup of it with a teaspoon of horseradish (horseradish is high in cancer-fighting compounds known as glycosinolates) and a dash of Morton's potassium chloride salt replacement.  It counts as a serving of vegetables and has a host of nutrients in addition to lycopene.

Or take the supplement.  Either way, add this prostate-protecting nutrient to your diet.

(See this week's recipe for a lycopene-rich main course that's sure to please. Ed.)

Reference

1. Schwarz et al. J. Nutr. 138:49-53, January 2008.

[Ed. Note: Joseph F. McCaffrey, MD, FACS is a board-certified surgeon with extensive experience in alternative medicine, including certification as a HeartMath Trainer.  His areas of expertise include mind-body interaction and cognitive restructuring.  Dr. McCaffrey strives to help people attain their optimum level of vitality through attention to all aspects of wellness.  For more information, click here.]

Despite what unscrupulous diet ‘gurus' would have you believe, weight loss is all about calories. You can employ all manner of highly hyped diet gimmicks, but you simply will not lose weight (aside from temporary water or fecal losses) if you do not establish a calorie deficit. To lose weight, you must burn more calories in a given period of time than what you ingest. No one, and I mean no one, has ever demonstrated that it's possible to lose weight comprised primarily of fat, when ingesting more calories than you expend.  It's physically impossible.

The safest method of increasing calorie expenditure is via physical exercise. Both low-intensity and high-intensity exercise regimens cause an increase in calorie expenditure. For example, a 165-lb person cycling at a 10 mph pace for 60 minutes will burn around 375 calories more than if they had spent that time sitting. Not surprisingly, higher intensity activities such as fast cycling or running cause a greater number of calories to be burned than slow running or cycling. If our 165-lb subject cranks up his cycling speed to a brisk 15 mph, then he will burn an extra 1050 calories during a 60-minute ride.^1-2

The calorie-burning benefits of higher intensity exercise don't stop when you finish your workout. After low-intensity exercise, your caloric expenditure promptly returns to baseline levels. However, after intense exercise, your body will continue to burn calories at an accelerated rate for periods ranging from several hours up to 48 hours.

It's important to keep the extent of this post-exercise calorie burn in proper perspective, as it is often overblown. A recent survey of the evidence found that up to an extra 100-200 calories per day can be expended in the 24-48 hours following a high intensity cardio session.³   While that's no doubt better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, it's not the kind of calorie boost you can rely on solely for fast fat loss progress.

If your primary goal is fat loss, then there is a limit to the number of calories you will burn using brief High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) workouts. You'll be pushing to burn 200 calories during a short Tabata-style* HIIT session that lasts less than 15 minutes. Add another 100 calories burned over the next 24 hours from increased post-exercise metabolism, and you still have a calorie burn of only 300 calories or less.

As several researchers have emphasized, the main calorie-burning effects of exercise occur during the actual exercise session itself. The calorie burn during exercise is influenced by both intensity and duration.^4-7  Exercising at a more moderate but still reasonably high level of intensity (primarily in the 70-85% maximum oxygen consumption range) might not cause the same degree of excess post-exercise oxygen consumption and will cause a lower amount of calories to be burned per minute than brief but super intense HIIT, but the longer duration will result in a higher overall calorie expenditure.

For example, a 165-lb person stationary cycling at a vigorous pace (200 watts) for 45 minutes will burn 590 calories during the exercise session alone -- around twice the total calorie burn that can be expected from a brief HIIT session.

The Long and Short of Cardio Training

When it comes to maximally increasing your fitness, research has shown HIIT to be the king of cardio. In contrast, if your primary goal is fat loss, then you must understand that HIIT will not cause the same calorie expenditure as longer duration cardio performed between 70-85% maximum oxygen consumption range.  This must be taken into account when structuring your diet and exercise regimen to create a calorie deficit.

When implementing a cardio program for fat loss, you have a number of options:

1. Focus on steady state cardio performed at 70-85% maximum oxygen consumption.

2. Focus on HIIT. Individuals pressed for time or whose focus is maximal fitness can rely on HIIT for their cardio workout, keeping in mind that the reduced calorie burn (as compared to steady state cardio) may need to be countered by tightening up their diet slightly.

