Weight Down Living

Here’s your chance everyone…The Australian and NZ governments are calling for public consultation on food labelling, especially around sugar.

The letter I got is pasted below. Make your submissions at this link 

So, they are asking us what we think. Let’s not just complain afterwards…Have a go if you care about what we eat.

———————-paste—————

Dear Stakeholder
 
The Food Regulation Standing Committee (FRSC) is inviting submissions from stakeholders on the labelling of sugars on packaged foods and drinks. A Consultation Regulation Impact Statement (Consultation Paper) has been prepared to seek information on this topic from stakeholders, including industry, public health and consumer organisations and other interested parties.
 
The Consultation Paper is available on the Food Regulation website.  As this is a public consultation, we ask that you forward this invitation to any other relevant parties that would be interested in providing a submission.
 
Information provided in response to the consultation will be drawn upon to prepare a Decision Regulation Impact Statement which will identify a preferred policy option to recommend to the Australia and New Zealand Ministerial Forum on Food Regulation (the Forum) in relation to the labelling of sugars on packaged foods and drinks. The Forum is comprised of Ministers responsible for food regulation from the Australian Federal Government, New Zealand, and Australian States and Territories governments.
 
Submissions need to be lodged through the online Portal and should be supported by evidence. Peak organisations are expected to consult their members on the questions in the Consultation Paper and provide a single response on behalf of their members. Duplicate submissions are not necessary. Submissions that are not evidence-based, or do not directly answer the questions in the paper may not be drawn upon in preparing the Decision Regulation Impact Statement for the Forum.
 
Submissions close at 11.59pm on 19 September 2018 Australian Eastern Time.
 
If you have any questions about this consultation process, please contact the Food Regulation Secretariat at the email address below.
 
Thank you in advance for taking the time to make a submission.
 
Kind regards
 
Food Regulation Secretariat
 

 
Website: www.foodregulation.gov.au | Email: [email protected]
Phone: +61 2 6289 5128 | Postal Address: MDP 707, GPO Box 9848, Canberra ACT 2601
 

Author: Prof. Grant Schofield

I am Grant Schofield, Professor of Public Health at Auckland University of Technology and director of the university's Human Potential Centre (HPC) located at the Millennium Campus in Auckland, New Zealand. My research and teaching interests are in wellbeing and chronic disease prevention especially reducing the risk and eventual mortality and morbidity from obesity, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. I live by the motto "be the best you can be" and have a strong commitment to peak performance in which I also do consulting work. I’ve been interested in human health and performance for my whole career. I started in psychology, went into sport and exercise psychology, then into public health, especially physical activity, then obesity. There have been some twists and turns along the way, which are the reasons for why I do what I do – you can read about those in my first blog entry. I want to know how we can be the best we can be. This crosses disciplines such as biology, medicine, pubic health, and productivity management. The cornerstones are nutrition, exercise, sleep, neuroscience, psychology and wellbeing. In my blog, I cover these topics under the broad heading of the Science of Human Potential. View all posts by Prof. Grant Schofield

© Cristina McClaren Cristina McClaren learned portion control and started hitting the gym when she realized she couldn't do a jumping jack. Now, she's dropped 195 pounds and maintaining her goal weight. When I was 11, my mom and step-dad got divorced, and I turned to food for comfort.

Suddenly, I was eating anything I could get my hands on-and it wasn't even junk food most of the time. My mom actually kept lots of healthy foods in the house, but I would often eat an entire bag of whole-grain bagels for breakfast instead of just one.

I lost a bit of the weight I gained when I hit high school-I tried to develop better eating habits, and I was also a student athlete playing three sports. But I quickly fell back into my old ways and ended up graduating from high school 80 pounds heavier than when I started. I kept overeating (healthy and not-so healthy stuff) until 2014-at my heaviest, I weighed 378 pounds.

I knew I had to make a change when I couldn't do a single pushup.

I'll never forget my turning point: It happened on a Thursday; I signed up for a bootcamp class to do while my son was at football practice. Since I had been active in high school, I thought the workout wouldn't be a big deal, but I soon realized I had signed up for the biggest shock of my life.

During the class, I couldn't run one lap around the track. I couldn't even do a jumping jack-I literally could not jump up. I quit the class after just 30 minutes, but from that moment on, I knew I couldn't continue living life as unhealthy as I had been.

After saying "I'll start getting healthy on Monday" for longer than I can remember, I chose to start that Thursday. I picked up my son, and when we went out to eat, I ordered a salad. That marked the beginning of the changes I was finally ready to make.

