Untitled - Precision Nutrition

Beyond Cutting Edge - Nutrition Strategies That Your
Grandkids Will Use As Standard Care
Presented by John Berardi, PhD, CSCS
http://www.precisionnutrition.com
Projections of the Future
Recently, as my interests have expanded from the nutrition of the
present to the nutrition of the future, I’ve been very interested in
what others – from scientist to futurists to entertainers - have
predicted our future would look like, nutritionally speaking of
course. And the interesting thing is this – often times, the most
successful predictors are those in the entertainment business.
Take the Jetsons for example. In the 1960’s the Jetsons were flying
around in hovercraft, adopted a robotic maid, and were eating a
combination of fast food (prepared microwave style and delivered
via a sliding window) and nutrient pills.
Now, while the hovercrafts haven’t come to pass, I have a robotic
maid. It’s called the Roomba and it vacuums my floors when I’m not
at home. Check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roomba.
Further, all around me people are getting fast food delivered via a
window (called a drive-thru), are microwaving dinner, and are using
nutrient supplement pills and meal replacement drinks. Very Jetsonesque.
The New Body Type
What isn’t Jetson-esque is the fact that part and parcel with our new
habits is an ever increasing obesity problem. Since 1985 there’s been
a tremendous rise in US obesity with 3 US states boasting obesity
rates over 30%, 30 states over 25%, and the remainder of the US states
over 20%. And the stats are headed in the same direction in most
industrialized countries. Scary.
Recently I went to the zoo and was checking out the native body
types associated with different animals. And I got to thinking about
the human body type. Over the last 20 years we’ve begin to reengineer the human body. In essence, our architecture is different.
On average we carry around so much more fat. Unfortunately, in
conjunction with this, our bone and muscle architecture has taken a
hit. So, in the end, on average, we’ve got less muscle, brittle bones,
and way too much fat. Not good.
The Cause
So, why is it that we find ourselves in this predicament? Well, there’s
no question that highly processed fast food plays a role. So do the
highly processed carbohydrates, like breakfast cereals, store-bought
breads, and white pastas we’re eating instead of true whole grains.
So do the snack foods we’re accustomed to enjoying like crackers,
chips, and candy bars.
So do those sugary drinks, which can contain almost ½ our daily
calorie requirement in a single cup. And finally, we can’t forget all
that fatty, industrially raised meat that we’re eating in the absence of
an equal amount of colourful veggies.
In the end, these dietary choices have put us in a bad position
nutritionally. We’re fatter than ever. But we’re also suffering from a
host of clinical and sub-clinical deficiencies.
Deficiencies Everywhere
Many experts suggest that supplements aren’t necessary when the
diet is complete. Unfortunately in North America, the diet is pretty
much never complete. Can you believe that 68% of the population is
deficient in calcium, 90% in chromium, 75% in magnesium, 80% in
vitamin B6, and 95% in omega 3 fats?
In fact, in a recent study, even athlete diets didn’t measure up. In this
project, the diets of 70 athletes were analyzed for vitamin and
mineral intake and not a single one met the recommended daily
amount. All of them were deficient in 3 to 15 nutrients.
Beyond this, other research has shown the following:
Less than 5% of men and 3% of women get the minimum
number of fruits and veggies per day (3-5 servings).
On average, women are getting only 80g of protein per day
(when optimal intakes may be closer to 120-140g) and men are
getting only 120g of protein per day (when optimal intakes may
be closer to 170-190g).
I’m definitely not one to heavily promote nutritional supplements.
However, with the deficiencies above, folks have to either improve
their food intake tremendously or they have to start supplementing
their diets with things like:
1) Protein supplements
2) Fish oil supplements
3) Greens supplements and Multi-vitamins
For more on these, check out our recommended nutritional
supplements page at the Precision Nutrition web site.
Turning To Nutritional Supplements
It’s for these reasons it’s been reported that over 71% of the US uses
supplements occasionally while over 42% uses them regularly.
Unfortunately, the data also suggest that those who use supplements
also engage in more positive health behaviors, are more proactive
about their health, and generally eat better diets. This is great news
for those who take these positive steps.
However, what about the rest? Ironically, it’s those folks who need
supplements the most that aren’t using them.
Can We Get Better?
One way that government and private organizations have tried to
tackle the nutritional problems we’re having is to introduce
instructive food pyramids.