3. Use a combination of steady state and HIIT cardio. For example, you may choose to do steady state cardio in the morning or during lunch break, then a brief HIIT session after your weight-training workout in the evening. That way, you get the best of both worlds:  the fitness boosting effect of HIIT and the heightened calorie burn from steady state cardio.

4. Use HIIT and steady state cardio in the same workout. For the iron-willed, another option is to perform an HIIT session, then continue doing steady state cardio for another 45 minutes or so.

*The Tabata Protocol is explained in Part 1 of this article published in the February 26th issue of Total Health Breakthroughs.

References

1. Ainsworth BE, et al. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 1993; 25: 71-80.
2. Ainsworth BE, et al. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 2000; 32 (Suppl): S498-S516.
3. Hunter GR, et al. International Journal of Obesity, Jun, 1998; 22 (6): 489-493.
4. LaForgia J, et al. Journal of Sports Science, Dec, 2006; 24 (12): 1247-1264.
5. Laforgia J, et al. Journal of Applied Physiology, Feb, 1997; 82 (2): 661-666.
6. Bahr R, et al. Journal of Applied Physiology, Feb, 1987; 62 (2): 485-490.
7. Gore CJ, Withers RT. Journal of Applied Physiology, Jun, 1990; 68 (6): 2362-2368.

[Ed. Note: Anthony Colpo is an independent researcher, physical conditioning specialist and author. Learn more about Anthony's latest book, The Fat Loss Bible, by clicking here.]

In my book, The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth, I list chocolate as one of the best foods on earth.

Chocolate is also one of the seven foods that make up what researchers writing in the British Medical Journal¹ called the "Polymeal," a kind of super meal that, if eaten daily or even a few times a week, could conceivably reduce heart disease and death by double digit percentages.

So what should we make of a  new study suggesting that regular consumption of chocolate may weaken bone density and strength, which in turn could increase the risk of health problems such as osteoporosis and fracture?

According to the study,² published recently in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, women who eat chocolate daily have an overall bone density 3.1% lower than those who consume it less than once a week.

Should you be worried? Was I and everyone else wrong about chocolate's "super food" status? Is this another example of nutritionists "changing their collective mind"?

Nope. This is quite simply one of the dumbest studies ever published.

Why is this the dumbest study ever done? Because -- I hope you're sitting down -- the researchers didn't bother to distinguish among the types of chocolate consumed!

So here's the deal: what the researchers really found was that women who eat chocolate candy on a daily basis have weaker bones than those who don't. There was absolutely no distinction made between a bar of Hershey's Milk Chocolate (which has virtually no protective flavonols) and a bar of 80% cocoa dark chocolate.

This is why people go nuts when they hear nutrition research and feel like experts don't know what they're talking about. Many studies say chocolate is great (for lowering blood pressure among other things) and now this study says it's bad. No wonder the public gets confused.

But the truth is, they're using the word chocolate to talk about two entirely different substances. A candy bar with tons of sugar, wax, emulsifiers, chocolate flavoring, and no naturally occurring phenols to speak of is not the chocolate we mean when we talk about high cocoa dark chocolate -- these researchers didn't seem to notice the difference, and referred to both of them as "chocolate."

That's like doing a research study on "athletes" and not bothering to distinguish between Olympic runners and retired shuffleboard players.

Since the researchers didn't bother to ask, let me venture a wild guess. The ladies in this study were not consuming 80% cocoa dark chocolate daily. They were eating candy bars.  The results of this study should have been reported this way: sugar contributes to weak bones.

This study actually has nothing to do with the kind of chocolate I wrote about in The 150 Healthiest Foods Earth. It has to do with candy and sugar.  It's unbelievable that the researchers didn't know enough to distinguish between the two.

References

1. Franco OH et al. British Medical Journal , Vol 329, p 1447, 2004.
2. Hodgson, JM et al. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 87, No. 1, 175-180, January 2008.

[Ed. note: Dr. Bowden is a nationally known expert on weight loss, nutrition and health. He's a board certified nutrition specialist with a Master's degree in psychology. Dr. Bowden is also a life coach, motivational speaker, former personal trainer and author of the award-winning book, Living the Low Carb Life.  For more information, click here.]

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