I started by just eating more healthy foods-but that change wasn't big enough.

At first, I focused on getting in as many whole grains, fruits, and veggies into my diet as I could-but because I wasn't necessarily setting a ton of guidelines for my diet, I constantly fell back into the trap of overeating.

Around that time, I also vowed to continue the bootcamp class that showed me just how unhealthy I had become. I went three days a week, and I even joined a local gym where I could take weight-lifting classes and train with advice from trainers or fitness accounts on Instagram. I'm still doing this routine today-though I've added exercises and weight as I've gotten stronger.

I lost about 90 pounds that year-but I ended up gaining 20 pounds back. I thought since I was active, I could ease up on my self-imposed healthy diet-but in reality, this mindset just led me back to overeating.

In 2015, I switched to a low-carb eating plan-and two years later, I went all-in with the keto diet.

I did the keto diet for about a year, but ultimately decided that a low-carb, no-sugar diet works best for me. I also make sure to watch my portion sizes and follow the recommended servings on most foods. Here's what I eat in a typical day:

• Breakfast: eggs and vegetables with coffee and stevia.
• Snack: celery and cream cheese with everything bagel seasoning.
• Lunch: Grilled chicken with a green vegetable and riced cauliflower, or mashed cauliflower so I can feel like I’m eating the carbs I used to love.
• Dinner: I usually try to keep it small and have some sort of protein with salad

In addition to eating low-carb and watching my portion sizes, I've also learned to keep myself from overeating by planning my meals in advance-as much as two days ahead of time. It gives structure to my diet and prevents me from thinking about what my next meal will be.

But, despite my progress, my weight-loss journey has been a pretty lonely one-my husband and son don’t maintain as healthy a lifestyle as I do, so I have to resist temptations a lot (like looking the other way when they have ice cream for dessert).

So yeah, it's been a long and bumpy road-but I still ended up losing nearly 200 pounds.

Now, I'm at my goal weight of 183 pounds. Until I made the decision to turn my life around, I’d convinced myself I was okay being the “fat mom” at my son’s football games, but I wasn’t. And now, I can think about next steps like skin-removal surgery and maintaining my health.

Overall, I want people to know that they don't have to take fancy classes or buy expensive foods in order to lose weight. (I get my vegetables from the 99-cent store, for example.) Yes, losing weight is a lot of hard work, and there will be times when you want to give up, but don't wait until Monday to do something you can start right now.

This week’s meal plan offers easy-to-make dishes with 5 ingredients or less. Perfect for a busy week when you want to enjoy good and healthy food without spending too much time cooking. You’ll enjoy a variety of keto meals, all very low in carbs. This week you’ll stay around 10 grams of carbs per day.

Full meal plan →

Almost 15 years ago, 10 young people were tortured in an abandoned shopping centre in east London on live TV. They were contestants on the reality show Shattered, competing to stay awake as long as possible in order to win a £100,000 cash prize. After 178 hours of sleep deprivation, Clare Southern (now Clare Farah), a 19-year-old police cadet nicknamed “the Terminator”, scooped a £97,000 prize pot. (It had originally stood at £100,000, but deductions were made every time contestants fell asleep.)

Viewers complained to Ofcom about the show’s premise and the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy described the show as “misconceived and dangerous”, pointing out that American DJ Peter Tripp had a breakdown after he stayed awake for a world record 201 hours in 1959.

For ethical reasons, Shattered would probably never get made today. This is undoubtedly a good thing, not just for potential contestants, but also for viewers: I watched all seven episodes (they are on YouTube) and learned that watching people struggle to stay awake is not particularly gripping. Mostly, contestants sat around yawning.

Shattered was at the forefront of a wave of “social experiment” shows in the early- to mid-00s that constructed themselves along pseudoscientific lines, alongside early Big Brother, Space Cadets (in which participants believed they were orbiting the Earth for five days, but were actually in a Suffolk studio) and There’s Something About Miriam (in which six men attempted to win the heart of a Mexican model, before being told she was transgender). “They were connected to the early rhetoric around Big Brother, which was always about social observation,” says Prof Annette Hill of Lund University in Sweden.

“I always felt like reality TV should have a purpose,” says Shattered producer Phil Edgar-Jones, who has also worked on Big Brother. “We didn’t just want it to be a forum for showoffs. We wanted it to be a genuine experiment.” The producers, he says, “wanted to explore what it means to live in a hyperconnected world where technology meant we were constantly ‘on’.”

