DrumhellerMail.com Health & Lifestyles Articles

What We Can Learn from Elephants: The Low Energy Density Diet

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 17:40:00 +0000

On a safari in Kruger National Park, South Africa, last week, I had an amazing experience learning all about the abundant wildlife we encoutered: giraffes, lions, leopards, zebras, wildebeest, hippos, crocs, and the like. One thing that stands out in my mind is the astounding eating capacity of the elephants: they eat a whopping 250 kilograms of food each day!

For an adult male elephant, weighing about 5500 kg, this equates to 1kg of food per 22kg body weight. The weight of food consumed by a human per day will vary substantially depending on what type of food is consumed, but is considerably less, proportional to body weight, compared to what an elephant consumes to maintain body weight.

So - how do the elephants do it?

The secret is in the low energy density of the food that the elephants are consuming; in other words, the caloric content of their food is very low. Elephants are herbivores, meaning that they eat only vegetation: leaves, grass, twigs, roots, bark, and small amounts of fruit, seeds, and flowers. In addition, only about 40% of their ingested food is actually digested; the remaining 60% is excreted in the stool without absorbing the caloric content. In human terms, this would be equivalent to eating a very, VERY high fiber diet - too high for human physiology - but the principle still applies.

The take home message here is that eating larger amounts of Free Veg (vegetables that have minimal calories - green leafy vegetables especially) and...

Multivitamin Results in Weight Loss in Chinese Women

DrSue.ca — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 10:12:00 +0000

As my readers and patients know, I often emphasize the importance of vitamin and mineral supplementation (see previous blogs about multivitamins , and vitamin D ). A recent randomized clinical trial has now shown that supplementation with a multivitamin was effective in inducing weight loss in a group of Chinese women.

This clinical trial , published in the International Journal of Obesity, enrolled 96 overweight or obese Chinese women, and randomized them to receive either a multivitamin & mineral supplement, a calcium supplement, or placebo. After 6 months, they found that women taking the multivitamin lost 8lb, compared with 2.5lb on calcium, and 0.5lb on placebo. Note that the weight loss seen with the multivitamin is similar to that seen with the weight loss medication orlistat (Xenical). The multivitamin group was found to have a higher metabolic rate compared with placebo, and both the vitamin and the calcium groups enjoyed some improvement in their cholesterol levels.

As noted in the accompanying editorial by my colleagues Drs Astrup and Bügel at the Department of Human Nutrition , University of Copenhagen, Denmark, the rather impressive degree of weight loss seen in this study with a multivitamin is intriguing, and the study needs to be repeated, in greater number and in other ethnic groups, before we can draw any broad conclusions. However, there are some physiological mechanisms that can support the weight loss seen. Several vitamins and minerals are known to have a key role in the function of the mitochondria, which...

Obstructive Sleep Apnea: Are You or Your Bed Partner at Risk?

DrSue.ca — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 10:40:00 +0000

Does this image seem familiar to anyone? A snoring bed partner is a common problem! However, the problem may go far beyond nighttime frustration: it may be an indicator of an important medical problem called Obstructive Sleep Apnea.

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a disorder that is characterized by periods of diminished breathing or pauses in breathing during sleep, caused by repetitive collapse of the upper airway.

Symptoms of sleep apnea include:

restlessness and snoring during sleep
awakening with a choking or gasping sensation
waking feeling unrested
daytime sleepiness or fatigue
morning headaches, dry mouth, or sore throat
poor concentration
waking frequently to urinate

The number one risk factor for sleep apnea is overweight or obesity: the risk of OSA increases with increasing body weight. Other risk factors include increasing age, male gender, abnormalities of the upper airway, medications that induce somnolence, and alcohol.

Obstructive sleep apnea can be a serious medical problem, as it is associated with an increased risk of high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attack or heart arryhtmias, congestive heart failure, and increased risk of accidental injury and motor vehichle accidents. In patients with untreated severe sleep apnea, the risk of death is 3 to 6 times higher than people without sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea is best diagnosed in a sleep lab, where breathing patterns during sleep are assessed....

Contrave: The Next Weight Loss Drug?

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 14:57:00 +0000

As blogged previously, there are a number of weight loss drugs currently under study. The latest study on a combination weight loss medication called Contrave shows good effect to induce weight loss, but with the potential for significant side effects that must be taken into careful consideration.

Contrave is a combination of two medications already on the market: bupropion , a smoking cessation agent and antidepressant, and naltrexone , which is used to treat alcohol or narcotic addictions. The study , published in a recent edition of The Lancet by Greenway and colleagues, compares the effect of this combination medication in two different doses compared to placebo. In this 56 week trial, participants taking the combination drug in higher dose lost 6.1% of their body weight, compared to 1.3% in the placebo group. This amount of weight loss rivals, or is superior to, weight loss seen with our currently available weight loss drugs, sibutramine and orlistat respectively.

As noted in an accompanying editorial in The Lancet by my colleague Dr. Arne Astrup, from the Department of Human Nutrition , University of Copenhagen, an upside of this proposed new weight loss combination drug is that both medications have been around since the mid 1980s, and as such, we are quite knowledgeable of the potential side effects of each individual drug. For example, it is known that both drugs can cause anxiety and a small increase in blood pressure. What is not known, however, is whether...

Increase the Activity in Your Life!

DrSue.ca — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 14:23:00 +0000

Did you know that 63% of Canadians don't get enough activity in their daily lives to reap the health benefits of exercise?

In this video blog, Dr Sue explores ways that you can increase the activity and calorie burn in your daily life, to achieve the 60 minutes of daily activity that is recommended. Learn about a lifestyle change that could burn the equivalent of 18 pounds of fat in a year!

Dr. Sue Pedersen © 2010 www.drsue.ca drsuetalks@gmail.com

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