March 11th, 2006
Recently a study cast doubt on the Glycemic Index (GI) as a tool for healthy weight or diabetes (see below). Researchers found no correlation between blood sugar levels and GI calculated from food intake on diet questionnaires. This was touted as evidence that the GI is not a clinically useful concept. Are these findings really a surprise? Not to me, having worked in Dr. Jenkins’ Lab at the University of Toronto while a medical student for several years. Dr. Jenkins and Dr. Tom Wolever created the GI many years ago, which led to hundreds of studies that supported the usefulness of the concept that some carbohydrates are “good” and others “bad” when it comes to their effects on blood sugar.
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January 16th, 2006
Greetings all!
For my first blog on the topic of healthy aging it seems fitting that I comment upon Dr. Andrew Weil’s best-selling new book on this topic. Weil, a friend and colleague, and long-time devotee of Japanese culture, travels on occasion to Okinawa to visit our research group and some of our healthy centenarians. He has recently published
“Healthy Aging: A Lifelong Guide to Your Physical and Spiritual Well-Being (Random House, 2005).” Dr. Weil’s latest book emphasizes a wholistic, natural approach to aging in order to achieve a healthy long life.
“I think it can increase or decrease our susceptibility to disease,” says Weil when discussing the importance of paying attention to physical, mental and spiritual needs. “It determines the course of disease, and I think it strongly influences how we age. I think the problem with modern medicine is this strong emphasis on the physical, and it doesn’t even inquire into the other dimensions of human life.”
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