July 2009
Vol. 8 Issue 7
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Two
Teaching Opportunities for Healthcare Reform
Sonia Sotomayor, US
Supreme Court Judge (nominated) The choice of two sick and/or obese candidates for two highly visible and powerful US government positions has caused a national uproar. Considering all we know about effective diet-therapies, failure to fix their poor health now is inexcusable and risking our future. The Prospects: Sonia Sotomayor, a 54-year-old Hispanic overweight federal judge, with a history of type-1 diabetes since age 8 was nominated on May 26, 2009 for the U.S. Supreme Court. On July 13, 2009 Regina Benjamin, a 52-year-old Black obese physician was picked to become the nation’s family doctor—our 18th Surgeon General. |MORE|
Vegetarian Diet “Weakens Bones” A joint Australian-Vietnamese meta analysis of 9 observational studies of 2,749 people found that vegetarians had bones five percent less dense than meat-eaters and vegans were six percent weaker. However, the results were of such little significance that the authors ended their paper by saying: “In conclusion, the results of this meta-analysis suggest that there is a modest effect of vegetarian diets, particularly a vegan diet, on BMD, but the effect size is unlikely to result in a clinically important increase in fracture risk.” This article, released ahead of scheduled publication, which gives the public the perception that the news was so important that it could not wait, in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition was by the same authors as the vegan-osteoporosis article I discussed in my June 2009 newsletter. The article I reported on received little press worldwide and showed results very favorable for a vegan diet and bone health. Published in the April 2009 issue of the journal Osteoporosis International, the same researchers directly examined 105 postmenopausal Mahayana Buddhist nuns, and compared them to 105 omnivorous women and found, “…although vegans have much lower intakes of dietary calcium and protein than omnivores, veganism does not have (an) adverse effect on bone mineral density (BMD) and does not alter body composition.” |MORE| Featured Recipes
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