The Japanese salt diet

Another diet that I just recently heard of is the Japanese (sometimes called salt) diet. This diet tells you to cut off your daily salt intake almost to none (because high salt intake is associated with cardiovascular diseases, high blood pressure and obesity). In my opinion nothing that is extreme can't be good. Of course you mustn't eat too much salt (more than 5g per day) but you most certainly can't cut it off entirely. Your dietary salt is basically NaCl (sodiumchloride). Well sodium is very important element in human body. Firstly it is Na that determines your blood osmolarity. Osmolarity is defined as a number of osmoles of solute per liter of solution (Na atoms in your blood). Blood osmolarity is important for regulating your cell's water economy, your blood pressure etc. Also Na plays a very important part in electrochemical gradients thorough your cell membrane (important for nerve signal transmission and diffusion of different molecules thorough cell membranes). Another thing to remember is that Na is absolutely necessary for absorption of nutrients in the GI. Without Na the absorption of carbohydrates and proteins would be practically impossible (this means you could eat, but your body would starve). Now if you would cut off your dietary salt entirely, this mean that your blood osmolarity starts to drop fast. This means a fall in your blood pressure and your heart rate would increase. You would develop serious digestion disorders, the hydrolysates of digested food couldn't absorb through the GI wall. This would result in diarrhea, nausea. Also hyponatremia (low sodium levels) will cause serious muscle and nerve pains (as sodium is important in keeping membrane potential and signal transmission, important in muscle and nerve functioning). You would also develop edemas in different parts of your body. You see, sodium and water are strongly connected. If you would reduce blood Na levels, blood water levels would also decrease. Na "binds" water, if you understand what I mean. So in a case of hyponatremia (this is your blood has low sodium levels), the water from your blood diffuses to different cells. As I said above, sodium determines your blood osmolarity. So you have low sodium, low blood osmolarity. The cells in your various tissues would now have higher osmolarity than blood, the water want's to even those out and diffuses massively to cells, causing edemas (mainly in your limbs). My recommendation to you - don't go extreme!

The pH Diet

The pH level show your blood acid-base situation. pH 7 represents a neutral solution (water), the gastric acid has a pH around 1.2 (acid), when pH is above 7, it means that the solution is alkaline. Your blood pH is around 7.4 (slightly alkaline). It is very important for the body to maintain the blood pH at a narrow range. Too low or too high pH disrupts the normal functioning of several enzymes and signal transmission of nerve cells. For those reasons the body has developed several powerful mechanisms for keeping the blood pH around 7.4 Now almost all the foods that we eat, when finally metabolized, release either an acid or an alkaline base into blood. Grains, fish, meat, cheese, milk and salt all produce acid. Fresh fruits, vegetables produce an alkaline base. A normal diet should include both of these groups (not because the pH, but in order to get all the nutrients and vitamins). According to the Alkaline diet is, that we should eat more fresh fruits and vegetables to make our blood more alkaline, because according to some ALTERNATIVE practitioners, the sift to an acid-producing diet is the cause of a number of chronic diseases (anxiety, lack of energy, even tumors). Now, the typical Western-diet does indeed lack of fresh vegetables and fruits. This means that we are eating too much fats (including cholesterol) and too much sucrose (white sugar). Also we can develop some vitamin and mineral deficiencies. This is why we need to start eating more vegetables (not forgetting meat also!!!). This has nothing to do with our blood pH. The fact is, you can't simply influence it great enough with your diet. There will be some effect if you would start to eat only vegetarian food. But this is dangerous as you would eventually develop some vitamin, aminoacid and mineral deficiencies. See, your body has very powerful mechanisms for remaining your blood pH (or to protect you from yourself). There are the blood bicarbonate system, the phosphate buffer, the CO2 system and some more. Your body is just too powerful. Now you could (please don't do that) ingest yourself with bicarbonate which makes your pH go straight up (make your blood very alkaline). This would probably cause lethal consequences as your enzymes and hormones stop working and your nerve cells won't function anymore. The key of healthy eating is a diverse diet. Remember that you need to eat both vegetables, fruits, fish, meat. On simple rule is: Carbohydrates should cover 50-60% (mainly starch from potatoes, pasta), fats about 25% (meat, fish, vegetables) and proteins about 15% (egg, milk, meat) of your daily energetic intake. About that I will definitely post a more detailed diet plan for you.

