February 27, 2020

A Plant-Based Solution for Depression

February 27, 2020/ Ishan Khare

Depression, also known as major depressive disorder or clinical depression, is one of the most commonly diagnosed mental illnesses. [1,2] Feeling sad or down is a natural human emotion; in fact, it’s part of being human. However, depression is not just feeling sad. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, symptoms must be present for at least two weeks before being diagnosed with depression. [1] Symptoms of depression include “low or sad mood, diminished interest in activities that used to be pleasurable, weight gain or loss, fatigue, inappropriate guilt, difficulty concentrating, and recurrent thoughts of death.” [2]

According to NIMH ( National Institute of Mental Health) an estimated 3.2 million adolescents aged 12 to 17 in the United States had at least one major depressive episode. This number represented 13.3% of the U.S. population aged 12 to 17. In addition to emotional well-being, depression can also take a toll on health care costs and workplace productivity. Antidepressants, which are used to treat depression, come with side effects and create a lifelong expense in many situations. Besides personal expenses, “depression causes the loss of an estimated 200 million workdays each year, costing employers between $17 and $44 billion.” [3] Lastly, almost 20 million people suffer from depression in the United States alone.

Surely, this means that depression is a major issue that we need to focus on. A lot of research in the field supports a whole food plant-based diet for depression!

Oxidative free radicals have been shown to play important roles in various neuropsychiatric disorders such as major depression. [4] However, the effects of this oxidative stress can be dampened by consuming antioxidants. Eating more fruits and vegetables means eating a higher amount of antioxidants and reducing the effects of depression.

For example, a study published in the journal Preventive Medicine surveyed nearly 300,000 Canadians aged 12 and older. The objective of the study was to “examine the association between fruit and vegetable intake (FVI) and mental health disorders.” They found that “greater fruit and vegetable consumption was associated with lower odds of depression, psychological distress, self-reported mood and anxiety disorders, and poor perceived mental health.” [5] They concluded that “A healthy diet comprised of a high intake of fruits and vegetables is rich in antioxidants, and consequently may dampen the detrimental effects of oxidative stress on mental health.” [5]

Based on these conclusions one may wonder, “If it’s the antioxidants that lower the odds of depression, then won’t antioxidant pills do the same?” The answer is no! A lot of recent studies show that antioxidants in the form of pills won't be as effective as fresh fruits, vegetables, and a whole food plant-based diet would be. The main treatment for mental health currently is antidepressants.

Another study published in the March/April issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion demonstrates how a plant-based nutrition program improves not only depression, but anxiety, fatigue, productivity, and other markers of well-being. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) has a blog post titled Foods that Fight Depression which has a detailed elaboration of the study. However, for me, the most impact making part of the blog was the chart. The graph below shows that just by simply eating a whole food plant-based diet, emotional well being was improved substantially.

Chart Credits: Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM)

Depression not only ruins a person's family life but also social life too. You can read the incredible stories on Forks over Knives of how someone tackled depression just by going plant-based! Read this inspiring story from Forks Over Knives. [6]

Once we accept that we want to make our lifestyle plant-based, the question of how arises. Here is a prior blog where I have described different ways to make a positive change and take control of your life. Some people choose to make an overnight change to whole food plant-based, while others decide to follow a moderate way by slowing winning over days of the weeks being plant-based. To help everyone make this a successful transition, I have added a whole page dedicated to recipes. Still, if you are not sure about making the shift to a whole food plant-based diet, feel free to research around this website on your own. After reading this blog, you may have decided to change your lifestyle to plant-based, and I applaud your decision. I wish you may seek all the support to sustain your lifestyle!

Sources:

[1] https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/depression/index.shtml

[2] https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/depression/

[3] https://www.pcrm.org/good-nutrition/food-and-mood

[4] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278584612002722?via%3Dihub

[5] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743512006330?via%3Dihub

[6] https://www.pcrm.org/news/blog/foods-fight-depression

December 31, 2019

5 Steps to Make Your New Year’s Nutrition Resolution Successful

December 31, 2019/ Ishan Khare

Happy New Year!

As the new year arrives people analyze their lives and wish to bring positive changes. So, everyone comes up with a New Year's resolution and hopes to stick to it throughout the year. Some do become successful, but most of the resolutions don’t make it past January. I wondered why it was that hard and took a plunge into human psychology. Here are the reasons why resolutions fail that I could find out from my research.

