Nov. 2, 2009
BOOK REVIEW: 'The Whole-Food Guide to Strong Bones': Diet, Lifestyle Changes Can Improve Odds Against Osteoporosis Without Expensive Medication
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
What you eat can contribute to bone loss and osteoporosis -- especially in post-menopausal women -- says Annemarie Colbin in The Whole-Food Guide to Strong Bones: A Holistic Approach New Harbinger Publications, Oakland, CA, 257 pages, $21.95).
Thanks to relentless advertising using celebrities like Sally Field, many Americans are convinced all you have to do is take expensive prescription medicine and your bone-loss worries are over. In a telephone interview, Colbin said that prescription bone density medications have many adverse side effects and often build brittle bone density.
She told me that the emphasis on being thin to the standards of starved fashion models has contributed to bone loss, adding that the commonly used Body Mass Index (BMI) often results in people dieting to a point where they are endangering their health. A little extra weight -- not obesity -- is a good thing, Colbin suggested. People who are slightly overweight rarely get osteoporosis, she writes in her book.
In the book -- which includes 85 easy recipes to maximize the bone-building effects of whole, natural foods -- Colbin says that the population with the greatest access to pharmacological products [the U.S. and Canada and Northern Europe] "also appears to have more osteoporosis than those who still rely mostly on traditional and native diets we now call alternative or complementary medicine."
Colbin, a maverick nutritionist and health educator, says that exercise and establishing a personal balance, believes that certain foods, like "nightshade" vegetables -- potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, green peppers and chiles -- actually work against the body's efforts to build bone mass. She also believes that milk is for infants and the calcium in dairy products is not as good as that in leafy green vegetables.
Eating the right kind of vegetables and fruit on a daily basis can improve your health and prevent fragility fractures, menopause-related bone loss and osteoporosis, she says. How maverick is Colbin; she's definitely not on the soy bandwagon, for one thing. "I suggest that they completely avoid soy," she writes, although a little tofu won't harm most people. A person seeking to avoid bone loss should quit smoking, avoid soda drinks -- including diet drinks -- and avoid drinking coffee and tea. It's better to eat an orange than to drink orange juice, she says.
In a very readable book written in down-to-earth language, Colbin presents several case studies involving people who've experienced bone loss. In the case of "Nina," she cites a four-step program of holistic treatment:
* Physical, including exercise, accupressure, dietary changes, herbs and hormones
* Mental, with stress reduction
* Emotional, focusing on solving only solvable problems
* Spiritual, meditation
On Page 141, she provides six strategies that create a plan that works for you:
1) Avoid sugar and other refined sweeteners, white flour, hydrogenated fats, soft drinks, caffeine and excessive amounts of nightshade vegetables. Don't pursue a low-fat or fat-free diet. And eat sardines or other fish cooked with the bones in. Soft fish or chicken bones help build density in your bones.
2) Go easy on dairy products and if you use them, use organic ones.
3) Every day, eat some greens and vegetables, healthy fats, whole grains, nuts and good sources of protein such as animal products and beans.
4) Always cook with good quality stock.
5) Get some exercise on a regular basis. Walk and lift things, stretch or do weight training three or more times a week -- or, better yet, do all three. She also advises moderate but regular exposure to sunlight.
6) Take a look at the rest of your life. You are the person best qualified to determine what may be missing.
Colbin's suggestions and her recipes sound like good advice for everyone, not just people worried about bone loss and osteoporosis. With the unhealthy abundance of over processed foods with harmful substances like high fructose corn syrup in them -- and you'll be surprised at how many foods contain these additives -- you have to read the labels carefully and avoid harmful foods in your food shopping trips.
The book's foreword is by Mark Hyman, M.D., the author of The Detox Box, Ultraprevention and other books. He's the medical director of the UltraWellness Center in Lenox, MA, and believes -- after twenty years of treating osteoporosis -- that it is a completely preventable lifestyle disease and that Colbin's regimen of whole foods, exercise and the right supplements works better than medication.
Annemarie Colbin, Ph.D., is the founder and CEO of the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts in New York City. She writes a column "Food and Your Health" for New York Spirit magazine.