Watching Shattered now, one is struck by how much quieter things were back in 2004. Facebook hadn’t launched yet; Twitter, Instagram and the iPhone were years away. As a result, Shattered has an innocence to it: contestants are disarmingly normal and without the snakelike cunning expected of today’s reality TV gladiators. Regardless of what Shattered can teach us about sleep loss, it does afford us an insight into a simpler age when reality TV seemed pregnant with the possibility that it might teach us real-life lessons about social and health issues.

The show did provide insights into the science of sleep: what total sleep deprivation feels like, for example. The show’s runner-up, Chris Wandel, compares it to “being at a party. It dovetails with being drunk. You know how sometimes when you’re drunk you’re having the best time ever and sometimes you can be an emotional wreck? It’s like that.”

The producers set contestants daily “you snooze, you lose” tasks between 2am and 4am, when the body most craves sleep. The challenges were entertainingly cruel: contestants were read bedtime stories by “grandmothers” in overheated rooms, made to cuddle teddy bears or sit in a comfy chair watching paint dry. If they fell asleep, the prize pot would drop. “We tried to introduce the most boring things you could possibly imagine,” says Edgar-Jones. Particular care was taken when casting the “grandmother”. “We went through quite a few to get the right level of comforting voice.”

For the bulk of the show, the contestants appeared remarkably upbeat. “There was an atmosphere of fun about the whole thing that was very important,” says Prof Jim Horne, a sleep neuroscientist at the University of Loughborough, who was an adviser on the show. Your state of mind dramatically affects your ability to endure sleep loss, he says. “If there’s a bit of fun and purpose to it, you’ll cope better.” He’s right. Farah, the show’s eventual victor, had the demeanour of a children’s TV presenter on MDMA. “She was superhuman,” says Edgar-Jones. “I remember us saying: ‘We should phone the SAS about her.’ She had steel somewhere in her spine.”

Farah was so accomplished at staying awake that producers had to order her to sleep during Shattered’s final challenge. She, Wandel and fellow finalist Jonathan Wood were all sent to bed, with the last person to fall asleep winning. Wandel and Wood both fell asleep within 15 minutes; Farah stayed awake for nearly two hours, until producers intervened.

I unearth some unexpected intrigue: Wandel believes he was robbed. “Clare invented the idea of giving herself foot cramp to stay up and that proved to be a very successful strategy in the house,” Wandel says, claiming that she would stretch out her big toe as far as possible until it began to cramp, using the pain to help her to stay awake. He also alleges that Farah won because she didn’t use the toilet when she was told to do so by producers before the final sleep-off challenge, while he and Wood both did. (He says these tactics were against the rules.) “She forced herself to have a full bladder and found a way to commit pain to herself, and they [the producers] swept it under the carpet.”

Farah dismisses Wandel’s claims with a tinkly laugh. “I’ve never been a fan of the media,” she says. “They have a habit of manipulating weird conversations to make it look like you’re doing something else.” The foot cramp? A misrepresentation of a comment Farah made about using cramp to stay awake. And the full bladder? It wasn’t intentional. Farah drank “loads” of water in the house, in part because she had undiagnosed endometriosis. “I would have died of embarrassment if I’d wet myself on TV!”

Unexpectedly, Farah breaks from her pep-rally persona to say that if she had given herself foot cramp, that wouldn’t necessarily have been cheating. “If I’m honest, even if I were to cramp, even if any of the other people were to do that … if they did want to do that to win, I guess that’s their discretion and I wouldn’t say that’s necessarily cheating.” Edgar-Jones backs up her account. “I think it [the final] was fair.” Even if Farah did give herself foot cramp? “That doesn’t sound like cheating. I don’t know if she did do it, but that sounds like strategy to me.”

Intrigue aside, none of the contestants suffered significant health consequences. Farah gained six pounds and Wandel felt jetlagged for a few days. Of course, they were tired. “My folks took me home and I was eating soup at the time and I stopped mid-sentence and I’d fallen asleep,” Farah remembers. “My head was on the table and the soup was everywhere.” After that though, “everything went back to normal”.

How do we explain the lack of long-term health problems? Participants weren’t awake the whole time, but given intermittent naps (the precise amount of time they were allowed is muddy). “They got 45 minutes of sleep every so often,” Edgar-Jones says. It was after one of these naps that Shattered had its most entertaining moment. Wandel “had a huge hallucination”, he says, “and I totally lost the plot. I thought I was the prime minister of Australia.” Although hallucinations are a known side-effect of sleep loss, Edgar-Jones is sceptical. “I suspected he was making it up.”