The USDA food pyramid recommends 6 oz of grains, 2.5 cups of
vegetables, 2 cups of fruit, 3 cups of milk/dairy, and 5.5oz of
meat/beans daily. In conjunction, they recommend daily exercise.
And while this advice is probably better than most folks are doing,
the Harvard food pyramid, in my opinion, is a bit better than the
USDA pyramid.
The Harvard Pyramid focuses on whole grains instead of grains in
general; it also incorporates plant oils (olive, etc.) as a major portion
of the base of the pyramid. The fruit and veggie recommendation is
similar but protein sources are better specified with a higher %
coming from nuts and legumes, as well as fish poultry and/or eggs.
In addition, dairy is not emphasized so heavily. And foods high in
saturated fat and processed carbohydrates are minimized. Finally,
supplements (daily multi-vitamin and calcium supplement) are
encouraged. These recommendations are much more solid when
talking evidence-based prescription. In other words, the research
supports these recommendations as being superior in terms of
general nutrition.
Interestingly, one pyramid that also has a lot of merit is the Low Carb
food pyramid. This pyramid emphasizes proteins, a wide variety of
fats, and fibrous vegetables. And it minimizes fruits and starches.
Often people get confused by this somewhat disparate advice.
However, there’s an easy way to reconcile it.
In the Precision Nutrition System we discuss that eating for your
body type can fast-track results by teaching you how to choose a diet
based on your inherent hormonal status. For example, ectomorphs
benefit most from higher carbohydrate, moderate protein, lower fat
diets. While endomorphs benefit most from lower carbohydrate,
high protein, higher fat diets.
For more or these distinctions, including an analysis of your own
type and what you should be eating, see the Precision Nutrition
System.
How Do Dietitians/Nutritionists Fit In
When it comes to nutritional intake, dietitians and nutritionists often
base their advice on the results of 3 day food records. In other words,
individuals write down exactly what they’ve eaten for 3
representative days of the week. And then this intake is analyzed for
total calories, macronutrient breakdown, and micronutrient intake.
Based on the results of this, suggestions are made for better
distributing calories, making better food choices, and boosting
micronutrient intake. And these suggestions are often based on the
USDA food pyramid above.
Unfortunately this approach can often be too general as it doesn’t
take into account a host of individual variations in:
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food sensitivity
organ function
GI function
body type
genotype
and more…
So, in essence you end up with a better diet. But not necessarily an
individualized diet. And for many people, this can make all the
difference!
The Future Is Individualization
The major difference between nutrition of today and nutrition of the
future will be individualization. We discussed body type
individualization earlier. And that’s one form that we’re using to
customize people’s nutrition plan based on their overall shape and
hormonal status. However, in the future, nutritional advice will be
even more individualized. It’ll be based on 3 specific types of
metrics:
1) Blood Chemistry Individualization
2) Psychometric Individualization
3) Genetic Individualization
Blood Chemistry Individualization
Our blood chemistry can tell us a lot about what we’re not getting
enough of, nutritionally, and what we may be getting too much of.
Indeed, a simple blood test, if your practitioner knows what to look
for, can be enough to tell us a host of things about your dietary
intake, your functional metabolism, and more.
In the past, blood chemistry work was the exclusive domain of
research labs and physicians. But we don’t have to look too far into
the future to see that blood chemistry based recommendations have
moved into the health and fitness domain. Indeed, several popular
health club chains draw blood on site and provide a printout with a
complete wellness score based on blood results and a lifestyle
questionnaire.
Now, unfortunately, these results aren’t acted on comprehensively in
the health club setting. Instead, they’re passed back to the client who
then has to take action with a medical professional. Further, the
results probably don’t lead to nutritional prescription by a registered
dietitian. They are mostly for information purposes.
The problem is this. The reference ranges used in these tests (and
those used by 99% of the physicians out there) are almost useless
when it comes to individualizing a proactive health plan. So, unless
someone is really sick, their results fall typically fall in the normal
range. And when people fall into the “normal range” they’re told
that they’re healthy. Unfortunately these terms aren’t one in the
same.
For more information on why the standard reference ranges are
completely inadequate in analyzing the health of people who aren’t
clinically ill, check out this video by Precision Nutrition advisor,
naturopath Bryan Walsh.
Fortunately, some companies, like ours, have taken it the next step
and provide comprehensive blood chemistry analyses based on
“optimal ranges”. Here’s how we do it.