Publisher's web site: www.newharbinger.com
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BOOK REVIEW: 'The Whole-Food Guide to Strong Bones': Diet, Lifestyle Changes Can Improve Odds Against Osteoporosis Without Expensive Medication
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
What you eat can contribute to bone loss and osteoporosis -- especially in post-menopausal women -- says Annemarie Colbin in The Whole-Food Guide to Strong Bones: A Holistic Approach New Harbinger Publications, Oakland, CA, 257 pages, $21.95).
Thanks to relentless advertising using celebrities like Sally Field, many Americans are convinced all you have to do is take expensive prescription medicine and your bone-loss worries are over. In a telephone interview, Colbin said that prescription bone density medications have many adverse side effects and often build brittle bone density.
She told me that the emphasis on being thin to the standards of starved fashion models has contributed to bone loss, adding that the commonly used Body Mass Index (BMI) often results in people dieting to a point where they are endangering their health. A little extra weight -- not obesity -- is a good thing, Colbin suggested. People who are slightly overweight rarely get osteoporosis, she writes in her book.
In the book -- which includes 85 easy recipes to maximize the bone-building effects of whole, natural foods -- Colbin says that the population with the greatest access to pharmacological products [the U.S. and Canada and Northern Europe] "also appears to have more osteoporosis than those who still rely mostly on traditional and native diets we now call alternative or complementary medicine."
Colbin, a maverick nutritionist and health educator, says that exercise and establishing a personal balance, believes that certain foods, like "nightshade" vegetables -- potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, green peppers and chiles -- actually work against the body's efforts to build bone mass. She also believes that milk is for infants and the calcium in dairy products is not as good as that in leafy green vegetables.
Eating the right kind of vegetables and fruit on a daily basis can improve your health and prevent fragility fractures, menopause-related bone loss and osteoporosis, she says. How maverick is Colbin; she's definitely not on the soy bandwagon, for one thing. "I suggest that they completely avoid soy," she writes, although a little tofu won't harm most people. A person seeking to avoid bone loss should quit smoking, avoid soda drinks -- including diet drinks -- and avoid drinking coffee and tea. It's better to eat an orange than to drink orange juice, she says.
In a very readable book written in down-to-earth language, Colbin presents several case studies involving people who've experienced bone loss. In the case of "Nina," she cites a four-step program of holistic treatment:
* Physical, including exercise, accupressure, dietary changes, herbs and hormones
* Mental, with stress reduction
* Emotional, focusing on solving only solvable problems
* Spiritual, meditation
On Page 141, she provides six strategies that create a plan that works for you:
1) Avoid sugar and other refined sweeteners, white flour, hydrogenated fats, soft drinks, caffeine and excessive amounts of nightshade vegetables. Don't pursue a low-fat or fat-free diet. And eat sardines or other fish cooked with the bones in. Soft fish or chicken bones help build density in your bones.
2) Go easy on dairy products and if you use them, use organic ones.
3) Every day, eat some greens and vegetables, healthy fats, whole grains, nuts and good sources of protein such as animal products and beans.
4) Always cook with good quality stock.
5) Get some exercise on a regular basis. Walk and lift things, stretch or do weight training three or more times a week -- or, better yet, do all three. She also advises moderate but regular exposure to sunlight.
6) Take a look at the rest of your life. You are the person best qualified to determine what may be missing.
Colbin's suggestions and her recipes sound like good advice for everyone, not just people worried about bone loss and osteoporosis. With the unhealthy abundance of over processed foods with harmful substances like high fructose corn syrup in them -- and you'll be surprised at how many foods contain these additives -- you have to read the labels carefully and avoid harmful foods in your food shopping trips.
The book's foreword is by Mark Hyman, M.D., the author of The Detox Box, Ultraprevention and other books. He's the medical director of the UltraWellness Center in Lenox, MA, and believes -- after twenty years of treating osteoporosis -- that it is a completely preventable lifestyle disease and that Colbin's regimen of whole foods, exercise and the right supplements works better than medication.
Annemarie Colbin, Ph.D., is the founder and CEO of the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts in New York City. She writes a column "Food and Your Health" for New York Spirit magazine.
Publisher's web site: www.newharbinger.com
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