PERSPECTIVES WITH DR ALAN BARCLAY
PURE BUT NOT SO SIMPLE Most nutrition experts have been recommending that we enjoy traditional healthy eating patterns like the Mediterranean and Okinawan diets for many years now, rather than focusing on single nutrients, ingredients or food groups. After all, we eat foods, not nutrients, and the one-nutrient-at-a-time approach is fraught with unintended consequences as …
PERSPECTIVES WITH DR ALAN BARCLAY
KETONES No. Not a music group. But ketones are creating a lot of noise. They are a kind of fuel our liver produces from fatty acids (from what we eat or body fat stores), when glucose is severely restricted. Dietary regimens that stimulate the production of ketones are known as “ketogenic diets”. What are their …
PERSPECTIVES WITH DR ALAN BARCLAY
CAN WE CUT OUR AVERAGE DIETARY GI AND GL? In July GI News, I made the point that: “We now know that glycemic load is the most powerful predictor of blood glucose and insulin levels. You can lower GL by substituting low GI foods for high GI foods, or by consuming less carbohydrate, or by …
PERSPECTIVES WITH DR ALAN BARCLAY
A POTTED HISTORY OF CARBOHYDRATE AND DIABETES People have been trying to work out the optimal diet for people with diabetes for hundreds of years. Until recently, most offerings have been restrictive and unpalatable. Fad diets are nothing new. In the early 1900s, they included: the “oat-cure,” the “milk diet,” the “rice-cure,” and “potato therapy,” …
PERSPECTIVES WITH DR ALAN BARCLAY
A GRAIN OF SALT For nearly four decades, dietary guidelines around the world have advised us to avoid consuming too much salt, or words to that effect. The salt they are talking about is sodium chloride, which has been used by humans for millennia, and is still the most common source of sodium today accounting …
PERSPECTIVES WITH DR ALAN BARCLAY
DON’T LET YOUR LIFE BE FRUITLESS Infants prefer sweet tastes from day one and this preference continues into early childhood. Human breast milk contains the highest concentration of sugars of all mammalian milks and sweet tasting vegetables (e.g., pureed or well-mashed pumpkin, sweet potato, carrot, etc) and fruits (typically pureed) are some of the first …
PERSPECTIVES WITH DR ALAN BARCLAY
SUGAR DIABETES? There is a wide-held belief that people who consume too much added refined sugar will develop diabetes. Similarly, there is a common belief that people with diabetes need to limit or avoid added sugar to manage their condition. To help address these common diabetes myths, two globally recognised experts on sugars (Dr Mike …
Perspectives with Dr Alan Barclay
Optimise Physical Performance with Low GI Carbs. For high intensity exercise that requires quick bursts of speed, like football, netball, basketball, marathons, etc., carbohydrate, or more specifically glucose, is the preferred fuel for your muscles. Consequently, eating enough carbohydrate at the right time in your training schedule, and before the event, has long been one …
Perspectives with Dr Alan Barclay
Australia’s Dietary Fibre Paradox. Bowel cancer, or colorectal cancer (CRC) to use its more scientific name, is one of the most common cancers in Australian men and women with 62 out of every 100,000 people diagnosed each year. It is also a leading cause of cancer in the USA (44 diagnosed per 100,000 people) and …
Update with Dr Alan Barclay
Reducing your risk of heart attack and stroke by balancing sodium and potassium. Dietary guidelines from around the world recommend that people eat less, or limit, added salt and salty foods. They are talking about sodium chloride, the most common salt added to foods, which has been consumed by humans for many thousands of years. …
Latest Blog Post List