Sleep deprivation is a widely recognised form of torture, but none of the contestants I interview feel they were mistreated. This may be largely due to the ethics board that the production company, Endemol, employed. They vetoed producers’ more extreme ideas: using electric shocks to keep participants awake, for instance. “We had a session with a psychiatrist every 24 hours and a health check with a doctor every morning,” another contestant, Claire Muscat, says. “I think they were responsible.”

The naps and medical care may have stopped Shattered tipping over into unethical territory, but there is no doubt prolonged sleep loss damages your health. “Your ability to make rational decisions fails and you become impulsive,” says Prof Russell Foster of the University of Oxford. “You lack empathy and your social interactions will also be compromised.” After a week of no sleep, “your hunger hormones will be up and your ability to process glucose can be impaired. If you are vulnerable to metabolic problems, sleep disruption is problematic.” Your immune system also becomes compromised; as your white blood cell count drops, Foster says, your ability to fight off infection diminishes by a quarter. Sleep deprivation is also known to worsen existing mental health conditions. “You’re more likely to become anxious and go into a depressive episode, and if you’re schizophrenic or bipolar, it can exacerbate that.” Research has even linked sleep deprivation with an elevated risk of Alzheimer’s disease: as we sleep, the brain clears out the toxic metabolic waste product beta amyloid, a protein fragment that destroys synapses and can clump into plaques that cause nerve calls to die. Losing even one night’s sleep results in elevated beta-amyloid levels in the brain.

Despite the dangers, Foster believes that as the candidates were young, healthy, informed of the risks and monitored during filming, Shattered “was probably a legitimate” tool to raise awareness about the dangers of sleep loss. Farah, the winner, doesn’t have any misgivings. “A lot of people have looked back and said: ‘That seems really messed up, to stay awake for that long.’ But not really. We knew what we were getting ourselves into and we knew we could leave at any point.”

Still, Horne – who consulted on the show – believes that Shattered’s noble ambitions were overstated. “It was gimmicky, really. It wasn’t a hard-science experiment.” And Dr Trisha Macnair, who was on Shattered’s ethics board, feels that opportunities to educate the public about sleep were missed. “At the time, I thought: ‘Great – anything that increases public knowledge of sleep …’” But when filming started, Macnair changed her view. “I began to think they had done it as a token, to invite us,” she says. “It was a bit of a box-ticking exercise.”

Edgar-Jones acknowledges Shattered wasn’t perfect. “There’s loads I would have done differently.” Still, he might get a do-over: he mentions a Shattered spin-off concept that “takes it on a step”, although he won’t disclose details.

Shattered differs from today’s high-concept reality TV shows in one profound way: none of the contestants wanted to be famous. For all of them, Shattered was simply an opportunity to change their lives financially. “It wasn’t about being on the telly,” says Muscat, who was then a broke mother of two small children.

In those early days of competitive reality TV, contestants weren’t trying to maximise their brand so they could hawk charcoal toothpaste on Instagram. “Participants were interested in how they could be themselves in a reality TV show, whereas nowadays, participants are hyperaware of how to present themselves,” says Hill. “I call it a ‘meta-me’.” This explains, in part, why Shattered is so boring. “Scripted reality trafficks in what we call ‘emotional economics’, and it’s very successful at that,” she says. “Whereas Shattered has a whole different arc. It’s a much quieter show.”

All of the contestants I interview are aghast at the recent evolution of the genre, and would never go on reality TV now. “Love Island and shows like that really freak me out,” says Farah. “Ethically, I think they’re terrible in comparison with Shattered.”

After filming finished, Shattered’s participants slipped back easily into anonymity. “Things didn’t last for as long back then,” Muscat says. “Things were normal within a week or two.” There was one change: none of them ever took sleep for granted again. “I love sleep,” agrees Wandel. “But it’s good to know you can go without it if you need to.”

Sometimes, when Farah is working from home, she’ll creep upstairs. “I hug my bed and tell it I’ll see it later,” she admits guiltily. “Everyone should have a great bed and get great sleep. It’s the most important thing ever.”

The NHS website has information about issues surrounding insomnia:

High selenium impairs hepatic insulin sensitivity through opposite regulation of ROS

This is insulin signalling under massively supra-physiological insulin exposure in cell culture:

This is, obviously, their best gel, that's the one you publish. The insulin resistance (fainter P-Akt band) when insulin and Se are both used compared to insulin w/o Se exposure does appear to be there. At physiological levels of insulin this differential seems likely to be maintained.