You sign up for the blood chemistry screening online. Then you go
into a local specimen collection center. Your blood is drawn,
analyzed, and then sent to us. We can then use our own proprietary
“wellness reference ranges” to determine where you’re at based on
your desire for health – not just based on a comparison to sick people.
And then we can make recommendations to help improve your
health profile – from nutrition to exercise to supplementation. For
more on this service, click here.
In the future, this type of dietary analysis and prescription will be the
standard of care for dietitians and nutritionists. Before ever having
your diet analyzed or recommendations made, your practitioner will
have evaluated your blood work to determine your health and
nutrient status. From here they’ll know whether there are inherent
problems that need to be addressed before nutritional interventions
can have a significant impact.
Interestingly, when health or nutrient deficiencies exist, many times
IV therapies can be initiated immediately to bring your nutritional
state up to par. Then, once the body is functioning normally again, a
new set of dietary recommendations can be suggested.
Psychometric Individualization
Psychometric tests have been used since the early part of the 20th
century and aim to measure personality traits such as creative
thinking, reasoning skills, self-structure, self-discipline, and more.
Traditionally, this type of testing has been used by potential
employers to give them insight into how well an applicant will work
with others, how well they handle stress, and whether they’ll be able
to cope with the intellectual demands of a particular job.
However, working in conjunction with one of the top psychometric
profile testing companies in the world, we’ve created a specific test
that measures the following domains (and a host of sub-domains):
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Competitiveness
Self Discipline
Confidence/Resiliency
Leadership
Decision Making
Rules Orientation
Team Player
Coachability
In the last year, we’ve collected psychometric data on over 1,000
members of our coaching program and the data collection is ongoing. From these data we’re deriving important relationships
between measured psychometric indices and success with nutrition
and lifestyle interventions. And we’re currently offering this type of
testing to customers online. For more on our psychometric profiling
services, click here.
In the future, these types of psychometric analyses will be the
standard of care for dietitians and nutritionists. Working in
conjunction with coaching techniques, such as those outlined in the
book Motivational Interviewing, nutrition practitioners can use
psychometric profile results up front to determine the best strategies
for helping you make changes to your lifestyle in a way that will be
motivating and empowering.
And the best part, the results of these assessments can assist the
practitioner on day 1, before even meeting their new client. Food
aside, this may be the most important development of the future.
And I look forward to a time when health care professionals are
meeting clients exactly where they need to be met, when
recommendations are based on the clients’ own individual desires,
motivations, and lifestyles.
Genetic Individualization
Nutrigenomics is the study of how genes and nutrients interact.
Until recently, we knew this field of science was an exciting area that
would someday change the future of nutrition, medicine, and more.
However, in our minds all this crazy gene-nutrient stuff was still
wrapped up in mystery. It was the stuff futurists hypothesized about
rather than the stuff physicians, nutritionists, and health experts
could use every day. And certainly, this type of testing was
exclusively for the lab. The technology just wasn’t ready for
everyday folks.
However, a few months back nutrigenomics took the big leap. It was
no longer part of the future. It became the now. Our understanding
has grown exponentially. And the technology has cooperated
brilliantly.
As a result, the science of how our genes interact with the food we eat
- and how we can manipulate these relationships to look better, feel
better, and perform better - is now shaping the way people eat worldwide. And soon, nutrigenomics can help you understand how to
make better nutritional choices for reducing disease risk, for
improving health profiles, for choosing the right type of exercise to
lose fat and gain muscle, and much, much more.
The first step to understanding this is to understand that inside every
one of our few hundred trillion cells is our genome or, our genetic
code. This code is made up of a series of chromosomes and each
chromosome is made up of strands of DNA. Embedded in our DNA
are specific codes that make proteins. And these proteins act alone or
in complexes to run almost every cell’s functionality.
Interestingly, we don’t all have the same codes in our DNA. Very
small, between-individual variations in these codes can produce
proteins that are either slightly different or very different. And these
differences in proteins shape our unique individual
differences/physiologies.
And interesting example of this is CYP1A2. This is an enzyme
(protein) in our liver that metabolizes caffeine. And in our
chromosomes, we can either have the code to make a “slow” version
of CYP1A2 or a “fast” version. The slow version is so-named because
it metabolizes caffeine more slowly while the fast version is sonamed because it metabolizes caffeine more quickly.
Recent research has shown that those folks who have the slow
version and drink 1-3 cups of coffee per day can see fairly marked
increases in heart disease risk. However, in those folks that have the
fast version and drink the same amount of coffee per day, heart
disease risk is lowered. Same dose, different outcome. So, in the end,
those with the CYP1A2 slow version are best advised to minimize
high caffeinated drinks while those with the fast version can get
away with a bit more caffeine each day.
