Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 26, 1993 TAG: 9310260023
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JANE BRODY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
For decades, this tendency to bypass reality has lined the pockets of entrepreneurs who have devised weight-loss schemes that attract millions looking for slenderizing miracles.
Now, with cholesterol a prominent health concern, Americans are again eagerly adopting quick fixes that suggest they can lower their cholesterol and reduce their risk of premature cardiac death without giving up their Haagen-Dazs and Big Macs.
The supposed cholesterol-lowering benefits of beta-carotene supplements, red wine, olive oil, oat bran and fish oil, among other one-shot solutions to coronary risk, have attracted countless cholesterol-anxious consumers.
And new research reports ascribing similar benefits to garlic, psyllium (a fiber supplement, best known under the brand name Metamucil) and fat-substituted cheese will undoubtedly draw still more cholesterol-watchers into the quick-fix fold.
In the current issue of The Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers report that an analysis of five reasonably well-designed studies showed that consuming one-half to one clove of garlic a day could reduce total blood cholesterol by an average of 23 milligrams (or 9 percent) in people with cholesterol levels above the suggested level of 200 milligrams.
The studies, which collectively involved 410 people in Germany, Thailand and the United States, used one of three oral garlic preparations: Kwai powder tablets, spray-dried powder or a water extract of garlic called Kyolic.
All the preparations contained the active ingredient alliin in amounts ranging from the equivalent of half to a whole three-gram clove of fresh garlic.
Overall, the analysis suggested that garlic supplements, such as fresh garlic, could lower cholesterol by an amount that would significantly reduce coronary risk, although the researchers, Dr. Stephen Warshafsky and his colleagues from New York Medical College in Valhalla, N.Y., said that better-controlled studies were needed to clearly delineate garlic's cardiovascular benefits.
Another study in the same journal suggests that the fiber supplement psyllium, taken twice a day, may not only keep the bowels working regularly but also lower total cholesterol.
Psyllium was found by researchers from the University of Cincinnati, the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Procter & Gamble Co. to reduce total blood cholesterol by about 6 percent and to double the likelihood of a drop in artery-damaging LDL cholesterol.
Finally, a third report in the journal hails the cholesterol-lowering advantages of eating cheese in which most of the heart-damaging saturated fats have been replaced by a polyunsaturated vegetable oil. Polyunsaturates have long been associated with reductions in blood cholesterol levels and are the basis of the recommendation to replace butter, a saturated fat, with margarine and oils, which contain mostly unsaturated fats.
In the new study, researchers at the University of California at Davis and Actiotech, a consulting firm in Paris, studied 26 healthy men and women with moderately high cholesterol levels (from 220 to 280 milligrams). Every day for two months, half the participants ate 3 ounces of part-skim mozzarella, and the other half ate 3 ounces of mozzarella in which butter fat was replaced by vegetable oil. For the next two months, the groups switched cheeses.
No other changes were made in the participants' eating or other habits, the researchers said, yet those eating the fat-modified cheese experienced a modest reduction in both total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol, the bad type.
In the group as a whole, consumption of the fat-modified cheese was associated with a drop in total cholesterol of 6 percent, a three-fold greater reduction than is achieved by eating oat bran. Can a pizza diet be far behind?
Before you jump on any new cholesterol-lowering bandwagon, it pays to consider some facts. One is that all known cholesterol-reducing agents - foods, supplements and medicines - work better if people also adopt a low-fat diet.
While Americans today are eating less fat than they did 30 years ago (down from 42 percent of calories from fat in 1960 to about 37 percent today), they are still well above the recommended level of 30 percent of calories from fat and nowhere near the optimal level of less than 20 percent.
Intake of saturated fats, which should be below 10 percent of calories, is hovering around 13 percent.
In an editorial accompanying the journal reports, Dr. Thomas A. Pearson and Rajesh V. Patel of Columbia University said that "subtraction of dietary fat, rather than substitution or supplementation," should be the primary measure for controlling cholesterol.
Several recent reports have revealed dismal facts about American eating habits.
For example, a national survey of food intake among women by researchers at Cornell University's Division of Nutritional Sciences showed that 71 percent of the time poultry is "eaten fried or breaded and/or with the skin not removed," and 68 percent of the time pork is eaten untrimmed and fried or breaded.
At the same time, women were found to have woefully inadequate intakes of fruits, vegetables and fiber-rich grains, with very few meeting the 20 grams of fiber a day recommended by the National Cancer Institute. And men lag far behind women in following recommended dietary practices. A national survey described last month at the annual meeting of the American Dietetic Association revealed signs of a nutritional backlash. Last year, only 39 percent of respondents, as against 44 percent the year before, said they were making an all-out effort to eat properly.
Dr. Susan Calvert Finn, the president of the association and a registered dietitian, said respondents cited taste, time and confusion as the major obstacles to better nutrition. This finding was borne out by another national survey of nutrition knowledge sponsored by Healthy Choice, a maker of low-fat processed foods, and the American Heart Association.
In the telephone survey, only 52 percent of 251 women and 34 percent of 250 men questioned passed a simple 17-question nutrition test. Most, for example, did not know that margarine and butter have the same amount of fat and calories or that pretzels are lower in fat than corn chips, yogurt-covered raisins or trail mix.
To limit fat intake to 30 percent of calories, a middle-aged woman who eats 1,600 calories a day should consume no more than 53 grams of fat daily and only 35 grams if her goal is 20 percent. A middle-aged man who eats 2,200 calories daily should limit himself to 73 grams of fat for the 30-percent level and 49 grams of fat for the 20-percent level.
by CNB