This implies blunting of insulin signalling, which allows more FFA oxidation, which generates greater levels of ROS than would occur under continued insulin action. These ROS would be physiological on a ketogenic diet or under extended fasting but are not so in cells under culture using 11mmol glucose (which is what I think is in the medium they used, they don't actually say) plus whatever insulin is present in 10% FBS. So we have this:

Control is from cells under RPMI 1640 alone, traditionally 11mmol/l glucose. Excess selenium blunts insulin signalling so allows FFA release from intracellular triglyceride stores, so increases ROS (in the same way as metformin does but w/o the suppression of gluconeogenesis intrinsic to metformin's action). Adding rotenone, as you would expect, blocks RET so blocks ROS generation. CCCP uncouples respiration, drops delta psi so blocks RET/ROS. Etomoxir blocks access of FFAs to mitochondria so blocks input at mtETFdh, so blocks RET/ROS. MitoQ powerfully targets all mitochondrial ROS so over-rides the FFA oxidation ROS generation effect. Chromium picolinate restores insulin signalling by repleting the Cr depletion induced by Se. MSA is an inhibitor of glutathione peroxidase, so it eliminates the effects of excess GPX. And SS, sodium salicylate, appears to block intracellular lipolysis in hepatocytes, so suppresses fatty acid supply to mitochondria, much as insulin or etomoxir would.

All a very plausible narrative.

Except for oligomycin. What does anyone expect the blockade of ATP synthase to do to ROS generation, throughout the electron transport chain? It is going to increase delta psi, reduce all of the redox complexes and generate a ton of RET and ROS through complex I and probably at ton at complex III too. It is specifically used to generate ROS in many other studies, example here:

The specificity of neuroprotection by antioxidants

I'm not very comfortable with oligomycin as a suppressor of FFA oxidation induced ROS. It is another, rather serious, blight on the paper. It certainly should have been discussed.

I would usually ignore the whole paper except Tom Naughton gave us all the heads up on a recent report of a chap taking what might have been a hefty dose of green tea extract who went in to liver failure. Obviously most folks just excrete antioxidants like GTE with little harm done. I just wonder if he got unlucky or took a huge dose while walking round with the sort of liver full of lipid so beloved of Public Health England. Losing the protection of insulin's inhibition of lipolysis simply dumped a ton of unregulated intra-hepatocyte FFAs from lipid droplets on to his mitochondria, which then popped their clogs.

Who knows? It's another nice narrative. I just wish I wasn't so suspicious of the selenium paper...

Both reports also play rather too well to my biases against antioxidants, but that's how it is...

Peter

Are you consistently getting enough deep, restful sleep?

If not, the bad news is you are nowhere near as healthy, happy and successful as you could be. The good news is, there are simple and effective ways to improve your sleep and episode 263 of the #RenegadeRadioPodcast with James Swanwick will show you how.

James is an entrepreneur and online marketer. He is also the creator and co-founder of Swanwick Sleep, a company that makes stylish blue light blocking glasses. His products help people avoid the harmful effects of exposure to blue light and improves their quality of sleep.

If you want to know how to get more quality sleep and build habits that lead to success don’t miss this episode!

Scroll down for show notes:

__________________________________________________________________________

This episode is brought to you by Omax Health. Their Omax3 Ultra-Pure is a next generation omega-3 supplement.

Omax3 Ultra-Pure helps alleviate joint pain, reduces inflammation and muscle soreness, promotes recovery from intense training, supports optimal heart health, and improves mood, memory and focus. Go to https://www.tryomax.com/jay to get your free box of Omax3 Ultra-Pure with your first purchase.

This episode is also brought to you by biOptimizers. Their P3-OM Probiotics may be the most powerful proteolytic probiotic ever developed. P3-OM supplies your gut with powerful protein-digesting bacteria that increase the pool of bioactive amino acids required for muscle growth and recovery.

Go to www.P3OM.com/Renegade and use the code “Renegade” to receive a 15% discount.