Dozens of other genetic differences exist. For example:
ApoE is a protein that impacts blood lipids. And we can end
up with 3 variations of the protein - ApoE2, ApoE3, and ApoE4.
Interestingly, ApoE4 is linked to increased risk of heart disease
and Alzheimers. And these risks are amplified with smoking.
When you smoke, you have a 1.5x increase in heart disease risk.
But when you smoke and have ApoE4, you have a 3x increase
in heart disease risk. This may be due to the fact that those
with this protein have an increased risk of oxidative stress and
a reduced LDL clearance by the body. So, in the end, if you
have the ApoE4 protein, you’re best advised to stop smoking,
to make dietary adjustments to lower LDL cholesterol, and to
increase your intake of antioxidants to prevent oxidative stress.
MTHFR is an enzyme (protein) that metabolizes folic acid
thereby decreasing homocysteine levels in the body
(homocysteine is associated with heart disease). Interestingly,
one genetic variation of this protein leads to reduced activity.
This is due to a slight alteration in the shape of the enzyme.
When activity is reduced, homocysteine is increased and so are
the risks for heart disease and several cancers. Research has
shown that large doses of folic acid and B12 can improve
MTHFR associated folic acid metabolism, leading to lower
homocysteine and decreased risk.
These are but a few examples of how our unique genetic makeups
(whether we seem healthy or not) can give rise to very specific
nutritional recommendations based on our genetic type. And it’s
now possible to have our genetic code tested to determine what our
specific needs are. Indeed, through Precision Nutrition we’ll soon be
offering this service. For more information, click here.
Summary
In the future, blood chemistry, psychometric, and genetic tests will
most likely round out a suite of services offered by your health care
provider, possibly even your dietitian/nutritionist.
Rather than simply reviewing your diet and making
recommendations based on a generalized nutrient needs template
(i.e. reference intakes and the food pyramid), your blood chemistry,
genetic profile, and psychometric profile will determine not only
your physiological needs but the psychological tools your provider
will use to help make the process fun and effective.
And you’ll not only end up with customized nutritional
recommendations, but also customized nutritional supplements that
are designed for your very own physiology.
About Dr. Berardi
Dr John Berardi is the president of Precision Nutrition, a world leader
in nutrition planning and education for athletes and exercisers of all
levels. A renowned speaker, coach, and mentor to athletes and
recreational exercisers around the world, Dr. Berardi splits his time
between Austin, Texas and St. Catharines, Ontario.
Nutrition for you
The Precision Nutrition System
Eat. Improve. Impress.
Precision Nutrition started with a single question: what exactly should people eat
to 1) look fit, 2) be healthy and 3) perform to their highest potential?
To answer that question, we condensed 10 years of research, both from the lab
and from the field, and the experiences of nearly 45,000 PN members from over
95 countries, including both everyday folk and Olympic gold medalists, all into
one system — the Precision Nutrition System.
The Precision Nutrition System is a true comprehensive diet guide that includes
the following:
 Gourmet Nutrition, Volume 1. A complete cookbook containing
over 100 delicious, PN-sanctioned recipes.
 Success Guide. 10 success strategies guaranteed to help you get in
the correct frame of mind and stick with the plan long-term.
 Diet Guide. A comprehensive guide to nutrition. Everything is
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covered from food selection to meal timing to nutrition program
design.
Quick Start Guide. Step-by-step instructions to get started on the
right foot in under 45 minutes.
Super Shake Guide. Delicious shakes and smoothies that make
great nutrition easy and quick, especially on the go.
Five-Minute Meals. Quick, tasty meals that can be whipped up in
minutes, when time is of the essence.
Measurement Guide. Why measuring results is critical; exactly
what to measure, and how.
Individualization Guide. How to customize a diet to any body
type and goal, and how to use feedback from measurements to
perfect the plan.
Maintenance Guide. Maintenance is often more challenging than
dieting. In this guide we’ll show you how to keep the body you’ve
worked for.
Support Guide. Make the best use of the support around you.
And more…
Each part of Precision Nutrition directly supports the ideas in the attached ebook. So if what you read makes sense to you, you’ll love the Precision Nutrition
System.
To take the next step & become a PN client yourself, visit us at:
www.precisionnutrition.com/products/system.html