The resolution is not specific enough. Jonathan Alpert, the author of "Be Fearless: Change Your Life in 28 Days," says in his interview with Business Insider, that people make vague goals like “lose weight” and “exercise more” and fail to stick to them.
Not framing positively. People frame their resolution with negativity e.g., “I am not going to eat junk food or not get drunk.”
Goals are too ambitious. I am going to run a marathon or lose 50 pounds in two months is too ambitious a goal if not planned out very well.
Making a resolution for others. Sometimes people make resolutions by getting influenced by their friends without knowing what they really want. Sometimes people make career advancement goals or earn degrees or certifications in new fields under the influence of others like uncles, aunts, or very successful friends, instead of knowing one’s own personality or needs.
Lack of planning and thought behind it. Most resolutions fail because they are not well planned. People greatly underestimate the power of planning to be successful in anything they want to achieve.

Well, what if we are determined to stick to our resolution the whole year! Many of you reading this blog may choose to go plant-based in 2020. Now let’s explore how to do it right.

1. Make a very specific resolution. Most people don't successfully follow through on their resolutions — largely because they're so general and non-specific. That's where science and research can help. Using specific, science-backed resolutions, you can boost your chances of successfully transforming your life in the New Year. By watching documentaries and reading books, convince yourself to come up with your goal. Here, it could be completely changing your lifestyle to plant-based in 3 years. See this earlier blog post which elaborates upon the following approach. Here are a few methods to go plant-based!

You can go plant-based suddenly overnight, but plan rigorously and find a lot of social and emotional support to stick to your resolution.
Go a little slower and give up one item each month (Red meat in January, poultry in February, etc.) gaining total control by the end of the year and not having to resort back to old bad-eating habits again.
Another way that works with great success is going week by week. For example, all lunches could be plant-based. Then, once this is achieved for a few weeks, go for plant-based dinners as well. This strategy allows one to called acquire “new territory” and “hold the ground that is conquered.” The beauty of this strategy is that even if progress stalls for a while we will have made a sustainable move toward our goal.

2. Frame your resolution positively. Positive thinking gives the emotional strength to turn any resolution into a success. Instead of saying “I am not going to eat meat,” positively frame it as “I will eat more whole food plant-based foods,” or “I will taste more variety of plant-based dishes.” This will shift your focus from thinking about not eating meat and the feeling that you are giving up something up, to positively thinking about eating plant-based which is much healthier. It will also make the quest for new dishes exciting and something to look forward to.

3. Make reachable and reasonable goals. Making simple and reasonable goals is the key to success. You can simplify your goal into bite-size portions that you can achieve step by step. Then evaluate your results and tweak or change your strategy if needed.

4. Make a resolution only for you. Researchers at Harvard Medical School agree. They wrote in a 2012 blog post that “long-lasting change is most likely when it's self-motivated and rooted in positive thinking.” Do change the one thing which really bothers you. Feel yourself thoroughly convinced that it's you who wants to see that change in your life. Getting influenced initially by your friends or by a motivational speaker is okay, but you as an individual need to understand the change is only good if it makes one happier than before.

5. Plan, evaluate, reward and replan.

Plan- Making any project successful needs a great amount of planning. Even though we cannot anticipate every scenario or every situation, giving a bit of thought may help avoid many disasters. Plan situations like birthday parties or eat-out dinner invitations and how you are going to handle them. Are you going to eat at home before you leave or going to let the host know that you are following a certain diet? Plan when you have a busy work week: what are the quick meals that you can plan ahead of time. What are your strategies for travel? Are you going to forgive yourself on that day, or are you going to pack your food with you?

Evaluate- Even after you plan ahead, you may still find it hard to stick to your resolution. In those cases, evaluate your plan. Look for the things which worked well and inculcate those things more in your planning for the subsequent weeks. If you thought that you will cook meals at home, see how that experience was. Can you continue with that strategy? If the experience wasn’t so good, what changes can you implement for next time?

Reward- Rewarding yourself after small achievements is a great emotional booster. It will motivate you more likely to stay on the path. It makes you feel like you have done it and if you follow your strategy you will do it again too.

Re-plan- After evaluating, if you feel something was a total disaster, then you are most likely to give up. That’s the mistake most people make and never get back on track. Here one needs to replan. Accept the failure and plan again. See what and why things didn’t work out. See how you can change them and make a new plan. Again follow the same steps and if it worked well for you, great! If it failed, then replan till you achieve it. When we are traveling in unknown territory, uncertainty and failures are the passengers that we are going to take with us in our back seat.

I bumped across something online which is the one thing to remember if you forget all else, “Prior Planning & Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.”

I wish all the great success to all of you on this wonderful journey of a whole food plant-based lifestyle!

