By Michael Smith, Senior Staff Writer, MedPage Today

Forget that time-honored advice to diverticulosis patients to shun hard-to-digest foods like nuts and popcorn, said investigators here. Indeed, evidence from a large cohort of health professionals suggests that popcorn may even have a protective effect against the complications of diverticulosis, Lisa Strate, M.D., of the University of Washington in Seattle, said during Digestive Disease Week sessions. Action Points Explain to interested patients that many older Americans have diverticulosis, mostly without symptoms, and they are traditionally warned against eating such foods as nuts and popcorn to avoid infection, inflammation, or bleeding. Note that this study suggests that advice is baseless and that nuts and popcorn, in fact, appear to have a protective effect This study was published as an abstract and presented orally at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered to be preliminary as they have not yet been reviewed and published in a peer-reviewed publication. Those complications — infection, inflammation, and bleeding — affect between 10% and 30% of patients with diverticulosis, she said, and can require hospitalization. To avoid that, doctors have warned patients to stay away from nuts, corn, and popcorn, even though some of those foods — nuts in particular — are known to have health benefits. “The recommendation has evolved over the past 60 or 70 years,” Dr. Strate said. “It simply stems from a theory that trauma was one of the causes of diverticular complications and that these foods would be more likely to traumatize the colon wall.” To test the theory, Dr. Strate and colleagues turned to the long-running Health Professionals Follow-up Study, which enrolled more than 50,000 men between the ages of 40 and 75. Starting in 1986, men with newly diagnosed diverticular disease or complications were sent supplemental questionnaires asking of details of treatment and diagnosis. Dr. Strate said. The records have been collected since 1986 but no one looked at them until now, Dr. Strate said. Analyzing the 47,454 men who were free of diverticular disease at baseline she and colleagues found there were 383 new cases of diverticular bleeding and 801 new cases of diverticulitis after 18 years of follow-up. Using the 131-item dietary questionnaires filled out by participants every two years, they divided the cohort into those who ate nuts, corn or popcorn frequently (two or more times a week) and those who did so rarely (less then once a month). A multivariate analysis showed that: Eating nuts frequently was associated with a 20% reduction in the risk of diverticular complications (no tests of statistical significance were provided). Men with the highest popcorn intake (at least two times per week) had a hazards ratio for diverticular complications of 0.71 (95% CI 0.56-0.90; P for trend 0.18) when compared to men with the lowest popcorn intake (less than once per month). And there was no association between any of the three foods and diverticular bleeding. For doctors, the take-home message is that patients who enjoy nuts and popcorn should keep on eating them, she said, although she said it’s probably too early to recommend popcorn as a protection again the disease. The finding is good news for patients who like popcorn, said Maria Abreu, M.D., of Mount Sinai in New York, who moderated a press conference where Dr. Strate discussed her findings. A significant proportion of older Americans has diverticulosis “and they’ve all been told by their doctors to strictly avoid nuts and corn and popcorn,” said Dr. Abreu, a gastroenterologist who was not involved in the research. “When patients come in who’ve eaten any of those foods any time in the past year, their episode of diverticulitis or bleeding is blamed on the popcorn,” she said.

A banana (with milk) constitutes almost a complete balanced diet with potassium, vitamins and fiber.

The banana is the most versatile of all fruits: it is an ideal finger food for young children, it is easily digested, rarely causes allergies and contains natural sugars (sucrose, fructose and glucose) which are released quickly into the bloodstream, giving instant energy.

The banana contains a high-grade protein, which includes three of the essential amino acids. Banana and milk supplement each other in an ideal manner and provide all the needed nutrients to the body.

An electrolyte is a substance that, when dissolved in water, gives a solution that can conduct electricity. In your body, these are most often dissolved salts that contain sodium and potassium ions. Electrolytes are also called ionic solutes.

The concentration of dissolved salts (electrolytes) in your blood affects all of your bodily functions. Electrolytes are responsible for maintaining many functions in the human body, including normal muscle contraction, blood pressure, nerve conduction, heart rate and gastrointestinal motility. They also play an important role in energy metabolism.

Bananas are famous for containing potassium, an essential electrolyte that helps regulate blood chemistry (particularly Ph) and improves carbohydrate metabolism by helping the muscles act efficiently. Without potassium (and sodium) your muscles stop firing correctly. Severe loss of sodium can produce really nasty complications all the way up to shock and death. Potassium also prevents the blood’s Ph from becoming too acidic. Bananas are also rich in vitamin B6, which helps metabolize more than 60 proteins and assists in red blood cell production that transports oxygen to muscles and folate in bananas helps concentration and memory.

Bananas give you 17% of your Daily Value of Vitamin C, an antioxidant that neutralizes free radicals (harmful waste products) in your body and helps produce collagen, the building block of the connective tissues such as tendons and cartilage that keep your knees strong. And the banana’s magnesium plays a role in energy transport and is involved in the synthesis of protein, which helps you recover from fatigue.

Getting plenty of fiber in your diet is important for good health. Fiber has important benefits including reducing cholesterol, improving blood sugar control, and lowering risk of heart disease. It has a positive effect on the digestive system by helping to maintain regularity and reduce risk of diverticulitis and hernias.

Bananas, like most fiber, tend to help both diarrhea and constipation. Some people cannot take fiber supplements every day for more than a few weeks, but anyone can eat several bananas a day for many years with no problem. Two bananas a day (or one with every large meal) offers optimal GI effect (a slippery, soft stool with no mess). What you spend on bananas you will save on toilet paper.