__________________________________________________________________________

Show Notes:

• How he was able to interview movie stars within 3 months of arriving in America. [8:29]
• How two 30-day challenges helped James look, feel and perform better. [14:19]
• Why having the courage to ask for a 2nd chance helped him become a SportsCenter Anchor. [17:29]
• Why did James decide to leave ESPN to become an entrepreneur? [23:51]
• How a 10-day silent meditation and a mentorship with Tai Lopez helped launch his career. [27:42]
• Will hiring coaches and mentors help you become more successful? [31:04]
• Is changing your mindset the key to becoming a better salesperson? [35:48]
• How dinner with a friend and a pair of ugly glasses inspired him to start Swanwick Sleep. [44:14]
• What led to the rapid growth of his business? [48:57]
• The “Gold Standard” of tips to improve your sleep. [51:02]
• What are the negative health effects of staring at screens all day without blue light blocking glasses? [57:04]
• How to simplify your habits and goals to become more successful. [58:49]
• Tips for creating a game changing morning routine. [1:01:10]
• How to use “Impossible Deadlines” to increase your productivity. [1:04:19]
• Challenges he has faced recently and how he overcame them. [1:11:08]
• The two big shifts in mindset that can improve your people skills and make you better at building relationships. [1:16:09]

__________________________________________________________________________

Connect with James:

www.swanwicksleep.com

www.jamesswanwick.com

www.30daynoalcoholchallenge.com

Instagram

__________________________________________________________________________

Mentioned in the Episode:

Wanna listen to another episode that will teach you more about the benefits of quality sleep and a lot of other ways to improve your health?  Click HERE to listen to my discussion with Carl Lanore of Super Human Radio.

To listen, you can either click the flash audio player below or browse the links to find your preferred format…

If you have questions, use the hashtag #RenegadeRadioPodcast and shoot them my way on Twitter or Instagram or email [email protected].

Thank you for tuning in and subscribing. I appreciate every one of you that takes the time to listen.

Are you ready to become the man you were meant to be?  Join us today!

JasonFerruggia.com/Brotherhood

JasonFerruggia.com/Experience

RenegadeStrengthClub.com

Could I ask you a huge favor? Can you take two seconds to leave us a 5 star review on iTunes? Or, if you have two minutes to spare, a written review would be even better and so greatly appreciated.

Don’t know how to leave a review? Click HERE.

Thank you so much!!

Metabolic signatures in the blood of some children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may lead to earlier diagnosis and perhaps targeted dietary therapy, new research suggests.

Investigators found that dysregulation of amino acid metabolism can be used to detect about 17% of children with ASD.

Dr David Amaral

There are currently no reliable diagnostic biomarkers for ASD. On the basis of prior evidence that dysregulation of branched-chain amino acids may contribute to ASD, the researchers tested whether dysregulation of amino acids was a pervasive phenomenon in individuals with ASD.

"Our paper indicates that that seems to be the case," senior author David G. Amaral, PhD, director of research at the University of California, Davis, MIND Institute in Sacramento, told Medscape Medical News.

The study was published online September 6 in Biological Psychiatry.

Available by Year's End?

The researchers compared plasma metabolites from 516 children with ASD with those from 164 age-matched, typically developing children recruited into the Children's Autism Metabolome Project, a large-scale effort to define autism biomarkers on the basis of metabolomic analyses of blood samples from young children.

From these results, the researchers were able to stratify children with ASD into subpopulations on the basis of shared metabolic signatures. Imbalances in glutamine, glycine, and ornithine, along with low levels of branched-chain amino acids (leucine, isoleucine, and valine), allowed identification of three ASD-associated amino acid dysregulation metabotypes (AADM).

The combination of these three AADMs were present in 16.7% of the children with ASD and were detectable with a specificity of 96.3% and a positive predictive value of 93.5%.

"Efforts are being made to have an initial test out by the end of the year," Amaral told Medscape Medical News.

He said it is unlikely that a single biomarker will detect all cases of autism. "We are currently looking at other metabolites that distinguish other subsets of children with autism. The goal would be to have a collection of diagnostic panels that would identify a much large sample of children at risk for autism," said Amaral.

"A reliable set of biological markers to detect increased risk for autism would improve accurate identification and reduce the impact on people with the condition. The metabolomics approach in this paper reflects a rational approach not only to detection but also to developing targeted treatments," Thomas Frazier, PhD, chief scientific officer of Autism Speaks, who was not involved in the study, said in a news release.

The authors note that BCAA supplementation or high-protein diet has been used in mouse models and in people with branched-chain ketoacid dehydrogenase kinase deficiency to reduce ASD symptoms and improve cognitive function.

"Defining a group of AADM positive children may enable stratification of the autistic population as a precursor to targeted intervention through dietary supplementation or specialized diet," they write.

Key Questions Remain

Commenting on the research for Medscape Medical News, Victoria Chen, MD, developmental-behavioral pediatrician, Cohen Children's Medical Center, New Hyde Park, New York, noted that the discovery of AADM as a biological marker for ASD is a "novel finding and could improve the early identification of children with ASD."