July 09, 2019

Obesity and How to Maintain a Healthy Weight

July 09, 2019/ Ishan Khare

Obesity is defined by the Mayo Clinic as having an excessive amount of body fat. Specifically, “Obesity is diagnosed when your body mass index (BMI) is 30 or higher.” [1] To understand the immense scale of this issue it’s important to review some numbers. According to the United States National Center for Health Statistics, the percent of adults aged 20 and over with obesity is about 40%. Also staggeringly large is the percentage of adults aged 20 and over that are either overweight or obese, which is 71.6% [2] If the current trend continues, almost 100% of Americans will be obese by the end of the century. [3]

Not only does the obesity epidemic affect the majority of American adults, but it also prevalent in children. Over 1 in 5 adolescents aged 12-19 years have obesity. Overall, 18.5% of youth have obesity. The fact that such a large proportion of our population suffers from being obese and overweight means that this problem is of utmost importance and urgent action is needed.

Adult Obesity Prevalence Map of the US by state. Based on Self-Reported Obesity data Among U.S. Adults by State and Territory, BRFSS, 2017 Source: Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System

However, being overweight or obese is not an irreversible condition. Dr. Walter Kempner, the father of modern-day diet therapy, first introduced his dietary program to treat chronic kidney disease in 1939. His treatment consisted of white rice, fruit, juice, and sugar. However, the benefits of the diet surpass any drug or surgery ever prescribed for conditions such as coronary artery disease, heart and kidney failure, hypertension, diabetes, arthritis, and obesity. [4,5,6]

This image shows the results of Dr. Kempner’s rice diet.

Dr. Kempner then published an analysis of 106 patients who each lost at least 100 pounds. He wrote, “This study demonstrates that massively obese persons can achieve marked weight reduction, even normalization of weight, without hospitalization, surgery, or pharmacologic intervention.” [7] However, even Dr. Kempner himself considered the rice diet pretty drastic and said it should not be attempted without supervision. Nonetheless, his work was groundbreaking in demonstrating the power of simply changing one’s diet. His brilliant work influenced many doctors and nutritionists who continued expanding the field of nutrition science. [4,5,6]

A study published in the peer-reviewed Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics analyzed the diets of 13,000 people and compared the nutrient intake of those eating meat, to those eating meat-free diets. They found that those eating ovo-lacto vegetarian were getting higher intakes of nearly every nutrient including more fiber, more vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, thiamin, riboflavin, folate, calcium, magnesium, iron, and potassium. These people were also eating less harmful items like saturated fat and cholesterol. [8,9]

The ovo-lacto vegetarians were, on average, eating 363 fewer calories every day normally. The researchers concluded that “Just following a vegetarian diet alone, without focusing on calorie reduction, could result in initial weight loss for some individuals.” [8] As for long term sustainability, more plant-based diets are the only types of diets that have been shown to be long-lived. [10] Additionally, according to a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Metabolism, found that those eating more plant-based diets appear to have an 11% higher resting metabolic rate. In fact, vegetarians may burn more calories in their sleep itself! [11]

However, it is worth noting that the vegetarians in the study of 13,000 people also consumed eggs and dairy. Although they were significantly slimmer than those eating meat, they were still, on average, overweight. “The only dietary pattern associated with, on average, ideal body weight was a strictly plant-based one.” [9]

A relatively new concept, energy density explains how one can eat more while still losing weight. “Energy density is defined as the amount of energy per unit weight of a food or beverage.” [12,13] For example, foods high in energy density include foods like crackers, cookies, butter, bacon, eggs, animal fats, and oils. Foods low in energy density include most fresh fruits and vegetables; examples include tomatoes, cucumbers, and cantaloupe. [12]

In general, there is a relationship between energy density and body weight in adults and in children and adolescents such that consuming diets lower in energy density may be an effective strategy for managing body weight. [13] This occurs because people tend to eat the same weight of food to feel full. When there are fewer calories per pound, the amount of calories consumed is reduced, thus leading to weight loss.

For example, a study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition compared the effects of high and low energy density diets among obese and non-obese subjects. Subjects were allowed to eat to satiety, or until full. On average, subjects reached satiety on a diet low in energy density at about 1570 kcal versus 3000 kcal on the diet high in energy density. “The low energy density meals contained a large amount of bulk as fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and dried beans with minimum fat. The high energy density meals contained minimum bulk and larger amounts of fat and simple sugars as meats and desserts.” [12,14]

Using this method of not eating less food, but eating foods that have lower energy densities, one can significantly lose weight in a healthy manner without feeling deprived or hunger. Eating plant-based also increases the density per calorie eaten of micronutrients like minerals, vitamins, antioxidants, and phytochemicals. These nutrients are both life and health promoting.

For more information about this method check out Dr. Dean Ornish’s book Eat More, Weigh Less. Also, see these articles from Forks Over Knives about How Eating More Can Help You Weigh Less and The Calorie Density Approach to Nutrition and Lifelong Weight Management. Make sure to check out this success story as well. Additionally, watch this video by nutritionist Jeff Novick. [15] Lastly, please visit NutritionFacts.org for hundreds of free videos on virtually any nutrition-based topic.