Banana Facts:  

• There are more than 300 varieties of bananas bred for cultivation
• The annual global banana output is 86 million tons
• Bananas are the fourth most important staple food in the developing world
• The average American eats 25 lbs. of bananas a year
• Bananas originated in Malaysia
• India remains the top producer of bananas in the world, growing approximately 20 percent of the world’s bananas. Latin American countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica and Mexico are the second largest producers of bananas, and the main exporters to the United States. In South East Asia, the top banana producers include Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines and Malaysia.

Here are different ways to eat your Banana:  

• Breakfast:
  o Add sliced bananas to cold cereal; make banana pancakes or banana muffins; make a banana and yogurt shake; add bananas to a bowl of mixed fruit; mix with low fat yogurt.
• Lunch:
  o Eat a banana with your lunch; add sliced bananas to a fruit salad; make a banana and peanut butter sandwich.
• Snack:
  o Eat a banana! Make a smoothie with a banana and an energy supplement.

Dessert:
o Top low fat yogurt or low fat ice cream with sliced bananas; make a low fat banana milk shake.

The dangers of high-protein slimming diets Many people ask about high-protein slimming diets, which also go under the names of the Atkin’s Diet, the Carbohydrate Counting Diet, and the Drinking Man’s Diet. The original version of the Grapefruit Diet which also used only protein, but included the use of grapefruit, can also be classified as a high-protein slimming diet.

Basic principles of high-protein slimming diets
High-protein slimming diets are all more or less based on the use of large quantities of protein foods of animal origin, such as meat, fish, eggs, cheese and milk products, and the exclusion of all carbohydrate foods. Some of these diets permit the use of the so-called ‘free vegetables and fruit’ which contain only small quantities of carbohydrate (e.g lettuce, cucumber, grapefruit, strawberries, etc).The principle on which these diets work is as follows:

• The human body needs a source of energy and carbohydrates are the best source of energy available to us
• If the body is deprived of its main source of energy, it has to burn up its available energy store of fat and you will lose weight

Do high-protein slimming diets work?
The answer to this question is, “Yes, they do lead to weight-loss which can be quite substantial in some cases, but (and here lies the rub) the weight is lost at a terrible price, which can in some cases, even kill the dieter!”

What is this terrible price?
This is what happens when you deprive your body of its carbohydrate energy source:

• In the absence of carbohydrate fuel, the human body is forced to burn body and dietary fat and protein to fulfil its energy needs.
• The breakdown products of burning large quantities of body fat for fuel are called ketones. They will begin to accumulate in the body.
• A build-up of ketones in the body can cause all kinds of damage to vital organs such as the liver and the kidneys. The build-up deranges the body’s balance of acids and alkalines, causing a condition called acidosis
• When the levels of ketones in the body reach dangerous proportions, the dieter finds him- or herself in the same kind of state as a diabetic who has not used any insulin. Unless immediate treatment is applied, he/she can slip into a coma, which may result in death.

Not a happy scenario. So although you will lose body fat on a high-protein slimming diet, you will be exposing your body to a great many risks. You may damage your kidneys, and your liver, you will be depleting your muscle tissue and you may even die. The latter risk is well documented and regular reports are published in the medical literature describing deaths that result from the use of high-protein slimming diets.

Other nasty side-effects of such diets are:

• Unpleasant body odour and bad breath – if you eat only protein foods, then you start to smell like a carnivore – the bad smell is caused by the ketones that accumulate in the body
• Increased risk of high blood fat levels – high-protein foods are often also high in animal fats, particularly saturated fats and cholesterol, which raise blood fat levels and increase the risk of heart disease, and certain types of cancer
• Loss of muscle tissue – you will agree that this is not the object of weight-reduction diets and it is ironic that the more carbohydrate you cut out of the diet and the more protein you eat to slim, the lower your body protein stores will be, because you are burning protein foods as fuel
• Risk of deficiency diseases – cutting out fruits and vegetables, which are our main source of antioxidant vitamins such as beta carotene, and vitamin C, protective bioflavonoids, and certain minerals, to eliminate carbohydrate from the diet, exposes you to the risk of developing a whole range of deficiency diseases; cutting out wholegrain cereals also exposes you to the risk of developing vitamin B and E deficiencies
• constipation – carbohydrates such as fruit, vegetables, grains and cereals, particularly the wholegrain varieties, are the main source of dietary fibre in the diet; eliminating these foods will inevitably cause severe constipation, which in the long-run can lead to diverticulitis, irritable bowel syndrome, and may even make you more susceptible to bowel cancer.

Proof that these diets are bad for you
One of the most telling indications that high-protein slimming diets are not good for you, is the fact that most of the diet books that advocate such diets, always warn that you should only use the diet for one, or a maximum of two weeks, at a time. The writers know that these diets are fraught with negative effects, so they cover themselves against law suits, etc, by issuing these warnings. If you use these diets and suffer adverse effects, the blame rests with you for using the diet for too long.

What alternatives are there?
The best alternative to high-protein slimming diets, is to use a balanced diet with a low fat, high dietary fibre and high carbohydrate content, and to increase the amount of aerobic exercise you do. Use plenty of wholegrain, unprocessed grains, high-bran cereals, fresh fruit and vegetables, lean meat and fish, low-fat or skimmed milk and dairy products, legumes and small quantities of polyunsaturated oil or margarine. Make sure that you don’t add fat to the diet by using cooking methods or salad dressings and sauces that have a low fat content – grill, poach, and stew, and use low-fat salad dressings, and low-fat yoghurt mixed with fresh herbs to add flavour to baked potatoes and salads. And get active – walk or jog, join a good gym or start doing water aerobics now that the weather is getting warmer.The goals of a good slimming diet should be to reduce body fat, preserve lean muscle tissue, and keep you healthy and fit. Any diets, including the high-protein slimming diets that are potentially risky and can harm your health, should be avoided. – (Dr I.V. van Heerden, DietDoc)