Soda's long-term impact; which is better: raw or cooked vegetables?; depression and what your doctor may not tell you
Regular soda and diet soda consumption may shorten your life span
The Mullee et al. (2019) study indicates the harmful effects of soda on your health, whether it is regular soda or diet. Soda consumption may lead to digestive and circulatory health issues resulting in a shorter lifespan.
Not only may regular sugar-laden soda lead to weight gain, but diet soda can too. While this may seem obvious for regular soda, it may not be as transparent for diet soda. When you consume a zero caloric sweet beverage, your brain senses the sweetness, but since it doesn’t add calories, it can increase your appetite, leading to more food intake. Therefore, both soda types can lead to weight gain, especially around your middle, leading to increased risk for cardiovascular disease.
What to drink instead: water, electrolyte beverages without added colorings, dyes, brominated vegetable oil, sugar, and artificial sweeteners such as Ultima (my personal favorite), non-caffeinated herbal hot or iced teas.
Source
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2749350
Which is better for your body: raw or cooked vegetables?
In general, for some vegetables, heat can activate antioxidants breaking down the cell wall to allow you to absorb more nutrients. This applies to spinach, mushrooms (read my June substack for more information on mushrooms), carrots, asparagus (however, raw asparagus provides prebiotics), tomatoes, cauliflower, and broccoli.
Steaming and lightly sautéing are preferable as cooking at high temperatures can destroy nutrients.
However, if you have IBD, IBS, hypothyroidism, or kidney stones, there are a few guidelines to follow.
A balance of raw and cooked vegetables is best; however, those with IBD and IBS may find raw vegetables challenging to digest, exacerbating symptoms. These individuals should minimize the number of raw vegetables in their diet. You may find that taking a digestive enzyme with meals can assist with nutrient breakdown and reduce digestive discomfort.
Those with hypothyroidism may also want to minimize raw goitrogenic-containing vegetables in the diet as they block iodine uptake via the thyroid gland. This includes cruciferous vegetables such as cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, and Brussel sprouts.
Those prone to kidney stones may also want to consume cooked oxalate-containing vegetables since boiling has been shown to reduce oxalates by 30-87% and steaming 5-53% (Chia & Liebman). This includes spinach, yellow squash, asparagus, and bok choy.
Source
Chai, W., & Liebman, M. (2005). Effect of different cooking methods on vegetable oxalate content. Journal of agricultural and food chemistry, 53(8), 3027–3030. https://doi.org/10.1021/jf048128d
Depression, medication, and deception
The low serotonin myth and a chemical imbalance have become so ingrained in us that everyone parrots this as the cause of depression. Yet, the evidence to support these statements does not exist. If these drugs were so wonderful, why do we see a rise in depression? If patients require long-term use of antidepressants, why are there no long-term studies showing their benefits? Studies have only examined antidepressant medication’s short-term effects. Many people are on these drugs for years, yet you will be hard-pressed to find a study longer than three to six months. Most of the research doesn’t extend beyond twelve weeks!
A 2008 study by Turner et al. found that when it comes to antidepressants, the information you see is selective, meaning they make these drugs look more favorable than they are. They concluded that from 1987 to 2004, 12 antidepressants were approved based on 74 studies. Thirty-eight studies were positive. They published 37 of these favorable studies. Thirty-six studies were negative (showing no benefit). Of the 36 negative studies, ONLY 3 were published as such, while 11 were published with a positive spin and 22 were unpublished.
A more recent systematic review out this month by Moncrief f et al. (2022) indicated that there is no basis for the belief that low serotonin is the primary cause of depression. Furthermore, a 2017 systematic review suggested that many depression medication studies risk bias (Wang et al., 2017). This begs the question of how reliable the information is within these studies.
Therefore, how effective are these drugs for depression?
Depression is complicated and most often multifactorial. It is not as simple as taking a pill.
A pill may help you in the short term to improve your mood, but it won’t last. While I cannot tell anyone to take or discontinue any medication as that is a discussion with your prescribing doctor, I can assist with looking at you as a whole and as an individual to determine underlying imbalances that need to be addressed to support your body and mind.
From an endogenous perspective, depression can have numerous root causes, often more than one, such as nutrient deficiencies, head injury, medication side effects, low stomach acid, absorption and assimilation issues, gut dysbiosis, thyroid, liver, and bile issues, and so forth.
Think of your depression as a symptom of an underlying imbalance rather than a diagnosis. Typically a person with depression with have other health issues. From my perspective, they are all shout-outs giving us clues to what imbalance lies underneath. For instance, along with depression, you may have extreme fatigue, GI complaints, skin issues, brain fog or chronic headaches.
If you need support for your depression from a root cause endogenous perspective, please email karen@trufoodsnutrition.com to indicate you would like a free 15-minute phone consult to see if I can be of help to you.
Sources
Selective Publication of Antidepressant Trials and Its Influence on Apparent Efficacy | NEJM https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa065779
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17512433.2017.1377070?journalCode=ierj20