However, she said, it is important to note that this biomarker only identified 16.7% of children with ASD in the sample, "so it is far from replacing any screening evaluation for children with ASD. Current screening standards dictate that a test be able to identify at least 70% to 80% of children screened," said Chen.

"Yet with a positive predictive value of 93.5%, it could be a useful tool in confirming a diagnosis of ASD, which may be helpful for families who seek multiple evaluations for diagnostic clarity," said Chen.

"Like many novel discoveries," she added, "many questions remain: What are the characteristics of children with ASD that have positive findings on AADM? Could this be the first step in better understanding the biological mechanism of prevalent problems that children with ASD face (like picky eating or sensory problems)?

"This study opens up many other avenues for research exploration that could significantly impact not only the diagnosis of ASD but also a better understanding of what causes the cognitive or behavioral problems associated with ASD," said Chen.

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation, and the Robert E. and Donna Landreth Family Fund. Dr Amaral receives research funding from Stemina, is on the scientific advisory boards of Stemina Biomarker Discovery, Inc, and Axial Therapeutics, and serves as editor-in-chief of Autism Research. Dr Chen has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

Biol Psychiatry . Published online September 6, 2018. Full text

For more Medscape Psychiatry news, join us on Facebook and Twitter.

Oct 4, 2018, Q&A Episode 390: Zero Gravity Beds, How Hydrogen-Rich Water Works, Is Nicotine Healthy, and How Long Does Stem Cell Therapy Last?

Have a podcast question for Ben? Click the button at the bottom of the page (or go to SpeakPipe), or use the Contact button in the free Ben Greenfield Fitness app.

Special Announcements [00:29:44]

This podcast is brought to you by:

-Blue Apron – Go to blueapron.com/Ben to get your first 3 delicious home-delivered meals for free!

-Onnit – Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/onnit and save 10% on your purchase (the discount is built into the link).

-Thrive – Go to thrivemarket.com/Ben  to get 25% off your first order at Thrive Market! We suggest grabbing some coconut cream!

-Omax – Go to tryomax.com/Ben today to get a box of Omax3 Ultra-Pure, FOR FREE! Their fish oil has CBD in it – yum!

–Click here to follow Ben on Snapchat, and get ready for some epic stories about his morning, day and evening routine! 

Ben's Adventures:

– October 14 – 16, 2018: SPARK BioHacking Conference, Toronto, Ontario. The 2018 SPARK Bio-Hack Conference features a series of talks by leaders across a range of fields with an eye on optimizing human performance, recovery, and longevity. Researchers, medical specialists and other biohacking experts will share provocative, informative, and inspiring presentations meant to amplify your life. Registration is now open, secure your spot here.

– October 11 – 14, 2018: 2018 RUNGA California Immersion Retreat, Napa, California. Runga is going to Napa! Join me, my wife, Jessa, Joe DiStefano and a small, intimate group of like-minded individuals for a weekend-long getaway. We’ve rented a beautiful mansion located in one of the most iconic countrysides in America– Napa Valley. We’ve thought of everything that you could possibly need to gently “press the reboot button” on your body and completely tune in to your heart, mind, body, strength, and spirit. Join the waitlist!

– October 20, 2018: Toyota Park Stadium Sprint, Bridgeview IL. For the first time, Spartans will run through the home of the Chicago Fire Soccer Club, a Major League Soccer team and the Chicago Red Stars, a National Women’s Soccer League team.  Register here!

– November 2 – 4, 2018: Live It To Lead It Health Centers of the Future Seminar, Las Vegas, Nevada. Create the life you want, the marriage you want, the family you want—all fueled by a practice that radically changes the lives of your patients. this three-day event, you’ll learn the latest medical discoveries in cellular health, get a marketing plan for scaling your practice and find ways to build residual passive income. Join me!

– November 10 – 11, 2018: Fenway Park Stadium Sprint, Boston MA. Spartans are invited to participate in the Fenway Sprint over two days, November 10th and 11th. Gain unprecedented access to previously closed off areas of America’s Most Beloved Ballpark. Join me!

– November 13, 2018: New York City, NY. Join me in Chef Bouley's Test Kitchen for “The Ultimate Anti-Aging Diet – The Perfect Foods To Eat Your Way To Longevity”. Get your ticket here!

– December 2-8, 2018: RUNGA Retreat, Dominican Republic. You're invited to join me at RUNGA in December 2018. Join me in the Dominican Republic, one of the most beautiful places in the Caribbean, for this retreat. In all RUNGA activities, RUNGA invites you to come home to yourself. To see everything you'll be getting into, just click here. Use code BEN when you register so you get your gift when you arrive! I'll be there, too. Join the waitlist here.