The Atkins Diet

As I was surfing around the internet last week, I came across something called "Atkins diet". You can see its homepage here: http://www.atkins.com/Homepage.aspx. Atkins diet claims to be the best (no surprise there) for reducing weight. Atkins diet is quite simple, you just have to cut down on your carbohydrate intake (about 10% of your daily total energetic intake). The fact is - that's completely wrong. In some of my next posts I will go deeper in human physiology and biochemistry and tell you why (It isn't just wrong, there are a lot of reasons for that). At the beginning of the Atkins diet, I imagine that you would indeed to start to loose weight. You see human body needs (in order to function normally and that's what you want) to keep your blood sugar (a carbohydrate) in a narrow range, about 3.5-5.5 mmol/L. There are two main hormones that control blood sugar levels, those are insulin and clangor. When blood sugar is too high, your body secretes insulin, when your blood sugar is too low, your body secretes clangor. Carbohydrates (mainly glucose=blood sugar) are important for many reasons. Firstly glucose is the only fuel that brain can use for it's functioning. Secondly the synthesis of many molecules that are important for your immune system need carbohydrates (NADPH, glutathione). Thirdly for human body, it is most efficient to burn carbohydrates to get energy. Normally (except professional athletes or people with a certain disease) carbohydrates should cover 50-60% of your daily energetic intake (I will provide sources and more detailed diet plan in one of my further posts). When you start to exceed that level, your body starts to store this extra energy. YOur body can do it in two main ways: it synthesizes glycogen (a carbohydrate, maximum of 120g) or it stores the extra carbohydrates as fat. Those processes are induced by the hormone insulin. This is where the Atkins diet steps in. The authors of this diet claim that by simply reducing your daily carbohydrate intake, your body synthesizes less fat and starts to burn it instead. This is indeed true, because as your carbohydrate intake is now near minimum (but your body wants to remain blood sugar levels) your body starts to hydrolyze glycogen and start to synthesize glucose by itself (process known as gluconeogenesis). Also glucose is preserved now mainly for the brain (by a mechanism I will explain later). But in order to satisfy other tissues also, your body starts to burn fat to generate energy. This diet sound pretty awesome? Actually no! There's a reason your body need about 50-60% of carbohydrates for energy. The excess burning of fats and strongly induced gluconeogenesis (see above) creates a situation which leads to production of ketone bodies. Ketone bodies are synthesized in liver and they can also be used for energetic purposes in various tissues. But ketone bodies release protons (a hydrogen atom) to your blood stream. This brings your blood pH down (=your blood becomes acidic). This is dangerous as low pH disrupts the normal functioning of many important enzymes and low pH acts as an neurotransmission inhibitor. Which means that for nerve cells it is more difficult to transmit signals. This situation called ketoacidosis can lead to coma. Another thing is, as your body now uses less glucose, it disrupts the work of pentose phosphate cycle. This cycle is important for detoxifying different toxins and to synthesize molecules needed by the immune system (NADPH). Lastly, your body desperately trying to keep your blood glucose levels normal (in order to keep a normal supply for the brain), fighting against your own stupidity (yes, your body is quite powerful) starts to use your body proteins as a substrate for gluconeogenesis (= to synthesize glucose). This means that you start to loose muscle weight and the synthesis of many important peptide hormones and enzymes is now disrupted. To sum up, without any medical knowledge, this diet is dangerous for your body (in a long term). The faster you loose weight, the faster you will gain it again. Remember that side effect will not show them until a few months (in some cases a few years) after you start your dangerous diet. In some of my next posts, I will eventually describe all the aspects of healthy eating and all the number you need to know (what to eat, when to eat) in order to loose weight. Actually it is not hard. You just have to eat right things on right times in right amounts. My next post will be dedicated to another stupid diet, called the pH diet.