Eat2live, nutrition counselling

05/04/2022

If you're thinking of going plant-based/ meat free, have a listen to this podcast first

Plant-based eating is on-trend and has been for some time. Fuelled by health, environmental and ethical personal choices, we are seeing more people than ever adopt this way of eating. But there is no one ‘right’ way to eat. And even within a framework of ‘mostly plants’, it is possible to do it well and not so well. In my latest Thinking Nutrition podcast, I’ll look at the latest research comparing different types of plant-based diets to one that includes meat and see how they compare on the nutrient wins and losses scoreboard.

Subscribe to the Thinking Nutrition podcast from where you get your pods (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and a bunch of others) or listen here https://buff.ly/2OiKgbu

08/10/2021

Michael Mosely has done plenty of research on this subject; reducing obesity, reducing Type II diabetes and keto diets. Well worth checking him out

14/09/2021

It was back in episode 55 that I first tackled the topic of collagen supplements. It proved to be one of my most popular episodes ever. And for good reason as there is a growing evidence base to support many of the health claims made about collagen: from improving skin health to perhaps even helping with sports injury recovery and osteoarthritis. In my latest Thinking Nutrition podcast, I give an update on the growing scientific evidence for the use of collagen supplements. I’ll also explain how there is certainly a plausible biological mechanism to explain how this particular dietary protein source can have a targeted benefit even after digestion.

Subscribe to the Thinking Nutrition podcast from where you get your pods (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and a bunch of others) or listen here https://buff.ly/2OiKgbu

14/08/2021

Always very imformative podcasts, have a listen

Sugar addiction. Carb addiction. Junk food addiction. It seems we’re in the middle of a food addiction epidemic. But everyone is addicted to food to some degree; just try not eating for a day or two and you’ll crave the stuff. So, here it is a case of contrasting the deep physiologic survival need we have to eat versus the desire for specific types of foods. But can we really elevate what someone may consider a food addiction to that of a drug or gambling addiction? In my latest Thinking Nutrition podcast, I explore if food addiction really is a thing.

Subscribe to the Thinking Nutrition podcast from where you get your pods (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and a bunch of others) or listen here https://buff.ly/2OiKgbu

17/05/2021

This is how your gut health can affect all systems of the body

I'll just leave this here

27/04/2021

Can keto cure cancer? Thanks to earlier detection and much better treatment options, cancer today is more survivable than ever. But we are still a long way from curing cancer across the board for all types of cancer with equal outcomes. If you caught my podcast from several episodes back on improving cancer survival with diet and lifestyle choices, I covered the broad lifestyle habits linked with improving cancer survival odds. I also touched briefly on many of the so-called ‘cancer cure’ diets that abound on the Internet. So, for my latest podcast, I home in on one that is getting a lot of attention: and that’s the ketogenic diet.

Subscribe to the Thinking Nutrition podcast from where you get your pods (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and a bunch of others) or listen here https://buff.ly/2OiKgbu

17/04/2021

With a third of Aussies having gained weight over the pandemic, many of us might be vulnerable to getting caught in the "diet trap". But with more nutritionists saying weight loss shouldn’t be the primary goal when trying to get healthy, what can we aim for instead?

09/04/2021

Enjoy eating fruit again!

Examine.com - Independent scientific information on supplements & nutrition. Everything on Examine.com is backed with citations to published scientific studies.

01/03/2021

HOW DOES DIET AFFECT OUR MENTAL HEALTH? 🧠

A recent paper published by researchers at the and others reviewed some of the mechanisms behind how diet affects depression. What did they find?

🔹 Long-term inflammation, arising from various factors including poor diet, can lead to the development of many health conditions, including depression. Studies have shown those with severe mental illness have higher amounts of pro-inflammatory foods and lower intakes of anti-inflammatory nutrients, while anti-inflammatory diets are associated with a ⬇️ risk of depression.

🔹 Oxidative stress is the imbalance of free radicals and antioxidants in your body, which can result in damage to our cells, and has been implicated in the development of many diseases, including cancer, heart disease and diabetes, as well as depression and other mental health disorders. Diet can influence oxidative stress through either depriving or ⬆️ the supply of nutrients with antioxidant properties.

🔹There is growing evidence that the gut microbiome is important for cognitive function and mental health. There are several ways in which the gut microbiome may do this, including via the gut-brain axis, neurotransmitters (e.g. serotonin), and through beneficial products of fibre fermentation 🦠

🔹The hippocampus is a region in the brain associated with learning, memory, mood and mental health. This region of the brain can actually change size, a process known as brain plasticity. A key factor that determines the growth of new neurons, and therefore brain plasticity, is a protein called BDNF. Interestingly, lower levels of BDNF have been found in individuals with depression.

Diet has been shown to impact BDNF, with nutrients such as omega 3s 🐟 and polyphenols 🍇 (beneficial plant chemicals) having a beneficial effect, while diets high in fat and sugar have been shown to ⬇️ BDNF.

🔹Depression is associated with dysfunction of the mitochondria, a component of cells involved in energy production, and evidence suggests that poor diet may contribute to this.

There are many other potential ways diet can influence our mental health. For more info, see my link in bio for the paper.

31/12/2020

Happy New Year everyone!
New year's resolutions to lose weight, clean up your diet? Give me a call 😃🍉🍇🍎🥑🍒🥕

20/10/2020

Yep, just what I thought about Pink Himalayan Rock salt....another big scam brought to you by social influencers and madmen (Pete Evans etc)

Finally, some research that really shows how much of a health scam the 'pink Himalayan salt' trend is. An independent analysis of 31 samples of pink salt available in Australia shows that the quantity of additional essential minerals it contains is negligible for how much of the salt a person would eat. Oh, and it comes with a nice side-serve of heavy metals (which has been suggested in prior research and now this study confirms it). If you need to buy salt, just buy 'regular' salt (preferably iodised) - don't buy this pink rubbish and think you're levelling up your health. Full details of the research here https://nraus.com/rethinkpink/

26/09/2020

It appears that it is not how fat you are but where your fat is located that indicates health and mortality risk

I did a podcast two weeks ago (see here https://thinkingnutrition.buzzsprout.com/808853/5402857-how-useful-is-body-mass-index-bmi ) on BMI and how I'm not much of a fan of it as it is very imprecise for assessing health risks especially when applied at an individual level, plus the 'label' it gives someone is less-than-helpful.

I often say that when it comes to linking weight to health, it is much more important where the fat is than how fat you are. It is one of several reasons (including dietary and exercise habits) that someone can be metabolically unhealthy at a 'healthy' BMI and metabolically healthy at an 'obese' BMI.

For this reason, waist circumference was developed as a simpler and potentially more accurate measure of disease risk. Waist circumference is not only a gauge of body fat, but it specifically targets the most dangerous type of fat: visceral fat. Visceral fat is metabolically active and can directly change metabolism of certain hormones and inflammatory markers.

Now just published today in the BMJ (full paper here https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3324 ) a meta-analysis of 72 studies looking at central adiposity and overall mortality. And all indices used (including waist circumference) were positively and significantly associated with earlier mortality INDEPENDENT of overall body fatness (which is what BMI pretty much represents). And it was specifically central adiposity that was the link here - larger hip and thigh circumferences were actually linked to a lower risk of earlier mortality.