– December 13-15, 2018: World Congress 2018 Hosted by the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, Las Vegas, Nevada. If you attend any conference this year, make it the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine’s 26th Annual World Congress. The fact is, in an era of andropause, low drive and deteriorating men's health, it's shocking that both practitioners and the public aren't aware of ancestral wisdom and modern scientific and medical tactics that can be used to optimize male physiology. It's time that changed, and I'll be teaching exactly how to make men, men again. Join me!

– April 6-7, 2019: FitCon Summit, Salt Lake City, Utah. FitCon® encourages everyone to Find Their Fit. It does not matter whether it is powerlifting, Crossfit, bodybuilding, roller derby, or even axe throwing. Be sure to visit the Kion booth in the expo!

-View the Official Ben Greenfield Fitness Calendar Here

Giveaways & Goodies [01:20:15]

-Grab your Official Ben Greenfield Fitness Gear package that comes with a tech shirt, a beanie and a water bottle.

-And of course, this week's top iTunes review – gets some BG Fitness swag straight from Ben – click here to leave your review for a chance to win some!

——————————————

Listener Q&A [00:39:50]

As compiled, deciphered, edited and sometimes read by Brock Armstrong, the Podcast Sidekick.

Zero Gravity Beds [00:39:59]

John says: Several mattress companies promote these zero gravity beds. Do zero gravity beds (or incline beds) improve sleep quality or impact muscles in any way? Also, can unplugging these beds remove the electricity to improve sleep?

How Hydrogen-Rich Water Works [00:50:27]

Andrew says: After your recent podcasts and the hydrogen water generator giveaway, I have become really interested in hydrogen water. In your podcast with Tyler Lebaron, you mentioned that hydrogen water's antioxidant effect does not blunt the hormetic response of exercise. Can you explain a little bit more of what you mean by that? Would hydrogen water counteract adaptation to muscle growth or endurance training?

Is Nicotine Healthy [00:57:51]

Gabe says: In the last year I have gone from cigarettes, to vaping, to patches, and most recently have been using non-tobacco nicotine patches. I was wondering your opinion on using those and using nicotine in general. Is it all good, or all bad? When should it be used or not used?

How Long Does Stem Cell Therapy Last? [01:09:39]

Scott says: I have a question on Stem Cell Therapy. Is the treatment a permanent or temporary effect? It seems to me that it would be permanent since you are essentially rolling back the clock on the cells. But at the end of your podcast with Dr. Adelson, he said that people often come back to him in a few years – which makes it seem temporary. Can you clear this up?

Prior to asking your question, do a search in the upper right-hand corner of this website for the keywords associated with your question. Many of the questions we receive have already been answered here at Ben Greenfield Fitness!

—————————————————–

Jameela Jamil doesn't care what haters have to say about her curves; she likes them just fine, thank you very much. The star of The Good Place took to Twitter on Thursday to recount a story about a man body-shaming her at the gym, and she had the best response to the whole unfortunate situation.

“He decided to tell me, without prompt, that he’s seen me around and he always thinks, ‘Ah, what a shame, she could look so amazing’ and there’s so many different things I could do to improve my body,” she shared in a video. “So, essentially, he walked up to me and body-shamed me in the middle of the gym."

A word of advice courtesy of Jamil? “Don’t do that. Don’t walk up to someone and impose your belief of what you think they should look like onto them. Don’t do that to women, don’t do that to men, don’t do that to anyone, ever.”

The actress doesn't typically let comments like this bother her, and says she enjoys her body. Further, she continued, "I’m also, by the way, a U.S. size 6 to 8, so if that’s how I’m being spoken to in a gym, you can imagine what people say to people who are larger than that.”

Unfortunately, Jamil is not alone in this experience. Her message inspired others to share their own similarly awful body-shaming stories:

This isn't the first time Jamil has been outspoken about body positivity: In the past, she's been fiercely critical of the Kardashians, especially when it comes to the examples they set in regards to body ideals. After the sisters shared a controversial video in which they spoke about eating disorders, Jamil took to Instagram with a message about recognizing influential women for more than just a number on the scale, and directed it at "the Kardashians. And every girl who looks to them for a reference of how to value themselves."

As far as Jameela Jamil is concerned, curves are cool — no matter what some random guy at her gym has to say about it.

Related video: Rachel Platten and Iskra Lawrence talk about body positivity campaign (Provided by TODAY)

Click to expand

UP NEXT